Every year people just get sillier and sillier here in Australia in the lead up to ANZAC Day. I had hope that with John Howard out of office, we might be able to just calm down a little when it comes to ANZAC Day, but it seems not.
This year there has been yet another kerfuffle, with the Australian Capital Territory Government has been accused of "delivering a massive insult" to 'Diggers' (veterens), with plans to launch dozens of hot-air balloons over the capital on Anzac Day.
Here is poor old Brendy (Federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson), who likened the tale to an April Fool's Day joke:
"Our attitude is that Anzac Day is a day of commemoration of sacrifice made in our name, not a day for celebration. You can never underestimate the stupidity of the ACT Government when it comes to these kinds of events."
On a similar front, the always good for a laugh Returned Services League's national secretary Derek Robson thinks that it offends the decency of the Australian sense of commemoration."
Of course, being ANZAC Day, a topic that often results in seemingly reasonable people losing all sense of perspective and decorum; it's all over the news.
Rather than rehash the same ground, I will refer people to this post of last year's ANZAC Day. My opinion hasn't altered.
This year there has been yet another kerfuffle, with the Australian Capital Territory Government has been accused of "delivering a massive insult" to 'Diggers' (veterens), with plans to launch dozens of hot-air balloons over the capital on Anzac Day.
Here is poor old Brendy (Federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson), who likened the tale to an April Fool's Day joke:
"Our attitude is that Anzac Day is a day of commemoration of sacrifice made in our name, not a day for celebration. You can never underestimate the stupidity of the ACT Government when it comes to these kinds of events."
On a similar front, the always good for a laugh Returned Services League's national secretary Derek Robson thinks that it offends the decency of the Australian sense of commemoration."
Of course, being ANZAC Day, a topic that often results in seemingly reasonable people losing all sense of perspective and decorum; it's all over the news.
Rather than rehash the same ground, I will refer people to this post of last year's ANZAC Day. My opinion hasn't altered.
Comments
of the english army.
Now the day has tranformed into a hardon for war and "aussie pride" with the story of Gallipolli pushed to the side. Anzac day is not a celebration, it is not to say thanks to those who "protected Australia" but it is to ensure that
we dont send Australians to their death again for misguided reasons
The last ten years has (as you say) seen ANZAC Day turned into the very thing that it was supposed to be about denying. And there is no doubt in my mind that is due to the bulk of the blokes who actually had to go through such horrors (who I do admire a great deal), being so few. In the past, these were the blokes to say "shut yer mouth and pull yer head in" to the sort of nonsense you describe.
At the same time I don't think there's anything wrong with remembering the past -quite the opposite - as a way of understanding how we live now and how to avoid the disasters of the past. And, of course, to pay some respects to people who did sacrifice themselves (some willingly, others not) in ways the present generation have not had to.
That said, I do agree there can be some pointless jingoism. As an amateur history buff I find it annoying as there's nothing that distorts history better than pro- or anti-jingoism. Cosmicjester's remark about the 'fuckups of the english army' is a case in point. Anyone attending an antipodean Gallipoli remembrance would be forgiven for thinking that it was all like the Peter Weir film with brave diggers getting cut to ribbons while some fat red faced upper class pommies had tea on the beach. In fact by a margin the majority of the troops there were British, a substantial minority were French and according to Les Carlyon at least the whole thing was cocked up by two Australians.
At least the Gallipoli generation learned from their own mistakes - one could contrast the hopeless series of errors in planning and executing a seaborne invasion then with the success at Sword and Juno beach on D-Day.
Secondly, why does everyone always remember Somme, Loos, Passchendale and Gallipoli and not Amiens or the other great victories of 1918. The British are especially culpable in this respect, you'd have thought they'd remember the efforts of those who turned the wholly raw and ill-equipped new armies of 1915/16 into the strongest field army in the world in 1918 - the only time in the history of the British Isles that the army had that distinction.
Nothing demonstrates this more to me then the reappearance of weapons in dawn services. Cosmicjester is right when he talks of a 'hard on' for war. It used to be the case that veterans argued that the hardware of death had no place in ceremonies intended to denounce war. Somewhere along the way that has been lost.
And without wanting to get into a debate about the worth (or otherwise) of the Dardanelles Campaign, WWI serves as a pretty good example of the dangers that the hubris of nationalism can bring, and the futility and waste of war. It’s the marginalising of this element of ANZAC Day that concerns/upsets me, and I can’t help but feel that the fellows that are no longer around would be disappointed with that, rather than be offended by some people going on a ride in a balloon.