I used to don my little uniform every Wednesday after school in grade 10 and catch the train to Woodridge High.
I was the weird one because I didn't much like the bivouacs and the knives and stuff. I liked the steps to the marches and the way you hold the rifle at certain points.
Even then there was the joy of choreography.
ANZAC day has always been a weird one.
The fake-tanned-lip-gloss-flag-toting tourists who descend on ANZAC Cove every year in Turkey - broad sweeping judgement sure, but have you been overseas with Aussies? We're almost as embarrassing as Yanks, and that's saying something...
The news stories about brave diggers who are just so brave and who always seem to look at the interviewer like "You stupid dick, don't go to war, it's fucked, why are you interviewing me? I wasn't brave, I was just there and it was shit".
Sometimes it borders on propaganda - okay it almost always borders on propaganda for the armed services and for the glory glory glory hallelujah of saving our country from those 'others', whoever it may be... depends on whoever ACA says is invading now...
But when I went to New Zealand and heard the story of the 28th Maori Battalion I thought, fuck ANZAC's are legends.
When I heard the story of the Aussie sniper, Billy Sing, who was practically a one man army, I thought fuck yeah ANZAC's are legends (Billy was played by a white guy in a telemovie... yep, total white out of him, crazy eh?). Then when I heard there was no requirement to list cultural background up until Vietnam, so no-one knows how many Aborigianl men and women served at Gallipoli (thought to be around 500), I thought that's pretty shit, and the fact Aboriginal men and women couldn't march with white diggers that was still pretty shit... so anyway I wanted to put something else in about ANZAC's being legends because it would have rounded off the paragraph nicely through the rule of 3 but anyway...I still kinda like ANZAC Day, because war's shit and the men and women who survived are fuckin lucky. There's a lot wrong with our war mongering society, but still, it's good to be reminded that this dumb shit has gone on for ages and will continue because people are stupid and brave people will step up and fight even though the reasons are stupid. Yeah, it's good. Or something.
I'm confused now. Maybe that's what ANZAC Day is really about. Knowing war is fucking dumb but being hypnotised by the pride of a nation until you feel it too, even thought you're not sure why. Because people fought for our country? Sure. Why not. I'll run with that until I can come up with a better reason.Aboriginal Coloured Digger March Website
28th Maori Battalion
Yeah, it's an interesting one to consider, Scotty. The whole ceremony has been revived from the ignominy of the post-Vietnam fiasco, by John Howard and the Iraq war jingoism. How many Australian parents a) know about the politico/industrial-military economic forces that cause wars; b) give a fuck if they do, and swallow the propaganda anyway, and c) properly inform their kids about realities of war and its origins and effects? School kids of all ages around the country are being ritually inducted into the ethos of war without questioning any of it. My comments in no way detract from the bravery and sacrifice made by so many military personnel, and I allow for defence against invaders as legitimate cause to bear arms, but I despise the ignorance, nationalistic fervour, and aggression that often accompanies these celebrations. I don't let my kid go. When she fully understands all the dynamics, she can make up her own mind.
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