David Penberthy: Honouring our fallen is not a bogan fest
It’s absurd that Anzac Day critics associate it with much-maligned Australia Day as another example of an unthinking nation telling the world how great it is, writes David Penberthy. These attacks on Anzac tradition must be resisted.
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In his final Anzac Day address as Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove used his speech to reach out to the youngest generation of Australians as future custodians of the Anzac legacy.
Speaking at the Australian War Memorial last Thursday, the former ADF chief sought to explain to young and new Australians what the anniversary of the 1915 Gallipoli landing symbolised for modern Australia.
“For some here attending this moment in the national capital, and others like this elsewhere around the nation, this will be your first Anzac Day service,” Sir Peter said.
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“Some of you are youngsters, some are new to this nation. From all of those newly come to this national ritual, we expect that you will all be eager to understand what it is that draws us, as a nation, to gather so solemnly.
“In the gamut of motives from the profoundly philosophical to simple curiosity, there is a fundamental reason. It is by our presence to say to the shades of those countless men and women who did not come home or who made it back but who have now passed and to say to their modern representatives, the ones around the nation who today march behind their banners ‘You matter. What you did matters. You are in our hearts. Let it be always thus’.”
There was no sabre-rattling or bombast in this speech. It was simply a compassionate call for the continuing recognition of sacrifice. Yet the speech comes at a time when there is a sneering view, epitomised by the derogatory term “Anzackery”, that the Anzac story has become some kind of bogan festival where we all puff our chests out and pat each other on the back over our collective greatness as Australians.
Much has been made in some quarters of the fact that Australia outspent every other allied nation in commemorating its effort in World War One. We spent $600 million on the Gallipoli landing centenary and $100 million on the John Monash Centre on the western front.
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Millions more has been spent on other events and memorials from other conflicts, such as the centre at Hellfire Pass on the Thai-Burma Railway opened by former Prime Minister John Howard in 1998.
These criticisms of the outlay of funds are intellectually flawed, in that they seem to suggest the amount of money being spent is offensive in itself.
Surely any offence could only arise from the nature of the commemoration, on the basis that it is crass, historically inaccurate, or mindlessly nationalistic.
I was lucky enough to attend that opening of the Hellfire Pass Museum in 1998, and it was the most moving experience I have ever had on Anzac Day. It was and is an utterly humbling place that recognises not just Australian sacrifice but the shared sacrifice of all the allied forces in that conflict. Rather than glorifying war, it paints it as our more most miserable state of being, something to be avoided at all costs.
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Those who argue the existence of Anzackery often seem to be describing an Australia that exists only in their imaginations, and stems from a self-loathing that regards our nation is intrinsically unthinking and juvenile.
There was an essay penned two years ago ahead of Anzac Day that strikes me as typical of the genre. In a piece for the left-wing website Daily Review, historian David Stephens laments the shift from Anzac as being a day of private reflection for families directly affected by conflict, to a collective national event that is observed in the public sphere.
“Nowadays, this means projections of pictures of soldiers onto the walls of the Australian War Memorial, battlefield tours and Gallipoli cruises and surf boat races, and boys and girls on their gap year wrapping themselves in Australian flags at Anzac Cove or getting drunk in the streets of Canakkale and shouting ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi’. And endless commemoration of ‘the fallen’.”
Stephens goes on in the piece to complain about the fact children are taught the Anzac legend in schools, or encouraged to attend Dawn Services, as if it is tantamount to brainwashing.
His generalised sledge against those young Australians who make the pilgrimage to Anzac Cove — if I am allowed to describe it as a pilgrimage — has no actual basis in fact any more.
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Indeed, it was a massive story in the mainstream press about 15 years ago when a yobbish minority of young Australians behaved appallingly at Gallipoli, some of them photographed sleeping on or draping their flags over graves, amid reports of drunkenness and mindless chanting.
But these dills were shamed for their conduct and it sparked a sensible national discussion around the need for solemnness and respect for those lucky enough to visit this special place.
Beyond that, the idea that battlefield tours are of themselves inappropriate is ridiculous. The reason Australians want to go to places like Villers Bretonneux or walk the Kokoda Track is to learn about our history and to appreciate the sacrifices that our soldiers made. It makes as much sense as chastising people for visiting Auschwitz or Robben Island.
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The idea that Australia is some nationalistic pariah state is not supported by our behaviour. I can think of plenty of countries which have national days framed around displaying their collection of military hardware or whose anthems are a musical celebration of their military might.
It seems absurd that Anzac Day can now be lumped by its critics alongside the much-maligned Australia Day as just another example of an unthinking nation telling the world how great it is.
I’m not a huge fan of Australia Day but these attacks on the Anzac tradition as it stands are baseless and should be resisted.
Cosgrove was right to pass the baton to the young. Hearteningly, most Australians will want them to carry it forth. There is no shame whatsoever in this most special of our national days.
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