100th Anniversary of the Day Nothing Happened

[kfc1]

why is jingoism the latest buzzword

 

[skilts]

ANZAC day should be treated with respect. Those people were not responsible for whatever political decision put them their. Thats the point. Its remembering those people.
In saying that, I dont concur with the idea of war defining us as a nation. Its pathetic. Its wrong. Remembrance & jingoism is a lousy combination.

What has that day ever done to deserve this respect?

 

[tandino]

Don't know how some of you manage to get out of bed and face the world every day to be honest.

Does it really matter if some people attribute significance to moments in time that you find insignificant, or out of proportion? How does it impact you in your day to day life?

You may not think along the same lines as the dinky-di flag wavers. Speak out against it if you wish, but who really cares?

 

[John]

Dinki Di ripper cobber beudy mate but fair dinkum do blokes talk like that nowadays?

 

[tandino]

Dinki Di ripper cobber beudy mate but fair dinkum do blokes talk like that nowadays?

They damn well should.

All this American TV is destroying our country. Caught my brother a few days back using the words soda and candy. Told him they are damn well lollies in this house until I say otherwise.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

Just lost of women and children getting massacred like documented here?



There was interesting battles, In Van Diemens land martial law was declared in 1828 for a period of 4 years. This lead to the surviving blacks being transported to Flinders island and left to rot. At one point convicts were armed and told to go hunt blacks. These are pretty drastic measures. I wonder how many of these men went and fought in the Maori wars glorified in this thread.

The nasty thing is, the British declared Australia 'terra nullius'

http://www.nfsa.gov.au/digitallearning/mabo/tn_01.shtml

'Terra Nullius'! Translate it into English and you have a 'Land that belongs to no-one'.

In International Law 'terra nullius' describes territory that nobody owns so that the first nation to discover it is entitled to take it over, as "finders keepers"

so those "savages" already living here were deemed as little more than animals and not a form of society that could be negotiated with or recognised as landowners.

In the minds of the redcoats they weren't fighting humans, and so the Colonial (or Frontier) Wars were never recognised as such as far as I can gather.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-...n-means-recognising-the-frontier-wars/5577436

...A standard diversionary tactic used by deniers of the Frontier Wars is that it was not a "real" war, an assertion the director of the AWM (Australian War Memorial), Dr Brendan Nelson, has made on numerous occasions.

Yet most of our leading historians have no doubt that the first Australians' defence of their land, rights, and values was conducted in the manner of a "war".

Henry Reynolds presents an overwhelming case for that conclusion in his recent book, The Forgotten War; while John Connor has described the 140-year-long struggle as a "sustained conflict that can only be defined as war".

Former chief of the Australian Army and Vietnam veteran, General John Coates, has endorsed those findings, as have other contemporary senior military commanders.

Stereotypes of Australian Aboriginals are often derogatory - they are fringe dwellers, substance abusers, passive "leaners" on society, and so on. The claim that they did not even fight a "war" for their country reinforces that stereotyping.

The contrast with New Zealand's Maoris, famed as warriors, and formally recognised in their nation's history through the "Maori Wars", is both striking and, apparently, damning for the Aborigines. Yet the facts indicate otherwise.

The war for New Zealand lasted 27 years and resulted in 2100 Maori deaths. By comparison, the war for Australia lasted more than 140 years and resulted in 20,000-30,000 Aboriginal deaths, perhaps many more.

It is worth noting that about 500 Australians died during the Vietnam War, which is now the subject of regular, large, government-funded commemorations; and 27,000 died in World War II, the only war of necessity Australians have fought since Federation...

 

[kfc1]

Not sure about those numbers of Aborigines that died - what's the criteria? (which i suppose leads on to the question of what is a war, etc) but there's a difference between 30k/140 = 200/year Australia-wide, vs 27k/4 = 6k+/year in WW1 and 500 in the space of 2-3 years in a small part of Vietnam, while part of a much larger war.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

But what were the weapons available at the time of the Frontier Wars? Single shot powder-and-ball muskets. WW2 saw the birth of automatic submachine guns and rifles. Vietnam even more advanced weaponry.

You've got to look at the killing tools available too.

 

[tandino]

I think the Frontier Wars warrant due recognition, but if you are against political motivation for commemoration this war is probably the biggest elephant in that particular room.

 

[skilts]

Don't know how some of you manage to get out of bed and face the world every day to be honest.

Does it really matter if some people attribute significance to moments in time that you find insignificant, or out of proportion? How does it impact you in your day to day life?

You may not think along the same lines as the dinky-di flag wavers. Speak out against it if you wish, but who really cares?

They claim the right to respect a period of 24 hours. I claim the right to expose mindless glorification of people who were not gods, but mere, flawed humans, just like us. This matters because an attitude such as this has rendered it acceptable to continue doing the same s**t over and over again, to this day.

Over the past twenty years, this has become the prevailing attitude, to the extent that to have been involved in a war is seen as a glorious thing for our nation. None of those holding such attitudes would be prepared to pay any extra taxes to allow the treatment of the mental disorders arising from those veterans' service. As a digger once told me, "For those who were there, every day is ANZAC Day."

 

[little graham]

The nasty thing is, the British declared Australia 'terra nullius'

To avoid the left criticizing them. To avoid the new nation of America criticizing them. To avoid the french criticizing them. When you really look at it, in all its honest glory, it was a hell of trick to get resources they desperately needed. Possibly one of the best ever.

Read up on Cooks 'discovery' of the east coast and what happened when he got ship wrecked and tried to trade with the "savages".His crew were in trouble with scurvy and needed fresh food. When he tried trading sugar and stuff, they didn't want it. It was no good to them, thus they didn't trade fresh fruit or vegetables. Instead by chance the poms saw a heap of turtles and slaughtered them.

Typical pommy bastards, when a few years later the blacks needed food as a result of the destruction from Phillips invasion and took sheep, they killed the blacks.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

I think the Frontier Wars warrant due recognition, but if you are against political motivation for commemoration this war is probably the biggest elephant in that particular room.

Speaking for myself, I've nothing against quiet commemoration and reflection on what was lost. Crowds and celebrations and flag-draping and all that seem horribly out of place and run counter to what I believe commemoration should entail.

Recognition of a war, yes. Commemoration of a war, yes. Celebration? Hero-making? Lionisation? No. Just... no.

 

[madmug]

What has that day ever done to deserve this respect?

The day is used to give respect to those fallen lads. Would you prefer some other date?
If so, just give the RSL a buzz.

 

[madmug]

why is jingoism the latest buzzword

Is it? I didnt realise.

What word would you prefer me to use?

 

[kfc1]

Is it? I didnt realise.

What word would you prefer me to use?

I don't know but I'd never heard of the word until recently and now i see it everywhere

 

[skilts]

The day is used to give respect to those fallen lads. Would you prefer some other date?
If so, just give the RSL a buzz.

Respect given without there being a recipient - the equivalent of talking to yourself. This is hardly a justification. The fallen are dead, they have no need of, nor regard for, your respect.

 

[raghav]

Or alternatively, attend the dawn service (sans speeches by politicians) and see as the names, ages and headstone inscriptions are flashed up on the screen. It was heartbreaking, seeing how young they were along with messages from their mother just wanting him back. If you weren't moved by that you weren't human. It makes me cringe when the commemoration gets hijacked by politicians (from both sides of the spectrum) to further their own cause, making us believe that the men that died were fighting for a greater cause other than just surviving and going back home.

In a way, one of the most appropriate ways to summarise the whole deal on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915 was actually by a soon-to-be politician that led the enemy (Mustafa Kemal Ataturk), with his famous statement/poem, the one that goes 'those heroes that shed their blood' etc. He was a soldier himself and he saw thousands of his own men get slaughtered. Not one mention of freedom or sacrifice or liberty or victory or evil - it's all about the soldiers that died, the grief of their mothers, and the assurance that they will be treated with the utmost dignity and respect because we are all the same.

Maybe if we sent the Ministers themselves to the front lines to personally send men into battle we'd have a lot less wars and a lot less bullshit slogans.

/2ndrant

Have you ever done anything about it apart from complain on here?

 

[Forward Press]

Have you ever done anything about it apart from complain on here?

I don't see how my posts implied that I didn't do anything other than moan at home. I moan all the time on BigFooty, sure, but that's not the point.

 

[raghav]

I don't see how my posts implied that I didn't do anything other than moan at home. I moan all the time on BigFooty, sure, but that's not the point.

Instead of moaning at home and on BF which will achieve absolutely nothing other than garner some sympathetic support from those who are like minded, why don't you write to the RSL who is responsible for running the commemoration services? FWIW I agree with your view on Politicians attending and speaking at these services, If I had my way they would be banned from attending in any official capacity and laying their tax payer funded floral tributes. The RSL is the culprit in this matter, they invite the freeloading bastards to participate.

 

[raghav]

The digital front page of the local rag

Yep...watch 'IT' live....FFS

50,000-70,000 visitors expected in Albany tomorrow to "commemorate" millions of young men and women being sent to their death.

Millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars spent.

I am utterly sick of it and truly appalled.

What exactly, the local rag, that particular story or the fact that it was a story at all?

 

[raghav]

FMD, is this what we are going to have to endure for the next four years? It is all over the news that a ship carrying troops left Fremantle, on this day, a century ago. And no, this should not be a thread for the History Board. This collective insanity, driven by media avarice and a complete lack of original ideas, is a precursor to four years of similar and worse madness. This flap doodle masquerading as reverence is nauseating, has nothing to do with history, and it's only just begun. Had I the energy, I'd despair. The last time I looked, masturbating in public was considered illegal in most, if not all, Australian states. Maybe I should stop looking, but that will provide no way of avoiding this excreta. It's going to be omnipresent.

Did you feel better after getting all that off your chest? Despite what you think or feel the fact is that what happened 100 years ago on that day was indeed a very significant day in the history of this country.

 

[clogged]

Did you feel better after getting all that off your chest? Despite what you think or feel the fact is that what happened 100 years ago on that day was indeed a very significant day in the history of this country.

Most of those involved didn't think so.

 

[John]

Typical pommy bastards,

Inherent National Socialism does rear it's ugly head every now and then.

 

[raghav]

Most of those involved didn't think so.

If you take the time to read the history you will find that was not the case at all, in fact the majority of them saw it as an adventure and couldn't wait to get over there. Obviously for those who survived it became something they would prefer to forget.

 

[clogged]

Obviously for those who survived it became something they would prefer to forget.

And that's all that matters.