that the Govt lost two referrendums trying to establish the draft (albeit by modest margins) for WW1 was ample evidence that we already had a sense of separateness from the mother country before 1914

Yes. Perhaps that separateness was strong as early as the eighteen-nineties. When I was a kid in the ‘forties and early ‘fifties, there were still old people around who thought Federation was a p*ss-poor substitute for real Independence and that instead of having a mere branch-office of the Royal Navy we could have had our own armaments and shipbuilding industries with fast, modern passenger and cargo ships ….. and a modern Navy that would defend and advance Australian rather than English [sic] interests.

Graeme Bird:
You’ve made good points there. Casualties in war too often reflect the lack of preparedness and decisiveness. [Sadly, Australia is a temporary example of this] Being ever ready to fight a war and to fight it with all your might is a very, very good way of ensuring that you don’t have to do any such thing. For example: the aggressive “neutrality” of the Swedish Air Force during World War II made sure that Swedish families were safe in their beds while families in most of Europe each night died horribly or lived in dread …….

I completely agree that it’s one of the finest and most humbling memorial statues in Melbourne.

I think you write profoundly and beautifully. I’ve read a lot of words on this site, but I’ve read none so astounding as yours. Its kind of savage, the way you write. It cuts through mediocrity so cleanly, you almost need to take a step back from the screen, to give it the space it deserves. Your ability to imagine the moment at the unknown soldier’s grave was masterful. As a reader, its wonderful when you come across the real thing. You read and read, your eyes blur and you know what you are reading is ‘worthy’ but it just irritates you. Then once in a while, from the desert, a prophet comes…. Thanks.

One of the best statues I have seen is Peter Corlett’s ‘Weary Dunlop” on St Kilda Road. Corlett’s a bit hit and miss if you ask me but he definitely rose to the subject matter here.

“Dunlop” is a slightly larger than life representation of a former boisterious country lad and rugger bugger turned cheerful army doctor turned genuine hero under utterly appalling circumstances, but rendered to present him in the final years of his life as a very tall and slightly stooped patrician buddhist.

The statue is the colour of its native metal except for a bright red poppy in Weary’s buttonhole.

But really makes this tribute come alive is two things.

Firstly, his head looking down with a small and rather embarrassed smile at anyone walking up the stairs towards him.

And secondly, one hand is held out so you can hold it. And in less than 15 years, that sturdily cast bronze hand has been worn glass smooth by human touch.

“To connect with this place is to feel fully Australian�

, is in my view unremarkable and inoffensive. Something else may make you personally feel fully Australian, but if nothing at all makes you feel Australian then it’s fair to say that you’re by self definition not fully Australian.

I have even heard migrants explaining the experience of when it was and sometimes over what issue they came to feel Australian. Whatever it was seems to me to be their business; but the question of an intangible yet none the less real national character can not be dispensed with, even by the most determined internationalists; and I happily include myself in that last political category.

IMV if you had never heard of ANZAC day you could not be said to be able to feel fully Australian. If you had never heard of Australian Rules football or Rugby League how would it be possible to have been intimately involved with the people that make up the distinct Australian nation. No intimate involvement no national bond.

Our diverse Australian nation has come into being as something distinct but not unchanging; the Australian national character is something apart from our Aboriginal; English; Vietnamese; German; character and so on – some of these people have also immigrated (even in minute numbers) to the USA and produced a different national identity. Recognizing that there is a national identity is the starting point to thinking about the initial statement and the issue of ANZAC day more broadly.

I think it’s important for internationalists to give the National Question due consideration otherwise wherever we went we would be trying to fit everyone into the same size shoes.

If England, America and Ireland, which speak one language, nevertheless constitute three distinct nations, it is in no small measure due to the peculiar psychological make-up which they developed from generation to generation as a result of dissimilar conditions of existence.

Of course, by itself, psychological make-up or, as it is otherwise called, “national character,” is something intangible for the observer, but in so far as it manifests itself in a distinctive culture common to the nation it is something tangible and cannot be ignored.

Needless to say, “national character” is not a thing that is fixed once and for all, but is modified by changes in the conditions of life; but since it exists at every given moment, it leaves its impress on the physiognomy of the nation.
Thus, a common psychological make-up, which manifests itself in a common culture, is one of the characteristic features of a nation.

We have now exhausted the characteristic features of a nation.
A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.

It goes without saying that a nation, like every historical phenomenon, is subject to the law of change, has its history, its beginning and end.’

ANZAC day exists as an event unique to Australia and New Zealand our sister country and intimately connected neighbour.

ANZAC day connects us with a tragic event and necessarily the place that it occurred. As an incident it connects the nation while not affecting many that may live in or pass through the country of Australia. The incident helped create the national consciousness that arises from the shared history of peoples.

Leftists ought not have mixed feelings over ANZAC day it’s up to any leftists to put forward (in the political spirit of democratic competition) their interpretation as the lessons and experience gets passed and modified generation after generation.

As with analysis founded on the right we leftists take from it what we want to take and not what right-wingers or the pseudo-lefts would want us to take. My country right or wrong type crap swallowed by many a ‘good’ German and or Australian is as boring today as its equally wrong mirror slogan ‘my ruling class is always wrong’. At present it is the phony pacifism of the pseudo-left that is the greater danger to even presenting a left analysis of such a nationally important occasion.

Karl Marx once said that the workers of the world were behind the stars and stripes and he was right. The titanic battle against the armed masters of the south as they fought to retain the right to buy and sell other human beings was really a no-brainer for communists.

On a day like ANZAC day, like the U.S. descendants of the civil war, we humans all have our wars and glorious dead to commemorate - and to perhaps grieve together that we still live in an era of war - and that is a point of unity that many of us who believe in progress both left and right can share on ANZAC day.

We can ponder how to change the world in the direction that those who often fought for the red flag and or the star spangled banner objectively did.

When the Saudi regime was ordered to end slavery in the 1960’s the world had changed profoundly from when Fisal attended the WW1 peace conference with his slave in attendance, and this was tolerated by the disgusting ruling class that had just waged mass slaughter - needlessly sending the pride of a generation to an early grave.

These liberal and conservative representatives of the ownership class were about to go ballistic over the dreaded Bolshevik menace. Communists would not have tolerated such a thing but it is now Communists and their leaders who are vilified as mass-murderers at every opportunity because we are prepared to fight this scurge.

One is reminded of the film Spartacus who was depicted as a rebel of thousands-of-years-ago who would not tolerate slaves being brought along to his tent, but simply freed them on the spot. How backward are our liberals and conservatives that descend these miserable few years from their predecessors despicable behaviour of the 1960’s, let alone 1919.

How praiseworthy are the efforts of the open conservatives that have abandoned their rotten policies of propping up reaction in the Middle East and have sent troops to assist these people overthrow tyranny.

Despite the efforts of small-minded little onanists like Toryhere, pretty much most Australians still see war as a last resort and terrible sacrifice where any selfless, courageous and dryly humorous glimpses of humanity should be justly celebrated.

I personally see our two major war memorial days as:
- Armistice Day - never again, what a sorry bloody stupid futile waste war so often is; and
- ANZAC Day - but if we ever have to again, let’s remember the example of our ancestors at their best during the worst.

of course most of the millions they killed were not killed in war, so that’s all right then.

We still need to salute the ones who tried.

However, I think the fact that the Govt lost two referrendums trying to establish the draft (albeit by modest margins) for WW1 was ample evidence that we already had a sense of separateness from the mother country before 1914

I suspect that Anzac Day is cherished more by the Christian part of Australian society because our enemy at the time was the Ottoman Empire, and the war is subconsciously felt as part of the long term crusade against Islam.

Oh absolutely! Yes, I recall listening to my great uncles and grandfather raving on about the Mussies all the time. Why, I imagine that most Australians spent their childhoods listening to endless diatribes from their grandads who were waging jihads against Muslim.

Please.

I would not be surprised if all the members of the Big Brother house are Zionists plants of AIPAC, would you?

I don’t know if this was a typical Anzac Day oration, but it was disturbing that in this instance Anzac Day was used to further the Christian agenda. It was also significant that Big Brother chose Rebecca, the conservative Christian in the household, to perform the oration.

I also found it significant that Rebecca was the only one to shed a tear at the reading. Perhaps the fact that the reading contained a strong affirmation of her Christian faith made it more meaningful for her.

I suspect that Anzac Day is cherished more by the Christian part of Australian society because our enemy at the time was the Ottoman Empire, and the war is subconsciously felt as part of the long term crusade against Islam.

Nevertheless, show. Don’t tell.

I don’t think you really understand what “myth” means.

I take your larger point PC (and yes, I have seen ‘The One Day of the Year’ many years ago) but
“To connect with this place is to feel fully Australianâ€? was spoken by an Australian military type at a commemoration on the Gallipoli Peninsula - not just tv burble. (Granted, it was mindless ‘ceremony burble’.)