ANZAC Day is full of mixed emotions. On the one hand I think it's really good to make people focus and learn about history. On the other hand I think it's pointless to get up at 5 in the morning to remember people who would be dead now, anyway (if you were born in 1918 you'd be 89 now) and whose spirits have long moved on into other lifeforms. If they don't know I'm there, does anybody care?
Do we have dawn services for ourselves, rather than for the lost soldiers? I think so. We like to look around at other cold people in the dark and tell ourselves - these are the good people. No bad person would come to a dawn parade. Bad people like to sleep in. And so the assembled crowd of good people mumble their frozen lips over the unfamiliar words of "God Save The Ruling Monarch" and more confidently "God Defend New Zealand" which seems so deeply ironic: God almighty, as we gather here today to commerorate the millions of your supposedly adored chldren slaughtered in wars between Christian nations, we ask ourselves; where the f*ck were you?! Asleep? Blinking? Watching a more interesting planet?
I chose to commemorate those brave/resigned/forced young men this year by having a drink and reading a book on boy soldiers in the Allied forces. It's probably what they would have wanted.
Just one day to get up to see in the sun because they didnt get the chance to.
Could easily have been me in thier place.
Not a big sacrifice in my eyes.
But I get your point.
Posted by: Gary at April 25, 2007 05:03 PMNo, not a big sacrifice at all - I've been to quite a few ANZAC dawn services and I've always felt good about going.
I think it's the post 9/11 thing for me - wars are so blatantly forced upon the people by the leaders. They decide to fight, brainwash their people with propaganda, and slaughter a generation of young people.
All I can think of at war memorials now is "what a waste". Millions and millions die and suffer because of the ego and alliances of their leaders. Dresden, London in the Blitz, Stalingrad, the Somme, Gallipoli, the Bantaan march, Guatanamo Bay, Mi Lai... it's just depressing, frankly.
I remembered our soldiers and their sacrifices with tears and reflection rather than our dirge of a national anthem.