A few days ago, November 11, was Armistice Day (later known as Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the United States), which is commemorated in countries throughout the world. It marks the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany, but has been broadened to honor armed forces members who have died in the line of duty. The red poppy has long been associated with this day and, in fact, other days also to commemorate military personnel who died in war.
And why the poppy?
During WW1, much of the fighting took place in Western Europe. The countryside was blasted, bombed and fought over repeatedly. Previously beautiful landscapes turned to mud; bleak and barren scenes where little or nothing could grow.
There was a notable and striking exception to the bleakness – the bright red Flanders poppies. These resilient flowers flourished in the middle of so much chaos and destruction, growing in the thousands upon thousands.
Shortly after losing a friend in Ypres, a Canadian doctor, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae was moved by the sight of these poppies and that inspiration led him to write the now famous poem ‘In Flanders Fields’.
The poem then inspired an American academic named Moina Michael to adopt the poppy in memory of those who had fallen in the war. She campaigned to get it adopted as an official symbol of Remembrance across the United States and worked with others who were trying to do the same in Canada, Australia, and the UK.
Also involved with those efforts was a French woman, Anna Guérin who was in the UK in 1921 where she planned to sell the poppies in London.
There she met Earl Haig, our founder, who was persuaded to adopt the poppy as our emblem in the UK. The Royal British Legion, which had been formed in 1921, ordered nine million poppies and sold them on 11 November that year.
The American Legion adopted the poppy as its official flower in 1920, and began a poppy distribution program in 1924.
One wouldn’t think there is anything offensive about commemorating with the red poppy those who have died defending our freedom. Unless you are a “Palestinian PhD Candidate”:
The Faqqua iris (known as the Gilboa iris in Israel) – not the poppy – is the national flower of “Palestine”, and this is so because the Palestinian Council of Ministers declared it all the way back in 2016, almost 100 years after the red poppy became associated with commemorating war dead.
As for the poppy and “Palestine”, the Anemone coronaria poppy grows in abundance in Israel, and, in 2013, was elected as the national flower of the State of Israel, in a poll arranged by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (החברה להגנת הטבע) and Ynet. So obviously the palestinian Arabs were going to claim it as their own!
According to the anti-Israel website The New Arab:
For a long time, it has represented the relationship between Palestinians and their land.
For Palestinians, it also symbolises bitter memories of bloodshed during wars and is often depicted in Palestinian art and literature.
The flower has all three colours of the Palestinian flag and the poppy image is widely used to support Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation.
By a “long time”, you can bet not even close to the amount of time that the red poppy has been associated with commemorating the war dead. Unless you want to believe Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae’s real name was John Connor, and he went back in time to before there was even a distinct “Palestinian” Arab identity in order to co-opt the poppy from its rightful owners.
Shame on those British Commonwealth folk – first they came for the poppies and then they came for Big Ben…
Note how the PhD tweeter would like everyone to believe it is associated with “compassion” and “brotherhood”, as opposed to “fueling war”, yet the poppy is widely used to support palestinian Arab terrorism. As for the similarity with the colors of the palestinian Arab flag, those colors are derived from the Pan-Arab flag; the red section represents Khawarij movement, the black stripe stands for Muhammad at the Rashidun Caliphate, the white stands for the Ummayad Caliphate, and the green stripe represents the Fatimid Caliphate.
Having said all of this, I am all for the poppy representing “Palestine.” For a start, their cause is poppycock.
And their propaganda, like from this PhD tweeter, is rather sloppy.
Update: I think the PhD tweeter would end up pushing up daisies poppies if she ever visited a Hamas-run Gaza.
