What are we fighting for? Flanders Fields reflection

This morning I received an email from my Belgian friend Monika, a woman who has a long history of opposing wars. She has given permission for me to quote her. She wrote:

"Yesterday, I went to visit the Memorial places in Flanders Fields from the first World War ...  It was a very special experience, very moving, one no words can explain. ... we went to visit the gigantic, very impressive Commonwealth cemetery, Tyne Cot, with thousands of soldiers from the first world war.  I went looking for graves of Australian and New Zealand soldiers, and like to send some to you. It was very moving, touching, overwhelming, looking at their names if they had one, and their age. Some of them had written on them ‘Known unto God’, no name, no identity, nothing, for a war which has served whom and for what? I was thinking of you and would have loved you to stand with me at the memorial ceremony that evening in Ypres, with the Last Post.

Flanders Fields. Photo: M. Triest

There were so many Australians and New Zealanders who had come all the way, to present a wreath to show their respect. There were national anthems, songs, there were flowers, and I just stood there, speechless. It’s now exactly 100 years ago, and in Belgium there are an enormous amount of events, films, conferences, books, articles, TV shows on this topic. That’s a good thing, otherwise young people wouldn’t be able to find out what happened and learn some lessons from it....

 As you can tell, it was an emotional day for me. I would like to tell the world Pete Seeger’s words:

‘What if there were a war and nobody came?’"

I wish I could  reply that I am glad we have learned from that debacle, but unfortunately I cannot. The Anzac celebrations divided Australians this year. Not so long ago we could debate the Anzac Gallipoli landing, its merits and its relative position in our history but in 2015 we seem to have lost our sense of perspective. Yesterday Scott Mcintyre, a young and gifted sports reporter with the Australian multicultural SBS TV channel, posted some anti-war tweets online under his own name. The Federal Government Communications Minister complained about them (dobbed him in to his boss personally, then boasted about it online) and the young man was sacked.

So I am wondering what our soldiers are fighting for now? Not freedom of expression, as we have  lost that, nor the right to talk to each other privately without the government spying on us, as we have lost that as well. Journalists and especially whistle-blowers as well as anyone who talks to them lost protection under the law recently so presumably we are quite happy to put up with rorting, intimidation and wrong-doing in our workplaces. Two women in Australia are being murdered each week by their partners (current total this year is 33) while at the same time resources for women's refuges have been withdrawn (the new policy is called Going home, Staying home) so we are not fighting for safe and fruitful family lives either.

Perhaps now that it has become clear we are not fighting for a way of life after all, men will simply refuse to fight. It was reported today that Australian WWI soldiers frequently went AWOL which infuriated the British who demanded that Australia introduce the death penalty for such cases. The Australian Government resisted but I doubt our current government would be so reluctant. However I wonder if co-oped conscripts would shoot at their supposed enemies or whether they might turn their guns on those who send them to give their lives to protect the resources of the 1%?

First Dog on the Moon comments on anti-Anzac ...

Addendum: Online petition for Scott McIntyre to be reinstated

Honouring all

Untitled
(Gallipoli Art Exhibition, Sydney, 2006)

This year at the remembrance ceremony at the war memorial in Canberra the didgeridoo was included in the for the first time, joining the trumpet and the bagpipes. Ninety nine years of not including our most recognisably Australian musical instrument is a very long time. (The ceremony was broadcast on ABC, but the ceremony that followed it honouring Aboriginal soldiers was not.)

At the remembrance ceremony in Sydney this morning one speaker noted the fact that new Australians had not been brought up on the Anzac myth and publicly wondered how this new generation could be motivated to take part. Including our first peoples in more than a token gesture would be a good way to start. 

Anzac Anzac - where are the historians?

I wonder how this young man will fare, returning from a war with experiences his people at home wont be able to understand.  Is he traumatised? Will he still be alive in five  years?  Are there sufficient support systems for him or is the government mouthing support while cutting his benefits? (Australia: 2015) What are his chances of happiness?

As another Anzac day rolls around I feel as I do after long election campaigns: I am totally over it! Earlier in the year I saw two Gallipoli-inspired concerts (one by the ACO and the other a sung tribute) which were tributes to the humanity of the soldiers, but the feelings they inspired have since been contaminated by the posturings of the politicians and commercial sector. 

Woolworths pulled their 'Fresh in our memories' marketing campaign after it bombed on social media but they were too late - their attempt to use the Anzac spirit to sell groceries pushed me right over the edge. I no longer like Woollies and I am sick of nationalistic, jingoistic politicians. Birth of Australia indeed - go and read your history books!

One thing I do find interesting is the juxtaposition of the 100 year "celebration" of the failed Anzac landing and the rise of a new Islamic Caliphate. In a fascinating radio interview last night historian Malise Ruthven said that the Anzacs might have failed in 1915 but the Turks were eventually defeated and the result was the dismantling of the Caliphate ruled by the Ottomans. If Bush, Blair and Howard had read their history books they might have reconsidered their decision to invade Irak, but I bet they didn't know what a caliphate was. (Ruthven is a writer, journalist and historian and wrote Islam in the World, Fundamentalism: the Search for Meaning, and A Historical Atlas of the Islamic World.) It is a pity we don't hear more from historians instead of politicians on these occasions, which brings me back to why I am so over Anzac 'stuff' right now.

Link to a thoughtful article about present day Australia

My ANZAC Grandfather

Today I found a box of old photos, among them a picture of my grandfather (the man with a cross above his head) with his ANZAC mates, taken sometime during or just before the First World War. I never met him as he died of his war wounds 16 years after the war ended and long before I was born.

Some New Zealand ANZACs.

Wikipedia about the ANZACS:
The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was a First World War army corps of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force that was formed in Egypt in 1915 and operated during the Battle of Gallipoli. General William Birdwood commanded the corps, which comprised troops from the First Australian Imperial Force and 1st New Zealand Expeditionary Force. ... The soldiers of the corps showed great courage and endurance but had been landed on the wrong beach and were too ill-equipped to overcome the obstacles that confronted them. ... The Anzac front at Gallipoli remained a stalemate for much of the campaign. The one outstanding success of the campaign was the evacuation, starting in December, where the entire force was withdrawn before any Turkish reaction. However, Birdwood was the only corps commander opposed to abandoning Gallipoli

So here they are, New Zealand ANZACs. Grandfather was a farmer and I imagine most of the men in this picture were too. I wonder how many of this group made it back home to New Zealand. Probably very few.