A Patch of Poppies

I was in a bit of a quandary about Remembrance Day this year. Too many newscasts fraught with gun violence and acts of terrorism, and civil wars in places we don’t hear about because there’s no business interest for the West – I’ve been pretty cynical of late, so the timing wasn’t great for November 11. It seemed to me that the sacrifices made, the lives lost and families destroyed during, well, every darned war we’ve seen since The Great One and The One to Stop All Others, have all been for naught. Pointless. A truly senseless waste because, looking at where we are now, it solved nothing. The world is still in conflicted turmoil with no apparent end in sight.

Toss my deity, Sting, into the mix. For months, I’ve been looping Children’s Crusade, one of my favourite songs from his first solo album. I don’t think he’s that wild about it, but I love it despite – or perhaps because of –  its tragic theme. Poppies are prominent throughout, starting with the boys who perished in the first World War, through to 1980s London, where the next generation have become what he poetically called “opium slaves”. It’s hardly his fault that I happened on a rogue patch of poppies and the phrase “poppies for young men” immediately came to mind. I thought, Brilliant – a theme for my Remembrance Day blog post! Only in the months between then and now, I lost my perspective.

Duelling dictators, ongoing problems in the Middle East, the Russians (another subject on Sting’s first album that remains annoyingly relevant), religious wars, civil wars, nuclear wars ... the list goes on and on, ad nauseum. By this time last week, I was nothing more than resigned to go through the motions. I mean, you have to wear a poppy, right? Otherwise, you’re being disrespectful. But inside, I viewed the poppy as a symbol of a failed exercise.

When Ter and I talked about Remembrance Day, I ’fessed up with my mixed feelings. She did not disagree. She even sympathized, as I had a point about how messed up the world remains despite the staggering loss of life in those two wars. A few hours later, after she’d pondered the predicament, she was able to adjust my perspective by reminding me of context.

“Don’t look at the world right now,” she said. “You have to remember that the threat back then was present moment. If those sacrifices had not been made, our parents’ lives would have been vastly different and so would ours. In that respect, what they gave was supremely profound and made a definite difference at the time. And at the time is what matters.”

She was right, of course. Then, as if to prove her point, I saw news interviews with a couple of the few surviving veterans who fought in WWII. They each told a story of imminent threat, of an enemy so powerful that neither thought anything of signing up to stop it. They were not fighting against future dictators or nuclear nutballs or religious extremists. They were fighting to save their Now.

The same might be said of every war that’s ever been fought; after all, the beast was not invented in 1914. It seems there’s always a threat. So long as we believe that war is the way to peace, my little patch of poppies is a blood-coloured point on a long and grisly timeline. However, I want to end this post on a positive note, so here goes:

Remembrance Day will outlast the soldiers who survived those battles. Veterans of more recent conflicts will take their places rather than stand beside them at the ceremonies in successive years. So they should. No one who goes to war should be forgotten or ignored; they deserve our respect and our gratitude. The world has become a more perilous place, yet there are still men and women brave enough to stand in defence of human rights and freedom. If one day a year is all they ask of me in return, I can give this much.

I can wear a poppy and I can mean it.

X Company

Over on channel 2, CBC is running the most X-ellent TV series, X Company, a spy story set in occupied France during World War II. It’s produced in part by the group behind Orphan Black, which is why I decided to give it a whirl when it debuted last year. I generally avoid war stories and, yes, this one is disturbing, but it’s so well done that I’m as worried about the Gestapo officer who’s hunting the heroes as I am about the genius kid who signed up for active duty but told his parents he’d got a desk job well away from the front.

Actually, I’m worried about everyone. That’s how I know it’s a good show. Every scene, every character, and every dire situation is expertly written, directed and played. The heroes don’t always win, and the villains aren’t always proud of their villainy. Sometimes the guy you think is a baddie turns out to be what he insists he is: young, scared and desperate, despite the uniform. But you don’t find that out until you’ve already shot him.

I doubt that the writers have invented anything worse than the crimes that were actually committed against the French people during the Nazi occupation. Or that are actually being committed against civilians in present day wartime—all that’s evolved since WWII is the power of our weaponry and the technological skill required to deploy it. It’s ironic that “the war to end all wars” didn’t. That particular conflict may have been resolved, but war itself has certainly not been stayed. If anything, it’s gotten worse.

This doesn’t stop my toes from curling during an episode of X Company. The discomfort here is psychological. I applaud it. I appreciate that the producers acknowledge my ability to perceive what’s happening without being walked through it step by gory step. In our desensitized world, it’s cheating to film severed limbs or acts of bestial cruelty. The suggestion of anything—good or bad—is far more powerful than graphic visuals. It takes greater skill, however, to ignite someone’s imagination and get the desired result than it does to lay it all out for them. There’s nothing lazy about X Company.

I wish I could have said the same about Game of Thrones.

By Any Other Name

A boy is named “John” by his parents. His little brother calls him “Johnny”, and his friends call him “Jack”. His first girlfriend calls him “Jonathan”, even though that’s not what he was christened. She just likes it better because it sounds more highbrow.

On a tour of Europe in his twenties, the locals call him “Juan” in Madrid, “Jean” in Paris, “Giovanni” in Rome, “Sean” in Ireland, “Jan” in Stockholm and “Ivan” in St Petersburg.

When he returns home and marries his third girlfriend (the second called him—gasp!—“John”), she wants to name their son for him but chooses another variation: “Zane”. John would have preferred “Shane”, but isn’t so invested that he wants to start a war.

A co-worker who passed away in 2009 said two things to me that I have always remembered. One, that he hated the Philadelphia Flyers and couldn’t believe I’m a fan, and two, by passing along the quote at the top of this post. Six years later, the argument continues, yet I believe that all sides are raging over the same individual: a singular creator who is known by a dozen different names.

But it’s not about God at all, is it?

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace” – Jimi Hendrix

Take the Day

The cough medicine commercial is right: a sick day is misnamed. It’s actually a “getting well” day—and I’m taking one. Admitting this may cost me a day’s pay should my boss happen upon this post (a billion to one shot, I’m sure) but it’s worth it to point out that I am not physically ill. I needed a mental health day; a day for self-care and to nurture a spirit that’s been flaring hard against a smothering global darkness and finally conceded defeat last night.

I’m down, but not out.

I may be a little drained from the daily lineup of coworkers who stop by my office to tell me their woes, but on a deeper level, I think I am royally pissed. Not with my colleagues, not with my family, not at home, and not even at life. Life is good. It’s a challenge in contrast, but life is a gift. No one has the right to rob someone else of it.

I digress.

I think that I’m pissed at the folks who sit online and berate the good intentions of others. When Paris happened, I witnessed an explosion of French flags popping up in social media as horrified humans rose to their higher natures and rallied in solidarity with France. Shortly after this surge of collective compassion, a second explosion occurred—of outraged reproach for this show of “selective support”. Beirut had been similarly assaulted on the same day. The same number of deaths and equal amount of terror were suffered there, only few in the western world had risen in that country’s support, hence those who had done so for Paris were called out as hypocrites.

They are not hypocrites. They are uninformed. Is it their fault that the western news outlets did not report the attack on Beirut? I knew nothing of it. I was still reeling from the stupidity of the Starbucks Red Cup Controversy, which got more airtime on my newsfeed than anything out of the Middle East, when I stumbled onto CNN’s coverage of Paris.

The public doesn’t decide what makes the news. Advertisers and programmers decide what we are told and, to some extent, what we’re to do about it. Then they sit back and watch the masses squabble about it all.

So I crashed. The negativity has been overwhelming, and while I believe implicitly in the power of one solitary candle, I also believe that the flame requires tending, else it will burn out completely.

Balance. Contrast. Achieving and maintaining one in the face of the other requires an awareness of your own needs as well as the needs of others. If I am guilty of anything, it’s of assuming that I have superpowers of endurance, resistance, and acceptance. Actually, I do have them, but they are not limitless. A single day should get me back on my feet. A day of green tea, quiet meditation, and gratitude.

A “get well” day.

With love,

War (What Is It Good For?)

This post was inappropriate for Remembrance Day, though it was prompted by the occasion. Every year, I see the poppies come out. I pin one on my own coat from respect from the fallen, but I don’t believe in war.

I wonder how many of the soldiers who fight them do believe in it.

I tried to write an appropriately respectful piece about conflict on a global scale, the horrors of two World Wars, the trauma of Afghanistan and the massive damage of ongoing unrest in the Middle East, but it’s too easy to pontificate from my comfy chair in western Canada. I can’t speak from experience (for which I am eternally grateful). None of my loved ones have been sacrificed in service to their country.

So I watch the faces of the veterans during Remembrance Day ceremonies and wonder how they must feel, knowing that the world they fought to improve is spiralling deeper into despair in spite of their heroic efforts. And now that those who survived WWII are dwindling in number, we are reminded of the men and women who fought in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf, and those on assignment as peacekeepers in hotbeds of civil conflict everywhere else but here. I’m glad I’m not a soldier, or that none of my sibs or nieces or nephews chose a military career. Of course I believe in reverence for those who perish in battle … but on a day when thousands of refugees are flooding out of Syria because of yet another war (or is it part of a big, long, never ending one?), I’m starting to think more about the victims of war than of the heroes who fight them.

It isn’t working, people. Can’t we just stop?

Lest We Forget

You can only remember if you survived it. In the comfort and safety of your untroubled life, you can merely imagine.

Imagine, then, those who went before, who went bravely and naïvely into battle, face to face with the enemy (boys like themselves), armed with bayonets and met by machine guns. Imagine those who were wreathed in poisoned gas, blinded by smoke and mustard fumes, their throats too choked to scream, heroes robbed of wits and possessed by a terror unseen in your wildest nightmares.

Imagine those who perished in open fields, in wooded copses and muddy trenches. Imagine those who died far from home, who left their mothers and sisters and sweethearts on a mission to retrieve the Kaiser’s helmet and were never seen again.

If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep …

In Flanders Field was written by a man, a witness to the slaughter of a generation sent forth to preserve the liberty of others. In the poem, the dead pass us the torch and warn us against breaking their faith—but can ceasing to fight be considered a break of their faith? They know now, knew as soon as they shed their broken and bloody flesh, that war is not the way to peace. We remember them today because they offered their innocence, their futures, and their very lives to ensure that the world was a safe place for everyone to live.

That it is worse now than it was then, is an insult to their sacrifice.

So remember why they went forth so courageously, in pursuit of an ideal that lies within reach of every living soul yet remains untouched. Remember that war is the worst horror we can visit upon ourselves and do everything in your power to Stop It.

Perhaps then, the dead will sleep.

Bullies

A lot of people are angry after what happened in Ottawa last week. Angry, afraid, and awakened to a horrible global truth, that we as a nation are no longer safe on our own turf. It’s taken me a few days to figure out how I feel about it.

I’m sad.

Sad that Canada is no longer exempt from the venom of radical terrorist groups. Sad that Corporal Nathan Carillo’s destiny was to be the death that woke us up. Sad that I sat in a sunny open courtyard the day after he was killed and wondered what would happen if one of the passersby suddenly pulled a gun and opened fire. Sad that guns, despite the laws that control them, are showing up in these formerly unheard of situations north of the US border. Sad that it’s finally come to this, that the least offensive country in the First World has lost her status as a safe place to be.

Sad, sad, sad.

Anger is a uniquely human response, always born of another action, deliberate or not, that threatens or offends. In no way will I plead the case of the individual who did this—he’s already moved on and discovered how horrendously misguided he was to buy into the propaganda of hate. What I will say is that I believe terrorists are, at their singular core, little more than jumped-up schoolyard bullies, so wrought with their own misery and self-loathing that they seek to empower themselves by victimizing others—usually those who are weaker than themselves, but in the case of ISIS or whatever they’re called, those whom they perceive as would-be oppressors. Canada got onto the hit list because we’re allied with the big boys. Guilt by association.

Seriously? Attacking us is like kicking a puppy. We don’t play the aggressor except on a sheet of ice, but we do heed the call for help in righting wrongs committed against innocents, and what terrorist groups do is wrong on so many levels I can’t begin to list them all. Yes, the Middle East is a hotbed of conflict and yes, if they weren’t sitting on the world’s oil supply, few governments would likely bother about them, but still. Be honest about it. Show your face and state your name. Openly recant your citizenship. Be proud to scorn your family, your nationality, and the religion you claim to revere. Man up to the consequence of your decision. If you believe what you’re doing is right and true, then have the courage to own your actions.

America does. Britain does. So do the Palestinians and the Israelis. Heck, so does North Korea. And, if you push us, so will Canada.

The world is run by ego, ambition, fear and hatred. Peace is a concept, and misunderstood at that. Peace is perceived as “not at war” and is therefore unsustainable.

Warring to stop war is insanity at its finest, but we’re in it now and there’s no going back. We’ll be forced into battle against this gang of miserable outcasts whether or not we believe it’s the only way. Millennia of history tells how this will end.

Badly.

But I won’t live in fear of the bullies. I won’t accept that people are inherently evil and unworthy of my trust. I will get angry, but I will release the anger without acting on it. Every one of us was born to love and be loved. We are what the world makes of us.

And that may be the saddest thing of all.

Poppies

I wear my poppy on my purse. I don’t think it’s disrespectful; no one has said to me, “Hey, lady, it goes on your lapel!” I change up my coats at this time of year, and while I could have bought a poppy for each one, I’ve only just thought of it so will change my practice in 2014. In the meantime, I’ve had the one with me everywhere I go. 

This far into the 21^st century, when there can’t be more than a handful of veterans left who fought in World War I and the number of those who survived the Second is dwindling daily, it’s hard to imagine how horrible war really is. I mean, was. If it was still as horrible as it was during the World Wars, maybe it wouldn’t be happening anymore. Problem is, war has become so sanitized, so easy and impersonal, that we don’t even think about it except to shake our heads and say how awful it is. 

How do we know? We’re safe and secure (relatively) in our padded little corner of the world. War has been happening pretty much through the length of my life. I’m just not affected by it because the battles are fought elsewhere. Sure, Canadian troops are deployed to those places, but I’m not from a military family and the country itself is only under siege from foreign investors. In no way do I mean to belittle the sacrifice of service to one’s nation. I believe in peace. I’m just unsure that war is the way to achieve it. 

So when Remembrance Day comes along, I am reminded of those who serve and have served. We think primarily of the World War vets because the historic value in those conflicts is immense – even though we’ve learned nothing from them except how to make it more comfortable for those indirectly involved. Conflict continues in other parts of the world and young men (and women) continue to endanger themselves for the combined cause of peace and freedom. We have veterans from the Gulf and Afghanistan wars, which got press but were buried amongst other news items so it was hard to pay real attention unless you knew or were related to someone who was actually there. Or worse, who was killed in action. I don’t know why people sign up. I wish there was no such thing as a call to arms. If we could solve our own problems without conflict and bloodshed – and interfering in others – maybe November 11 would become a celebration of peace rather than a requiem for those who died fighting for it. 

I accidentally stabbed my finger on the pin of my poppy the other day. I was about to make a big drama of it until I remembered why I have a poppy in the first place. 

Lest we forget.