A question for Ethiopian readers. Have you wondered why red artificial poppy flowers are being worn by British residents in Addis Ababa or by personalities on British TV recently? Or why every English Premier League football club has red poppies on their uniform? All this bears witness to how much we care about the Poppy Appeal, even after 90 years.
Every year, in many places around the world, everything falls silent for two minutes on Remembrance Day – on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month (which this year is at 11.00 on Sunday 11 November). This recalls the moment that the guns fell silent on the Western Front at the End of World War I (they continued in some other areas such as the former Russian Empire and parts of the Old Ottoman Empire). It is when we remember the 20 million people killed in that war and other conflicts up to the present day.
The Poppy Appeal stands for more than just recalling the war. It also raises funds to support servicemen and women who served in the British armed forces and their families who have been injured or killed in war – including those who died in 1941 to safeguard the independence of Ethiopia. Poppies are on sale at the British Embassy in Ethiopia, St Matthews’ Church in Addis Ababa and in other places this week. And on the coming Sunday many of us, from a variety of nations, will attend a Remembrance Service at the Gulele War Cemetery. Please join us there – guidance is at google maps.
I am impressed to see how the Poppy Appeal, in its 90th anniversary, is using modern digital communications to convey an old message that has modern relevance. Young people are taking part in fundraising and campaigning through social media. The Royal British Legion, who organise the Poppy Appeal, will be using the Thunderclap social media site. Thunderclaps allow users to sign-up automatically and issue a message on their social media accounts to observe the Two Minute Silence on Remembrance Sunday. It would be great if anyone reading this blog can participate so that our support for this event can be shown widely over social media. A symbol that we all recognise the importance of this 90th anniversary.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row.
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below….
Hi, I teach English here in Galicia to adults mostly and some children, last week my daughter sent me a packet of red poppy seeds for Mothers Day from the UK and my students had never seen one I started to try and explain the sybolism and they were very interested , so much so that tonight we are going to read this article and discuss it. Whenever I think of the poppy I remember my grandparents and how much they enjoyed belonging to the Old Contemptables and how much they told me about the Wars and my various uncles one who has just recently passed away95yo who was in a japanese prisoner of war camp.
Dear Ambassador, thank you very much for this quite informative and humbling piece. Moments of these sort provide us with a good opportunity to reflect on what we do today and plan for the future. This world would have been a much, much better place if we would have learned from our past mistakes and didn’t do it all over again during the WWII, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Srebrenica, etc. As our hope for a better tomorrow rises because of ‘people’s power’ that peacefully resists the political elites’ manipulation, I remain cautiously optimistic that one day we will get there and live in a world where violence has NO PLACE whatsoever.
with many thanks,
B