Armistice Day or Remembrance Day or Veterans Day (called in different places in world) is commemorated every year on the 11 November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918.[1]
But not everyone reflects upon it nor has there been any sort of 'real' learning from the process, so my generation (born in the 70's and 80's) are either indifferent to the whole thing or just end up wondering what is the point. Especially when there is no peace or end to war in the world since then. And the faces have changed but the few in power on every side are still mercilessly killing innocent soldiers and civilians for their own political agenda.
While it is good to remember the fallen soldiers who have given their lives for their country and their passing away is indeed an honorable and noble death, many people would agree that in recent times eg the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan etc when soldiers were slain for the business of securing future oil reserves and carving up countries for geo-pollitical control, that their deaths were not to protect a nation but more a guns for hire business.
An article in the British Newspaper The Guardian [2] states that British Forces have not had a single year of peace since World War 1, but have had continous military action since 1914. Leaving me and so many others wondering human beings are nothing more than animals that behave like beasts towards each other. And that human society is spiralling downwards towards self destruction as depicted in the 1968 film 'Planet of the Apes' where Charlton Heston land back on Earth in the future to realise that human beings destroyed themselves and the Apes rose up to replace them as the dominant species.
In the book and the film the humans and apes are meant to symbolise sections of human society and how it sadly enslaves and changes the history and lives of the others it considers inferior. This can be viewed as a clash of civilisations and how one human wants to impose its rule on another. Its a timeless metaphor that human nature and its leaders need to change. One recent example was when the Israel decided to slaughter over 2014 Palestinians in Gaza, of which 7 out of every 10 were civilians, according to the UN's own reports [3]. With few people even batting an eyelid.
And why is there no civilian casualties of war day? They are surely the innocent parties who never offended anyone or were responsible for anything to another nation. These so called 'Collateral Damage' just does not even compute in our daily lives, unless we are directly effected by it. The European Council estimates that of the approx 4 million people who died in wars between 1990 and 2003, about 90 percent were civilians. And that World War I claimed about 7 million civilian lives and World War II estimates rise well above 35 million. Those figures white wash the number of soldiers killed in wars.
So in conclusion, what is the point of Armistice Day / Remembrance Day / Veterans Day? Is it just so we the base of this system of power keep remembering to be grateful for our immoral leaders and their shadow agendas. That we should keep gladly sacrificing ourselves each year for wrongful foreign policies based soley on gaining more power and money which in reality are of no credible threat to the nation in which we reside?
Or is it a genuine moment to spend the 1 or 2 minute silence to actually reflect our own failings to hold our leaders to account. And also think of the millions of casualties of war and say, no more, we want peace in the world and no more war. Because we will all also cry out like Charlton Heston's in the final scene “Damn them, damn them all to hell!”.
References:
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_Day
2 http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/11/british-forces-century-warfare-end
3 http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/the-un-says-7-in-10-palestinians-killed-in-gaza-were-civilians-israel-disagrees/2014/08/29/44edc598-2faa-11e4-9b98-848790384093_story.html
By Staff Writer London UK.
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