Reflect

During my rather rambling Australia Day post, I jokingly noted that the nature of our nationhood was best discussed on ANZAC Day.

And although this blog is supposed to be concerned more with movement than ideas, I have nonetheless chosen to write about our national identity on the day I believe most defines it.

Below, I’ve posted in a piece I wrote while in Turkey in 2001. I attended ANZAC Day services, along with 15,000 other people because, although I have long been an ardent pacifist, the military has been a part of my life longer.

I was surprised by how moved I was by the service; how powerful the sense of history and the all-pervading knowledge of senseless death.

And it was senseless. No one celebrating the day should deny this. We were invaders sent to our deaths for a misguided and rather esoteric military objective. The Turks were defending their homes and their families. And everyone died. The bodies lie side by side and anyone visiting the area tours not just the Allied graves but those of the Turks as well.

In one grave, an Australian soldier lies wrapped around a Turkish soldier: we lie together in death. The Turks see this as a symbol of mutual respect and understanding between two opposing forces and so should we.

Standing on those shores one is most struck by the fact that we are not glorifying battle or some misguided notion of an honourable death for Queen and country. No, we are commemorating the willingness of people on BOTH SIDES to sacrifice themselves for something they believe is greater than themselves. We are also reminding ourselves of the ongoing need to strive for peace, to prevent these horrors from happening again: something that we seem to have lost the will for in the past few years.

To quote the Dedication to Peace, spoken as part of the Dawn Service on that day in 2001: “Anzac Day is important We must not forget those who went to war and those who died. We must honour them. We must not forget the example they showed us; we must develop their Spirit of Sacrifice and Commitment. We dare not forget the terrible cost of war: we must work for peace together. In this Peace Park, we are surrounded by the final resting place of soldiers. If our coming here moves us to work even harder for peace, their deaths will not have been in vain.”

I’ve often pondered why we as a nation commemorate a defeat and a skilled withdrawal. I feel this is the defining aspect of our identity that we should not lose. We stood on those shores as Australians for the first time, our identity separate from the other nations that stood with us and we became for the first time ourselves and not a colony of British people on the other side of the world. Whether we won or lost the battle before us was irrelevant. There is no glory in this moment, no great heroic victory to sing songs over. There is simply ourselves; stripped bare and exposed to the world to see. And we lost and liked what we saw nonetheless.

And we cannot forget that for those brave soldiers fighting on the other side, this moment was theirs as well. Because Gallipoli was not just our defining moment of identity: it was the moment the modern nation of Turkey was born as well. There is a reason why the Turkish people celebrate Sovereignty Day on 23 April, a date so close to the one we commemorate. This is something we share and that moment of mutual respect and recognition should never be lost. Because it is within our knowledge of our enemy as human beings that we forge connections across culture and country and become one body of people inhabiting this planet.

As Ataturk memorably said in 1934:
“Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country Therefore rest in peace There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours You, the mothers who sent your sons from far away countries wipe away your tears Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace After having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well.”

Today is ANZAC Day. March, protest, wear medals, use the word 'digger' a lot, hide from the pageantry, rant about the glorification of war, drink coffee with rum in it or sing songs at dawn in the chill air. But above all things.

Reflect.

I am...you are...Anzac Day 2001

We gathered in the darkness before dawn.

I'd love to say we arrived silently, barely disturbing the stillness of mountains and ocean. Instead we roared in. Buses and cars a choking snarl of steel.

We gathered in the darkness. Fifteen thousand people on a pilgrimage to a single ancient battleground.

Anzac Cove
Anzac Day
Anzacs

As dawn broke over the Dardenelles, striking the mountains and beaches of the Gallipoli Pensinsula, those of us who had travelled from across Europe and across the world repeated an 86 year old tradition of commemoration and prayer.

As the flags of Australia, Turkey and New Zealand fluttered in the morning breeze against the brilliance of a clear blue sky, and the strains of The Last Post echoed and then dissipated, I heard the single amazing sound of my life.

The silence of 15,000 people.

Not one rustle, one whisper disturbed the air. The gentle wash of the ocean against a once-bloodied beach the only sound.

At Lone Pine later in the day, where a single Pine tree still sways in the spring breeze, there was an air of celebration and spontaneous joy. The day was hot and bright and blue and we sat in the cemetary among the graves of Aussies and Kiwis and Turks and sang for the dead and for the living.

It's unusual to see a group of Australians displaying nationalism in an overt way. Yet that is what we saw on that hill as diggers made their way through a crowd 10,000 strong and received a spontaneous standing ovation. Old men from an old war with tears streaming down their lined faces, their medals proudly displayed on their upright chests.

The New Zealand Memorial Service was no less moving. Chunuk Bair, where the Kiwis hovered on the edge of victory before the English were defeated by Ataturk, is one of the few places on this Earth where a memorial to two opposing forces stand facing each other.

As the crowd finished singing the bi-lingual Kiwi National Anthem, a spontaneous Haka by NZ forces was greeted with cheers. It was an amazing day of celebration, commemoration, sadness, joy and an overwhelming call for peace.

Anzac is not and never should be a glorification of war. That we choose to commemorate Anzac Day and a battle of defeat and skilled evacuation does not just serve as an indication of who we are, of our heart and spirit. The celebration has also shaped us over the past 86 years. And the commemoration has shaped and continues to shape what we think, what we feel about what it means to be an Australian. And as the numbers attending Anzac Day increase the impact it has on our psyche will also grow.

In the end, Anzac Day is less about a battle and more about what it means to be Australian. The Turkish people believe the Gallipoli campaigns gave them their nation, their freedom and their identity because it gave them their father: Mustafa Kemal known lovingly as Ataturk. In the same way, Gallipoli gave us our freedom and our independence by giving us our first sense of nationhood.

And as we stand on the beach and up at The Lone Pine this is what we gain and what becomes strengthened. Many query the journey. Even those involved find it difficult to explain what draws them to this place in greater numbers as each years passes. For me, and I believe for many others, the answers lie in that open applause for the diggers.

I am
You are
We are
Australian

Happy birthday to..Meeee

Flew down to Brisvegas last week for my birthday and had a very good time. Mostly eating, drinking whisky, and watching too much bad science fiction but I also climbed the Story Bridge, which is well worth a blog entry. Dad and my birthdays are only a week apart and we both got the climb as a gift. Had to get up at 3:30am to get to the climb at 4am and My Lord was it cold after Darwin. The climb itself was quite easy and we finished as dawn started breaking. It was a little cloudy, unfortunately, but still a beautiful view (see photo of me and my father below). Raced off afterwards for a traditional coffee at the New Farm Deli, which still has some of the best coffee ever. However briefly, it was really good to be home.

Red on Blue, just the other side of day

One of the best things about living in Darwin is the beautiful clear sunsets and, now that the Dry has begun, they're even better than ever. One of the best ways to view them is on one of the many sunset cruises on Darwin Harbour of an evening. My friends, Kerry and Bruce, were up from Sydney last week, so I took the opportunity to tick yet another activity off my "before I go back to Canberra list" and booked a dinner cruise on the Alfred Noble off Stokes Hill Wharf. The cruise was great, the food was fantastic, the wine refreshing and the sunset impressive. It was well worth it.

Farewell my baby

After 18 years of being a member of my family, my cat, Tia, died today of rhenal failure, which afflicts all cats in the end.

He was a real personality, loving social occasions, laps, sitting in the sun, pizza crusts and generally what everyone else was doing at the time. He was very loving and, like a two-year old person, had all the frustration of complex needs without being able to communicate them. Heaven forbid if we misunderstood the miaow for 'I want to be let out' with 'I want food' or, mostly, 'I want you to go back to bed because I'm tired and I want company'.

Goodbye baby (or, as my mother unfortunately and traumatically called you 'pussy boy'). I will miss you a great deal.

Tiwi Dreaming

A tropical dawn is beautiful. The birds are singing, the stars are still faintly visible in the sky and the sun rises pinky-red over Frances Bay. I sit on my balcony overlooking the water clutching my cup of tea and think: "why the hell am I awake at 6am on a Saturday morning?"

I have been so busy these last few weeks with Uni that I haven't written up about my trip to Tiwi on the Tuesday after Easter. It was a lovely day with visits to the Museum and some Tiwi ceremonies. I bought some artwork from Ngaruwanajirri (The Keeping House), which provides employments and skills training for Tiwi Islanders with a disability. The art is below. The artist for both pieces is Marie Yvonne Tipuamantumirri.