Zane
@Zane@aussie.zone
- Comment on Question about Australian towns 3 months ago:
If you haven’t heard it before, please listen to the song “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” by Scottish-Australian songwriter Eric Bogle. That song, as well as “I Was Only 19” by Redgum, perfectly encapsulates the reason for the memorials.
The songs do not glorify our success as a military nation, nor do they portray the soldiers they are about as grand heros or defenders of freedom. They are about very young men, sent away by their country to experience unimaginable horror and suffering, only to return to a home with, at best, minimal support and, at worst, the shame of the community they once were a part of.
Each name on each of those memorials- thousands of them- represent an experience of the unimaginable, and a family irreparably changed. They are a reminder of what was taken, and of the sorrow that was caused. I do not see them as prideful, celebratory or reverential, and I do not know of anyone who does. They are a commiseration.
With regards to ANZAC, and it’s place in Australian culture, you are essentially looking at modern Australia’s foundational myth. In the 1950s and 1960s when Australia was having its own civil rights moment, the original foundation myth of terra nullius and the “brave”, white settlers conquering an untamed land finally began to feel too untrue to most Australians, too much like a myth. Colonial Australia needed a new explanation for its existence and it is around that time that the Gallipoli campaign started to be promoted by various historians and authors as Australia’s “coming of age” as a nation.
The intention was to give (white) Australians a point of reference for themselves, something they could point to and say “the things that we are, this is where they came to be”. Qualities like mateship, camaraderie, larrakinism, hard work, disdain for authority or aristocracy and resilience in the face of adversity. Those were the qualities promoted as being cemented in the national psyche at ANZAC Cove. It is a manufactured narrative, but those writers were very successful, as you can see.
There’s more that can be said for Australia treats it’s narrative history, especially that of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, but that’s better left for another (long) post. If you’re interested in how Australia viewed it’s two competing foundational stories in the 1990s and 2000s, and how it effects the way we talk about our history today, look up the History Wars. Let me know if you think there was a winner.
- Comment on ADF whistleblower David McBride moved to maximum security and "has no access to natural light & restricted contact with his daughters." 3 months ago:
Regardless of David’s original intentions, he is being victimised for exposing war crimes. There is nothing just in his incarceration.
- Comment on Keeping pet cats indoors would save millions of native animals and billions of dollars. So what's stopping us? 5 months ago:
Yeah cool, here’s one good thing we can do to make a positive change but fuck doing it because of the other, completely unrelated thing, right?
- Comment on what's a good way to stick a laser leveler to the wall? 6 months ago:
Could you use a command strip or something?
- Comment on What should we nominate for Lemmyvision? 8 months ago:
It’s gotta be something from Our Kylie;
Kylie Minogue - Padum Padum youtu.be/p6Cnazi_Fi0?si=2gK5W93-kGwL4elZ
- Comment on What should we nominate for Lemmyvision? 8 months ago:
Does the song need to be of the past 12 months, or any Australian song?