Peter MacKay, Conservative MP and Canada's Minister of National Defence
by Prof. Dr. Michael P. Carroll • November 12, 1998
I know that many people have good reasons for wearing a poppy. For some, it commemorates the death of a relative; for others, the memory of soldiers willing to risk their lives on behalf of their country. As a result, each year I feel sorely tempted to follow suit and wear a poppy myself. Then someone (an announcer, a newspaper editor, etc,) says "it."
"It" is the claim that we need to wear poppies to honour those who died so that we could be free. This construction is derived from the propaganda slogans of World War I – and that's the problem. Those slogans were wrong then and they're wrong now. Canadian democracy wasn't threatened by the events surrounding World War I.
That war was a pissing contest between European colonial powers led by arrogant and insensitive political leaders who found themselves hopelessly entangled in a Byzantine maze of military alliances. Canada was dragged into that war because of its colonial heritage and its sycophantic ties to Great Britain.
The only serious resistance to this folly, not surprisingly, occurred in Quebec where the British colonial nature of the war was, for obvious reasons, more apparent than elsewhere. In any event, more than 60,000 Canadian soldiers went to a useless death, partly because they followed orders issued by marginally competent British or British-trained officers but mainly because they and the Canadian public believed the propaganda slogans about "making the world safe for democracy."
I am not willing to legitimate a propaganda slogan that got more than 60,000 people killed.
World War I, of course, is not the only war in which Canadians fought and died, but the "they died to make us free" model seems equally inappropriate to Canadian participation in the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the (so-called) Gulf War. World War II is a different matter – Hitler and Nazism were obvious evils which had to be eradicated. Even granting this, there are moral ambiguities associated with that war which we still have difficulty acknowledging.
In 1992, for instance, Brian and Terence McKenna made a documentary (The Valour and the Horror) which looked carefully at the bombing of German cities by Canadian aircrews. Although careful to praise the personal valour of individual airmen, the McKenna brothers pointed out that these bombs rarely hit military targets but did kill thousands of civilians.
Furthermore, they noted, the Allied command knew perfectly well that these bombs were missing military targets and killing civilians but continued the raids nevertheless, as a way of demoralizing hostile populations. Finally, the documentary suggested these mass killings contributed little if anything to winning the war. There was nothing new in any of this. Academic historians had been saying similar things for years – but nobody listens to academics. A documentary on the CBC was another matter.
The response to the McKenna brothers was electric. Although many veterans were glad someone had finally had the courage to challenge the official version of history, other veterans and many veterans groups throughout Canada uttered squeals of rage. They used their influence to spark a Senate investigation and the CBC was pressured (with some success) to define the documentary a "docudrama." In other words, it was fiction not history – in contrast of course to the sanitized version of history promoted by veterans organizations. It was a disgraceful episode in recent Canadian history.
If we want the future to be a better place, we must confront the horrors of the past, even if that includes horrors for which Canada (or the United States or Great Britain or any of the other official good guys) were responsible – and that means challenging all sanitized versions of history, even those that come masked beneath the emotionally charged image of a blood-red poppy.
White poppies for peace
8 comments:
The climate we live in now, where debate about our actions during war always comes with mean spirited attacks, has to stop. It is impossible, even in a University setting, to debate history without someone charging you with Nazi sympathetic tendencies. The Allies were merely soldiers fighting a war against a tyrannt, not unlike Napolean. Only after did we find out about what Hitler had done to the Jews and only now are Germans beginning to talk about this period in history. But the Allies were not the morally upstanding people they are presented as either. They did things that cry out for understanding and clarity. We will never get to this place until we all cool off and are able to discuss and debate without fear of labelling.
wow. didn't know. and well said.
Such views expressed at this time of the year are repugnant to many.
Perhaps, just perhaps, you could get over yourself and your intellectual vanity for one day of the year.
LibertarianDave: First of all, I am not the author of this piece. Second, for a "libertarian" you certainly do enjoy majoritarian appeals. Shall we subject all cultural criticism to a vote to determine its value? How about criminal proceedings? Referenda on "guilty" vs. "not guilty"? Lastly, since when is being "intellectual" a bad thing? Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes dislike intellectual thought, too. I often worry that our society is drifting in that direction. How about this soldier's father? http://goo.gl/x9NKW Too intellectual? Repugnant?
I should have figured you would find some website to back your thesis. At least you are consistent.
The point is not whether you are right or wrong, intellectual or not. It's just that your timing for spouting this kind of thing sucks.
Snort in derision if you will as the majority of us wish to honour family and friends who serve or have served. My Dad was a Second War vet- having grown up in the 60's all of our friends were. Surely even you can imagine the "majoritarian" revulsion you stir up by spouting this stuff at this time when we are supposed to remember the quaint notion of service to country. Or maybe any sense of tact and decency has been educated out of you.
You obviously like to show off your intellectual virtuosity and your critical thinking skills. Instead, by posting this at this time of year you prove yourself to a mean-spirited twerp.
Sometimes, Rick, you just have have to hold onto your cleverness and postpone your cultural criticism for few days. It's just good manners.
I likewise think that the timing of the Canadian and US governments announcing extended missions in Afghanistan and Iraq -- while donning the red p(r)oppy -- "sucks" and is neither a show of "tact" nor "decency" nor "good manners." History reveals that the best time to challenge propaganda is the moment it surfaces. I honour the memories and service of my grandfathers, and all people sent by the elite classes into the horrors of war, by wearing a white poppy. "White poppies are not about insulting the dead, but about honouring them by working for an end to war," say the Quakers. I suppose you'll conclude that pacifist Christians are "mean-spirited," too? http://goo.gl/8fz4J
"I suppose you'll conclude that pacifist Christians are "mean-spirited," too?"
How on earth do you make these bizarre suppositions?
You are a very strange individual.
Logic. You wrote: "By posting this at this time of year you prove yourself to a mean-spirited twerp."
Deduction: (A) Publicly rejecting the red poppy at this time of the year is mean-spirited. (B) Quakers are pacifist Christians who have rejected the red poppy at this time of the year. (C) Therefore, they are mean-spirited.
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