This post is not really related to our trip but it's something I have to get off my chest.
Sadly I'm filled with despair this weekend. Àlbany, along with the whole nation, appears to be enveloped in Anzackary and I can't bring myself to be enthusiastic. The word celebration is being emphatically eschewed in favour of commemoration but it feels like celebration to me. People tell me it's not about glorifying war but that's not what I'm hearing. Certainly there's a lot of war is hell but it's being drawn as a glorious hell; a path to heroism, and for young people, that is very seductive. I'm not hearing war is an evil that has no place in a civilized world which is what I want to hear.
Patti Smith once sang Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine. Well the Anzacs may have sacrificed for someone, but not me! Unless by sacrifice you mean pointless slaughter to pacify some imaginary being...and even then, it still wasn't for me.
I'm sorry they died, just as I'm sorry for the Turks who died (and at least they were defending their country) and I'm sorry that modern young fools are dying for ISIS but we need to tell young people very loudly that they didn't need to die. If only there had been strong voices saying you don't need to listen to murderous militarists; saying no is a honourable path. The bravest thing a person can do is stand against the crowd! We need those voices just as much today.
Just remember that the military are not the ones who fought for the best things about modern Australia. Our fair industrial conditions, our tolerance of difference, our gender equality and our spirit of equity. These things were gained by the Eureka protesters, the labour movement and determined members of oppressed sections of our society. In all these things the military were at best silent and at worst shooting at fellow Australians. (Maybe Eureka should be our great national celebration?) To be fair, some Anzacs did take part in these movements but only once they were discharged and realised how badly they had been misused by their political masters.
I heard a Vietnam veteran on the radio this morning saying that people need to understand that they were just doing a job, that as soldiers, they had to follow orders. Sorry. That didn't wash at Nuremberg and it doesn't wash for me.
The only positive for me is to discover what courteous, accommodating people the modern Turks are. To accept the descendants of a failed, unjustified invasion of your country arriving en-mass to commemorate that event is admirably magnanimous. Imagine if modern Japan decided for some perverse reason that they wanted to come to Darwin to hold a major national commemoration? Could we be so accommodating?
Until we can be a country that is great enough to recognise all these things I guess I will just stay home on Anzac Day. Thank you for listening.
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