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the poppies in the UK are different than in Canada

ours literally signify the end of WWI

theirs are for all servicemen and women, so you get situations where a lot of people (Irish/Scottish) don't wear them
 
GatorsLeafsBills said:
Didn't know that.
Click to expand...

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...f-mccleans-brave-antipoppy-stand-9849973.html

But no amount of petty hatred fuelled by wholesale ignorance was going to shift him. McClean is an Irishman from a divided city, connected down the generations to a centuries-old struggle against injustice and oppression.
The history of (London)Derry is a desperate commentary on Anglo-Irish relations in the imperial age. McClean’s poppy-free declaration was an expression of unity and empathy with his forebears, not a slight against men who lost their lives in war. The Irish Catholic tradition from which he comes, rooted in a particular part of the north of Ireland, suffered more than most from the extremist elements of imperial British power from the reign of Henry VIII to the Troubles.
To wear a poppy in sympathy with the British forces that inflicted appalling misery and institutional thuggery on the Catholic majority in Derry, not least in the last hundred years with which the poppy has become associated, would be to turn his back on all those who fought first to have their rights recognised and then protected.



“Please understand, Mr Whelan, that when you come from Creggan like myself or the Bogside, Brandywell or the majority of places in Derry, every person still lives in the shadow of one of the darkest days in Ireland’s history – even if, like me, you were born nearly 20 years after the event.
“For me to wear a poppy would be as much a gesture of disrespect for the innocent people who lost their lives in the Troubles – and Bloody Sunday especially... It would be seen as an act of disrespect to my people.
“I am not a warmonger, or anti-British, or a terrorist or any of the accusations levelled at me. I am a peaceful guy, I believe everyone should live side by side, whatever their religious or political beliefs, which I respect and ask for people to respect mine in return. I am very proud of where I come from and I just cannot do something that I believe is wrong.”
 
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