I understand the thought that it's disrespectful to go out and get pissed on ANZAC Day, but if ANZAC Day is meant to be a national funeral ceremony for the soldiers then in the same way there is a wake after a funeral that often involves lots of drinking, why would today be any different?

Two things:

1. Before World War One we did have a national identity, we just didn't realise what is was until Gallipoli. And no, I'm not talking jingoistic crap like mate ship, or courage. Soldiers from across the world displayed those qualities, not just ANZAC troops.

In 1915, we already had one of the world's most egalitarian democratic societies. By 1915 we had already had several Labor governments, women could already vote, and we had created a substantial social and industrial safety net. Other countries called us the "social laboratory".

With the obvious exception of Aboriginal people, we did have a much more egalitarian culture than most European countries, with their class privileges and entitlement.

Our own egalitarian culture became a lot more obvious in wartime, when we were jammed together with the rest of our allies. In this regard, Gallipoli revealed who we already were.

2. I don't think you should throw out ANZAC day just because a few conservative politicians use it to spread jingo and nationalistic sentiment. I'm sure some idiot will get up tomorrow and talk about the ANZAC legend, and I'll be ignoring that person. We weren't the only country whose soldiers were brave and courageous.

To me the first purpose of ANZAC day (and rememberance day in Europe) is to give the funeral service for those family members who never saw their sons again, and to commemorate those who fell. I don't see any jingoism, nationalism or patriarchal values in the last post, the ode, or the minute's silence. Those sections of the service are sad for a reason. We are sad for the millions of people who fought in a stupid war and never came back, or who came back damaged.

Separate the ANZAC legend from ANZAC day, and treat the day like the funeral ceremony that it really is.


Edited by lastbroadcast: 24/4/2015 09:37:49 PM

Two things:

1. Before World War One we did have a national identity, we just didn't realise what is was until Gallipoli. And no, I'm not talking jingoistic crap like mate ship, or courage. Soldiers from across the world displayed those qualities, not just ANZAC troops.

In 1915, we already had one of the world's most egalitarian democratic societies. By 1915 we had already had several Labor governments, women could already vote, and we had created a substantial social and industrial safety net. Other countries called us the "social laboratory".

With the obvious exception of Aboriginal people, we did have a much more egalitarian culture than most European countries, with their class privileges and entitlement.

Our own egalitarian culture became a lot more obvious in wartime, when we were jammed together with the rest of our allies. In this regard, Gallipoli revealed who we already were.

2. I don't think you should throw out ANZAC day just because a few conservative politicians use it to spread jingo and nationalistic sentiment. I'm sure some idiot will get up tomorrow and talk about the ANZAC legend, and I'll be ignoring that person. We weren't the only country whose soldiers were brave and courageous.

To me the first purpose of ANZAC day (and rememberance day in Europe) is to give the funeral service for those family members who never saw their sons again, and to commemorate those who fell. I don't see any jingoism, nationalism or patriarchal values in the last post, the ode, or the minute's silence. Those sections of the service are sad for a reason. We are sad for the millions of people who fought in a stupid war and never came back, or who came back damaged.

Separate the ANZAC legend from ANZAC day, and treat the day like the funeral ceremony that it really is.


Edited by lastbroadcast: 24/4/2015 09:37:49 PM

I'm sorry but this is just bull shit.

It might suit your agenda to say that this is pure Australian and media fabrication to drum up support for the veterans but that's just flagrant BS. The whole reputation of the Australian super soldier was not started by an Australian, this reputation originated from the praise and reflections of English officers during the Boer War.

The "travesty" is that virtually everything anyone has ever been told about Anzac day is a big fat bunch of bullshit...

to the "fact" that Australians were "natural" soldiers who punched miles above their weight in combat when actually Australians had the highest rates of desertion and veneral disease amongst all of the Armies there and the least casualties...

The whole mythology has been made up and perpetuated by clowns, probably, to make people feel a little bit better that their son, husband, father or grandfather died in a shitful, meaningless, nothing to do with us war and their lives were likely wasted on nothing but base politics.

No it wasn't. Australia sent around 20,000 troops to the boer war and made a major contribution to that conflict. You don't need tens of thousands slaughtered for it to be "real action". Australia might not have been fully federated as a sovereign state but by then it was a nation in it's own right.

It was our first 'real' action as a nation.

if im mistaken World War I was started by the assasination of Ferdinand.

Australians need to realise the soldiers were cannon fodder used by the English for their own agenda.
I respect the ANZACs but to say they fought for freedom in Gallopoli is grossly misleading

Edited by Socawho: 24/4/2015 07:57:37 AM

IMO the myths surrounding ANZAC day are highly disrespectful to those that lost their lives.

Imagine having a relative die during battle and then effectively being told that this sacrifice wasn't enough but that it needs to be embellished with extra tales of bravery and heroism to make for a better story.

The reasons and causes for the ANZAC's fighting are highly relevant. It is the difference between heroically defending your nation from an outside threat and being denied the opportunity to be a hero in society as a brother, son or father. The real tragedy of this day is that the latter applies more than the former.

I think that there lies the difference between the two schools of thought. One celebrates the heroic acts on the battlefield while the other laments that those acts were wasted there for no good reason when they could have been applied to the betterment of society.

For me personally, ANZAC day is a day of mourning, not a day of celebration.

You're writing style is different to the pathetic kid that used to endlessly troll without any consistency so I'm prepared to take you on face value. I think your emotions are clouding your ability to make good judgements on others opinions.

the point is its completely relevant to this thread as ANZAC day comprises part of the culture of denial.
ANZACs were witnesses but its been largely covered up to a point where its not even discussed

one of the main reasons its denied is so aussie blokes and sheilas can camp on Gallipoli peninsula on ANZAC day

you dont want to make the connection between Australia's shameful denial and ANZAC day out of guilt. its plainly obvious.

Irrelevant to this thread, not irrelevant to world history and Australia should make a much bigger deal out of it.

its completely relevant, completely, in so many ways

that you people designate it as irrelevant is part of the entire myth building exercise to erase it from history

Indeed. While I disagree with the relevance of the Armenian genocide in this thread, It's something that should be more widely known about here in Aus. Perhaps you can start another thread about it...

[size=8]Russell Crowe's The Water Diviner faces deluge of protest ahead of US opening[/size]
Date
April 24, 2015 - 8:56AM
Karl Quinn
National Film Editor

Russell Crowe's The Water Diviner opens in US cinemas on Friday, but the film has already made a splash there, with the makers of a rival film, many critics and an orchestrated letter-writing campaign condemning it for what Greek-Australian academic Panayiotis Diamadis has called its "genocide denial by omission".

Around the world, Greeks and Armenians have been united in their anger at what salon's Andrew O'Hehir calls "a shameful and/or oblivious whitewashing of a hugely important historical crime" – namely, the displacement and murder of millions of ethnic Greeks, Assyrians and Armenians, beginning in 1914.

In attempting to see Gallipoli through Turkish eyes, has the film gone too far?
The campaign against the Armenians has been labelled by the NSW parliament, the Vatican, France and, just this week, Germany as a "genocide", and is generally accepted to have begun in earnest with the arrest of 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders – most of whom were later deported or executed – on April 24, 1915, the day before Anzac forces landed at Gallipoli.

That the film is being released in the US on the centenary of what has become known as Genocide Remembrance Day has added insult to injury for members of the Armenian diaspora, including American-based filmmakers Garin Hovannisian and Alec Mouhibian, whose own film addressing this history, 1915, opened last week.

In an open letter addressed to Warner Bros, which is distributing The Water Diviner in the US, the pair wrote that Crowe's character discovers "that the Turks were never really his enemies. In fact they were the noble victims who ultimately triumphed against the imperial West in World War I."

Russell Crowe plays Joshua Connor, a man who goes to Turkey after the war to find the bodies of his three sons.
That is, in fact, much as Andrew Anastasios, the co-writer of the film (with Andrew Knight), describes it in an opinion piece published on Thursday.

Seen through Turkish eyes, he writes, Gallipoli is "a story about a nation, the new Turkish republic, forged in the furnace of battle … the undeniable truth is that Australian troops invaded a sovereign state with the goal of occupying its capital".

The trouble with that retelling, Hovannisian and Mouhibian argue, is in what it omits from the story.

[size=7]"April 24, 2015 also happens to be the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, which was perpetrated by the very Turkish government whitewashed by The Water Diviner," they write.

"It was on April 24, 1915 – the night before the Gallipoli landing – that the Young Turk regime set into motion its unprecedented plan: the efficient deportation and slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians and the destruction of their homeland of thousands of years. To this day the Turkish government denies that a genocide ever happened."[/size]

Their sentiments echo those of a sustained letter-writing campaign that began soon after the film was released in Australian cinemas.

Using a form letter, correspondents of both Greek and Armenian ancestry, writing from Australia, the US, Israel, Germany and elsewhere, have expressed their outrage at the film's depiction of events – particularly a scene in which Greeks attack a Turkish military train and are labelled as "Satan's army", as well as the general absence of reference to what was going on in 1919, when Crowe's character is in Anatolia.

"I am writing this letter to express my shock at the false portrayal of historical events in the Russell Crowe film The Water Diviner," the letters begin. "The film is presented as being 'inspired by actual events', but as a person whose family has been deeply affected by the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Government during that period (1914-1923), I can say that the events in the movie are far from the truth. In fact, they are a gross distortion of it.

"If a film depicting Adolf Hitler as a hero and the Jews as terrorists were made, the reaction would be one of shock and outrage. Russell Crowe's film is a distortion of history that only serves to appease Turkey and its continued agenda of genocide denial."

Australian historian Professor Peter Stanley suggests that rather than a deliberate distortion, the problem with the film is most likely that Crowe, like his writers, has "entered a highly contested historical arena … without any idea of what he was getting into. His response was to simply roll over and accept the Turkish version."

Of course, the cynical might suggest that there may well have been commercial reasons for doing so.

The Anzac story presumably has little relevance to Greek or Armenian audience, but a retelling that is more sympathetic to the Turkish view was always likely to fare well in that market.

To date, the film has taken almost 14.3 million Turkish lira ($6.8 million), a handy addition to the $15.8 million it has taken in Australia.

On twitter: @karlkwin

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/russell-crowes-the-water-diviner-faces-deluge-of-protest-ahead-of-us-opening-20150423-1mrqzp.html#ixzz3YBzD15D3

:-s

If I thought he needed to answer those questions I wouldn't have used the word "can" thus making it a request.

And to be perfectly frank, there is no congruent point in this thread. From my assessment, Munruben started posting about one thing and then others starting posting about loosely related but essentially different things.

he doesnt need to answer any of those questions and you're either completely missing the point or obfuscating the discussion out of guilt

he doesnt need to answer any of those questions and you're either completely missing the point or obfuscating the discussion out of guilt

Munrubenmuz, can you answer these questions?

Do you respect the people that ended up putting their lives in danger?
Do you feel that they don't need to be turned into super heroes for that to be the case?
Do you feel that you can be critical of the reasons that people were sent to war without it causing disrespect to them?

learn some history...

https://theconversation.com/100-years-on-australias-still-out-of-step-on-the-armenian-genocide-39792

most Australians arent agitating for its recognition because its been covered up by the government for 100 years.

Australia is a genocide denialist state. ANZACs witnessed the atrocities first hand so they're very much complicit and yet due to intensive lobbying by the Turkish government, ANZAC day has since turned into love a Turk day built upon fictional accounts such as Russell Crowe movies and a mini-series.

Australians wont recognise the genocide for economic ties with Turkey but also because they want access to Gallipoli peninsula on ANZAC day (which was stolen from the Greeks) so the jarrods, nathans and sharons can celebrate mateship and their love for Australia on their boozy backpacker holidays.

There are many Greek and Armenian Australians that have family who suffered under the genocide but their lobbying for recognition has been squashed by mythical propaganda surrounding the birth of two nations, Australia and Turkey.

It's not an argument. No one is saying you're wrong.

We're just saying show some respect to the people who laid down their lives irrespective of the causes they were fighting for.