Hot Trends: Why we wear poppies, both red and white

Honouring our war dead, and the sacrifices of those who served and survived, ought not to be as controversial as it too often seems to be.

But, again, in what is sadly becoming an early November tradition, this year's Remembrance Day is being marked by controversy. A group of students at the University of Ottawa has embraced the left-leaning Rideau Institute's initiative to wear white poppies, instead of the traditional red ones distributed by the Royal Canadian Legion, and intends to distribute them during the Nov. 11 ceremonies at the national Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa.

The logic behind the campaign - if logic is the term - is that a white poppy supports peace, while a red one glorifies war. Continue reading...

It seems as though every few years a new debate erupts around Remembrance Day and how we should commemorate our military past. In other years, disputes have arisen about the futility or utility of the raid on Dieppe or the morality of the mass bombing of German and Japanese cities during the Second World War. This year, the newest debate is over the correct colour of the poppy we wear on our lapels for Remembrance Day. Ottawa's Rideau Institute, through website Ceasefire.ca, encourages Canadians to wear the white poppy as a symbol of peace. Predictably, the initiative has generated significant controversy since its announcement earlier this week. Elected representatives, the Legion and members of the press across the country have generally condemned the move, and public opinion appears to be firmly in the red camp this November. The white poppy, we are told, is disrespectful to the sacrifices of Canada's veterans, ignoring the encompassing nature of the red poppy as a symbol of loss and remembrance. The white poppy, however, has a history that helps explain its ebbs and flows over the past 84 years, as well as its relationship to its more prolific red cousin.

It is generally accepted that the red poppy was first promoted by Moina Michael (an American) and Anna Guerin (a Frenchwoman), two female volunteers with the YMCA during the First World War. Meeting at a YMCA conference in New York City, 1918, and inspired by John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields, they decided to encourage wearing a red poppy as a symbol of remembrance for those who were killed in the war. Guerin and Michael promoted the red poppy among veterans' associations and within two years the British and American Legions had adopted it as an official symbol, spreading throughout the Commonwealth. Primarily a symbol of remembrance, the sale of artificial poppies, often hand-made by disabled veterans, became an important fundraising tool to pay for training and rehabilitation services offered by veterans' organizations.

Through the early 1920s, a sincere sense of optimism pervaded Western European and North American society. In the aftermath of the Great War, a celebratory tone was widespread and not merely over battlefield victories, but also because there was a real sense of hope for a peaceful future. Smaller conflicts continued to erupt between the former members of now-dissolved continental empires, but it seemed these could be managed and quelled. The League of Nations had been founded in 1919, and in 1925 the Treaty of Locarno was designed to normalize relations with Germany for the first time in the interwar period, offering the possibility of a real and enduring peace. There were alternatives to war, and it seemed that "The War to End All Wars" might well be so.

The optimism of the 1920s would prove a cruel hoax, however, producing the white poppy in its wake. The Stock Market Crash of 1929 plunged countries around the world into the Great Depression. The resultant shock rippled across the political spectrum, resulting in ever hardening lines between the political left and right. Pacifists, leftists themselves by and large but also veterans and prominent members of mainstream churches, looked upon these events despairingly, seeing the seeds of global conflict once again being sown. Militarism, violence and revolution were becoming common. The white poppy became a symbol of the total renunciation of war, to be worn alongside the red poppy as a reminder of the desire for enduring peace and using peaceful means to resolve disputes.

The original idea behind the pacifist poppy in 1926, a product of the No More War Movement in England, was simple enough: place a pin at the centre of the red poppy stating "No More War," replacing "Haig Fund" (the British Legion's fundraising appeal, named after British Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig). Failing that, white poppies would be distributed alongside the Legion's reds. Though it took nearly a decade to execute the plan, the Women's Co-operative Guild created the white poppy in 1933. A year later, the newly formed and all-male Pledge Peace Union (PPU), consisting of 135,000 members, took over its production and distribution. The white poppy became a symbol of the pacifist left, and has been distributed for Remembrance Day by the PPU in the United Kingdom every year since.

The birth of the white poppy as a symbol of peace in the 1930s is unsurprising given the historical context, just as the red poppy became a symbol of remembrance in the 1920s. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Hitler's ascent in Germany in the 1930s and fascist Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 all undermined the League of Nations and its dream of collective security. When Spain descended into civil war in 1936, pacifist organizations like the PPU refused to take sides, while other political groups, both right and left, supported their respective causes. What had happened to "The War to End All Wars"?

Against that backdrop, Canadian pacifist groups came to the fore through the 1930s, as they did in Britain and the United States. The most prominent in Canada were associated with the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, predecessor to today's NDP. Even within the Canadian left, though, disputes arose about whether or not they should condemn all military actions, or just some. Given the schism in the political left, it's equally unsurprising that the white poppy never caught on in this country. Whereas the PPU in Britain continued to oppose war with Germany, only the CCF's leader and preeminent pacifist, J.S. Woodsworth, voted against war in 1939.

British Legion appears to be the sole Commonwealth branch that takes no position on the white poppy whatsoever

The white poppy was largely forgotten in Canada after 1945, though it comes and goes given varying political climates. At the height of the Cold War, in the early 1980s, nuclear disarmament groups resurrected the white poppy as a symbol of their continued demands for peace. Then, as now, the official response was mostly one of disdain. Of note, however, is that the British Legion appears to be the sole Commonwealth branch that takes no position on the white poppy whatsoever. Then again, it's the only place where the white poppy has been under continuous, organized production.

If anything is clear in the great poppy debate, though, it's this: the white poppy symbol, like the flower itself, is not native to Flanders as is its red cousin. Accordingly, it has never caught on as a symbol of remembrance. Perhaps major Canadian involvement in recent wars has caused it to blossom anew. While most would agree that the red poppy is the official symbol of Remembrance Day and represents a certain unity of purpose, the return of the white poppy has prompted a new conversation about the absence of peace and stability in the present day.

National PostJonathan Weier and Christopher Schultz are PhD Candidates at Western University.