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Another example is the opium poppy used as a symbol of Remembrance Day. It's a silly coincidence and was chosen because of the poem "in Flanders Fields". Never
by awakeasleep 9y ago
Another example is the opium poppy used as a symbol of Remembrance Day. It's a silly coincidence and was chosen because of the poem "in Flanders Fields".
Never mind that a third of the population in some areas of India was literally starved to death to grow that exact, or what it did to China, or how it was the foundation of the British empire.
- cgmg 9y agoIt's not a "silly coincidence." "Poppies have long been used as a symbol of sleep, peace, and death: Sleep because the opium extracted from them is a sedative, and death because of the common blood-red color of the red poppy in particular. In Greek and Roman myths, poppies were used as offerings to the dead. Poppies used as emblems on tombstones symbolize eternal sleep. This symbolism was evoked in the children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in which a magical poppy field threatened to make the protagonists sleep forever. A second interpretation of poppies in Classical mythology is that the bright scarlet color signifies a promise of resurrection after death." "The remembrance poppy was inspired by the World War I poem "In Flanders Fields". Its opening lines refer to the many poppies that were the first flowers to grow in the churned-up earth of soldiers' graves in Flanders, a region of Belgium."
- DonaldFisk 9y agoThe field poppy (Papaver rhoeas), not the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), is used as a symbol on Remembrance Day.
- gerdesj 9y agoYou beat me to it: The red poppy is not the white poppy.