Remembrance Day

November 11 2008 marks the 90th anniversary of the end of World War 1, the war to end all wars.

We are brought up to respect this day and honour all those soldiers who lost their lives in battle defending our freedom. And rightly so.

Unfortunately Armistice Day didn’t end all wars. The wars kept happening and even more disturbing is that the number of civilian casualties in subsequent wars has increased exponentially.*

In WW1 the percentage of civilian deaths was 47% of total casualties.
In WW2 the percentage of civilian deaths was around 56%
The Vietnam War saw civilian deaths of at least 50% (some estimate many more)
The first Gulf War saw at least 4 times the number of civilian casualties over military deaths. (400%)
The current Iraq War has seen civilian deaths outweigh military deaths by at least 10 to 1.**

In Australia we celebrate ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day every year and have the image of the Aussie ‘digger’ planted firmly into our consciousness. Parades are held and ceremonies conducted. RSL clubs all over the country have a one minute silence every day to remember the fallen.

I find it interesting that governments have never proposed the idea of a day to commemorate civilian deaths resulting from war. The millions of innocent men, women and children who were and are terrorized, bombed and shot while just going about their day to day routine, killed in markets, schools, temples, in their homes and on the streets.

We console ourselves by thinking of them as ‘the enemy’. Faceless people in far off places. I have heard people say things like “You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs”. How would we feel if thousands of Australians were killed in the streets or in their schools by an invading force?

We honour our soldiers and herald them as heroes for their sacrifice. But what of the civilians? You’d think that so many millions who have innocently died as a result of war would deserve at least one minute of silence if not a day of remembrance. Or would that make us face the realities of combat and make us reluctant to follow our leaders into the next battle zone?

Lest We Forget.

*While there is always historical debate about casualty numbers I have taken averages from a number of sources which even after debate still point to a marked increase in the percentage of civilian deaths.
**Some will argue that this is the result of a different form of warfare since World War 1 and is caused by militants using human shields and hiding in civilian areas. But they also claim to have far more accurate weaponry which is supposedly designed to minimize civilian deaths.