Today (11 November) commemorates the signing of the Armistice of Compiègne to end the fighting of World War I; it has become known variously as Remembrance Day (in the British Commonwealth) and Veterans’ Day (in the United States) after World War II extended its scope beyond simply recalling this single event.

The methods of warfare deployed in World War I were ecologically hazardous and severely disturbed the topsoil of the places where fighting occurred, leaving the poppy as one of the few plants which could still flourish there. The poppy thus came to symbolize the massive damage and loss of life which resulted from contemporary methods of warfare, and in fact had been growing in association as such since the Napoleonic Wars.

The patriotic poem “In Flanders Fields”, written near the beginning of the war when patriotism and morale were still high, was used after its conclusion to popularize the Remembrance Poppy as a patriotic symbol, particularly via the following stanza :—

« Take up our quarrel with the foe: / To you from failing hands we throw / The torch; be yours to hold it high. / If ye break faith with us who die / We shall not sleep, though poppies grow / In Flanders fields. »

Consequently, the poppy (and the observance of 11 November in general) has been reappropriated in recent times, from a symbol which recognizes the death and catastrophe associated with contemporary militarized conflict, to a symbol which upholds said conflict as necessary and worthy of veneration.

The KIBI Calendar resists this slippage of meaning, and recommends that we instead spend this day reaffirming our commitments to ending global conflict, and to opposing colonialist and militaristic endeavours such as those which led to the need for a signing of an Armistice in the first place.