Today, 25 April, is ANZAC day – a public holiday in Australia. I had never heard of it, so it was a great opportunity to go out and discover.
ANZAC stands for Australian & New Zealand Army Corps and the holiday was originally about commemorating those who had fought at Gallipoli (Turkey) in 1915-1916. I was told that Australia, at the time a young nation, suffered a lot of casualties, wiping out half a generation. Back then the patriotic sentiments were so high, that white feathers would be given to young fit men who did not volunteer to join the army and special badges were worn by those who tried to get in but were refused for whatever reason.
Over the years ANZAC day has become the day Australians remember and honour all Australians and New Zealanders that have participated in any war or peacekeeping operations Australia has been involved in. There was no ceremony this year in Noosa Heads so I went to Tewantin, about 10 km from Noosa Heads, to watch the parade and see the ceremony.
I was amazed by the huge turn up of the public: young and old were present. Involving the youth is considered extremely important, in line with the slogan “Lest We Forget”. The day is not about “glorifying war” as was said in one of the speeches. It is rather about honoring those who left to fight a war far away from home and lost their lives, and those who did make it back but with broken bodies and/or minds.
The parade was opened by 3 army people on horses, followed by kids from the different schools, scouts and veterans. When passing by the gathered crowd would applaud them. The paraders were carrying flags and medals. Some kids wore medals too; I learned that these were medals of their parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents.
I spoke to several older people and all had relatives that had fought in the Vietnam war, the Korean war or World War II. There were proud stories about “stopping the yellow power from coming down to us”, but also sad stories of the difficulties veterans faced when they came back home. Being booed at or called a baby-killer.
The whole event was quite honestly moving, to a point that I even felt tears coming to my eyes. I realised that it is one thing to go to war to defend your country or protect allies against invasion by a clear-cut enemy. It is an entirely different thing when you are sent under the cover of “saving” a foreign nation, when in fact you are the invader for pure economic interests. Being manipulated to risk or even give your life for that is total madness and utterly sad.