The White Poppy Campaign - started by the Co-operative Women's Guild

[stumbledin]

I'm posting this not to start a big debate about whether anyone should or should feel they have to wear a red poppy.

But more to remember the Co-operative Women's Guild who actively campaigned on a number of women's issues and for peace, and was largely made up of working class women.

There are a number of sources of information about their history but thought i would post the link to this one, even if only for one of the comments at the end! edmayo.wordpress.com/2017/06/15/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-co-operative-womens-guild-coopstories/

Also some snippets here from an old meeting and the Working Class Movement Library wcmlibrary.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/the-white-poppy-pacifism-and-the-co-operative-womens-guild/ (Some may remember the abuse the Library got for inviting Julie Bindel to speak during LGBT month a couple of years ago. www.facebook.com/events/314989582234489/ )

Peace Pledge Union for White Poppies www.ppu.org.uk

The white poppy was first conceived in 1926 by the No More War movement

The Co-operative Womens Guild took it up in 1933

Today the white poppy simply reduces the much needed fundraising capacity of the British Legion. Wear both if you like but to compete in this way is wrong. The red poppy commemorates all the fallen and in no way promotes or glorifies war or conflict.

The OP is correct. White poppies were first produced in 1933 by the Co-operative Women's Guild, made up largely of women who had lost husbands, fathers, sons, brothers and friends in World War One. They wanted to remember all victims of war, civilians and the military, highlight a commitment to peace, and challenge the celebration and glamorizing of war.
A lot of people find military ceremonies distasteful with the inclusion of weaponry and military might and want a wider statement about war.
There's nothing to stop people contributing to a veterans charity. But the PPU also believe governments should properly acknowledge the damage of war and it's effect on veterans, and resource aftercare better instead of relying on charities. It's part of the pretence that war is clean and targeted when in fact it kills millions of civilians and damages the lives of service personnel.
The Guild asked the Legion to write No More War at the centre of the red poppy but they refused.
Lots of.people want to.focua solely on the sacrifice of the military which is.fine, but the white.poppy is an attempt to raise awareness that there is far more.to the consequences of.war than just that.

Sorry I also strayed into arguing about poppies there. Absolutely right. These women and their work and legacy should be celebrated.

Oh, I don't think anyone would argue with the idea that they did the first commercial production.

But that's not the same as coming up with the concept.

White poppies were devised by an anti-war military abolitionist movement. Not the women's cooperative which produced them

Despite that RBL doesn't see it as a major retraction from the national Act of Remembrance (and I don't think anyone who watches any of them would think them jingoistic) of course that doesn't stop some twats on SM getting ridiculous about it - but that's true of so many things and has only a passing resemblance to RL (rather like DM sadface stories). Fortunately blocking and scrolling by are available options, and the idea that red poppies = jingoism was an Internet blip.

It's a shame that purple poppies are no longer sold. The symbolism of the 3 together (+/- bleuet) for national (and European) unity in the face of adversity always stuck me as powerful

Our local RBL was selling purple poppies, I thought they were to remember animals who served.

Why adopt the opium poppy as a sign for anti-war? Always seemed a strange choice considering the violence and harm they cause.

Aesop it's because poppies grew in the fields where the battles took place in WW1.

@ASatisfyingThump

Aesop it's because poppies grew in the fields where the battles took place in WW1.

They were Papaver rhoeas the red poppy who seeds lie dormant in the soil until it is disturbed by ploughing - or war - and very common in Western Europe.

A lot of people associate WW1 and "Flanders Fields" with the modern poppy tradition, but "Flanders Fields" actually dates back to 1693.

"An early reference to war and poppies in Flanders is found in the book The Scottish Soldiers of Fortune by James Grant. The Scots in Holland and Flanders: At Neerwinden, in 1693, the brigade again suffered heavy loss, and William was compelled again to give way before the white-coated infantry of France with the loss of 10,000 men. "During many months after," wrote the Earl of Perth to his sister (as quoted by Macaulay), "the ground was strewn with skulls and bones of horses and men, and with fragments of hats, shoes, saddles, and holsters. The next summer the soil, fertilised by 20,000 corpses, broke forth into millions of scarlet poppies."

Opium is produced from a different type of poppy.

One which a nice little old lady at our church once gave us seeds for🤔 in total innocence.

@Eng123

Today the white poppy simply reduces the much needed fundraising capacity of the British Legion. Wear both if you like but to compete in this way is wrong. The red poppy commemorates all the fallen and in no way promotes or glorifies war or conflict.

Sorry but the Royal British Legion is hardly cash strapped. It receives huge amounts in donations and legacies annually and is sitting on considerable reserves. I really don’t have an issue if a small amount of funds are diverted elsewhere. I also personally don’t think it should be for charities to pick up the tab for problems that the state creates by sending people into war. Furthermore, the poppy has been politicised so that it represents something that I don’t identify with or want to participate in and therefore I don’t wear one and haven’t for many many years.

I agree
the red poppy doesn't commemorate all the victims of war, it commemorates service personnel.