By Maria Millers
Nobody wins a war
Two thousand twenty four, I hear the drums of war
Echo in the blackened skies with no sign of compromise
Children watch their cities burn, when will we ever learn
We are the spirit of the land to our land we will return
(Ian Whitehead, 2024).
Next Saturday, the 25th April, at the break of dawn all across Australia from small towns to war memorials and shrines in big cities, many will come together to remember those who have died in the many wars we have been a part of since Federation.
A heavy pall of unease surrounds ANZAC Day this year, shadowed not only by the uncertainties of what is happening in the Middle East and its effect on our daily lives but also the arrest of a highly decorated soldier. This challenges many of our beliefs and confronts us with the uncomfortable questions that cut deeply into our national identity based on the Anzac tradition.
None of this will cancel or fundamentally change the commemoration but it can shape tone, messaging and increase public debate.
And this debate divides the community.
Victoria Cross recipient, Ben Robert Smith’s arrest and intimations of others to come, questions the ideal of the Australian Digger as someone brave, loyal and one whose integrity and behaviour are beyond reproach.
But like any soldiers anywhere, away from home and under pressure, Australian soldiers have been involved in serious misconduct in all wars.
Instances of Australian military misbehaving go back to the Boer War. The case of Breaker Morant for killing Boer prisoners and murdering a German missionary is still controversial. It’s also one of the earliest examples of challenging the notion of the always honourable Australian soldier.
Other instances include the behaviour of callow WW1 recruits let loose in Cairo before reaching Gallipoli and the massacre of civilians in the Palestinian village of Surafend after a New Zealand soldier was killed. This remains as one of the darkest incidents involving ANZAC troops.
Despite this, many will attend ANZAC day services and marches to remember long gone family members or mourn those lost in more recent conflicts.
There are however many who question the emphasis placed on the ANZAC tradition, pointing out that as a small country we have achieved much to be proud of beyond fighting other countries’ wars. Our national identity should surely rely on our other achievements in science, technology, the arts and the strength of our democratic institutions. And without a doubt, despite recent incidents and political ploys we have been becoming a successful multicultural society.
ANZAC Day has not always attracted the large numbers of recent times. During the Vietnam War, Anzac Day became deeply divisive in Australia.
In the 1960s as Australians became involved in Vietnam, ANZAC Day was already in cultural decline with low attendances at dawn services and any involvement became politically charged. Over 60,000 Australians had served, 524 were killed and 3,000 wounded. Many still carry the scars today, both physical and mental, and have had to endure public indifference – even hostility – as attitudes were changing and anti-war protests clashed with marches.
All day, day after day, they’re bringing them home,
they’re picking them up, those they can find, and bringing them home,
they’re bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks, in convoys,
they’re zipping them up in green plastic bags,
they’re tagging them now in Saigon, in the mortuary coolness
they’re giving them names, they’re rolling them out of
the deep-freeze lockers – on the tarmac at Tan Son Nhut
the noble jets are whining like hounds,
they are bringing them home.
(Bruce Dawe, Homecoming).
But for politicians the ANZAC legend has always been an opportunity to underpin a certain view of Australian identity and use the day for political advantage.
Bob Hawke was the first PM to make the pilgrimage to Gallipoli Cove. Ever the astute politician he saw the visit as an opportunity to support his view of Australian identity.
Keating, on the other hand, wanted to shift the emphasis from Gallipoli to the Kokoda Trail where we were actually fighting for our country.
But it was John Howard who assiduously worked towards a definable event through which Australians could recognise, identify with and celebrate the ‘national interest,’ Howard turned that part of Australian history into a celebration rather than remembrance through his advocacy of ANZAC Day.
With criticisms of our involvement in yet another foreign war, Howard justified sending Australians to Iraq:
“They went in our name in a just cause to do good things to liberate a people. They are part of a great tradition of honourable service by the Australian military forces.”
For Howard’s model of political conservatism to take form, he knew there had to be a definable event through which Australians could celebrate the ‘national interest’, such as the historical memory of Gallipoli that Howard himself so strongly identified with. He needed to create a focal point within Australian history for people to celebrate.
John Howard significantly enhanced the renewal of celebration of ANZAC Day.
Critics like Lachlan Brown, known for his anti-commemoration sees ANZAC rituals as performative emotion rather than lived experience:
We stand at dawn rehearsing grief
we have not earned.
Today there is pressure for us to become more involved in the Middle East imbroglio, but few Australians are keen. Australia is already indirectly involved in the current 2026 Iran war, and that has a few knock-on effects:
This year’s ANZAC Day with a more subdued public mood is likely to be more reflective than celebratory. But that is not to deny the service and sacrifice of our soldiers.
Next Saturday for many it will be a day of remembering long gone family that may have never returned but whose stories have remained part of the family history or those who have died in more recent conflicts or are still grappling with the pain of that experience. Some will find solace in the rituals of the Dawn service or the mach. Others would rather forget,
At the same time, honouring sacrifice should not mean glorifying war or ignoring uncomfortable truths.
Australia today is one of the most diverse societies on earth with its national story stretching back well beyond 1915 to tens of thousands of years and integrating all these elements is still a work in progress
More inclusive storytelling from Indigenous service to nurses and other non combatant roles to the partners left at home to deal alone with family crises.
Evelyn Araluen reminds us that the myth of Gallipoli ignores Indigenous colonial and ongoing violence this country loves a myth more than it loves the truth.
From Dropbear (2021):
Similarly, Maxine Beneba Clarke criticises selective memory when it comes to ANZAC ceremonies:
whose history gets a bugle
whose gets buried without sound.
If you’re trying to capture Australia as it is now, a single heroic myth like the ANZAC legend probably isn’t enough. Modern Australia is less about one defining story and more about a layered, evolving narrative. It’s less romantic than the ANZAC story, but arguably closer to everyday life.
ANZAC Day has never been static – it’s always been a mirror of Australia at the time.
Ian whitehead ends his song with a verse that poses that pivotal question:
Who are the men in the shadows that start the wars in foreign lands
Blood on their hands as the children cry. They’re never the ones to die
As rifles speak and the canons scream they hurl us to our destiny
Truth lies wounded on the ground never to be found.
Today of course it’s not cannons or rifles that kill most civilians but long range missiles and drones. The result sadly is the sane; the death of innocents. If you’re trying to capture Australia as it is now, a single heroic myth like the ANZAC legend probably isn’t enough. Modern Australia is less about one defining story and more about a layered, evolving narrative. It’s less romantic than the ANZAC story, but arguably closer to everyday life
If you’re trying to capture Australia as it is now, a single heroic myth like the ANZAC legend probably isn’t enough. Modern Australia is less about one defining story and more about a layered, evolving narrative. It’s less romantic than the ANZAC story, but arguably closer to everyday life.
Anzac Day has never been static – it’s always been a mirror of Australia at the time.
Lest we Forget.
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As always in Australia, all roads lead back to the Lying Rodent. It was John fucking Howard – aka the Desiccated Coconut – who politicised Anzac Day. He pumped up the jingosism and flag-shagging. But he didn’t invent the hoary old myth that subsequent Lib AND Lab governments perpetuated.