ANZAC: a personal reflection

The ANZACS no longer live.     The historical ANZACS.         The Gallipoli ANZACS. 

They no longer carry the weight of war or the scars of sacrifice.

They are buried, row on row, near the Lone Pine.

They live under the ground in Flanders,

where poppies grow.

They cannot listen to the Last Post or the Reveille

Or witness ANZAC Day at the G.

What would they tell us today?

If they read their names on the cenotaphs

of almost every town in Australia,

What would they say?

If they read there: "To the Glorious Fallen"?

What thoughts, what feelings would befall them?

Did Simpson and his donkey make Australia?

Did going over the top inspire a generation?

Did mothers weep for their sons' heroism?

Was it pride that drove fathers to cry out in the night?

Their ancestors march past with smiles on their faces.

But not all of them are so acquiescent. 

Anzac Cove has become a sacred place

a pin-point of pilgrimage to conjure sorrow ...

To mass-produce national pride ...

War!

Power made up as Benevolence

Empire spun as a Better World

Greed masked as Generosity

Evil camouflaged as the Greater Good

Death re-envisaged as Righteousness and Courage.

No one will ever know the truth of the trenches.

the bravery of all those boys whose eyes were on the stars, 

and whose hearts were shattered, scattered in the Turkish mud -

beside other boys who eyes took in those same stars

and whose hearts lay broken, blasted into the Turkish mud.

Yet we solemnly intone "lest we forget" without any thought that it is not we who had those experiences. These are not our memories. Yet we commemorate them as if it's our right.

We commemorate on the broken backs of the Turkish.

May the day come when ANZAC Day is no longer, when there are no wars to repeatedly bring before our gaze. 

May the day come when the media giants recognise their arrogance and end their perverse need to be the most sensational, the most caring, the most "newsworthy" and, instead, tell us the truth about war. 

Perhaps then we will be increasingly resist engaging in its horrors.