Don't glorify war - wear a white poppy

It seems that the anti-war protestor who defaced British Legion posters in Gillingham by changing "For their sake, wear a poppy" to "For their sake, prosecute Blair" has apologised anonymously.

The consequences of this action hurt the people in the poster who had lost a father and husband and it was clearly wrong of the protestor to do this, so he / she was right to apologise. However, I have a great deal of sympathy with the anger of the protestor. Blair seems to be continually rewarded for his war crimes and, although less likely now, was in the running to become president of Europe.

Furthermore, I walked past a British legion stall last week, and in bold letters was "1914: THE GLORIOUS WAR". There is nothing glorious about war, and especially not that one. It is time for a new message, one that honours and respects the dead, but one that says going to war is almost always wrong.

The White Poppy movement has been around for 75 years and surprisingly few people have heard of it. I've been wearing white poppies for a few years now and I would encourage others to do so. My daughter told me that a couple of the teenagers at last week's historic UK Youth Parliament in the House of Commons turned up in White Poppies - superb stuff (n.b. watch the debates on iPlayer).

White Poppies

Remembrance Sunday today will have plenty of people walking around with red poppies. While being very keen to remember those people who have died, I dislike the association that red poppies have with war. The military parades that are part of Remembrance Sunday seem to glorify war and I don't believe that we should do that. There is nothing glorious about war and given that the UK continues its illegal occupation of Iraq, we must make a stand for peace.

The white poppy, calling for peace, is more appropriate and I would like to see it worn more often at this time of year.