[1] In 1933, together with Léo Campion, and in response to government moves to clamp down on pacifist activism and antimilitarism, Marcel Dieu became one of the first to return his "livret militaire", an identity document which in Belgium at this time included a summary record of an individual's military service.

For readers with the French of northern France and southern Belgium as their mother tongue, "Hem Day" corresponds approximately to the phonetic spelling of his initials, "M.D.

[4] Marcel Camille Dieu was born at Houdeng-Goegnies, a small town in francophone Wallonia, located within the industrial mining region known, at the time as the "pays noir" ("black country"), a short distance to the south of Brussels.

It lasted slightly more than four years, and when it ended Marcel Dieu had become a convinced atheist with a life-long commitment to fighting against the bestiality and atrocity of war.

[5][7] By this time he had already embarked on a career as a political journalist with contributions during 1922 to "L'Émancipateur"[8] and, in 1925, to its successor journal, "Le Combat"[9] (of which he would later become editorial director).

It was also at the 1925 congress that Dieu persuaded delegates to adopt an antimilitarist resolution, a paralysing general strike in the event of any attempt by government to organise a military mobilisation.

[6][10] He was also intensely involved through his pen, during the mid-1920s, in the international campaign to save Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two immigrant anarchists who were convicted of murder and executed in the state of Massachusetts in 1927 following a trial process widely seen as flawed on many levels.

[6][12] Meanwhile he had established a second hand bookshop on Brussels, "Aux joies de l'esprit", specialising in anarchism but, as the name above the front window implied, "open to all the delights of mind and body".

[1][13] Francisco Ascaso, Buenaventura Durruti and Gregorio Jover all became semi-permanent presences at the shop during 1930/1931, before the proclamation of the Spanish Republic gave reason to hope that it might be safe to return home to Spain.

[14] By the end of the decade it was Louis Mercier-Vega, actively sought by police in France at the time,[15] who found a quiet refuge with Hem Day in Brussels, until he was able to find a ship sailing to Argentina from the great Port of Antwerp.

He had arrived as the fighting was intensifying and, as he saw matters, degenerating into a genuine international war thanks to the intervention of increasing numbers of foreign forces.

Later during 1937, having returned home, he participated in a conference opposing militarism, and addressed fellow delegates: "To embark on a revolution ... employing extreme violence, appears today as an absurd obscenity.

[4][18] Later that year, on 15 May 1937, in response to an invitation from the "Cercle d'Études Populaires" ("Circle of People's Studies") in Nimes (Southern France) he chaired and led a conference under the eye-catching title "Le Fascisme contre l'intelligence: Franco contra Goya".

He and Campion appeared before the government's so-called "War Council of Brabant" (military tribunal) on 19 July 1933: they faced what seems to have been some form of quasi-judicial process.

[2] Numerous well-known, erudite and eloquent supporters came along to the hearing to testify on behalf of the two men, including the activist philosopher Han Ryner and the formidable antifascist feminist Isabelle Blume.

The worst reproach that could be thrown at them was that they had refused to respond to a recall to arms, imposed not on account of some national military necessity, but as a punitive sanction.

Taking their turn to address members of the ad hoc court, Hem Day and Campion had no difficulty in transforming themselves into exceptionally well briefed accusers, ridiculing the judicial and military authorities.

[24] In retrospect the socialist lawyer Paul-Henri Spaak (1899-1972), was probably the most eminent of all those who appeared before the hearing, on account of his subsequent political career and four years, between 1957 and 1961, as Secretary General of NATO.

[1][2][11][25][26] Among the public, the hunger strike triggered a concern that comedy might be about to transform into tragedy, and there was a growing demand for the victims at the heart of the process to be immediately released.

In the end they concocted a transparently preposterous formulation intended to preserve their self-respect: Campion and Hem Day were dismissed from the army because they were deemed unworthy to belong to it for any longer.

[29] Right up to his death in 1969, Hem Day published dozens of books and essays, generally under the imprimatur of "Éditions Pensée et action" (Paris-Brussels).