Many of us — if not most — have recently donned poppies in remembrance of the sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform over the decades.
The brutality and senselessness of armed conflict are certainly a sober cause for a somber moment of reflection.
But we must always remain vigilant of sabre rattlers who fervently beat the war drums under the guise of espousing glorious ideals of divisive, nationalistic, self-righteous pride. Their real mission, it seems, is to perpetuate endless conflict by garnering the public's support to ensure continued profits for the military industrial complex.
Second World War veteran Harry Leslie Smith has urged people around the world not to conflate the present-day war on terror with his generation's monumental struggle against the ruthlessly oppressive Axis powers.
“I can assure you that the two are not the same,” he said last year in an interview with Huffington Post.
“My generation gave our blood, sweat and tears to be victorious against a tyrant who wanted to enslave us to a totalitarian state, whereas today we are more than willing to surrender our personal liberties to governments and corporations, hoping that if we live in a state under constant surveillance we will not suffer physical harm.”
Imagine having fought victoriously against a world power that wanted to restrict people's liberties only to find those civil freedoms slowly but surely eroded mere decades later.
The 93-year-old veteran has cautioned that the poppy has become a tool used by politicians to propagate and sell the modern day war on terror. Smith, a former RAF serviceman who does not wear the poppy, believes the campaign has become politicized as well as commercialized. State leaders tend to appear mournful during Remembrance Day services but are back at work planning more conflicts the next day, he argues.
While he is certainly entitled to his opinion — arguably more so than the average person — Smith does not begrudge anyone who does choose to don the poppy. He simply asks that people consider what it represents.
Not alone in his conviction, others who feel the same prefer to support peace by instead wearing a white poppy, an alternative — produced by the Peace Pledge Union — that has been available since the 1930s.
Of course red poppy sales also support veterans and their families in their time of need — unquestionably a worthy endeavour.
Smith merely implores people to be cautious not to become swept up in a nationalistic fervour to support the ongoing and dubious war on terror, which has over the years succeeded at only one thing — creating more extremists.
“I have no issues if people feel the necessity to wear either type of poppy as long as they think deeply about the nature and consequence of war and how it not only destroys lives but erodes democracy if it is perpetual,” said Smith.
Those words ring with an element of wisdom worth pondering.
— Simon Ducatel, Sundre Round Up editor
