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Showing posts from November, 2021

Lest We Forget the Civilian Casualties of Our Wars

How we study and remember history affects our world in the present. In other words, remembering and commemorating military history is a political act. For that reason, as Remembrance Day approaches, I think it's healthy to question how we remember our country's wars. Remembrance Day in Canada focusses on Canadian and allied soldiers, especially those who were killed and injured in combat. Because all of Canada's wars in the 20th and 21st centuries have been fought overseas, far from the eyes of the Canadian public, we haven't witnessed first-hand the horrific toll war takes on civilians. Modern wars usually kill more civilians than combatants, and many of those who survive lose their homes, their jobs, their families and friends, even their limbs. Civilians don't sign up to live in a war zone, unlike soldiers paid to kill. They are left without choice, caught in the middle of state-sponsored violence. In World War II civilian casualties far outnumbered military cas