‘Playing politics’ with white poppies?
Carla Denyer, who is a city councillor in Bristol, writes about a recent experience of putting faith into action
An important part of Quakerism, for me, is doing things with your faith. Even though I am a nontheist Friend, I am driven by the phrase ‘God has no hands but ours’ and I don’t see any point in believing something if you don’t act on it. Sometimes this gets me into trouble; it means I sometimes find it hard to say no, sometimes feel frustrated by less active Friends, and sometimes end up sticking my head ‘above the parapet’.
When we’re trying to do the right thing we often don’t know what impact we have, and may fear it will have no impact at all. But, occasionally, it has an impact much greater than we ever anticipated.
In late October I put a box of white poppies in a shared kitchen in the council offices and sent an email to the other councillors. Cautiously worded, it closed with ‘No on-list replies please, I am endeavouring not to open a debate, just to let you know that they’re there if you want one’, but my attempt was unsuccessful. One particular Conservative councillor got very cross about it, demanded they be removed and triggered a big debate. The local media got hold of it, and then things really kicked off. Several news articles, interviews and social media storms later, I’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster, but glad that I did it. There have been vicious slurs on Facebook and Twitter. I have, however, also received loads of messages of support, which have outnumbered the critics by around ten to one. A few people, who had never heard of white poppies before, contacted me and have now purchased a box to take to into their work.
I sell white poppies because there are not many places you can get them. I want to help make them more available. I had been doing the same every November in my previous workplace (and without any controversy). So, it warms my heart that a concrete outcome of this debate has been that white poppies are now more well known and more available.
Why the white poppy? The white poppy is a symbol of remembrance. It explicitly says: ‘No more wars. No more killing. Let us work for peace.’ It was introduced by the Women’s Cooperative Guild in 1933 and is now produced by the Peace Pledge Union.
The Royal British Legion (RBL) says on its website: ‘We have no objection to white poppies, or any group expressing their views. We see no conflict in wearing the red poppy alongside the white poppy. We do ask that the items are not offered alongside each other, however, as this would confuse the public.’
Some people, like me, wear both poppies – red to help those who have been affected by war, and white to actively build peace as an alternative to war. Others wear only the white poppy. Others wear no poppy at all. And others wear only the red poppy, as they feel that it does encompass a message of peace.
I do not, however, agree with the last group. In fact, I wear the white poppy partly to contest the militarism that often surrounds the red poppy campaign. It is so ubiquitous as to be hard to notice sometimes. Some stark examples include: RBL charity balls are often funded by arms manufacturers; the title of the RBL’s Learning Pack 2014/15 is ‘For Them, For Now, For Ever’, with photos of modern soldiers – revealing their vision of a future of endless wars and a miserable assumption of human inability to solve problems nonviolently; the RBL’s charity single in 2014 was a famous anti-war song reworked, with over half the lyrics removed – the ones that condemned the futility of war – leaving only those lyrics that sentimentalise it; and the RBL ran its 2013 campaign accompanied by a photo of young poppy-sellers in t-shirts reading ‘Future soldier’, attracting widespread criticism.
I know that remembrance is an emotional subject for many, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised by the dramatic response that my small act provoked. The question I think it is important to ask, though, is which is really an affront? Campaigning for peace? Or continuing to send people to war?
