Today is Remembrance Day in Canada, and in other places as well (e.g. Veterans Day in the USA), where those who died in war are remembered.

A common symbol to wear is the Red Poppy in Canada and other Commonwealth countries.

This year, some war veterans in Edmonton are upset that some are promoting the white poppy as a symbol on Remembrance day, as a symbol for peace.

I always felt that the red poppy is a symbol of war. The poor soldiers who have to go to war and lose their life, body parts, or sanity are not the main perpetrators of war. The politicians are the ones who start the war and let others die for their own purposes.

Moreover, these purposes are not often "our freedom" as the rhetoric of the politicians go. It is often either geopolitical reasons, or very selfish ones started by the power elite.

The veterans are much of a victim of war just like the civilians who died (including the claimed 150,000 Iraqis for example).

The white poppy promoters say that their version is not mutually exclusive to the red poppy.

Perhaps a pink or striped red and white poppy is in order: it remembers the soldiers who died in war, as well as the other victims who perished in it as well.

Resources

• Wikipedia article on the White Poppy.
• White Poppy web site in the UK, urging people to wear it on Remembrance day.
• BBC page on the history of the red poppy.
• BBC page on In Flanders Fields poem.