Well, far apart from rabbits, the people here at Queen's hold a Monday evening program, which tonight comprised an eye-opening talk by a historian on the Anzac legend. The fact that we now have a public holiday in honour of a group of people, who almost a century ago fought in a battle halfway across the world, is a testament to the importance of the legend in the identity of Australia as a nation. At the time, Australia was still a youthful nation, barely a teenager (an infant as far as nations are concerned), and determined to prove its worthiness in its own right. And the battle of Gallipolli, a wonderfully tragic example of the contrast between brazen optimism and devastating reality, was where Australia did build its identity - although not in the way, it would seem, was originally anticipated.The plan at the time was for Allied troops to storm the shores in a landing, whereupon the Turks (seen as vastly inferior, almost a joke) would then flee at the sight of the landing - thus leaving the Dardanelles undefended, opening up a water channel between the Mediterranean and eastern waters, and spelling the neutralisation of the Ottoman empire. Troops, as bold and brash youngsters, were full of confidence in this plan - but the rest, as you know, is history. The numbers of dead mounted and rose - the naïve strategy and underestimation of an enemy led to the death of 132,000 individuals on both sides. The battle, anticipated to be a pushover, became a war of attrition and a mass graveyard.
Why does this tale of loss and tragedy then go on to define a nation? And why war? I wonder, is it because of the nationalistic idealism that such death stands for? Or, perhaps, is it the complete opposite - the nationalistic unity that emerges from a communal grieving process? The answer, it seems, is both. On the side of nationalistic idealism stand the tales of individual heroism and bravery that came from the legendary battle. More than once have we heard of the soldier who dragged his injured mate to safety, and the one who kept going in the face of fire to land in hostile trenches and cause havoc amongst the enemy. Such heroism, such bravery, is the sort of ideal that becomes universal, crossing boundaries of rank and race, and this has become definitive of the Anzac spirit. On the other side, however, the massive number of Australian casualties cannot be ignored - and families were left fragmented, children left without fathers, wives without husbands, parents without children - a truly unanticipated outcome.
Over the next decades, the legendary status of Anzac became something to commemorate - and Anzac day was born. The march of veterans has been seen as a day to remember those who offered themselves in service of the nation, the loss of lives, and the tales of bravery. However, it has been met with controversy in all the times of its establishment.
Since its conception, Anzac day has been criticised for its seeming glorification of the grusomeness of war. Many people lost their lives needlessly, and have continued to do so in the many wars that have followed the Great War (ironically once thought to be the war to end all wars). No century has been more war-ridden than the 20th century, and given the political climate of the world today, it seems that this century may be even more bloody than the last. Each year, as soldiers are paraded to the shrine, children are fired up about the idea of fighting glorious battles - energised by the spirit of Anzac, and no doubt filled with the same brazen enthusiasm and confidence of those once young before they set off on the fateful ships to Gallipolli. It seems that experience is the best teacher. War veterans are the first to voice their opposition to needless sacrifice of lives in needless battles. They've been there, and they alone know like no other how terrible a waste it would be. Yet, it is the inexperienced who are in charge of the decision of whether or not to go to war. The Iraq war is a great example of such contrast - a needless war and excessive loss of life, waged to sate the whims of those in secure offices far from the front lines. In the Vietnam war, the soldiers were villified - but it was not their decision that the war should be fought in the first place. Perhaps the real villains were right at the other end of the chain of command, those who know very little the traumas of war.
Today, the greater controversy is in the commercialisation and capitalisation of Anzac day. It is a tragedy - we have sport, products, and spectacles that take advantage of it, in the name of commemoration, but they are little more than an attempt at capitalisation. This is far from the spirit that was so powerful as to stop the nation, transcend the barriers of rank and race, and call the name of Anzac sacred (so much so that in 1925, it was protected by law against commercial use).
In the end, I hope that this commemorative day does serve as a reminder of the tragedy of war, and how we ought to be involved in a concerted effort for its opposite, peace. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God" - Matthew 5:10. About the tragedy of war, I can't sum it up better than the poet Wilfred Owen, in his poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est":
"Dulce Et Decorum Est"
Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
1 comment:
Hey, I never knew that you knew that poem. It's a poem we studied in year 10 and on which I wrote an essay... and which I still remember, and admire for its evocative power.
Here is another of Owens' poems I still remember:
FUTILITY
Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, - still warm, - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?
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