“Anzackery. Is there a better term today to challenge political leaders, officials, national institutions and journalists who perpetuate the absurd proposition that nationhood emerged not amid 60,000 years of continuous Indigenous settlement or even at federation, but with 8700 Australian deaths under a British flag at Gallipoli?” writes Paul Daley in the Guardian.
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[Anzackery is the term coined by Geoffery Serle in a 1967 Meanjin article]
Right on the mark!
Thousands of young Australians were lured by their colonial overlord into being unwitting dupes in a shameful and futile military debacle in a country with which we had no quarrel.
The very idea that this was the glorious moment that defined our nationhood is ludicrous and, I believe, a betrayal of those who were cut down or shattered at Gallipoli. The grim reality of their real story is NOT to be found amid the incontinent sentimentalism being peddled by the ANZAC industry.
“They fought so that we might remain free”, “They willingly gave their lives” and, worst of all, “They died for their flag” (a piece of cloth that was, in fact, the British Union flag): these meaningless platitudes hide the reality that our youth died and suffered miserably in an inter-dynastic squabble among remarkably unintelligent royal cousins on the other side of the world. (And we’re still being suckered in by the hegemon du jour, the US!)
I would much prefer to see the Eureka Stockade as a metaphor for a nation finding its identity! At least it was an incident that happened on our soil and resonates with what we think of as the Australian character.
Tony E