While some Canadian military deployments under the auspices of the UN have contributed to the betterment of humankind, that history is also not simply positive. In early 2004 Canadian troops invaded Haiti to oust the elected president and then they helped violently suppress the popular resistance in the slums of Port-au-Prince.
In 1960 Canadian troops were dispatched as part of a UN mission to the Congo. They enabled the assassination of Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba with a Canadian Colonel, Jean Berthiaume, assisting Joseph Mobutu in recapturing the popular leader.
Do red poppies commemorate the Congolese or Haitians harmed by Canadian peacekeepers, or the Afghans, or Libyans killed by Canadians in the 2000s, or the Iraqis and Serbians killed in the 1990s, or the Koreans killed in the 1950s, or the Germans, Russians, South Africans, Sudanese and others killed before that? By focusing exclusively on "our" side Remembrance Day poppies reinforce a sense that Canada's cause is righteous. They create an ideological climate that supports military spending and future wars.
Canadians of conscience should not help fund the reactionary Royal Canadian Legion. Nor should they promote the martial patriotism red poppies/Remembrance Day represents. To remember all victims of war support peace organizations' white poppy campaign.
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