Culture war in the United Kingdom over soldiers killed on the battlefield

LondonFor the past three weeks, since October 23rd, 67-year-old Rudolph Champagnie has set up his Royal British Legion table in the concourse of Liverpool Street Station, London's busiest station, with at least 260,000 people passing through daily. From 6:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., he and the volunteers who accompany him take advantage of the influx of people passing by to sell their product. It is the red poppy (the red poppy) in all sorts of imaginable forms: pine trees, bookmarks, crosses, bracelets, or the more traditional paper poppy. Last year, Rudolph, a former corporal in the British Army, did the same. And the year before that, too. He's been doing it so many times that, in fact, he struggles to remember how many. "More than fifteen, for sure!" he tells ARA.

This Sunday, the United Kingdom celebrates what is known as Remembrance Sunday, the day on which veterans of the British armed forces are honored, and on which the victims of its armies in all wars are remembered. The event originated with the armistice of the First World War (November 11, 1918). And the symbol of the red poppy It begins with the poem In Flanders fields (1915), by Canadian physician John McCrae, which described the poppies growing on the graves of fallen soldiers. Inspired by these verses, American Moina Michael began wearing one as a symbol of remembrance. And in 1921, the Royal British Legion (RBL) adopted the red poppy to raise funds for veterans. Last year, more than 30 million poppies were distributed, according to RBL data. And in 2023, the initiative raised almost 50 million pounds.

But Remembrance Sunday has become in recent years the Sunday of ReproachThis is yet another episode in a culture war between progressive and inclusive positions and conservative and ultraconservative ones regarding the history of the British Empire. "It must be decolonized," some say; to say this is an "insult to our fallen," others say. All of this is symptomatic of the latent and heated political debate about what constitutes true British national identity.

This year, the trigger for the recurring controversy has been the photograph of actor Mark Rylance – Oscar winner for best supporting actor for The Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg, 2016) – uploaded a photo to her Instagram account a few days ago showing her sporting a white poppy (white poppy), the symbol with which the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) promotes a different expression of remembrance than the traditional one. The white poppies, a campaign that began in 1933, are meant to represent the memory of all victims of war, both civilian and military, as well as opposition to armed conflict and a commitment to peace.

A white provocation?

As the actor's image spread on social media, the more conservative media outlets – from GB News to the Daily Telegraph or the Daily MailThey began publishing a series of articles denouncing Rylance's alleged offense and hypocrisy. "The white poppy is a punch in the gut, which scorns the memory of the troops who paid the ultimate sacrifice," read one particularly harsh text. Telegraph, from Colonel Hamish of Bretton-Gordon. And it continued: "Mark is very happy to accept money to act in a [war] film like DunkirkBut then he spits in the face of veterans who are still serving by wearing a white poppy."

Is wearing it really a provocation? Another volunteer at the Liverpool Street stall, Pauline Corrigan, says no: "I don't see it that way, it's another way of remembering. And as long as we remember, that's enough."

Wearing the white poppy—or not wearing the red one—doesn't come without consequences. There isn't a single BBC television presenter who doesn't display it, and when they haven't, they've been showered with insults and reproaches, as is the case with Jonathan Ro. Those who don't wear one stand out in front of the cameras, since wearing it is the norm. [The following appears to be unrelated and possibly a separate incident:] [The following appears to be a separate incident:] suffer in 2013. The last one, on November 3, shortly after appearing on the program Loose women. For over a decade he has maintained the same principle despite the insults, which have also persisted.

Social pressure on public figures has caused problems this week for Justice Minister and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy. He wasn't wearing the poppy at the start of Wednesday's debate in the House of Commons, and social media reminded him of it, although some profiles also defended the position, stating that there is no obligation to appear with the red poppyBut if the Deputy Prime Minister isn't wearing it at this time of year, it's like walking around Westminster naked.

Symbol Appropriation

Why is there so much social pressure? Sociologist Katy Sian, from the University of York, argues that "not wearing the red poppy has come to be equated with rejecting British values," especially in the case of Black people. And Lammy and Charlene White are Black. The symbol has been appropriated by the far right, by groups like Britain First and Nigel Farage's Reform Party, and they have turned it into an emblem of their idea of these values, which oppose everything they consider "a cultural or identity threat": from immigration to movements like Black Lives Matter. And when the Peace Pledge Union distributes its white poppies—just over 200,000 last year; in central London, it's hard to find a stall selling them—and denounces the official commemoration for "whitewashing" the UK's colonial past and excluding the victims of imperial wars, it's met with disapproval.

The same appropriation denounces the historian David Olusoga, from the University of Manchester, who speaks of the "selective memory" promoted by poppy Red: "Remember the British dead, but forget the millions of colonial combatants who fought under the Union Jack." According to her, the Remembrance Day campaign has become "a civic liturgy of Empire," where the suffering of others "is silenced." And the writer Kenan Malik adds that the red poppy It has gone from being a symbol of mourning to "a test of national loyalty," especially after the Iraq War, when criticizing it was tantamount to being unpatriotic.

The last surviving veteran of the First World War, Harry Patch, who died in 2009, didn't feel much connection to Remembrance Sunday. "It's just spectacle," he wrote in his memoirs. Perhaps that's why every spectator at this weekend's Premier League matches will see the symbol on their team's shirt. In 2000, it was unthinkable.