HOLIDAYS

The intention of the day is to remember the fallen on both sides in the ‘Great War’.

On the face of it, that all appears quite straightforward, yet, as with many holidays if we look a little deeper, we soon see things aren’t quite as simple they seem.

November 11th has an older tradition that is, by coincidence, associated with war and peace. In the Christian calendar, it was known as ‘Martinmas’ or St. Martin’s day.

Martin was a Roman soldier who converted to Christianity, and because of his newfound religion, refused to fight under a pagan flag. After leaving the army, Martin (ironically named after Mars, the Roman god of war) became a monk, rising up through the orders to eventually become a bishop in Gaul (modern-day France).

In the context of the modern-day holiday, November 11th marks the signing of the armistice (peace agreement)  between the Allies and Germany at Compiègne, France.

The armistice took effect at eleven o’clock in the morning – the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.”

However, while this date is used to reflect the end of the whole war, it technically relates to the cease-fire on the Western Front; fighting continued after November 11th 1918 in parts of the Ottoman Empire.

World  War I didn’t legally end until Allied Forces left Constantinople (now Istanbul) on August 23rd 1923.

After the ‘end’ of the war in 1918, it didn’t take long before the signing of the armistice was adopted as a suitable time and date for countries involved in the war to mark the sacrifice of their soldiers, with official remembrance services taking place in the UK and USA in 1919.

Sir Muhammad Iqbal, widely known as Allama Iqbal, was born on 9 November 1877 in Sialkot, within the Punjab Province of British India (now in Pakistan).

Inspired by his teaching at Government College Lahore, Iqbal pursued a higher education in the west, qualifying for a scholarship from Trinity College, University of Cambridge. On leaving university he became a barrister in London but shortly moved to Germany to study doctorate and earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich in 1908. While in Germany, he started writing poetry in Persian.

On his return to Lahore he soon devoted his life to literary work, writing poetry in Urdu and Persian. Iqbal has had several volumes of his poetry published and many of these have translated into foreign languages, including English, German, Russian, Arabic, and Turkish.

Tarana-e-Hind’ is a song written by Iqbal that is still used in India as a patriotic song about communal harmony.

Iqbal is known as a Muslim philosopher and great poet and is considered one of the most important figures in Urdu literature. He is widely admired by Pakistani, Indian, Iranian and Turk poets, earning the name ‘Poet of the East’.

‘While studying in England, Iqbal had become a member of the executive council of the British branch of the Indian Muslim League. In 1931 he represented the Muslims of India at the Round Table Conferences held in England to discuss the political future of India.

In a lecture in 1930 lecture, Iqbal first suggested the creation of a homeland for the Muslims of India, though Iqbal died before seeing the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

Iqbal died on 21 April 1938 in Lahore, Punjab, British India. His tomb is located in a garden between the Badshahi Mosque and the Lahore Fort.

The Pakistan government have declared him as the national poet

During the era of the Soviet Union, November 7th was October Revolution Day, which celebrated the Russian Revolution in 1917. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, this holiday was dropped by almost all the former Soviet republics, with only Belarus still observing it.

In Kyrgyzstan, it was decided to use the public holiday to remember a national liberation uprising that ended in tragedy in 1916.

In 2017, Kyrgyz lawmakers approved a resolution to transform the Soviet-era October Revolution Day holiday into a two-day holiday called Days of History and Commemoration of Ancestors.

Amendments to the Central Asian country’s labour laws expanded the November 7th holiday to also include November 8th.

The President Almazbek Atambaev at the time of the changes said the name change was needed to provide “an objective historic assessment on the national liberation uprising and the tragic events of 1916” known as Urkun, in Kyrgyzstan.

The mass uprising began in 1916 when Russia decided to draft Central Asians into the army as unarmed workers in order to build fortifications during the first world war.

Previously Muslims were exempt from conscription and many Kyrgyz (and Kazakhs) Muslims refused the orders and openly rebelled against the Russian authorities.

Though definitive figures are impossible to know, it is estimated that at least 150,000 Kyrgyz were killed by Russian Tsarist troops, and many more fled to the neighbouring Chinese province of Xinjiang.

In August 2016, a public commission in Kyrgyzstan concluded that the 1916 mass crackdown constituted “genocide.”

The October Revolution was the second revolution that took place in Russia in 1917. In February 1917, revolutionaries in St. Petersburg, overthrew the Tsar resulting in his abdication and the end of the Romanov dynasty and the Russian Empire. Russian was put under the control of a provisional government under Prince Georgy Lvov.

After the February Revolution, ‘Soviets’ were created across Russia. The Soviets were worker’s councils, popular due to disaffection with the ability of the provisional government to improve the conditions of workers.

Many leaders of the Soviets were Bolsheviks, which strengthened the Bolsheviks in Russia to the point, under the leadership of Lenin, they initiated the October Revolution, an armed insurrection in Petrograd on November 7th 1917. This revolution established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the world’s first self-proclaimed socialist state.

You may have noticed this holiday is called October Revolution Day yet celebrates an event that took place in November. The reason is that in 1917, Russia was still using the Julian calendar which was 12 days behind the Gregorian calendar at that time, so the revolution took place on October 25th.

Belarus is the only country that was part of the Soviet Union that still observes a public holiday to mark the October Revolution.

During the period of the Soviet Union, November 7th was a public holiday across the union and was one of the biggest state celebrations of the year. 

In Russia, the day is a normal working day. The public holiday has been replaced by National Unity Day, celebrated on November 4th.

Spain had occupied Western Sahara since 1884. Morocco had made a claim on the land highlighting a long-standing allegiance between the Moroccan Throne and the local Sahrawi tribes. Mauritania had made similar claims and some of the Sahrawi tribes had declared an interest in independence from everyone else.

In mid-October 1975, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague declared that there were legal ties of allegiance between Moroccan Throne and some of the Sahrawi population, but that the local population should determine their own future.

Following the ICJ verdict, King Hassan II announced the organisation of the Green March, on October 16th 1975, to liberate the Moroccan southern provinces from Spanish colonialism.

“We have to do one thing dear people and that is to undertake a peaceful march from the north, the east, the west to the south. It behoves us to act as one man in order to join the Sahara,” King Hassan II said.

On November 6th 1975, in a significant show of national unity, about 350,000 unarmed Moroccan men and women, accompanied by 20,000 Moroccan troops headed towards the Sahara and met in Tarfaia.

This was the largest peaceful march in the world. The marchers carried Moroccan flags, green banners (representing Islam), Qur’ans, and pictures of King Hassan II throughout the march.

On entering Spanish Sahara, the Spanish forces did not open fire. Partly, this was to avoid killing thousands of innocent marchers, but also it was the last days of the rule of General Franco and after seeing Portugal lose its colonies the year before, the Spanish had no appetite to start a major conflict in its territories, especially over territory they had already agreed to give up.

As a result of the march, on November 14th 1975, Morocco, Spain and Mauritania signed an agreement in Madrid, whereby Morocco regained its southern provinces.

Green March Day is a significant event in Morocco’s history which remains a source of pride to all Moroccans. It is an occasion to remember the struggle of Moroccan people and King Hassan II against French and Spanish occupation and to pay tribute to Moroccans who devoted their lives to liberate the kingdom from colonization.

Pha That Luang (the Golden Stupa) is a gold-covered large Buddhist stupa located in the centre of Vientiane, the capital of Lao. 

The first stupa was established in the third century, and is a sacred site as the tip is believed to house a relic of Buddha. It has been rebuilt several times over the centuries. The current incarnation dates from 1566.

It is the most important religious building in the country and a national symbol that features on the country’s emblem.

Dating back to the 16th century, the That Luang Buddhist festival is held over three-seven days during the full moon of the twelfth lunar month (November).

Before dawn, thousands join in a ceremonial offering and group prayer, followed by a procession. For days afterward, a combined trade fair and carnival offers handicrafts, flowers, games, concerts, and dance shows.

The festival is one of the most popular national holidays in Lao and attracts pilgrims from all over the country and from other countries such as Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It is also the date of an international trade fair promoting tourism in the region.

The festival marks a reversal of the flow between the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers. Due to the amount of water deposited during the rainy season, the Tonle Sap river becomes so swollen with water that it reverses the direction of its flow and flows upstream to Tonle Sap lake.

The festival marks the switching of the flow back to its normal direction, signifying the end of the rainy season. Essentially, the festival is a time to give thanks to the rivers as they provide the region with fertile farming land and plenty of fish.

The festival is focused on boat races and concerts. The roots of the boat races can be traced back to the times of the Angkorian kings who would train and evaluate the fighting skills of their water based warriors by holding competitions on the river. These trials in turn honoured the naval victories of the Khmer empire under the leadership of Jayavarman VII in the twelfth century.

On March 13th 2023, the National Parliament approved November 3rd as National Women’s Day. National Women’s Day is one of the commemorative days celebrated on November 3rd to mark the death in 1975 of the Timorese heroine and fighter, Maria Tapo, who fought and sacrificed her life for the self-determination and independence of the country.

Tapo represents all Timorese women who dedicated and sacrificed themselves among many heroes during Timor-Leste’s 24-year resistance. 

The purpose of creating this national day is to strengthen the recognition of the role of women in society. This date celebrates women as a partner with equal rights, at the constitutional level, but also under the cultural perspective, of inclusion and social value of women in Timorese society.

The Day of the Dead dates back to the ancient Aztec custom of celebrating the dead. The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican (a region that covers central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica) culture from 1300 AD that lasted until 1521 AD. Some historians argue that the roots of Day of the Dead stem from celebrating fearsome underworld gods, in particular the goddess Mictecacihuatl.

Other historians argue that Day of the Dead is revivalist, in so far as it’s based on an Aztec belief system, created by President Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (1895 to 1970) to promote Mexican Nationalism in the 20th Century.

Día de Muertos has been observed across all of Mexico since the 1960s when the Mexican government made it a national holiday based on educational policies.

In 2008, the tradition was inscribed in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, & Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

20th-century printer and cartoonist José Guadalupe Posada’s La Calavera Catrina, Elegant Skull, was adapted into the holiday as one of the most recognizable icons.  It depicts a female skeleton adorned with makeup and dressed in fancy clothes.

From the start of the sixteenth century, Algeria had been under the partial rule of the Ottoman Empire. In 1830, the country was invaded by France. The conquest of Algeria was a long and bloody affair, and unusually for French foreign territories, Algeria’s status was that it was treated as being part of France rather than as a colony.

Emigration from Europe to Algeria was encouraged by the French, with tribal lands confiscated by the French government and Europeans even becoming the majority of the population in some cities like Algiers.

In the middle of the twentieth century, local resentment to the presence of France by the local Muslim population led to the uprising known as the ‘Red (bloody) All Saints’ Day’ (French: Toussaint Rouge).

On November 1st1954, the Christian festival of All Saints’ Day, 70 individual coordinated attacks were made on police and military targets across Algeria by the National Liberation Front (FLN). These attacks signaled the start of the Algerian War. The events of November 1st 1954 became known as the ‘Red (bloody) All Saints’ Day’ (French: Toussaint Rouge).

While France won the conflict and regained control of the country, the brutality of the suppression of the revolution further alienated the Algerians and resulted in a loss of support for France’s control of Algeria, both in France and abroad. This change in attitude directly led to independence from Algeria on July 5th 1962.