Political activism has been in the news more in the last year than in all the years since the 2003 Iraq war. Revolutions in the Arab world, occupations in America and beyond, and student protests and social unrest in the UK have all been hailed as ’social networking revolutions’. To understand the importance of information and communication technologies to these examples of political activism, we must examine the extent to which these events were actively driven by new technologies. By discussing these cases, we can see that increased use of social networking software and other technological advances is not necessarily a root cause of these events, but rather simply an aspect of them.
There can be no denying that, in the West, if your political event is not advertised on the internet, it is probably not going to be considered much of a success in 2011. In terms of promoting activism through the internet, a small number of websites have basically cornered the market, most prominently Facebook and Twitter. Almost every political event, from protests to organising meetings, to even attempted riots, now comes with a promotional Facebook event. Twitter updates followers in real time of what is happening in volatile situations, and provides a new media platform to activists as it becomes journalists’ first stop for ready-made quotes. Twitter has even spawned its own new form of activism, sometimes called the ‘Twittermob‘, where users can come out of seemingly nowhere to force action from previously near untouchable institutions such as the courts or powerful newspaper outlets. This has been seen prominently in the News of the World hacking controversy, the anger at offensive newspaper articles such as Jan Moir’s homophobic Stephen Gately treasure or the Sunday Express’ insensitive Dunblane article, and the Trafigura oil spill/Ryan Giggs being a mad shagger super-injunction cases.
It is important however not to overstate the importance of websites such as Twitter in recent political events. Reading newspapers and watching television news, it would seem like Twitter is incredibly important to modern day political activism, or indeed pretty much any mundane news story about anything ever. However, we shouldn’t mistake media portrayals of social networking software for reality. The traditional media frequently hype social networking in their reports, but in part this is because they are convenient to access, easy to understand, and important for news output in a world where traditional media is fighting to maintain its relevance and readership. Twitter provides user-generated content for traditional media to exploit while simultaneously cutting the number of paid journalists on their staff, and in this sense it can feed a capitalist agenda.
Eck pure greetin wi laffter at SSY's election liveblog
Batten down the hatches, the Tories and the BBC are officially aware of SSY’s website!
That’s right, it’s not just the police who read our blog! In a BBC documentary following Scotland’s dear leader Alex Salmond, Michael Portillo – the former Thatcherite Tory MP who famously lost his seat in the 1997 NewLabourThingsCanOnlyGetShiter landslide and went on to become a tv politics pundit with a boak inducing penchant for flirting with Dianne Abbott - can clearly be seen not only viewing the SSY blog but even VISIBLY CHUCKLING! You can view the documentary here (we’re at 40 mins 39 seconds, but it’ll only be available for a week!)
We’re sure Michael enjoyed his wee tour of the website, presumably stopping to read Leftfield, marvel at our street fighting skillz, and purchase a copy of our pamphlet Afghanistan: Three Centuries of Imperialism. Hi Michael!
In case you were wondering, the article he was reading was about the SNP’s backwards, unscientific & unhelpful view on the formerly-legal high Mephedrone and their call for it to be banned. Fancy doing a documentary on that Michael?
Here are some lefty nonsense-ideas that have been getting my goat lately.
The real 9/11 conspiracy was perpetuated by the people who produce sparkly crying eagle gifs
1. The idea that people abused through prostitution are “sex workers” who should be unionised.
Being abused is not a job. People being abused through prostitution should be given all of the help, access to help for addiction, safe affordable housing, and therapy for the multitude of abuses they have suffered before and during prostitution that they need. People who buy consent through paying for sex should be criminalised. The men who buy women and other men through prostitution are disgusting and oppressive and should be blasted off the face of the earth, or at least prosecuted to fuck. “Unionisation” = normalisation of abuse.
2. 9/11 “truthers”.
Do you want to know the truth about 9/11? Okay, the truth is that there’s this terrorist group called Al-Qaeda which used to be funded by the US so that they would do their bidding in the Middle East, but then they thought fuck that let’s put all this training to use and bomb our real ideological enemies, America! So they flew some planes into the World Trade Centre, killed a lot of people, and the US used it to its propaganda advantage by fooling a lot of stupid people into thinking that Afghanistan and Iraq had anything to do it, and started the War on Terror. TA DA! THERE’S YOUR TRUTH! No lizards, holograms, Jews, nanothermites or satanist symbols in banknotes required. So you can stop selling well meaning lefties your anti-semitic, anti-working class shit and go shave your back now.
3. Polyamory.
Really, this is just a heap of manipulative shit wrapped up in ‘alternative thinking’ and ‘free love’ terminology. Like, if we lived in the abstract, in theory there shouldn’t be a problem with several consenting adults freely choosing to take part in multiple relationships concurrently and totes not get jealous or emotional about it, if that’s what they’re into. The problem is that we don’t live in the abstract, we live in patriarchy. The fact that this is an actual concept that is encouraged in left wing political circles is what’s offensive, rather than the individual fact of specific couples agreeing to cheat on each other and not care. You shouldn’t be judged specifically if you really truly feel you have made the free choice to live that way. You should, however, be judged if you promote it to your partners who weren’t into it before you encouraged them to be, or to other lefties as some sort of alternative way to live your life, because it just encourages a culture in which it’s okay for charismatic lefty men to subtly manipulate their girlfriends into accepting bad behaviour as ‘polyamory’. Too many women have been manipulated into an ‘open relationship’ (i.e. her boyfriend wanting an excuse to shag around and mistreat her and get away with it) because they loved their boyfriend so much they didn’t want to lose him, and the truth is that he simply didn’t care as much as he said he did and wanted an easy way to get what he wanted all the time. That’s especially true of the all too prevalent charismatic sexy left wing man who later is revealed to be an arch abuser. Also, it promotes a total false consciousness of empowerment. Also, there’s nothing wrong with not wanting the person you’re in love with, who says they’re in love with you, to not be sticking it in other people. That is an okay way to think and feel, and it’s wrong that polyamory is promoted as a ‘left wing’ way of thinking when it’s not political at all, and as something that young women in left wing circles should get into. There’s nothing left wing about it, it’s left too many abused, manipulated and used women in its wake for that to be the case.
Hey! It’s International Women’s Day! So let’s talk about artist Frida Kahlo, and why feminists like her.
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist, notable mostly for her graphic depictions of the painful aspects of her life, and for surrealist and colourful self-portraits. Throughout her life she experienced numerous physical and psychological traumas which she documented in her work. She was considerably ahead of her time in a number of aspects of the way she lived her life. Through her skill, she brought women’s issues to the forefront of a male-dominated art world, paving the way for many future female artists. She was also a mad Trotsky-shagging Trot and had an unashamedly revolutionary spirit. Though her physical traumas set her back and haunted her, she still managed to create some incredible art, cope and learn to give as good as she got with an abusive and badly behaved husband (despite her obvious love for him), and leave a lasting legacy in Mexican, female and art history. And that’s what makes her a feminist icon.
She was born in Mexico in 1907, but later in life she went around telling people that she was born in 1910, the year of the start of the Mexican Revolution. Clearly, Frida saw her life as defined by her revolutionary consciousness, and that’s pretty cool. She was of German, Spanish and Amerindian descent.
She grew up surrounded by women, and was one of only 35 women admitted to her fancy school. She wore long, colourful skirts all the time to cover up a leg that hadn’t formed properly as the result of polio, and always walked with a limp. Despite this she excelled at school and wanted to be a doctor. When she was 18 however, her bus crashed, breaking her spinal column, her collarbone, her ribs, her pelvis, her leg, her foot, and an iron rail pierced her abdomen and uterus. This left her permanently unable to have children, resulting in several traumatic miscarriages which she dealt with through her art in later life. She had to spend months in bed in a full body cast, during which time she had an easel fixed to the bed and began to paint. She experienced a lot of pain and constant operations throughout her life, the pain of which is best expressed through her self-portraits:
'The Little Deer'
'The Broken Column'
It is clear from Frida’s paintings that she believed that she was weak and not entirely beautiful, although she was – she exaggerates her facial hair in nearly all of her self portraits, and in portrays herself as incredibly tiny and dainty next to her admittedly large husband, Diego Rivera. She exaggerated what she perceived as her flaws, and at the same time she took ownership over her appearance, her body disfigurements, and her pain, and reclaimed them as something quite beautiful in her art. She did what I’m sure a lot of us would like to do and say ‘fuck you, I don’t care if I have hair where you think I shouldn’t, this is what I look like, I’m a strong Mexican woman, look at what I can create and do’.
Part of that reclaiming was a healing process for herself, in coming to terms with the miscarriages that her bus accident caused her to have. The paintings depicting this might be upsetting for those who have suffered miscarriages or are sensitive to graphic images, so I’ll just link to them here. Frida wanted more than anything to have a family with her husband, so the pain of her injuries served as a constant reminder of the happiness she was denied.
During her lifetime, Frida Kahlo was mostly famous as the wife of Diego Rivera, who was a very successful artist at the time, and the two were well known for their communist activism and turbulent/abusive relationship. Posthumously however, Frida Kahlo’s success has far eclipsed that of her husband, and she is now perhaps the most well known female artist ever. Frida loved Diego very deeply (as her art and writings show), but their relationship was marked with constant arguments, constant adultery on both parts, and some very bad and abusive behaviour from Diego when it came to his intense jealousy over her relationships with other men, and his affair with one of her sisters, which caused Frida to divorce (then remarry) him. What makes Frida very ahead of her time (remember she lived from 1907-1954) was her open bisexuality and affairs with women, including African-American singer and civil rights campaigner Josephine Baker.
Another of Frida’s famous affairs was with none other than the exiled Leon Trotsky, shortly before Stalin’s henchmen set aboot him wi an icepick. Frida had long been a commie, being a member of the Young Communist League and the Mexican Communist Party. Their affair resulted in Diego Rivera falling out with Trotsky, made Trotsky’s wife very upset, and caused Trotsky & wife to move out of Frida & Diego’s house and into another ’safehouse’ where he promptly met his bloody end.
Frida herself died at 47, after yet more pain and further operations, including a leg amputation due to gangrene. She left behind a vast legacy of beautiful paintings, revolutionary spirit, and her former childhood home which she later shared with Diego and Trotsky, the Blue House, is now a museum of her life and art.
There’s a pretty decent film about her life starring Salma Hayek as Frida, which you can download here.
Justin Bieber says a big FUCK YOU to women's rights
Today, in what can only be described as an ABORTION EXTRAVAGANZA, we bring to you not one, not two, but THREE news stories that should cause sighs of woe from all sensible (i.e. pro-choice) people.
First and most stupidly of all, is the worrying news that pre-teen hearthrob and Leftfield laughing stock Justin Bieber is ignorantly and vocally anti-choice. Not only is he against a woman’s right to choose what she does with her body & mental health because “it’s like, killing a baby yeah?”, he also has some very worrying views on rape too.
Speaking to Rolling Stone Magazine, J.Biebs said he didn’t agree with abortion, and was asked by the interviewer one of the obvious questions – “but what about in cases of rape?”
Instead of sticking to his bollocks “babykilling” line, The Biebs went further, saying “Um, well, I think that’s really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I don’t know how that would be a reason [to have an abortion].”
Bieber, listen up, or I’ll fucking abort you. Rape does not “happen for a reason”, other than the ‘reason’ that there are some disgusting men who make the choice to horrendously abuse women. Being raped is not a woman’s “fate”. The idea that “everything happens for a reason” is nonsense invented to try to force people in disadvantaged and oppressed positions to accept the abuse and discrimination that they face from privileged sections of society. Usually with some sort of religious undertone of “it’ll all work itself out when you get to heaven, so just accept your shit life and get on with it and don’t question authority”.
Women should be the only people allowed to judge whether they want to have a baby or get an abortion, and to make the vital decisions at this time regarding their physical and mental health. In an ideal world, that would be accepted as a matter of principle. However, it seems that Justin Bieber is so far behind in his social attitudes that he hasn’t yet even accepted the basic right of women who’ve been raped to not be forced to have a child that their rapist forced into their body without their consent, under violent and/or emotionally damaging circumstances. Even most right wing fuckwads generally make a wishy-washy type of exception for abortion in cases of rape, so it’s particularly disheartening to hear The Biebs hold that kind of backwards view. Get yourself a clue, Bieber.
I suppose some might say, Justin Bieber is only 17. It may sound excessive to judge the views of a stupit wee boy so harshly. However, two things are important to remember here – Justin Bieber is old enough to get a girl pregnant (and has many young girls flinging themselves at him daily, so it’s not unlikely), and therefore it’s time he grew up a bit and thought about the real issues at stake here before he opens his mouth to the media.
Giles Coren – star of food history programme The Supersizers, posh food critic, winner of an award for writing the shittest sex scene of any novel in 2005, “Fuck the Poles” racist and general snobby bastard (see his twitter at any one given time for evidence) – has authored an article for the Daily Mail today. About the sexist comments made by Sky sports presenters Richard Keys and Andy Gray (and his caught-on-camera sexual harassment), two old misogynists unable to accept that women are real people with the ability to work competently, and their subsequent sacking/resignation. Coren starts from the ever-promising position of ‘I’m not sexist, but…’ and from there on blunders into a horrifying public display of loathing for women that would shock even Tommy Sheridan.
The article is actually so offensive it makes the rest of the Mail’s content look like it’s been written by the Teletubbies loved up out their bins on MDMA. I can practically see the eternally offensive Jan Moir, Bel Mooney and Richard Littlejohn hugging each other and intently discussing how they totally now really get why hate and fear is just a media ploy to keep us from joining together in happiness and song. Coren’s article is THAT bad. Yes, I know it’s in the Daily Mail, so I shouldn’t expect better. That doesn’t make it okay for something this sexist to be published, especially as Giles Coren often presents himself as some kind of average liberal middle class guy whose opinions educated people should listen to. It’s like he’s tried to pack every offensive trope out there into the one piece. How bad the article is really can’t be explained adequately second hand, so we’ll just have to show you exactly what he said. And demolish his pish line by line.
Here come the Gards, so put yer half ounce up yer arse
At long long last, SSY’s favourite comedy hip hop outfit The Rubberbandits are getting the recognition beyond their Limerick empire that they deserve. Their single Horse Outside looks set to beat boring X Factor winner Lazy Decorator to the Irish Christmas number 1 spot. They’ve earned the support of Fianna Fail politician and erstwhile hash dealer Willie O’Dea, Minister for Gee. They are no doubt knee deep in fanny as we speak.
But you don’t reach great heights without making a few enemies. Not everyone in Ireland has fallen in love with the charm and wit of the Bandits when they croon that they’d quite like to invite a hot bridesmaid back to a hotel for a finger and a shift.
The Bandits have found themselves subject to *crucial investigative journalism* determined to unmask these plastic bag-wearing, yoke-dropping foes. Irish papers have revealed their names, former schools, and the streets that they grew up on. The Daily Mail even printed pictures of Mr Chrome and Blindboy Boat Club’s lovely faces which you can click through to if you must, defeating the point of the comedy disguises and attempting to ruin a bit of the oul Bandits magic.
In an astounding feat of missing the point, the media have insisted on playing out a false dichotomy argument over whether the Bandits are too middle class to be rapping about drugs n horses, or if they are in fact glorifying the madcap drug-taking n horse-riding based lives of Limerick’s working classes.
Joe Duffy’s Liveline hosted a radio debate on the subject, which got off to a cracking start when Duffy asked Blindboy Boat Club if he could “talk properly” -- apparently Limerick accents don’t make good radio copy. Willie O’Dea was on hand to defend what is after all a piece of comedy and should be treated as such. What ensued was an argument where Blindboy proved himself to be someone who is clever and thoughtful and clearly takes genuine pride in creating art. ‘Antony’, the naysayer, proved himself to be a bit of an idiot, with exchanges such as:
Antony: What’s coming out of that video is the usage and promotion of drugs. It’s a joke!
Blindboy: It is a joke, yeah! You’ve hit the nail on the head there, kid
BANDIT BLASPHEMERS
Blindboy carefully explains that, just like Father Ted repackaged the false images of ‘thick Irish people’ that Brits had in the 90s and sold it back to Britain in the form of comedy, the Bandits’ songs and live shows where they talk about Limerick youth culture and subculture are not promoting a bad image of Limerick like is being claimed, but rather are lampooning the image of Limerick presented in the Irish media. But the point isn’t even that. They’re not doing what they do with the set goal of specific social commentary. They’re creating their art based on what they experience and what strikes them as funny and what they want to create, and as artists it’s their absolute right to define what they do on their own terms. You can’t take a piece of art or a joke or a song in isolation and apply your own meaning to it and then go ranting about how immoral it is. The rules of acceptableness that are placed on society are fucking arbitrary pish, so we love the Rubberbandits for defending themselves in a good natured way against daft conservative humourless wankers.
Here in the Scottish Socialist Youth we’ve taken some amount of pelters in the past for our pish-taking attitude towards serious issues. Take for example our treatment of the serious matter of former Glasgow City Council leader Steven Purcell’s “chemical dependency” and corruption. It’s how we choose to get our message across, because a) sometimes if you don’t laugh you’d cry, and b) we are ordinary young people who are able to see the funny side of things and we shouldn’t fucking have to apologise for that. We’ve also been criticised for not following the conventional rules of behaviour, such as being outspoken with our views on drugs (which shamefully seem to chime with scientific advice, but not government policy) -- that harmful drugs like heroin should be provided safely to addicts on prescription, while recreational drugs should be decriminalised and perhaps even enjoyed from time to time. Crack open a bag o yokes and pass us a big fat J -- we’re OUT OF CONTROL! Our former MSP Rosie Kane got pelters too for wearing jeans to the opening of Parliament in 2003 -- it’s this fucking snobby attitude that you have to respect these ridiculous ‘rules’ invented by rich white guys to keep order or you can’t be sincere in your message. Basically, we understand where the Bandits are coming from and we respect their right to make all the satirical music they want.
Not for the first time, Blindboy has been forced to explain the concepts of ‘the unreliable narrator‘, ’self-mocking’ and ‘having a sense of humour’ to po-faced kneejerk critics. When they put out their hilarious satire on armchair Republicanism, Up Da Ra, they were forced to defend themselves against accusations that they were disrespecting the memory of those who died for Irish freedom. It’s just balls.
At one point in the debate there’s a funny exchange where someone texts in to highlight the line in Horse Outside where Mr Chrome sings “I don’t pay no tax, fuck NCT”, with Willie O’Dea saying that they probably don’t earn enough to pay tax. Blindboy replies “that’s true!” It probably is true yunno, but there’s a spectacular sense of humour failure if you can’t understand that YOU’RE NOT REQUIRED TO PAY CAR TAX ON HORSES.
You can hear the full debate here:
This incredibly stupid argument on the virtues or otherwise of the Rubberbandits in the Irish Herald states that the “so-called band, the members of which remain unidentified but seem to get a kick out of dressing up like sinister masked Provos from the 1970s, extolling the virtues of drugs and the former Minister for Defence,” are basically evil. Lololololol, I don’t think I ever saw a picture of a man with an inside-out Spar bag on his head on TV accompanying an actor’s voice representing Gerry Adams, but maybe I’m mistaken and Martin McGuinness actually struck a six figure fashion advertising deal with Spar throughout the Troubles. The author, Sinead Ryan, is a prize chumpo who attempts to argue that artists aren’t allowed to define their own art, and that because the song wasn’t allowed on the radio unless they changed the word “fuck” to “suck” throughout that this means they are sell-outs who can’t call themselves artists. As Blindboy said “I’m an artist, but I looooove money, like Andy Warhol”. Clearly, Sinead Ryan has never had to worry about money, or wanted her work to reach a wider audience, or seen the comedy value in taking the fucking piss right out of the established channels of promoting pish identikit music. Sinead, chill the fuck out. It’s SATIRE. If you don’t like the “sinister” Bandits, fuck off and listen to Daniel O’Donnell.
Anyone who can seriously watch a funny song -- about using your ownership of a horse advantageously to get yer hole -- shoot up the charts and denounce all its fans as impressionable idiots who are incapable of understanding irony really doesn’t deserve a media platform for their shite views. The Rubberbandits are truly something special. They are intelligent, danceable, singalong-friendly and most importantly, fucking funny. They’re welcome to play to an SSY-filled audience in Glasgow any time, chalk it down.
Russians, shortarse Frenchmen, artistic pictures of horses and people who duet with Blue: Just some of the things that the US government HATES
The publication last week of the first few batches of leaked US embassy cables has brought whistleblower website WikiLeaks – as well as the fate of its founder and editor in chief Julian Assange – dramatically to the front pages and top bills of news media around the world. As this article was being drafted, Assange, the website’s principal spokesperson and main public figure, is reported to be have been taken into custody in London, in connection with alleged sex offences in Stockholm in August this year. Unlike some others, SSY prefers to take rape allegations seriously, at least until substantial evidence suggests we should do otherwise.
To deal with this issue first, first of all let’s say something – Wikileaks is not Julian Assange, and Julian Assange is not Wikileaks. Attempting to repress and punish Wikileaks for being inconvenient and worrying to the establishment is not the same as a man being arrested because he is suspected of the very serious crime of rape. Let’s not confuse Assange with Wikileaks. Wikileaks (with Assange as its public face), as we will go on to discuss, has made a brilliant contribution to anti-imperialist activism and we absolutely applaud it for that. Do not let the fact that Wikileaks has got the right ideas about freedom of information blind us to the fact that rape is one of the most reprehensible crimes someone can commit, and that violence (sexual, physical, psychological, emotional) against women (which the overwhelming majority of the time goes unpunished) should be opposed in all its forms – and perpetrators brought to justice where it has been committed.. We offer no opinion on whether Julian Assange is guilty of the crimes that he has now been charged with. It wouldn’t be appropriate. But neither is it appropriate for socialists to promote the position that the women who have made allegations against him should be disbelieved, simply because Assange’s organisation Wikileaks do good things, or because of what the women have said on the internet in the past, or because they are women – which is what a lot of the ‘Defend Assange’ stuff out there on the interwebs is boiling down to. Just because we consider someone to be a “good man” who promotes some of the same ideals that we do does not mean that, if they HAVE abused women, they should get away with it, sticking it to the man yeah? Many men, men who consider themselves to be left wing, are using this arrest as an excuse to propagate often repeated rape myths, and this is unacceptable. Rape myths should always be challenged, no matter how suspicious you find the timing of Assange’s arrest. It’s sad to see people we respect, like Naomi Wolf join in the reactionary smear campaign against the women who reported Assange to the Swedish authorities. This is a misguided approach to anti-imperialism. You have to be anti-patriarchy too, or sorry, you’re not a socialist. For a brilliant article on the meaning of the word ‘consent’, visit Feministe. No means no, and tricking someone in to consenting to sex is rape. That goes in all cases, not just the ones where there’s no left wing icons who might be involved. Now, on to the substantial issue of the leaked cables..
WikiLeaks was founded in 2006, originally adopting a wiki-style of organisation (similar to Wikipedia, where users could freely upload, edit and discuss documents. However it has since taken on a far tighter editorial policy, as it became clear the wiki format wasn’t appropriate for the organisation’s aims.
The ongoing release of US embassy cables – taken from the US military internet system SIPRNet (insert Terminator joke here) and representing a database of some quarter of a million secret communications from US embassies around the world – is just the latest in a long line of high profile stories broken by the organisation.
This great new meme tumblr illustrates the concept of privilege in a highlarious and clever way. Stuff like this is really good cause there are plenty of people out there who regularly display similar examples of white/male/straight/middle class etc privilege without understanding either where this comes from or why it’s offensive. Not many people take too kindly to being called out on their displays of privilege, and will often react defensively against the suggestion that the stuff they are saying might just not be okay with an argument (sometimes on this very blog) that just makes you want to crack your head off a wall in despair at how some people just REFUSE TO LISTEN. Equally, they’re probably not all that interested in reading academic pieces on privilege.
But they might come across someone posting a Privilege Denying Dude somewhere, and realise what an arsehole he is. Also, a lot of internet memes are hopelessly misogynist, so it’s nice to see a little fightback. Spread it: http://privilegedenyingdude.tumblr.com/
We gotta fight, fight, fight, fight, fight the Taliban
Today is Remembrance Sunday, a day when we stop for a moment of silence, or watch veterans’ parades, or wear red poppies on our tops “to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts”.
It was originally named the Earl Haig Appeal after the man who caused tens of thousands of needless deaths in World War I. There is nothing to celebrate about the first World War. It was a completely unjustified war for colonies, wealth and markets.
Today, Remembrance Sunday is basically a state-enforced institution, where criticism and dissent of the principle of celebrating this is not on any level tolerated, and this year it has reached fever pitch. Virtually every UK citizen is subjected to a form of hysterical bullying to participate. No one is allowed to be featured on the BBC unless they are wearing a red poppy, all political leaders wear them -- even if it deeply offends the people that they are visiting -- and children are forced to buy and sell them in schools.
This year, it has arrived in a fanfare of glitz and glamour, with the commercialisation of Poppy Day more noticeable than ever before. The Saturdays opened the ‘celebrations’ in London this year, inexplicably. On The X Factor, that barometer of our society’s values, the judges wore £84.99 diamond encrusted poppies, bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘conflict diamonds’. (This is of course unfair, we all know that Cheryl Cole has a deep sympathy and understanding for the sacrifices made at Ypres and the Somme, and is an avid fan of the poetry of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen). Obviously you’ve got to spend more to remember more.
At the heart of the “celebrations” this year has been the commodification of wholesale slaughter and the monetization of mass murder. The poppy has become a fashion statement, one that’s supposed to display your commitment to Britain, to ‘our heroes’ and to the continued fetishisation of the ‘glory’ of war. Wearing a poppy for many people is genuinely about remembering those who were forcefully drafted against their will into a horrific world war, but you can now buy t-shirts that proclaim ‘I *poppy* our heroes”. In today’s world, the ‘heroes’ fixation is a direct endorsement of the imperialist and unjust wars Britain is still undertaking in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Earl Haig: how can he be a hero? He doesn't even have any superpowers. Get back to us when you've been bitten by a radioactive spider.
Another reason people buy poppies and the various new related merchandise is because the poppy fund is a charity which provides for veteran soldiers. It’s an indictment of our fucked up priorities that we expend so much energy talking about how much we value the heroism of fighting for Britain in wars, yet it’s left to a charity to provide for those who have survived them. One in eleven prisoners in the UK formerly served in the armed forces. Up to a quarter of homeless people are former servicemen and women. There are countless veterans suffering from mental health issues who aren’t receiving proper support (although at least we no longer execute returned soldiers for suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder like we used to). The politicians that brandish their poppies are directly responsible for this -- they don’t actually care about veterans -- they prefer the idea of veterans to the reality of what life is like for those who have seen the horrors of war. The poppies they wear allow them to justify their inaction. It shouldn’t be left to charity donations to pay to look after veterans.
Here at SSY, we don’t agree with glorifying war and British imperialism. The actions of British troops today in Afghanistan and Iraq are far from heroic. For decades, the memory of the evils of fascism has been used to justify other imperialist conflicts which are in no way comparable, e.g. Kenya (even today, British forces based in Kenya for training continue to rape local women with impunity, which has been going on for three decades; these women are slandered by the British, and rejected by their own communities as well), Malaya, Yemen and Ireland. Remembrance Day, alongside the far more blatant Armed Forces Day, has been hijacked to promote and endorse the militarisation of British life and to encourage young people to sign up, for the “glory” of being remembered as a “hero” after you’ve been blown to bits fighting for the geopolitical and ideological aims of the elite who will never represent you.
We’re not the only ones who don’t appreciate every part of the message of the ideology of Remembrance Day. Legitimate dissent is not tolerated when it comes to Poppy Day -- just look at the recent “ban sick bastards” style headlines when the Green Brigade, a left-wing Celtic fan group had a half time banner display in protest at the club’s decision to impose a poppy on the Celtic shirt, going against the wishes of the majority of fans. In Glasgow, it’s fair to say that there’s a lot of people who don’t appreciate being forced to participate in a celebration of British troops who caused misery in the north of Ireland for so many years. Like SSY, the Green Brigade has no problem with the individual choice to wear a red poppy, but rather to the bullying nature of the political campaign which expects everyone to wear poppies and to support the cause without reservation.
On a state visit to China last week, David Cameron and pals caused offence by wearing the poppy, without thinking of the fact that in the 19th Century British forces went to war with China to force them to accept imports of our opium (which is of course derived from poppies). This is a clear example of why a little bit more historical memory about the role of British forces and the British Empire in the world is necessary. The peoples who were wronged by Britain haven’t forgotten, even if we have.
This is what our generation does to remember the war dead. Not in our name, we don't want it to happen again
An official alternative to the poppy cult is the White Poppy Campaign, advocated by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). The idea is to remember the deaths of all who have died in wars, not just soldiers, and to advocate peace, not militarisation. This campaign has not been without controversy. In 1986, Maggie Thatcher (gonny just die already?) expressed her “deep distaste” for the white poppy symbol, and their spread in Canada has proved contentious to the point of being banned from being sold at markets and has drawn public criticism from the Royal Canadian Legion. You’re unlikely to see a white poppy on tv, where red poppies are ubiquitous throughout November.
The above views might seem controversial to some, but this year, veterans (and even the Queen’s composer) have spoken out against the use of the red poppy as a “political tool”. Former SAS soldier Ben Griffin rightly stated that
“Calling our soldiers heroes is an attempt to stifle criticism of the wars we are fighting in.
It leads us to that most subtle piece of propaganda: You might not support the war but you must support our heroes, ergo you support the war.”
Remembrance Day should be about honouring those who died needlessly in needless wars. The best way to honour the dead, and the point of remembering, is to ensure it never happens again. Anti-militarism and dissent against war is the way to honour those people, not diamond encrusted poppies, military parades and the stifling of dissent. As a youth organisation, we are proud of our record of opposing military recruitment and the lies spread to young working class folk to persuade them to become cannon fodder for the imperialist war machine that is the British Army.
Last word goes to the late Harry Patch, the last surviving person to have served in World War I
“Irrespective of the uniforms we wore, we were all victims.”
Part of that reclaiming was a healing process for herself, in coming to terms with the miscarriages that her bus accident caused her to have. The paintings depicting this might be upsetting for those who have suffered miscarriages or are sensitive to graphic images, so I’ll just link to them 
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