Even on Anzac Day, don’t expect a social media ceasefire

Yassmin Abdel-Magied.

Anzac Day. It’s the one day of the year when, ever so cautiously, we climb out of our trenches hoping there’ll be a temporary ceasefire in the social media culture wars. But it wasn’t long before we heard the monotonous tones of the company padre.

“Interesting to contrast the stoic silence of so many veterans”, tweeted ABC presenter Jonathan Green, “with the bellicose jingoism that follows a generation or two down the track.” The dawn ceremony had not even begun, but already Green, the personification of stoic reticence, had issued a cautionary sermon, lest we have a beer or play two-up.

And it wouldn’t be Anzac Day without some politician patting the soldiers on the back for all to see. “War is ugly and horrific” tweeted Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, “The sacrifice of the men & women who service (sic) in our defence forces deserve our respect, gratitude and care.” One hopes that a certain noun in that tweet was meant to be a verb.

War is ugly & horrific; the sacrifice of the men & women who service in our defence forces deserve our respect, gratitude and care #AnzacDay

— Sarah Hanson-Young (@sarahinthesen8) April 24, 2017

What a shame the navy boys weren’t there to hear the senator in person. Hanson-Young wasn’t too concerned about respect, gratitude and care for them when she demanded an investigation into baseless allegations aired by the ABC that sailors had burned the hands of asylum-seekers. Meanwhile Greens colleague Senator Scott Ludlams shared his idea for the future of the Australian Defence Force. The Greens will equip the troop “to cope with the accelerating impacts of climate change”, he said, thus leaving his audience with visions of Field Marshal Tim Flannery wading through the water after alighting from a solar-powered amphibious craft.

“[I] cringe myself at some of the over-the-top nature of Anzac Day”, declared SMH columnist Peter FitzSimons, a loud bloke with a red bandana. His “personal bug-bear”, he piously declared, is the NRL’s supposed conflation of footballers’ deeds with Anzac bravery.

Why do you bastards get up so EARLY?
Is there no chance you could let me get away with it, just ONCE? https://t.co/LkzeiEGUS6

— Peter FitzSimons (@Peter_Fitz) April 25, 2017

Without the remotest sense of self-awareness, he reminded us – yet again - he’d written books on Tobruk, Kokoda, Gallipoli, Fromelles, Pozieres, and Villers-Bretonneux. Oh and he’s writing one on Le Hamel too, and presumably will conclude that the bravest and fittest soldiers were teetotallers who adopted a sugar-free diet. Nothing cringeworthy or over-the-top about using an Anzac Day column to plug one’s books, is there? Maaaaaaaate!

Speaking of plugging one’s books (especially on a taxpayer-funded tour) and people with bright headwear saying ridiculous things, we heard from the ABC’s favourite poppet, Yassmin Abdel-Magied. “LEST WE FORGET Manus Nauru Syria Palestine”, she wrote.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s controversial, and since deleted, Anzac Day Facebook post.

Here was a Sudanese migrant wilfully and culturally misappropriating an Anzac term for political purposes. Someone should write to Tim Soutphommasane to ask if Abdel-Magied’s boorish usurping amounts to that catch-all phrase ‘hate speech’. After all, Soutphommasane constantly reminds us about the importance of not causing offence. Inexplicably though our normally loquacious Race Discrimination Commissioner had nothing to say on Twitter about the incident.

“IT IS YOU WHO DISGRACE THE MEMORY OF THE ANZACS, IN YOUR GLORIFICATION OF WAR, NATIONAL PRIDE AND PROPAGANDA” screeched Fairfax columnist Clementine Ford in a Facebook post. On the positive side, she uttered at least one sentence without an expletive. Ford is the author of Fight Like a Girl, which is a must read for gender studies students, although one wonders how many female ADF members bought the book. They’d probably roll their eyes at the mere mention of her name.

And this isn't to disparage the diggers of WWI, no matter what the false patriots want to claim. War is not a patriotic celebration.

— Clementine Ford (@clementine_ford) April 25, 2017

Comedian and former Age columnist Catherine Deveny didn’t disappoint. “Anzac Day’s only function is to be politicised for votes, power, war, nationalism, sexism, racism, money, and to propagate myths“, she tweeted. She’s long harboured a hatred for the commemoration, writing in 2010 that veterans “did not die for us“, but were “testosterone fuelled men with a pack mentality“. Conversely, one might say in response that no-one has a pack mentality quite like an Anzac Day iconoclast.

Anzac Day, as most people know, is about anything but the glorification of war. But it’s in danger of being usurped by the glorification of self-promotion, as evident by the likes of Abdel-Magied, Ford, Deveny, Green and Fitzsimons, with all its virtue-signalling platitudes. Free speech applies to them, too, but perhaps they could ponder this. Out of respect for those who served, do you think that for one day – just one day a year – you could spare us your egotistical and self-righteous denunciations? Think of those who fought real battles – not the imaginary kind against the so-called patriarchy or Islamophobia. Hard as it may be, you have to remember it’s only one day a year where it’s not all about you.