The Polynational War Memorial

It's time to initiate the update log for the updates of databases and functions. It's a process that will be made in steps and may go on for some time. This is living document in wich you can read reports on the progress. In december I started to recode parts of the site to facilitate the update procedure, and to import the latest data from UCDP. Since it's six years since the last update a lot of articles needs to bee added or rewritten. This year I'm focusing on the wars at the horn of Africa, including the countries Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Somalia.

https://www.war-memorial.net/Update-Log-2024-2.172

February 24, 2024.

The article covering the civil war in Somalia has been split into two. The first article covers the period 1982-1999 and includes the insurgency that started in 1980-ies that led to the overthrew of Said Barre's regime. The other article covers the period 2006 until today. This is a civil war was fought between the islamist militants Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and the Somali Government supported by Ethiopian troops. UIC was defeated but parts of it soon resurfaced in the form of al-shabaab that gained power in 2008 and soon controlled large swahtes of territory in the south. In 2022 this conflict gained traction after a number of attacks by al-shabaab.

https://www.war-memorial.net/Somalia-Rebellion-and-First-Civil-War-3.341
https://www.war-memorial.net/Somalia-Civil-War-3.255

Update Log 2024 | the Polynational War Memorial It's time to initiate the update log for the updates of databases and functions. It's a process that will be made in steps and may go on for some time. This is living document in wich you can read reports on the progress. In december I started to recode parts of the site to facilitate the updat...

Theme 2024: Horn of Africa

This year we will focus extra on the conflicts at the horn of Africa. This means rewriting the articles about the wars in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia since the 1970-ies. It includes the major interstate war between Ethiopia and Somalia over the Ogaden territory, the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia 1998-2000 in which an estimated 100.000 people perished as well as the most deadly of the intrastate wars in the region.

Theme page:
https://www.war-memorial.net/Horn_of_Africa-7.3

At the moment the theme includes the following conflicts

Somalia Civil War,1982 - 2017
Ethiopia vs Oromia rebels (OLF), 1977 - 2017
Ethiopian Govt vs Ogadeni Rebels – WSLF,/ONLF/AIAI, 1976 - 2016
Eritrea vs Ethiopia, 2000 - 2000
Ethiopian Government vs EPRDF, 1976 - 1991
Ethiopia vs Eritrean Separatists ELF/EPLF, 1964 - 1991

Image:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Un-horn-of-africa-relief.png

Did you know that we accept private donations through PayPal. This helps us maintain and develop our site and our work towards a global war memorial. Your contribution would be highly appreciated. Please visit our donation page at PayPal via this link:

www.paypal.com

The Australian War Memorial in London is a curved structure made of black granite placed in the eastern corner of Hyde Park in central London. The memorial was dedicated on the 85th anniversary of Armistice Day – 11 November 2003. This memorial was made to "commemorate the service men and women who served in WWI and WWII by listing the names of the towns in which they were born" according to the memorial’s official website. 23,844 town names have been etched into the granite and by boldening some of the letters in these names 47 of the many battles in which these servicemen and women fought appear as superimposed over the names.

The memorial was designed by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects in Sydney.

Photos: © Jon Brunberg, 2009
https://www.war-memorial.net/Memorial-to-the-Australian-Forces-in-WWI-and-II-in-London-1.31

The Polynational War Memorial joins Mastodon! It's time for this project to enter the fediverse and we've chosen the mstdn.social server for the account . Please join the project there for regular updates about the project and articles about memorial culture and conflict data!
https://mstdn.social/

The Polynational War Memorial will be 20 years in 2024! During 2024 we will post samples from the memorial collection and articles from our archives.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, or simply Holocaust-Mahnmal in German), designed by American architect Peter Eisenman, was dedicated on May 10 2005 in central Berlin. The memorial is located 100 meters away from Berlin´s main architectonical symbol, the Brandenburger Gate, on a 19.073 m2 large field. It is composed of 2.711 stelae in high quality grey beton. Each stele is 0,95 m wide and 2,38 m long. The height varies from 4,7 m down to 0,2 m. There are no inscriptions on the stelae. An underground information center at the eastern side of the field houses an information centre and an exhibition about the Holocaust which includes records from the Yad Vashem database about 3.5 millions of the Jews that were murdered in the Holocaust. Photo © by Jon Brunberg.
https://www.war-memorial.net/Memorial-to-the-Murdered-Jews-of-Europe-1.104

An alarming picture

The latest figures from Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), paints a picture that should be cause for alarm: the number of armed conflict in the world has not been this high in decades. In 2022 UCDP recorded 187 active armed conflicts in three main categories: state-based, non-state and one-sided violence. It's the highest figure since they first started to publish records in all three categories in 1989. Most remarkably the number of state-based conflicts has soared, from 31 active conflicts in 2010 to 56 in 2022.
https://ucdp.uu.se/encyclopedia

Even more alarming is the fact that the number of fatalities in armed conflicts are at a record high. Never since the fall of the Soviet Union has so many died because of war, except only for the horrific exception of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.
https://ucdp.uu.se/downloads/charts/

For this project I maintain a list of wars since 1900 based on data from Correlates of War, PRIO and UCDP. It was made to give a global overview of all the wars in the world based on the best academic research available through open sources. In theses troubling times it seems appropriate to update it with the most recent data. As this is a nonprofit project this usually takes a couple of months. You are warmly welcome to follow the process at war-memorial.net and the project's page.
https://www.war-memorial.net/

Jon Brunberg
Stockholm 17 december 2023

the Polynational War Memorial: a proposal for a global war memorial The Polynational War Memorial is a conceptual and architectonic proposal for a global war memorial and a collection of of war memorials from all over the world.

The Stolpersteine (stumbling-stone) Holocaust memorial is now the largest decentralised monument in the world. But it is not an uncontroversial project.

"The idea was first conceived by artist Gunter Demnig in Cologne in 1992 as part of an initiative commemorating Roma and Sinti victims of the Holocaust. He installed the first Berlin Stolperstein four years later. He has now laid over 70,000 stones, personally overseeing the wording and installation of each one. The task keeps him on the road for 300 days a year."

'Stumbling stones': a different vision of Holocaust remembrance A German artist has now laid more than 70,000 Stolpersteine stones in cities around the world – but not everyone approves

New annual report from ACLED: "Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Iraq are home to the most violent conflicts in the ACLED dataset. Together, these four countries make up over 60% of all organized violence events recorded by ACLED in 2018. The Syrian Civil War continues to be one of the most devastating conflicts in the world despite a significant drop in violence since 2017, accounting for nearly 30% of total organized violence events in ACLED’s 2018 dataset – the most of any single country."

ACLED 2018: The Year in Review | Acled Data ACLED is pleased to release our 2018 annual report surveying disorder patterns over the past year - ACLED 2018: The Year in Review. Access the full report by ACLED Research Director Dr. Roudabeh Kishi and Research Analyst Melissa Pavlik here. Veuillez trouver ici la version française du sommaire. ....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/10/doris-salcedo-colombian-artist-melts-guns-tiles-peace-monument

Colombian artist melts guns into tiles to make 'anti-monument' to conflict Doris Salcedo turned weapons handed in by Farc guerrillas as part of a peace deal ‘into something useful’ at Bogotá gallery space

Updated article: South Sudanese Civil War 2011-2017

South Sudanese Civil War | the Polynational War Memorial Details about the armed conflict South Sudanese Civil War and related information about memorials

A new article has been added to the list of war: Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (IS, ISIS, ISIL och daesh). The international aspect of this intrastate conflict originating in Iraq and fatality data associated with it made it necesssary to break out this conflict from the articles on the wars in Syria and Iraq.

Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant | the Polynational War Memorial Details about the armed conflict Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and related information about memorials