Vale ANZAC?

Green Left newsletter, April 25

The symbolism of the ANZAC legend from the very start has always obfuscated and minimised the truth of the 20th century wars, writes James Wyner.

“All that is solid melts into air, all that is Holy is profaned.”

Should one need to illustrate the veracity of Karl Marx’s famous quote in the Communist Manifesto, one need to look no further that the current day hollow spectacle of ANZAC.

What was once and for several decades a moment to solemnly reflect upon the overwhelming human cost of 20^th-century wars of imperialist aggression is now a sordid spectacle of inebriated consumerism and opportunistic jingoism.

The pious symbol of the Aussie Digger has been co-opted by the titans of hospitality (pub and club operators) to promote two-up, televised sport and drinking.

Mainstream media — of all stripes — swoon over pictures of alleged mass murderer Ben Roberts-Smith in his army battle fatigues and far-right politicians and influencers strive to raise his status as a celebrity.

Let’s face it; we’ve fallen a long way from acknowledging the sanctity of the lives lost at Gallipoli, the Somme and Kokoda.

It should not surprise anyone that a day of sacred reflection has devolved into the denuded phenomenon we see on ANZAC Day today.

The symbolism of the ANZAC legend from the very start has always obfuscated and minimised the truth of the 20^th-century wars.

Behind the solemn-looking Aussie Digger, with slouch hat and lowered head, are hundreds of thousands of working-class men and women who died in bloody battles over imperialist spoils.

Hoodwinked by politicians with racist propaganda and false promises of (ethno-nationalist) glory, they willingly signed on to fight workers of other capitalist nations and die.

The ANZAC legend speaks of individual heroism and glory, but gives little context to the sacrifice and does not include the strong views of pacifism and solidarity among veterans. To quote Gallipoli veteran and Victoria Cross recipient Hugo Throssell: “War has made me a socialist and a pacifist.”

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Australia’s capitalist politicians have always been willing to wrap themselves in the flag and summon the spirit of ANZAC when it benefits them.

From a population of fewer than 5 million people in 1914, Liberal leader Joseph Cook and Labour Prime Minister Andrew Fisher gleefully sent more than 420,000 young Australians to fight in Europe and the Middle East.

Many of the more than 65,000 that met their death did do so due directly to the incompetence and blood lust of their British commanders. That bungling and bloodlust has never been considered a part of the ANZAC myth.

To quote another Gallipoli veteran Alec Campbell: “For god’s sake, don’t glorify Gallipoli — it was a terrible fiasco, a total failure.”

The same bourgeois politicians and parties that willingly sent Australians to fight and die alongside and against other men and women of their own class are still in power today.

Witness the fevered defence of the AUKUS pact by Sinophobe Richard Marles or the furrowed brow, but “conditional support”, of Israel’s Gaza genocide by foreign minister Penny Wong, or Anthony Albanese’s embarrassing rush to be first to offer full support for the United States’s illegal war on Iran.

Politicians of all varieties will appear solemn faced in patriotic garb at dawn services around the country. For Albanese, Marles and the rest, the ANZAC legend is turned on its head; rather than a reflection on sacrifice and peace it is used to bolster their bona fides as imperialist war hawks.

President Donald Trump’s war on Iran can be seen as a play for greater US control of global energy flows. As such it mirrors the scramble for imperialist riches that drove the first and second world wars.

Indeed, the conflict could easily spiral outwards to include a battle directly between the US, China, Russia and NATO countries or extend into yet another long bloody war of proxy.

In either case, these wars will not be experienced like those of the 20^th and early 21^st centuries. Technology has made modern warfare almost totally abstracted. It’s unlikely that we will need to agree to sacrifice large numbers of young, enlisted men and women to a foreign imperialist war project.

The elements of war are no longer rifles, tanks, grenades, trenches and barricades. Now drones, missiles and high-altitude bombers, operated remotely and often by non-human AI systems, are the killing tools.

Australia plays its role, supplying weapon’s parts and guidance systems for deadly munitions, and allowing Pine Gap to play an indispensable role in war surveillance and missile control systems.

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As the tools change, so too do the victims. Civilians have always been innocent causalities of war, but their deaths have always been viewed as tragic mistakes. Many of the legal conventions of 20^th-century war are designed to minimise, or prevent, civilian causalities.

But as we have seen, these scant legal protections mean little to expansionary imperialists like Trump or Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The victims of modern war are Palestinians, Iranians, Syrians, Libyans, Sudanese, Russians and Ukrainians. They are climate refugees, environmental defenders, refugee advocates and anti-ICE protesters.

Thanks to technological advancements, the theatre of war is now the entire planet. It reveals the true nature of war — profit extraction and accumulation of capital versus humanity and a liveable planet.

Hidden within the ANZAC myth are valuable lessons that can help us understand war and its effects, and inspire anti-war movements in this country.

The modern ANZAC legend is a feeble version of what is, was and could be because it fails to acknowledge the brutality of, and the forces behind, conflict.

The fact that socialist parties, unions, worker organisations and global peace movements were unable to coordinate to stop imperialist wars of the past 120 years is tragic.

That tragedy is compounded by the fact that military legends, such as ANZAC, have been reduced to glorifying blood and soil nationalism and ignoring the voices of the victims and survivors who call for global peace.

ANZAC Day should be a day of sacred remembrance and reflection.

To return it to its rightful place in history and culture, we need to acknowledge the sacrifices made by enlisted working men and women and others have made to war efforts.

We also need to honestly examine the failings and duplicity of political elites, past and present, and pay respect to the continuing struggles of local anti-war movements.

The true message of ANZAC must be that only peace, not war, can help ensure all humans and ecology can flourish.

Conference - Magan-djin/Brisbane