What does the poppy mean?

For most people, buying a poppy in November each year is just something that one does. We might be aware of the connection with Rememberance Sunday and the fallen war dead, but did we really think about what it meant as a symbol. Did we realise that the poppy was political?

Probably not, but as of this week, we suddenly found out that, according to FIFA, the governing body for world football, the poppy is a political symbol and, as such, cannot be worn on the England football kit in an international match. Of course, this triggered a mountain of press vitriol to crash down on FIFA (and Sepp Blatter in particular) and letters to be sent to FIFA from David Cameron and Prince William (the Sun credited William with changing FIFA's ruling, but in fact it was a compromise arrived at by a Tory MP and qualified referee which probably actually effected the change). FIFA 'backed down' in the face of the outcry and the England team will sport poppies on black armbands for the match against Spain.

So, the poppy is not a political symbol. Unfortunately, two protests organised by the EDL seem to demonstrate that, for some people, the poppy is definitely political. The first EDL protest was the occupation of the rooftop of FIFA's HQ in Zurich. The photos show an EDL member holding a banner where the "English Defence League" is bigger than any other wording protesting FIFA's poppy ruling. The second instance is the EDL choosing Armistice Day to launch their march on the protesters in the St Pauls 'Occupuy LSX' camp. In both cases, the EDL is attempting to appropriate what they see as symbols of 'Englishness' for their own ends. Both are entirely political acts. The FIFA rooftop protest actually seems to prove FIFA's point!

A little history lesson for the EDL. The poppy was first adopted as a rememberance symbol by an American woman, Moina Michael, and imported to Britain by a French woman, Madame Geurin, who was present when the poppy was adopted as the official symbol of remeberance of the US. The latter sent French women onto the streets of London to sell rememberance poppies in 1921 and we adopted the poppy from there. Secondly, the two minutes silence was the idea of a New Zealand officer who was unhappy with the idea that the scenes of jubilation seen at the end of the Great War would be repeated each year, leaving the dead amd their sacrifice forgotten. So our quintissential 'English' traditions are, perhaps, a little more international in their origins.

I don't want the EDL to hijack the poppy in the way that the far right 'stole' the flag of St George for so many years. The poppy should be a symbol of rememberance, something that makes us aware of the ultimate sacrifice that others made on behalf of future generations. It should be about reflection and contemplation, not bone-headed jingoism and xenophobia. And, dare I say it, to make it truly non-political, it should be about remembering that it is not just about 'our' dead, but should be about ALL casualties of war - our, theirs and the millions of civilian casualties - and questioning why we are still choosing to settle national differences through the medium of war.