We should reconsider the Anzac myth

Anzac rhetoric influenced by former Prime Minister John Howard, largely continued by present PM Kevin Rudd, has duped many Australians.

What exists makes me decidedly angry and, I’m sure, the Australia we have now is not what our country’s young men fought and died for on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
Nor, I’m equally sure, are the values of Australia today what was on the minds of the thousands of other soldiers who died, always in other countries.
The so-called Anzac legend is a myth – the values it promotes are misogynistic, encourage militarism, are misleading about what it is that creates a nation and subjugates those things that enhance our lives such as non-violence, empathy, care of others and the building of our communities.
Given huge Federal Government support, both through broader encouragement and more specifically funding of the Department of Veteran Affairs, the walls of Australian life, from primary schools to old age, have been papered with propaganda about the Anzac myth.
Generally, Australians now believe that our nationhood took its shape as our young men fought and died in what was a military disaster, organized by Great Britain, in another country, against a foe whom with we had no quarrel and, which history clearly illustrates, had no impact on world events.
It was a waste of lives, a waste of resources and seriously derailed the building of Australia, effectively ending its emergence as one of the most advanced nations in the world.
Whatever we may think, facts clearly show that we are enthusiasts of war and fight seemingly without any concern for values, morals and concepts held by many Australians.
Those who fought and died on our behalf deserve respect and should be remembered and honoured, but they do not warrant elevation to hero status and should not be examples to emulate, either individually or as a nation.
Writing in “What’s Wrong With Anzac?” Australian historians, Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds said: “We think it is time to reclaim our national values and commemorate the role of the Australians involved in campaigns for civil, social and political freedoms and who enshrined them in our national culture.”

Busy week, alarming realities

This week has been wonderfully busy, but within that equally alarming.
On three occasions it become clearly evident that two people, unquestionably highly qualified, entrenched in the decision making echelons of our society and therefore people of undoubted influence, were not aware of peak oil and didn’t understand it complications.
Also, one fellow could not, or would not, advance an opinion and to worsen matters, that same speaker, who in my view should have had a definite opinion, avoided my question about nuclear power.
The first moment arose during a meeting involving members of the Victorian Urban Design Forum, many architectural and design people and several from the Victorian State Government organization, VicUrban.
That meeting held in the new VicUrban offices helped those attending understand something about four major community re-establishment sustainable projects within Melbourne – one at Maribynong, another at central Dandenong, Avondale Heights and the re-development of Harbour Esplanade at Docklands in central Melbourne.
At the end of the presentations, those at the meeting were able to ask questions and one about peak oil, directed at no-one in particular, but which seemed to fall upon VicUrban landscape architect, Mark Haycox, drew a response that seemed to indicate that he was at least confused only to see fellow VicUrban employee, Lynn Sweeney, quickly answer that peak oil was the reason the projects were being pursued.
The following evening, Wednesday, the University of Melbourne presented the free lecture – Unnatural disasters, the fractured science and politics of climate change – featuring Professor Barry Smit (above) from the University of Guelph in Canada.
He opened his presentation with a self-penned song about climate change that he sang to the Beatles tune of “Let it be”.

Arriving early at the lecture theatre, I filled in the time reading David Strahan’s 2007 book The Last Oil Shock that is about what he describes as “the imminent extinction of petroleum man” and in pre-lecture conversation with Prof Smit I asked for his view on peak oil.
He said it was not something he knew enough about and encouraged me to continue my reading.
Following his presentation, he is a truly personable man with extensive knowledge about climate change, questions from the audience brought many including one from me in which I mentioned that American Dr James Hansen, who works for the government and is described by some as “the grandfather of climate change”, has advocated for nuclear power to end our reliance on coal fired power stations and in answer to his thoughts on nuclear power, Prof Smit had no opinion to offer – it was a staggering response our dependence on coal-fired power, a process that Dr Hansen believes is the major contributor to climate change.
Prof Smit, a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, was at the Melbourne University as part of a speaking tour of Australia and New Zealand in a program organized by the Association for Canadian Studies in Australia and New Zealand.