The white poppy

 


In 1933, during a time which there was widespread fear of war in Europe, the anti-war Women’s Co-operative Guild began the practice of distributing white poppies as an alternative to the red poppies given out by the Royal British Legion in commemoration of servicemen who died during the First World War. The white poppies were chosen to embody both remembrance and pacifism, with the white symbolising a lack of bloodshed. Although they were not meant to conflict with the red poppy and were merely designed as an alternative, the white poppy is sometimes seen as a political symbol. In 1934, the newly-formed Peace Pledge Union (PPU), the largest British peace organisation during the inter-war years, joined in distributing white poppies and laying wreaths of white poppies as ‘a pledge to peace that war must not happen again’. The PPU revived the symbol in 1980 as a way of remembering victims of war without glorifying militarism.

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