This year Anzac Day recalls the death of those who died in a military campaign of the past and draws our attention to those dying in current wars. The bringing together of past and present is important. It encourages a realistic view of the war in which the landing on Gallipoli was a small part and invites us to attend to the full reality of what we see around us in Myanmar, Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. That view draws our attention to the UN Observance on the eve of Anzac Day – the Day for Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace.
Anzac rightly commemorates those who served, were injured and died on the Turkish beach. They fought on behalf of the Australian people, and they, their families and children should remain in our memory. The battle which we remember, however, was a defeat that failed in its goal. Much of the fighting there was hand to hand. It was part of a long war, however, in which massive developments in weaponry meant that killing and dying were done on an industrial scale often without any sight of opposing troops. It was an introduction to the war of machines. That war that took so many lives, too, did little more than prepare the seeds for an even more destructive war in which citizens as well as soldiers were fair game.
It was a step on the road to the helicopters of Myanmar, the drones in Ukraine and the destroyed cities of Gaza, wars in which what counts as victory is the destruction of homes, of lives and of civil society, and the embitterment of generations. It was the expression of a geopolitics in which millions of people are expendable for the prize of a passing advantage. As a Roman writer said of their legions, ‘They make a desert and call it peace’.
Anzac Day is a day of remembering its future. It is also a day of compassion for those who suffer in war both in the past and the present. As we think of the soldiers who fought and died at Gallipoli, we imagine also the families they left behind and returned too, the soldiers who returned wounded inwardly by the war and the burden borne by their families, the women widowed and left single by the death of so many marriageable men, the small towns stripped of a generation of young men, and the grief that enveloped so many people. Anzac was sometimes described as the making of Australia. If so, it did so by stripping not by adorning.
That is why in the face of present conflicts Pope Francis follows earlier Popes in speaking of war as the enemy and calling for diplomacy to end them. This is always unpopular with people who see diplomacy as appeasement and anything short of unqualified victory as defeat.
Anzac Day reminds us of the price that people pay for the wars their leaders join. The present wars remind us of the destruction of peoples and of their culture made possible in war today. Both call on us to support the work of people who try to make peace. In the heat of war, they are often accused of appeasement. But their words contribute more to human happiness than do their critics’ bombs.
Image: Flags outside the UN building, New York. depositphotos.com
REFLECTION QUESTIONS AND ACTIVITIES
Nurturing peace on Anzac Day – questions and activities
This comprehensive guide offers teachers a structured approach to exploring essential Catholic values of love, justice, forgiveness, and reconciliation within the context of peacebuilding.