{"id":18345,"date":"2017-11-12T15:00:11","date_gmt":"2017-11-12T15:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=18345"},"modified":"2017-11-12T15:00:11","modified_gmt":"2017-11-12T15:00:11","slug":"poppy-fascism-what-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/poppy-fascism-what-is-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Poppy fascism: What is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Words: Leanne Hall | Subbed: Brenda Zini<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Poppy Appeal is one of the leading charities that help rehabilitate soldiers after deployment. However, over the recent years, an increasing number of people are choosing not to wear poppies.<\/h3>\n<p>Remembrance Sunday is a day that originally marks the lives of those fallen on the battlefield during WW1 and WW2. It is officially thought of as a reminder to those who gave us a free, democratic country. It is also a mark of respect to those who have served in the army after this time, so why are there so many people against it?<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_18349\" style=\"width: 1546px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2017\/11\/DOLP69bW4AASeiK.jpg-large.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18349\" class=\"wp-image-18349 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2017\/11\/DOLP69bW4AASeiK.jpg-large.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1536\" height=\"2048\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-18349\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The peace pledge union&#8217;s white anti-war poppy.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The red poppy is thought to have lost its original identity. Many people see it as a sign of patriotism, a true mark of how British you really are. And if you don\u2019t wear it? You aren\u2019t proud to be British, and you don\u2019t support the soldiers protecting you.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>&#8220;Lot&#8217;s of countries helped England in the war, the poppy doesn&#8217;t recognise that. So no, I won&#8217;t wear a poppy.&#8221; Charmaine Davy, 39, bar manager.<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The term poppy fascism is becoming increasingly popular, it comes from people choosing not to wear a poppy and receiving enormous amounts of backlash for it. Jon Snow, the most well-known presenter from Channel 4 has spoken outright about his own decision on not wearing a poppy on TV. Snow admits to wearing one off screen but has said he does not wish to wear symbols on screen (including a crucifix or cancer ribbon.)<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>\u00a0\u201cThere is a rather unpleasant breed of poppy fascism out there \u2013 \u2018he damned well must wear a poppy!\u2019. Well I do, in my private life, but I am not going to wear it or any other symbol on air.\u201d Jon Snow, 70, journalist.<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This is not the only reason people choose not to wear one. Some believe it is promoting illegal wars.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/SteMattMurray\/status\/928572743687245824<\/p>\n<p>Others just want to make a point about freedom of choice.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Did those brave men fight two world wars against fascism to give people the right to run around castigating people who choose not to wear a poppy?<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Peter Gorman (@pego1973) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pego1973\/status\/928571663763017729?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 9, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Whilst some believe it doesn\u2019t represent what it used to.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Like taking the knee, I will not wear a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/poppy?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#poppy<\/a> again this year <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/9xQb31H9n8\">https:\/\/t.co\/9xQb31H9n8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; John Smith (son of Harry Leslie Smith) (@Harryslaststand) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Harryslaststand\/status\/926026323457400832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 2, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/MacSpadger\/status\/928290433020710912<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/JolyonMaugham\/status\/927433830969028609<\/p>\n<p>The Peace Pledge Union created a white poppy, as a peaceful protest against war: \u201cChallenging us to remember all those who died and are dying in war by working to prevent wars ever happening again. The white poppy is a symbol, a pledge to peace that war must not happen again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The divide in wearing a poppy has created such a stir in the past few years that there are now Twitter accounts created entirely to out\u00a0people for not wearing one.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_18347\" style=\"width: 721px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-11-at-20.21.58.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18347\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18347\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2017\/11\/Screen-Shot-2017-11-11-at-20.21.58.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"711\" height=\"795\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-18347\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Giant poppy watch on Twitter.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>VoL interviewed people about Remembrance Sunday and whether they will be wearing a poppy.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Poppy Facism\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sDj_PbK2xpU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"grammarly-disable-indicator\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Words: Leanne Hall | Subbed: Brenda Zini &nbsp; Poppy Appeal is one of the leading charities that help rehabilitate soldiers after deployment. However, over the recent years, an increasing number of people are choosing not&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,134,145],"tags":[2284,3214,4175,4450,4945,5225,5740,6520,6538,6686,6753,6806,7000],"class_list":["post-18345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-uknews","category-worldnews","tag-fascism","tag-iraq","tag-military","tag-news","tag-poppy","tag-remembrance-sunday","tag-soldiers","tag-twitter","tag-uk","tag-veterans","tag-voice-of-london","tag-war-ww1","tag-ww2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}