The Newsletter notes a couple of incidents where workers were allegedly told to remove poppies in the run up to Armistice day. Steven Moore who had been hired by EventSec to provide security at Queen’s Student Union was required to remove a poppy. Meanwhile a temporary worker at the Passport Office was also apparently told to remove her poppy.
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and the problem is?
‘Steven Moore who had been hired by EventSec to provide security at Queen’s Student Union was required to remove a poppy.’
Who from? How many security agents were involved in the operation? Did they get the pin as well or just the poppy?
The problem (as I see it) is the politicisation of a symbol of remembrance that some choose to wear.
I see it as being as ridiculous as the politicisation of the Irish language.
But anyway. It’s one of those things that just shouldn’t have happened, but has due to the fucked-up “if-I-can’t- have-this-you-can’t-have-that” nature of this place.
I’m beginning to think that it irks certain sections of the population who are irritated that interest in the First World War is growing rather than receding.
#
and the problem is?
Posted by heck on Nov 12, 2008 @ 08:41 PM
its nationalist bigotry, any wonder many unionists fear a UI
I wonder how much of this was motivated by a desire not to have drunken culchies at the Students’ Union see a poppy on a member of security staff and start a fight because of it.
Stupid. People should be free to wear it if they so wish. Just like the Easter lily. That said, expecting people to wear them should is stupid as well (remember the outcry if newscasters etc don’t wear them).
Perhaps we should ban all discussion of poppies instead.
…..not until everybody accepts the right of those to wear them, in whatever context.
Maybe then…
This story is as redicilous as the one about a civil servant was asked to remove an offensive Tyrone flag from her car. Respect and tolerance (acceptance) of other peoples beliefs must be upheld if we are to have any kind of future. People should be thankful they are no longer being sent off to the killing fields in the name of imperialism, for me that is what rememberance day is all about.
raven ,
‘It’s one of those things that just shouldn’t have happened, but has due to the fucked-up “if-I-can’t- have-this-you-can’t-have-that” nature of this place.’
Exactly . The answer to this problem is of course staring everyone in the face . As so many people have died in Northern Ireland /Ulster /Six counties from year zero to the present including all wars, famines , plantations , rebellions etc that poppy wearing should be made compulsory all year round for all residents of Northern Ireland . Red poppies for Prods & Unionists , Green for RC’s and Republicans and black poppies for non nationals and immigrants . Visiting tourists and businessmen will be issued with white poppies at all airports and ferryports . Visitors from the Republic will be issued with yellow ones .
Imagine the time saved and hassle with instant identification . No longer will visitors have to wonder or guess who is who or make insenstitive remarks among when amidst a bunch of predominantly green or red poppies ?
Those found not wearing their poppie will be fined 100 pounds for a first offence , 300 pounds for a second and will be deported to Afghanistan for a third offence:(
jaysuz wept
That’s multiculturalism for you. Live with it, you government welcomes it.
Garibaldy
“I wonder how much of this was motivated by a desire not to have drunken culchies at the Students’ Union see a poppy on a member of security staff and start a fight because of it.”
Oh aye, sure its all the culchies starting the sectarian fights in Belfast!!
You sound like Newton Emerson he blames all of Belfasts troubles on the culchies from the increase in rape to the traffic on the westlink.
I saw a woman serving in a filling station in Dungannon TODAY still wearing a poppy.And the first Xmas decorations in Armagh.
Ah yes… parity of
contemptesteem.Folks need to resist the petty fascism of the state. If someone gets fired over refusing to remove a poppy or a flag, support them all the day.
Way too!
At least there isn’t any poppy snatchers in this day and age. We can all wear our Poppy with pride and without the fear of people snatching it.
I heard of a woman who was so upset with poppy snatchers that she set a pin under the poppy to prick their fingers when they went to snatch it..Good on ye!
Dave, I’m sure you are long enough in the tooth to know that the petty fascists won’t fire you. They just nip your promotion prospects in the bud. Remember Donna ‘Poppy’ trainor?
Tír Eoghain Gael,
Belfast people tend to avoid the Students’ Union because of all the culchies!
Yea Belfast people are so much more civilised!!
I work in the students’ union at QUB. There were notices around the staff areas today reminding us that people employed by QUB are free to wear poppies, or anything else (within reason). I can’t really imagine why the supervisor would have asked the guy to remove his poppy. Perhaps there had been a complaint?
They are certainly cooler and don’t want to be seen dead with culchies
Sure the McCooeys are only one or two generations removed from the country and isn’t it amazing how suave and sophisticated they have become in such a short time.
Just right PH!
Who do they think they are with their mocha chocs, their cocaine and their big city shoes?
The two Next stores in Londonderry also banned staff from wearing poppies, but overturned this diktat when a number of staff refused to adhere to it…they then issued a new memo on Nov 4th to staff advising that they were free to wear a poppy.
As to persons being asked to remove poppies…to me the problem is ill-informed senior staff, many of whom worry if they ignore a complaint, that their lack of action will be reported to that other waste of money body, the Equality Commission and action being taken against them.
This was the case in Boot’s store in Belfast, just before the Bejing Olympics, when a Republican complained about some of their staff wearing uniforms with a grey image of a Union Flag on them. Boots promptly told the staff to wear something else, rather than ignoring the idot who complained.
One prominent journalist who didn’t wear a Poppy was Adrian Logan, Sports Editor of UTV. I trust that sports clubs with a loyalist following don’t enrich him with a £300+ fee by inviting him to Dinners or Sports evenings as a guest speaker…..the best way to hit people like Logan is in their pocket.
A culchie to a Belfast person is anyone west of Lisburn.!!
Jon Snow the channel 4 news anchor also refused to wear a poppy a year or two ago saying that he didn’t agree with the media stations pressurising guests and presenters into wearing a poppy and instead should be a personal choice.
West of Lisburn? Anyone who has to get an Ulsterbus more like. And even some of the outer limits of Citybus are dodgy.
William, why would you want ‘to hit people like Logan’? What did he do wrong, apart from disagree with the afore-mentioned narow minded little shites and petty fascists? Isn’t that what this pathetic little statelet has thrived on since it’s misconception – the ‘punishment’ of uppity Taigs who ‘hate everything British’? Rich coming from people who haven’t been born in Britain for maybe ten generations.
:0)
William
Ah, yes, true bigotry at work there. Spot the taig on tv, put out a whispering campaign against him- maybe Logan might even get attacked by loyalists whilst watching an Irish league game.
You’re a sick individual.
So let me see if I have this right.
Staff in a NEXT store in Derry are allegedly barred from wearing a poppy and William Houston calls it a ‘diktat’?
A sports journalist presumably chooses not to wear a poppy on television and William suggests ‘hitting’ him with some kind of boycott?
So, if I have this right, disrespecting one individual choice is bad whilst disrespecting another individual choice is good?
That’s some topsy-turvey world that you live in William
Dave,
“resist the petty fascism of the state” would that be like calling on the authorities to persecute “illegal ideologies.”
Can I suggest people count to ten before pushing the ‘Submit’ button; otherwise we’re going to end up with a lot of heat and no light.
Rip your opponent’s arguments to threads, that way you’ll enhance your authority here and not risk the reverse!
“A culchie to a Belfast person is anyone west of Lisburn.!!”
God no. Lisburn is a culchie town. West of Poleglass / Dunmurry
To me culchies start at Bellevue Bridge – right by the zoo funny enough.
300 quid for Logie? You’re having a giraffe, it’s closer to a grand from what I’m told.
“I heard of a woman who was so upset with poppy snatchers that she set a pin under the poppy to prick their fingers when they went to snatch it..Good on ye!”
Yep, that was years ago! She was speaking on the UTV programme last night about the general acceptance of the poppy today in Ireland among Nationalists and the many museums and monuments old and new, throughout the island, dedicated to those Irish people of WWI who fought and died!
Latch, I’m very patient with special needs posters, so I’ll explain a little thing called context to you:
In the post above the quote below, you have read this:
[i]“They are legitimate suspects because they possess illegal ideology.”[/i]
I guess I should have put single quotation marks around the word ‘illegal’ so that the less gifted readers (not mentioning any monikers) would grasp that it signals that the meaning is changed, but all I can do is apologise to any reader who was confused by his or her inability to grasp the ironic concept all by his or her lonesome. Sorry, kid. Can you ever forgive me?
Now here is the post that immediately followed the post that has you all hot and bothered:
[i]You will notice that the Irish Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, responds to the IMC report thusly:
“Members of these [dissident] groups need to leave behind their failed ideology, move on and join the rest of the people of this island in rejecting violence and in building a better, more inclusive, society, to the benefit of all.”
Notice the sleight of hand where means are obfuscated with ends, so that it isn’t just republican violence that has failed but republican ideology itself.[/i]
Do you see why the meaning changed? The minister obfuscated proscribed violence with proscribed ideology.
Oh, I did it again… I neglected to put single quotation marks around proscribed. Go back and read it again and just imagine the quotes, eh?
Good lad.
She also said the students’ union sells poppies in its retail outlets as well as laying a wreath at the university’s cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday.
What that neglects to mention is that not one of the elected Student Officers (who are meant to represent Student’s) was present to lay the wreath at the Queen’s cenotaph on behalf of the student body. I believe it was left to a security guard to replace them.
O’Neill has highlighted the reasons why the President of the SU was not present, and since I made the above comment I may as well be fair and post what he has said!
http://unionistlite.blogspot.com/2008/11/dup-versus-qub-students-union-round-756.html
People should be allowed to wear the poppy if they want to. Equally they should be allowed to refuse to wear one if that’s their wish.
I get the impression that a lot of people are bullied into wearing them on TV north of the border (especially programme presenters of the nationalist tradition).
I have never ever seen a person here in Dublin wearing a poppy. Yet when I put on BBC1 NI the other day I see fellow “free stater” Eddie O’Sullivan wearing one. Maybe RTE should insist on Nordies of the unionist tradition wearing fainnes for Seachtain na Gaeilge!
Greenflag
your post had me laughing for a good minute.
Derry people aren’t culchies, culchies start at Muff (or Coshquin, or Newbuildings or Gransha according to which gate the barbarians are assaulting).
Cheers Dave again for the condescension. Arguing with special needs posters (or thick paddys) must go against the grain of your inate sense of fair play (yet you do seem to do it quite a lot old boy). Or are you just still angry at your best mate and the missus (was he also a paddy by the way?) Seems I missed the original irony (one blog on the IMC is quite enough and there’s so so little time) and caught the secondary irony. Still not sure of your leap between failed and illegal. O course if it’s not unionist it must be illegal, right? Some romantic coves might even think the jury is still out on whether it failed but that is another argument.
It sounds like you are interpreting the minister’s words to suit yourself. Apparantly now it’s not just the minister who’s obfuscating; its clear from your post, and your catty response when caught out, that you were cheerleading in a very unBritish way for the state suppression of legal speech/expression and in your second post you were railing against it. Why? Because one was republican and the other unionist.
Speaking of cheerleading, praise your telligence afficers all you want but their incompetence in England put Martin in Stormont and likely pretty will put Gerry in charge of the aforesaid police state.
talking of jon snow, did anyone see him talking into his jacket sleeve like a US secret service agent the other night on C4 news? skundered for him
It’s quite simple. Outside Belfast they are all “Culchies”, except for Derry where they are called “Spides” and North Down where they are called “Twats”.
Derry people are culchies too.
also the mechanic who entered newry fire station with his poppy on and was told to remove it….
such an offensive thing to remember the millions of dead in 2 world wars and conflicts since…
shared space / tolerance / equality / working together for a better future / all the buzz words that republicans are being asked to absorb by Sinn Fein but yet don’t seem capable of absorbing…
I feel that requiring that people remove poppies is wrong and unacceptable, I dont think any other term is needed.
It is just as bad as requiring people to wear them.
As an Irish speaker I can understand the humiliation experienced by the person asked to rermove his poppy as we can be legaly forced to speak English in a workplace, even though Irish is normally only ever whispered in the workplace, in my experience at least.
Heres an idea, why doesnt Nationalist Ireland come up with an equivalent to the poppy,(a green one?) so that Irish people could feel comfortable commerating people who give their lives in good conscience in World War One, thus avoiding commerating Black and Tans or people who operated concentration camps in Kenya etc.
I personally would consider wearing such a symbol, if it was clear that I in no way condoned imperialism in any shape or form, a distinction that I feel the poppy does not make.
But the Irish people who fought in WWI in good conscience were fighting for imperialism, so how can it not be condoning it? Look at Redmond’s speeches. The IPP was an imperialist entity.