Peace Pledge Union

White poppies  for peace

Years ago, I bought 100 white peace poppies to give away. I offered one to a man, who refused, telling me of his active military war-time past and his allegiance to the red poppy. However, the white poppy isn’t in competition with, the enemy of, somehow against or anti the red poppy. That’s the whole point. Zelly Restorick writes.

The white poppy was an initiative catalysed by war and the women who had lost their menfolk –  husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, uncles, friends – in the war – and wanted this sacrifice of life to stop. Seek an alternative to the pain, violence, turbulence, brutal suffering, grief, despair, aggression and loss as an accepted normal human way of life.

If you look at humanity’s past, we do seem to be rather good at waging war. I’ve heard people accuse the British of being war-mongers, but really it seems to be something that’s within us as humans, as a species, although maybe there have been times of peace, people of peace always, somewhere amongst the cries of hatred.

One idea to prevent war:

Make no other person’s enemy your own.

ZR

A message from Hastings Against War

Wear a white poppy: remember all victims of all wars, past and present. Available in Hastings from BookBuster, 39 Queen’s Road, Hastings TN34 1RE. Mon 9.30am-4pm, Tues-Sat 9.30am-5.30pm and Sun 11am-5pm.

White poppies will also be available at the Hastings Against War information stall on Saturday 11 November 10.30am-1pm in Hastings Town Centre (near Lloyds Bank and Millets).

All donations to Peace Pledge Union.

Please support this stall and/or join us afterwards at 2pm at the War Memorial in Alexandra Park, Hastings to lay a wreath of white poppies in memory of all victims of all wars.

We have not planned a programme, simply to place the wreath and hold a silent vigil. We have done this for the past six years. The white poppy wreath has been treated with respect by those conducting the formal ceremony on Remembrance Sunday and remains on show with the wreaths of red poppies.

For more information about this event, reply to: info@hastingsagainstwar.org or text 0789 583 0125. For more information, go to Hastings Against War events or Facebook.

BookBuster is an independent bookstore selling a wide variety of remaindered and secondhand adult and children’s books. The owner, Tim Barton, is very interested in politics and ecology and really knows his stock , so it is well worth a visit for your white poppy and to browse the shelves. For events and reviews see Blue Green Earth Books.  

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