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.