Poppy or not?
Nov. 11th, 2012 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livSeveral of my friends are against marking Remembrance Day on principle; some are even directly opposing commemorations. I definitely respect that; I can easily see how the day can be twisted for drumming up empty "patriotic" sentiment, along with xenophobia and weird social conservatism. And though I'm not a strict pacifist, I'm also not particularly in favour of wars or militarism.
The anniversary is looking increasingly hollow these recent years, with the rise of things like "designer" poppies and politicians vying with eachother to be jingoistically patriotic, not to mention this nonsense of planning a circus to mark the centenary of the beginning of WW1, which isn't any date worth celebrating. I don't like the trend towards bringing out poppies earlier and earlier in the year; the first week in November is appropriate, no sooner. And I don't have time for competing over bigger and gaudier poppies, and certainly not for shaming celebrities or acquaintances who don't happen to be wearing the appropriate badge. I don't like the way that poppy and flag themed window displays are starting to mingle with the Halloween theme; Armistice Day isn't an excuse to sell Brit-kitsch tat left over from the Jubilee, Royal Wedding and Olympics.
In spite of all these reasons to be grumpy, I put my pound in the British Legion box and I wore my poppy for the week leading up to today. And I led a short Remembrance service at shul on Friday. I did it mainly because my community expect it; our late and much-mourned president, himself a WW2 veteran, always joined the parade at the Cenotaph each year, and saw the closest shabbat as an important date in the synagogue's calendar. We ran out of WW1 veterans long ago, and even our WW2 veterans are dwindling every year. Still, in spite of all the jingoistic stuff floating around, I think there's a value in joining as a community to remember our war dead. I think it does need to be separate from remembering the dead in general, partly because war casualties often don't have a defined anniversary and their graves are overseas if they exist at all. And partly because people remembering lost comrades need a collective act of commemoration, not just an individual, personal one.
I have to adapt the liturgy from the Reform prayerbook; I imagine there must be some Anglo-Orthodox liturgy somewhere, but the edition of Singer's we use regarded Remembrance Sunday as a secular thing, not worth mentioning in a Jewish context. But anyway, I spoke for a few minutes about what the day is for, and read a poem, and then an adapted version of the memorial prayer
Anyway, at least as many of my friends as are boycotting the event have been posting memorials to social networks, and not in a militaristic or ersatz patriotic way, just remembering. I'm part of that, for all my reservations about the event, and the place of remembering wars in our national identity, hey, about the idea of wearing a badge to show you've given to charity.
For future years, and as a way of continuing to remember together if you're so inclined, what war poetry can people point to? For the purposes of services, I am steering a fine line between excessively patriotic stuff and excessively cynical. I avoid many of the neo-Romantic poems from early in the war which are mainly about how great England is, at least in part because there are as many non-English community members as English, and also because I am trying to mark the day in a non-jingoistic way. Equally I don't read the really vicious poems, not Dulce et decorum est or any of the biting Kipling verses, because that's not appropriate for what is meant to be a respectful religious ritual. Last year I picked something of Sassoon's, one of his less cynical pieces, on the grounds that he came from a partly Jewish heritage. This year Owen's Parable of the Old Man and the Young on the grounds that has a strong OT resonance, but honestly that's possibly more anti-war than is really appropriate. But there's a lot to be said for slightly less well-known stuff, poems that aren't English curriculum perennials (and that's probably a whole discussion in its own right, why is it that WW1 poetry is such a feature of school poetry teaching?) because people pay more attention if they don't already know the poem by heart!
The anniversary is looking increasingly hollow these recent years, with the rise of things like "designer" poppies and politicians vying with eachother to be jingoistically patriotic, not to mention this nonsense of planning a circus to mark the centenary of the beginning of WW1, which isn't any date worth celebrating. I don't like the trend towards bringing out poppies earlier and earlier in the year; the first week in November is appropriate, no sooner. And I don't have time for competing over bigger and gaudier poppies, and certainly not for shaming celebrities or acquaintances who don't happen to be wearing the appropriate badge. I don't like the way that poppy and flag themed window displays are starting to mingle with the Halloween theme; Armistice Day isn't an excuse to sell Brit-kitsch tat left over from the Jubilee, Royal Wedding and Olympics.
In spite of all these reasons to be grumpy, I put my pound in the British Legion box and I wore my poppy for the week leading up to today. And I led a short Remembrance service at shul on Friday. I did it mainly because my community expect it; our late and much-mourned president, himself a WW2 veteran, always joined the parade at the Cenotaph each year, and saw the closest shabbat as an important date in the synagogue's calendar. We ran out of WW1 veterans long ago, and even our WW2 veterans are dwindling every year. Still, in spite of all the jingoistic stuff floating around, I think there's a value in joining as a community to remember our war dead. I think it does need to be separate from remembering the dead in general, partly because war casualties often don't have a defined anniversary and their graves are overseas if they exist at all. And partly because people remembering lost comrades need a collective act of commemoration, not just an individual, personal one.
I have to adapt the liturgy from the Reform prayerbook; I imagine there must be some Anglo-Orthodox liturgy somewhere, but the edition of Singer's we use regarded Remembrance Sunday as a secular thing, not worth mentioning in a Jewish context. But anyway, I spoke for a few minutes about what the day is for, and read a poem, and then an adapted version of the memorial prayer
God, full of compassion. In fact I asked one of our remaining ex-servicemen to read the last; he said he was really touched to be included, since his uncle had died in the Great War before he was born. It didn't seem to occur to him that his personal involvement in WW2 was relevant.
Anyway, at least as many of my friends as are boycotting the event have been posting memorials to social networks, and not in a militaristic or ersatz patriotic way, just remembering. I'm part of that, for all my reservations about the event, and the place of remembering wars in our national identity, hey, about the idea of wearing a badge to show you've given to charity.
For future years, and as a way of continuing to remember together if you're so inclined, what war poetry can people point to? For the purposes of services, I am steering a fine line between excessively patriotic stuff and excessively cynical. I avoid many of the neo-Romantic poems from early in the war which are mainly about how great England is, at least in part because there are as many non-English community members as English, and also because I am trying to mark the day in a non-jingoistic way. Equally I don't read the really vicious poems, not Dulce et decorum est or any of the biting Kipling verses, because that's not appropriate for what is meant to be a respectful religious ritual. Last year I picked something of Sassoon's, one of his less cynical pieces, on the grounds that he came from a partly Jewish heritage. This year Owen's Parable of the Old Man and the Young on the grounds that has a strong OT resonance, but honestly that's possibly more anti-war than is really appropriate. But there's a lot to be said for slightly less well-known stuff, poems that aren't English curriculum perennials (and that's probably a whole discussion in its own right, why is it that WW1 poetry is such a feature of school poetry teaching?) because people pay more attention if they don't already know the poem by heart!
