Anyone doubting the potent power of symbolism need only look at the continuing row over a minor incident that flared when the British prime minister, David Cameron, visited Asia and insisted on wearing a red poppy in his lapel to commemorate those who died in Britain's wars.
He was roundly criticised by China for his insensitivity in displaying a symbol reminiscent of the inglorious opium wars, which the British fought to preserve their right to poison the Chinese people over a century ago.
In fact, the issues in the opium wars were more complicated, but history has a habit of being reduced to a story of battles between good and evil. And this is where symbolism becomes important. The poppy day commemoration marks the day that the first world war ended, a war regarded in Marxist terminology - reflected in spirit but not in name by letter writers to this newspaper - as the last great imperialist war.
Marxism has a point because this was indeed partially a war over the spoils of imperialist expansion, but the ordinary people who died in the trenches were mainly motivated by their desire to defend their country.
As the years have passed, poppy day, recalling the flowers which bloomed in the killing fields of Flanders, came to symbolise Commonwealth citizens who lost their lives in all wars that followed, most recently in the current hopeless conflict in Afghanistan.
The British and other foreign troops see their role as being that of liberators, freeing the people of Afghanistan from the drug warlords (ah yes, drugs again) and Islamic fanatics who control vast swathes of the country. Many, probably a majority of Afghans, regard these troops as foreign invaders who are interfering and bringing nothing but misery.