I admire what you say here, Max.
But as they ‘celebrate’ Gallipoli, I have to say that the only response to it that gets to me is ‘And the band played Waltzing Matilda’…
Doug
On Apr 24, 2015, at 11:54 PM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I guess the mention of Anzac Day prompts those of us with NZ and/or Aus backgrounds - in my case both - to mixed feelings.
>
> And feelings that change in the course of years.
>
> Most of us, even me away from Aus since September, will be feeling overdosed on retrospects because it’s a hundred years since Gallipoli, which seems always to have resonated more than other Great War battles and defeats that deserve constant remembrance - and re-investigation.
>
> My Gallipoli uncles so far as I know never talked about their experiences to others.
> Schools have made much of it all this time, and maybe it has not been militaristic of them. Sounding the Last Post scarcely awakens chauvinism.
>
> 1915, though - how much chance that ‘the young’ get far into the many tragic and consequential events that also ‘happened’?
> It is something that the Armenian genocide be recently brought back to light after a long eclipse.
> I also think it well that some media attention right now is being given to the huge Australian protests against conscription at that time.
>
> In New Zealand (I learned only today) the government forced the university in Wellington to sack the German professor!
> He was educated in England, no militarist, and wanted to be a quiet diligent teacher of languages to the young.
> Anti-German feeling so misplaced occurred in many countries, of course.
>
> (Here in Seattle I note amends are still being made over the internment of Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor.)
>
> And so it goes on.
>
> I used to stay away from the 25 April parades, and now regret this.
>
> Recently I have been more moved in Melbourne by the ceremony at the Shrine of Remembrance on 11 November, by virtue of what is said, and the music, whereas the march on Anzac Day is such a mix of showing-off and ignorance and distraction. Along with sights that touch the old heart…
> Long live pipe bands and English sheep dogs.
>
> Max in Seattle
>
> On Apr 24, 2015, at 22:12, Andrew Burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> We're staying in the Lachlan Valley until Wednesday, then off to a workshop
>> and short stay. I call it a forest becuase where we are staying is only
>> partially cleared and the giant hill to one side is incredibly well wooded!
>> I've never seen such a closely wooded wood!
>> Mist and low flying clouds graciously glide by - I'm surprised they don't
>> catch on the treetops and stop! :-)
>>
>> Did you miss the Anzac parade today? Lots of pipe bands and many ages
>> marching today in Hobart (and two beautiful English Sheep Dogs in the
>> crowd).
>>
>> Andrew
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
There is no life that does not rise
melodic from scales of the marvelous.
To which our grief refers.
Robert Duncan.
