Sunday, April 11, 2010

Quadrant April 2010 - Anzac in Ashes

Anzac in Ashes
Mervyn F. Bendle
The attack by the left on the Anzac tradition has escalated. As I predicted last year (“Gallipoli: Second Front in the History Wars”, Quadrant, June 2009; “The Intellectual Assault on Anzac”, Quadrant, July-August, 2009), the centenaries in 2014 of the outbreak of the Great War, and in 2015 of the Gallipoli campaign, will see an intensifying debate about the war as people seek to come to grips with the meaning of the seminal event of the twentieth century. Pushing itself to the centre of this struggle will be the intelligentsia, which historically has depicted these events in simplistic ideological terms and as exercises in futility. The intelligentsia is also infuriated by the Anzac legend, which is a dynamic cultural force over which it has little control, and for which it has very little sympathy, empathy or understanding.

Full article here:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2010/4/anzac-in-ashes

8 comments:

stackja1945 said...

kae
The harder you hit a nail the deeper it goes in.

Anzac Day's demise has been long time coming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Seymour

It will never go.

"At the going down of the sun and in the morning,: We will remember them."

kae said...

Lest We Forget

Glenn Mark Cassel said...

I remember as a kid in Alberta, the Irish Rovers sang a song about Gallipoli. I was 15 and I cried.

Anonymous said...

stackja1945,

"It will never go."

Remember, there always will be good, straight thinking people on earth.

How do you think we progressed so far, despite all the crap thrown in the way?

This decadence we are witnessing now is going to get worse for a while yet, but the backlash that's coming will be terrible.
It always is, and the later it comes the harsher it will be.

I hope I'll be still around to witness it.

Carpe Jugulum said...

I march on Amzac day in Hastings in Vic, every year it gets bigger.

We're not going away anytime soon.

stackja1945 said...

http://www.awm.gov.au/cms_images/histories/1/chapters/31.pdf
First World War Official Histories Anzac to Amiens
© C E W Bean 1946.
"It is true that great damage was afterwards done to the Anzac tradition by caricatures, that became popular in Australia, of the indiscipline of her troops in the First World War, portraying the life of the “dinkum Aussie” as one of drunkenness, thieving and hooliganism - a caricature based on old soldiers’ tales, which notoriously avoid the serious. Actually it was discipline - firmly based on the national habit of facing facts and going straight for the objective-that was responsible for the astonishing success which first gave to other nations confidence in Australia, and to the Australian nation confidence in itself."

1735099 said...

It's possible to separate the ethos of the Australian digger from the futility of the conflicts in which we were involved.
WW1 and Vietnam are very good examples.
Like the Irish, we have historically been very willing to fight other people's wars. Like the Irish, we don't kowtow to mindless authority and retain the ability to be subversive.

wayne Job Broadford Victoria said...

It beggars belief that these so called professors and intelligensia, could be so bloody minded and stupid.
It never ceases to amaze me that so many who have never had a real job in the real world and pig in to the public trough. Know better how the real people in the real world should behave and think.
These fools are idealogical dictators only held back from establishing re-education camps by our constitution. History is meant to tell the truth of the past and in todays world it not only the winners that write history.
Genetics have established many truths, a Jesus gene exists that explains those who believe in religion. Genetics has recently found a left gene, that regardless of IQ the recipient is of the loony left. The left gene however is not extra but a deficiency. Therefore these people are to be pitied, but certainly not pandered too.
It is our duty to protect them from harm no matter how much we believe in Oscar Wildes theory "That some people are much improved by death"
It is also our duty to ignore them, and tell our children the truth, so that the true spirit of Australia and Australians shall not perish. With the going down of the sun and in the morning we shall remember them. Let us hope that their demise is peaceful and no one remembers them, consigned to the dustbin of history. Wayne