The Anzac Address I Want To Hear
The Anzac Address I Want To Hear
Anzac Day should remind us that there is no more damning diagnostic of political mismanagement than to allow the conditions for war to develop. There can be no greater failure of an electorate’s judgement of the capabilities and character of the elected.
A sense of nationalistic pride has arisen in recent years, reflection on the suffering any war imposes on combatant and civilian has diminished. Between the lines of the speeches given by leaders that claim only respect and thanks for those who served, now comes the certain knowledge that a population can be made confused about the difference between militarism and statesmanship, forgetting the first implies the absence of the latter.
So here’s the address I’d like to hear from a leader on Anzac Day:
"Today, I am reminded of the failures of my predecessors, and the duty I have to guide this country, and work with the family of all nations, to create a world that transcends our species’ bloody past and hasten the day we justly claim ourselves civilized.
"Leaders allowed a single shot at Sarajevo to ignite Australia’s first war. A spirit of vengeance at Versailles and cowardly silence in response to the inhumanities surrounding Krystalnacht and Manchuria created the conditions for a second. In Malaya and Vietnam, first a dying empire and then one ascendant through proxies provoked violence by suppressing self-determination. Iraq, the first war our nation helped initiate, was engineered with propaganda.
"The costs of these mistakes, in blood, and in the rent souls of those who escaped physical injury, impose a heavy duty on my office: to avoid like errors during my stewardship, and to decrease the risk my successors will inherit conditions threatening future conflict.
"In only one war was our nationhood threatened. United Nations mandates are rare, but even in Korea, leaders probably erred in the melancholy calculus of lives ruined and saved.
"The sacrifices uppermost in our minds today call on us to recognize that while we work for peace and prosperity, peace comes first, that prosperity without peace is bitter and hollow.
"Those who have suffered in the past, though their voices may be long-stilled, demand my solemn vow to strive for peace, to seek wisest counsel, and to resign my commission if I threaten to stumble.
"The fallen and maimed call on you, too, for as citizen custodians of the present, with identical obligations imposed by past and future, you must help me keep this promise, hold me to this course.
"Our utmost effort to achieve a world without war, create the processes that resolve emnity, remove the pre-conditions for conflict, is the only satisfactory way to honor the losses of our forbears."
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Posted: by David Bath April 24th, 2007 under Society, Australia.
Comments: 11
Comments
Comment from taxi
Time: April 24, 2007, 2:12 pm
awesome speech. shame we’ll never hear it spoken by a politician!
Comment from Rebecca
Time: April 24, 2007, 5:01 pm
Indeed. I recall the last time I attended the dawn service at the War Memorial being greeted by the Catholic Church’s village idiot, Tom Frame, raving on about how righteous those who went off to war were. How much more effective it would have been if his words had been along these lines.
Comment from Iain Hall
Time: April 24, 2007, 5:29 pm
In a warlike world such pacifist sentiments are at best naive but certainly foolish in the face of an enemy that sees such sentiment as nothing but a sign of weakness…
Comment from Rebecca
Time: April 24, 2007, 6:03 pm
…and this is from someone who knows so much about what drives international terrorism?
The fact that people mask this in “good vs evil” terms is a large part of what got us here in the first place.
Comment from David Bath
Time: April 24, 2007, 6:18 pm
The pacifist sentiments do not preclude toughness on the causes of conflict, the reasons why the world is warlike. These causes, apart from population movements caused by environmental changes (such as the invasions of Italy by the “germans” of about 100BCE which were the knock-on effects of farming failures in Scandinavia) are usually due to failures of foresight or of heart (which is again, myopia).
There are Malthusian pressures ahead, and if we do not act pre-emptively on the conditions that will cause war, the sufferings from war will only increase.
I cannot accept that we are doomed to follow only the darker angels of our nature - but even if that pessimistic assumption is true, a martyrdom on behalf of the ideals of a civilized society is better than a death resulting from a lack of care.
Comment from suki
Time: April 25, 2007, 9:14 am
Kofi Annan said:
“War is not, and I repeat, war is not ‘the continuation of politics by other means’. On the contrary, it represents a catastrophic failure of political skill and imagination – a dethronement of peaceful politics from the primacy which it should enjoy.”
And I agree with him.
Comment from Kieran
Time: April 25, 2007, 5:01 pm
“Fighting for peace” makes about as much sense as f-cking for virginity.
Our involvement in WWI was about “God, king and country (empire)”.
I am an atheist, republican, and UnAustralian (not to mention certainly not British!). Bugger ANZAC day.
Pingback from Club Troppo » Missing Link - Anzac Day Special Edition
Time: April 26, 2007, 5:44 pm
[…] sentiments were expressed at the Dead Roo, where David composed a speech in the Seachange John Howard mode, regretting that the lessons of past wars have been ignored right […]
Comment from Marty
Time: October 3, 2007, 1:35 pm
“Bugger ANZAC day”.
You can afford to…..men and women of twice your calibre died to give you the freedom of speach and expression you now take so obviously for granted.
Comment from Jody
Time: October 3, 2007, 4:23 pm
Here here
Comment from Della James
Time: March 24, 2008, 8:17 pm
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