Anzac Day

Post Reply New Topic

I worry that this is ALREADY true.

I moved here when I 15 and during high school, as far as "education" on ANZAC day went was more or less glorification of it. Nobody was allowed to question it. The 2 people who did were bashed after school for asking a simple question (which contained worthwhile points). This attitude of glorification continued the 3 years I spent in high school here.

It seems that now it is being used to support the current 2 wars, just as much as it is being used for remembrance purposes.

American troops were taking the brunt of the casualties in the Pacific War. The A-bomb shortened the war and eliminated the need for American to invade Japan as suffer millions of casualties and many dead. It is easy to dump on the A-bombings when it is not your people in the meat grinder.

In a war, anything that makes the enemy give up is kosher. Anything.

ruveyn

ryuven: the a- bombs did kill millions... and they were civilians. children died. people for decades after it are still feeling the effects and still dying from that bomb. the earth was poisoned. how can you say that is ok? that war shouldnt have happened. withdrawing would have shortened it.

As I understand it the ANZAC legend began when our innocent young nations went through the "baptism of fire" by losing so many young men for the first time in our short histories. This was an identity forging moment for our nations as white western style countries but it completely denies the mass loss of life of indigenous people who fought for their land or who were simply killed off by massacre or disease.
Plus before the ANZAC tradition there was already the legend built up around the "digger" after the Eureka Stockade. For me that event symbolises who we should aspire to be. The Eureka Stockade was about standing up to oppression as a diverse people united. Galipoli was about brave young men who basically threw their lives away for "mother England". I still think about the soldiers, I just don't need a silly day to do it. I find myself doing it several times throughout the year especially if I'm reading something relevant. It's like how people use Christmas time to force themselves to be nicer to each other for one day a year. Then by January everyone's back to road rage, 2/3 of their conversation being idle gossip and arguing over race, religion, politics and anything else that gets their blood boiling.

2018 is the centenary of the western front.
http://www.ww1westernfront.gov.au/
http://www.ww1westernfront.gov.au/battl ... -1918.html
All over the place are gravesites with war dead that are looked after by the locals.

less people travelled to the sites this year then previously, mainly because they are saving monies for the centenaries;
Gallapoli 2015, Western Front 2018.


http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2012/s3487383.htm
A charity called Soldier On was recently launched in Australia.
http://soldieron.org.au/

There is such a thing as respect/reverence in the context of the times.

Fresh after WW1 and WW2 the exploits of the Aussie and NZ troops was stuff of legend. Quite rightly ceremonies and remembrance services were held for the next 20 years.

However two things have happended here in Australia that make me believe ANZAC day is over-hyped. Firstly monuments were built all over Australia and in the capital Canberra. You can;t visit any part of Australia without running into a war memorials. Secondly there has been considerable inter generational change. The ANZAC war veterans have all passed away. The people marching are no longer anything to do with the wars, rather grandkids and relatives of the deceased.

Many younger people and migrants have no connection to the wars and no interest.

I think it's turned into a bit of a circus myself. It may be time to let memories go and think of the future. That's one of the problems with Australia, as a people we keep looking to the past to find our identity when we still don't have a proper identity as a nation as we move into the future.

Hey Cyberdad,
There's still plenty of WW2 veterans around surely! I read something just a few years ago about how the remaining Rats of Tobruk still meet up once a year at a special hall somewhere. There was some risk of the place being bought or demolished or something so they'd no longer be able to carry out their tradition or something? Plus after that there's Korea, the "forgotten war" because no one really acknowledges it or the soldiers who fought it. Then there was Vietnam, most of those soldiers experienced some pretty brutal things up close then got treated like crap when they got home. Then there's our smaller involvement in the Oceania region & of course the war on terror.
WW2 seems like it was the west's last noble military cause. After that we've just been pandering favour with the yanks by jumping at the shadows of communism & Islamic extremism. The fact that our Korean veterans are 'forgotten' or that the Vietnam vets were mistreated when they got home makes me think the modern digger (post WW2 but pre-1990) was a much different creature and knows how the Aboriginal diggers always felt when they got home. Mistreated and forgotten.
Now we've swung the other way. The post-modern digger (1990's to now) is sacrosanct again. Sure the special forces do a lot of heavy lifting in Afghanistan but I'm a bit embarrassed when expected to worship someone who pushes buttons on a ship or flies millions of dollars worth of death machinery dropping bombs & bullets on poor backward cavemen who never stood a chance.
Soldiers earned our awe at a terrible price in no man's land or through the horrors of WW2. War still has risks and yes we lose troops but its more like a video game now then it was even as recently as Vietnam. Now we're expected to tow the patriotic line without asking questions. I think it's unpatriotic to send our youth to far away places for stupid or no good reasons telling them they are entitled to our automatic respect just because they knowingly, consensually chose a risky career and were sent to a dangerous place because of that choice.
In short I think the experiences of the diggers of old are worth thinking about from time to time, and I do and not just one stupid day a year when bogans go out, get pissed, play two up and fight. But after the first Gulf War things have begun looking very neo-con and if we don't stop soon much of the developing world will be against us.

Let's be frank, our involvement in WWI was in aid of the British empire. Australians were stirred by a British general (Lord Kitchener) to do battle with an enemy who had nothing against us (the Turks and the Kaiser). WW2 is certainly different as the Japanese did pose a threat to Australia. I seriously doubt whether we needed to help the Americans in any of the conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.



Why exactly are we helping the Afghans? the regime we are propping up is peddling heroin to drug dealers who try and sell it to our kids.

This makes sense to me- an american outsider.

Australia was still a colony in both world wars though it had some kind of autonomy from Britain.
I suppose.
So to translate it into american terms the Australian experience in the first world war is like the African American experience in Vietnam- one of being exploited as canon fodder in an irrelevent cause ( "the Vietcong never called me "n****r" " was a common protest sign in the sixties).Blacks died in numbers greater in Vietnam than their proportion in the nations population.

Its not for me to take sides in the debate about whether you all shouldve help us in Vietnam, or in the current wars in the mideast, but I can see why an aussie would lack enthusiasm for those adventures.

In contrast the second world war (if anything) was even more vital to Australian security than it was to the USA and should be remember with atleast as much reverence in Australia as the pacific war is remembered by americans of all colors in america. The Japanese would have seized Australia had they won the Pacific war. To imagine a Japanese occupied Australia I would recommend reading Iris Chang's book "the Rape of Nanking" about one episode in the Japanese occupation of China in the lead up to the Pacific War. Its not a pretty story. There is no reason to regret your involvement in the Pacific theatre of world war two.

Absolutely. I hope you don't misunderstand my position. I think the soldiers who were conscripted should be remembered as they were made to face hell on Earth and the ones who were conscripted and then mistreated or forgotten (Korean, Vietnam and Aboriginal vets) but getting us involved in WW1 was just poor form by the Brits and our leaders at the time. I'd agree the only fight we really had a dog in was the Pacific.



Again, agreed. How do you even fight a 'War on Terror' anyway? Terrorism is a tactic, an idea. I hate to think how people in hundreds of years will remember us westerners. Although I think the majority of Afghanistan's heroin stays on the continent some of it probably finds its way here but ultimately that's irrelevant. Even if none of it came here heroin is still illegal here so I agree that ethically we shouldn't be protecting the opium and ganja crops of warlords. It just makes us huge hypocrites. Especially America with the damage the government is doing in poor neighbourhoods with the War on Drugs.

Yes I did say that WW2 was an exception in that Australia was under direct threat and the Americans did save our collective backsides.

My interpretation of the ANZUS military treaty (between the US, Australia and New Zealand) was only drafted on the MOU we cooperate when we are under joint attack in the Pacific. I don't think Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or Afganistan qualify.

BTW shouldn't the US have bombed Riyadh after 9-11 since the Saudis funded the attacks?

Closer to home I heard on ABC radio that the organised crime mafia in Australia actually have more money at their disposal than all the state government budgets combined.

Perhaps we need to bring our soldiers home and do something about the mafia gangs in our own country.

Why did we NOT bomb Riyahd?

Next you're gonna ask me "why did we go ahead punish Iraq and depose Saddam Hussien for 9-11 when niether he nor his country had anything to do with 9-11?"

I think you're being entirely too logical!

It is interesting how different countries remember their experience during war. In Canada, during the month of April, Canadians remember their sacrifices on the slopes of Vimy Ridge (April 17) that is remembered as the day Canada truly became a nation. Similarly in Turkey, Turks remember the First World War and the fall of the Ottoman Empire as the birth of the modern Turkish Republic. Australians remember Anzac Day (April 25) as a day of national mourning.

I like the way you think. Personally I think the best way to beat organised crime is to place less restrictions on their vice. It would take a long time but if the mystique and rebelliousness of heroin, cocaine, marijuana etc was one day replaced by a safer, legal, packaged and taxed version that you could buy from the cigarette counter at Woolworths a lot of people would end up just treating it the same way as cigarettes and alcohol. It's clearly when you prohibit things that the public want access to that you empower criminals in the first place. Plus the concern of public health is a complete crock. Cigarettes kill more people in this country every year than every other form of death combined!! !
Oh but the tobacco lobby throws lots of money around and the government gets even more in tax? Sell away boys! Sell away!
This might also seem radical but one day I'd like to see a crime/social harm index produced in the lead up to every election showing the real threats to the community as determined by expert criminologists, some sort if independent commission. If the political party who wins the election fails to do something about it, even if its just to draw up a comprehensive and budgeted plan, they (the party and their leader at the time) should face some sort of criminal or civil charge with risk of fines, imprisonment and a ban from running for public office.
Politics in the 2 party system don't have to be results based because both sides know even if they f**k up they just have to wait for the other side to f**k even more because there's only the two shows in town for us idiot voters to choose from. It's not results based, it's failure based. There's no incentive to perform just to not under-perform too much.

You've nailed it in one.

In addition to illegal drugs (heroin, marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine and amphetamines) there's prescription drugs (benzodiazapenes, prozac and serapax etc), legal social drugs (tobacco and alcohol) and addictive foods (fast food, sweets, fats and sugar).

Smoking, obesity and alcohol abuse are the biggest problems in this society. The producers of tobacco, alcohol producers, fast food companies and drug companies seem to have a huge vested interest in keeping the population docile and wanting more.

If you throw in television and tabloid media to brainwash our kids into thinking they are too fat, not smart or not as educated or rich as the next person causing mental health issues then we need to do something about enemies closer to home than worrying about internal affairs of countries that control the oil supplies.