I didn't want to post this yesterday out of respect

"Never Mind the Poppy"

November 10.
Guest host Murray Wood. U of S newspaper (University of Saskatchewan, Canada) ' The Sheaf' editor Ishmael Doro wrote a controversial piece in the latest edition of the paper called ' Never Mind the Poppy', in which he calls remembrance Day a 'debased celebration of killing', Ishmael joins Murray.

(Just so there is no confusion, there is sports talk for a few minutes before the segment starts.)

http://www.newstalk650.com/audio/john-g ... 0th-hour-2

Here's the article in the U of S newspaper. Ishmael N. Daro is an immigrant from Afghanistan to our country.

"Never mind the poppy"

Remembrance day glorifies war, fails to suggest peace options.

In grocery stores, the poppies grow between the cash registers, row on row.
You can also see the iconic poppy adorning jacket lapels everywhere. Remembrance
Day is upon us again and as always, the
country and its citizens will look to com-
memorate the national holiday with somber
services and tributes. As people put on their
patriotic hats, they collectively delude them-
selves about the nature of the holiday and
forget that Remembrance Day is a depraved
celebration of war, violence and death.

WHAT WE ARE REMEMBERING

To most people, Remembrance Day of-
fers time to reflect on the price of war and
the sacrifices made by Canadian soldiers.
However, the entire affair does nothing to
promote peace and understanding among
peoples of the world. Rather, Remembrance
Day focuses on military solutions to world
problems. To think that peace can only come
about from war is absurd.

The Veteran Affairs Canada website
specifically cites the Korean War and the first
and second world wars as occasions when
Canadian soldiers died defending “a tradition
of freedom.” An objective look at history
reveals that Canadians, and indeed most na-
tions, did no such thing.

The First World War was essentially a
struggle between European powers eager to
fight one another as they had been for hun-
dreds of years — except this time they had
powerful new weapons they wanted to test
on one another. Canada only got involved
in the conflict to defend the British Crown
as one of its many colonies. Exactly which
Canadian’s personal freedom was threatened
by Kaiser Wilhelm II?

The Korean War hardly deserves a men-
tion, as it was merely a border dispute be-
tween North and South Korea amid the Cold
War climate. After hundreds of thousands of
casualties, military and civilian, the country
remained divided at the exact same border.
Veteran Affairs Canada claims “on Remem-
brance Day, we acknowledge the courage
and sacrifice of those who served their
country and acknowledge our responsibil-
ity to work for the peace they fought hard to
achieve.” What kind of peace was achieved
in Korea that over 500 Canadian soldiers
deserved to die?

Surely the Second World War was an hon-
ourable conflict to fight in. After all, Hitler
was a tyrant who killed millions and had to
be stopped. However, that is not why Canada
fought in the war. Once again, Canada de-
fended Britain without any consideration for
persecuted Jews who were being slaughtered.
For one, the full extent of the Holocaust was
not known until close to the end of the war
in 1944. Furthermore, anti-Semitism was
prominent in Canada and most other Western
countries, too.

In 1939, before Germany had invaded Po-
land to start the war, the SS St. Louis sailed
off from Hamburg with hundreds of Jewish
immigrants hoping to escape the oppression
of the Nazis. However, the ship was turned
away from ports in Cuba, America and
Canada. After this “Voyage of the Damned”
returned to Europe, many of the passengers
would end up dying in concentration camps.
This was not an isolated incident of
anti-Semitism either. Canada had employed
restrictive immigration laws against Jews
for years before the SS St. Louis ever ap-
proached Halifax Harbour.

The above points are merely to illustrate
that Remembrance Day, which was estab-
lished after the bloody trench warfare of
WWI, does not truly apply to the horrors
of WWII which Canada did not enter for
humanitarian reasons anyway. Those who
proudly wear a poppy in order to say “never
again” to war misunderstand that the entire
practice of remembrance on Nov. 11 is for
military purposes — not for any ideals of
peace, liberty or freedom.

MODERN UNDERSTANDING

Perhaps Remembrance Day does have
ignoble origins celebrating militarism and
war. However, most people will likely not
agree with such an interpretation, claiming
that today Remembrance Day and our entire
understanding of war has changed; it’s not
about recognizing just soldiers but all those
who died in war, regardless of nationality.
Sadly, this too is wrong.

The Canadian War Museum in Ottawa
recently removed a controversial display
due to pressure from veterans. The display
in question talked about the controversial
bombing of Germany during WWII and ac-
knowledged the 600,000 Germans who were
killed and over five million more who were
made homeless as a result. The contemporary
understanding of war, in that all casualties
are tragic regardless of country, is apparently
wrong.

The poppy worn by millions is also mis-
understood. Once again, it is not a symbol
meant to end war but rather to relish in it.
The Royal Canadian Legion describes the
poppy as a “visual pledge to never forget all
those Canadians who have fallen in war and
military operations.” Not a single mention of
peace.

The only reason that poppies even grew in
Flanders was because the rubble caused by
the war was rich in lime, causing the flower
to flourish. To wear this symbol of death and
destruction while claiming to wish an end to
war is delusional.

When an anti-war group in Edmonton
tried to offer white poppies as a peace-
promoting alternative to the blood-red one,
residents were outraged. The usual vitriol
and misconceptions about Remembrance
Day came out.

If the meaning of Remembrance Day has
indeed changed, shouldn’t any symbol of
peace be appreciated? Evidently not since
veterans’ groups threatened to sue the store
where the white poppy was made available
for, of all things, trademark infringement.
Poppies may have grown between the
crosses of Flanders fields but they have also
grown into a symbol of misplaced outrage.

In services around the country, people still
read “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae.
The first nine lines of the poem reflect on
those who “loved and were loved” but are
since dead. However, the last four lines of
the poem reflect a more bellicose tone. Cry-
ing “take up our quarrel with the foe,” the
dead are not content to move on. Rather, they
call on us to take revenge.

I ask again, how does Remembrance Day
do anything but glorify war, endorse violence
and promote militant nationalism?
A more fitting poem from the First World
War would be Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et
Decorum Est” in which the British poet
describes the horrors of a gas attack. He ends
the poem by saying that if we could see what
he saw, we would never say that it is an hon-
our to die for one’s country. If contemporary
Remembrance Day services truly were about
peace and the horrors of war, Owen’s poem
would be more widely read.

Quite simply, Remembrance Day is not
about anything other than military achieve-
ment and glorification of war — and it never
has been. If Canadians truly cared about
peace, we would celebrate the International
Day of Peace on Sept. 21. Instead, we con-
tinue to delude ourselves with false patrio-
tism once a year, forgetting that we are only
celebrating death and destruction.

Ishmael N. Daro
Public Editor (University of Saskatchewan, Canada)

and by posting this, do you agree with it ?

He is entitled to his opinion and I am entitled to the freedom of free speech...He can go FUCK HIMSELF...Damn to live in a country where we have these freedoms and to articulate them without fear of persecution.

I wonder why that is anyway...hmmmmm :wink:

"no mention of peace yadayada.." Where is the mention that war is the only solution? Oh right there isn't one.

Once again an individual who wishes to corrupt the image and meaning behind the poppy for their own misinformed, misguided agenda.

Justkate, you know what you can do with this tripe right?

Ishmael N. Daro is wasting his obvious talents here in the safety of Canada when he could be back in his country of origin, helping his more deserving past countrymen.
We welcome him and his opinions but I personally would rather he get bent and piss off.

If you listen to the radio show link I posted, you'll see he bailed when callers started giving him hard questions about this. He is a coward in the end.

Disagree with him, but he makes a few points of importance. Those points don't really have much to do with Remembrance Day and the Pro/Con of it though. To me Remembrance Day is not a celebration of War, it is a reminder as to why War should be avoided. Sometimes it is necessary though, such was the case with WW1 and WW2.

This guy's crap is junk heaped upon dreck sprinkled with pigswill. I know why I celebate Rememberance Day and I certainly need this douche telling me what it represents. This dumbass can't even get the history right, so why afford him any intellectual respect?

Isn't it nice that brave souls gave the ultimate sacrifice so moronic drivel like this could be protected. Maybe he needs to revisit Remembrance Day.

It sure makes me want our troops to come home from Afghanistan. Why are we bothering to help them when they feel this way about us? That was my immediate reaction to this along with many other Canadians that called in to confront this guy. He left the air, the radio announcer was appalled. He even tried to call him back and of course, he wouldn't come back on air.