Indeed, why choose red as a colour? Largely it's because of the ironies, meanings and innuendoes attached to the colour red plus the fact that they – colours! – are loaded with symbolisms that seem to reside deep in the human psyche. Also, the red/read double entendre is somehow enshrined in the symbolisms and this is important in so much as that which is red is invariably read – and typically over great distances and often at considerable speed. Little wonder that global corporate giants so often choose red as their corporate colour.

Colour is something more than a physical phenomena. Colour tends to define the world for the sighted. It calls up all kinds of memories, associations and experiences and in so many ways helps us make sense of the various worlds in which we live. In the various cultural realities in which humans live all this may vary yet somehow there are some extraordinary crossovers. In so far as red is concerned this seems almost inescapable and the 'shades' in which red comes also carries shades of meaning – some ominous, other glorious and many that are intimate and personal.

Once symbolisms are brought to a conscious level they can become the tools through which ideas may be consciously transmitted – albeit at a subliminal level and in so many cases, ambiguously. Symbolism may be read literally but at their most powerful symbolism's literal readings also point to deep seated ideas that exist beyond the reach of 'literacy' and that which is easily explained.

Symbolism exists not only in the realm of the 'deep and meaningful' its also the plaything of clowns, pranksters and buffoons – and that's as it should be.

J. C. Cooper writes: "The zenith of colour [RED], represents the sun and all war gods. It is the masculine, active principle; fire; the sun; royalty; love; joy; festivity, passion, ardour, energy; ferocity; sexual excitement the bridal torch or fire; health; strength; also blood; blood-lust; bloodguiltiness; anger; vengeance; martyrdom, fortitude; faith; magnanimity. It can also be the colour of the desert and calamity."

Cooper goes on to talk about staining or painting something red as being about the depiction of the renewal of life; and red with white denoting death; and red with white and black representing the three stages of initiation. he talks about Gods often being painted red to denote supernatural power, sacredness, or solar power and he catalogues the symbolisms attached to red in various cultural contexts. To quote him:

"Alchemic: Man, the masculine principle, the Red Lion or Red Dragon; the sun; sulphur; gold; the zenith point of colour; the third stage of the Great Work, the serous rubens.

Amerindian: Joy; fertility; the red of the day as opposed to the black of night. Aztec: Fertility, as blood colour; but also the desert, evil; calamity.

Buddhist: Activity, creativity; life.

Celtic: Death, the red horseman; disaster.

Chinese: The sun; the phoenix, fire, Summer; the South; joy; happiness, the luckiest of all colours.

Christian: Christ's passion; the blood shed on Calvary; the fire of Pentecost, zeal in faith; love; power; dignity, priestly power; intrepidity; the colour of cardinals' robes as soldiers of the Pope. Red is also the colour of martyrdom and cruelty. Saints' days are written in red, hence 'red letter days'. It is the colour of Whitsuntide and the feasts of martyrs. Red with white denotes the Devil, Purgatory death.

Greek: The active masculine principle as opposed to the purple, royal and passive principle. It is the colour of Phoebus as solar and Ares as war, also of Priapus known as the Red God.

Hebrew (Qabalism): Severity.

Hindu: Activity; creativity; energy of life, the rajas as expansion in manifestation; the South.

Maya: Victory, success.

Oceanic: Divinity and nobility.

Roman: Divinity. Gods' faces were often painted red. The colour of Apollo as solar and Mars as war.

Semitic: The sun god Baal/Bel."

Red, and especially the The Red Flag', carries powerful political cargo that predates its invocation by the 'Radical Political Left'. Around 1300, Norman ships would fly red streamers to indicate that they would 'take no quarter' in battle. Similarly, pirates would fly 'The Jolly Roger' to intimidate their foe and if they chose to fight rather than submit they would then fly 'The Red Flag' to indicate that once a ship had been captured nobody would be spared.

Socialists and radical republicans in the 1848 French Revolution adopted 'The Red Flag' as a symbol of their cause, "the blood of angry workers," while supporters of the more moderate French Second Republic rallied to the tricolore. 'The Red Flag' was to became the banner of the Paris Commune in 1871 and became firmly associated with socialism.

'The Red Flag' with a hammer and sickle was adopted as the official flag of the new soviet government and was used by the Communist movement internationally. Accordingly, many communist and socialist newspapers used the name 'The Red Flag' – notably, Die rote Fahne, the newspaper of the Spartakusbund and subsequently the Communist Party of Germany.

The Red Flag' being raised over the Reichstag by the conquering Red Army during the Battle of Berlin carries powerful symbolisms and 'The Red Flag' , and the colour red generally, was adopted by the Communist Party in China, where it interacted in complex ways with the cultural meanings that the Chinese had traditionally attributed to red. [Footnote]