As an immigrant in the UK, it took some time to understand the deeper meaning of the remembrance day. In fact, remembrance day is lived by different British people in different ways, and to truly embrace this event, one has to stare a red poppy and feel what it means for them. You should have an intimate meaning for the red poppy to relate to the remembrance day. If you do, the wearing of the red poppy becomes not only a charitable gesture but a deeply meaningful action. As an immigrant from a country where the red poppy is not a tradition, therefore, it is only after one decade in the UK that I can finally embrace this day full-heartedly.
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Remembrance day is approaching. I hope most people will reflect on what this day actually represents. It is the day where Commonwealth nations remember the soldiers fallen during the first world war and by extension, it is the day many intend to pay tribute to those who died in wars. In these weeks, many people will use war rhetoric and will revive patriotic emotions. Many people will proudly wear red poppies, to support veterans, as a statement of national pride, to remember the fallen soldiers, or for social pressure. Like every year, the news will invite comments, there will be vast support, but also critical opinions, and critical rebuttals of those critiques. Eventually, remembrance day ends up to be all those things. This year, however, I will have my first true remembrance day when I will not care about what this means for others, but I will care only about what it means for me. The reasons are two. One is that after many years I relate to British traditions as my own. The second is that my daughter, a British citizen who self-define as English, is in year 1 at school and I have to dialogue with her about the red poppy.
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The red poppy is not a symbol for blood nor a symbol for death and, in the UK, it is adopted by the Royal British Legion as a charitable act, and to manifest support for Armed forces, veterans and their families. The red poppy should be worn as a personal choice and there is no ‘correct’ way on how to wear it.
However, the colour of this flower and the origin of this symbol – the devastated fields where soldiers died during the first war and were then covered by red poppies – are so evocative that many people cannot refrain to associate the colour of the scarlet red poppy to the blood of soldiers who died in the war.
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So, what is for me the red poppy? It is the blood of the soldiers shed during wars, but it is also the blood of the civilians crashed between opposing fronts. The bloody tears of those who survived, the broken families, the broken hearts, the children, the mothers and fathers, the elderly who died in battle or were visited by death at home. To me, the red poppy and remembrance day are reminders that we should always do anything possible to avoid conflict and war.
As war rhetoric came back fashionable also in democratic countries, when authoritarian movements are gaining the consensus of the public, and when too many people are proud to divide nations rather than to unite, we should not escape from the deeper meaning of this day.
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To me, the red poppy is the blood that should never be spilt again but that will, and does.
And therefore, I will embrace this remembrance day as my own. With gratitude for brave soldiers that defended our freedoms but with shame because we have asked and we will ask them again to kill and to die instead of just being vigil, watching with pride our democracies working peacefully together.
