November 11, 2021, is Remembrance /Armistice Day 104 — which
is 103 years since World War I was ended at the scheduled moment of 11
o’clock on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 (killing an extra
11,000 people after the decision to end the war had been reached early
in the morning — we might add “for no reason,” except that it would
imply the rest of the war was for some reason).
In many parts of
the world, principally but not exclusively in British Commonwealth
nations, this day is called Remembrance Day and should be a day of
mourning the dead and working to abolish war so as not to create any
more war dead. But the day is being militarized, and a strange alchemy
cooked up by the weapons companies is using the day to tell people that
unless they support killing more men, women, and children in war they
will dishonor those already killed.
For decades in the United
States, as elsewhere, this day was called Armistice Day, and was
identified as a holiday of peace, including by the U.S. government. It
was a day of sad remembrance and joyful ending of war, and of a
commitment to preventing war in the future. The holiday’s name was
changed in the United States after the U.S. war on Korea to “Veterans
Day,” a largely pro-war holiday on which some U.S. cities forbid
Veterans For Peace groups from marching in their parades, because the
day has become understood as a day to praise war — in contrast to how it
began.
We seek to make Armistice / Remembrance Day a day to mourn all victims of war and advocate for the ending of all war.
