2015-04-24
Anne Picot
It has been impossible to avoid the wall-to-wall coverage of the centenary of the landing at Gallipoli by Australian troops on 25 April 1915. Whatever you think of the decision to invade Turkey with Imperial forces from all over the British empire or of the reverence with which the date is now commemorated, it is impossible to ignore the nationalist fervour of the current centenary.
The centenary of Anzac Day tops off two decades of the elevation of 25 April as a national festival. The extent and depth of the effort to embed Anzac Day into public national celebration is quite extraordinary. It has been expanded from the commemoration of the First World War's returned servicemen to embrace all Australian military expeditions and has been promoted into the school curriculum with the blessing and funds of the Department of Veteran Affairs. Visiting Gallipoli has become a pilgrimage for many Australians traveling overseas, and the well-funded Australian War Memorial has become one of the most patronised museums in the country.
It was not like this in my youth. Nationalism was not embraced in this fashion, let alone a militarist nationalism which was repellent to the generation which opposed the war in Viet Nam. The flag-waving — and frequently racist — belligerence which accompanies the national festivals on Anzac Day and Australia Day is quite alien — and alienating — to my generation.
But there are other centenaries in 2015 which are worth celebrating, especially by the Greens, in pursuit of our principle of peace and nonviolence. The Australian Sisterhood for International Peace and the Women's Peace Army both began meeting early in 1915 in Melbourne and soon after opened chapters in Sydney and Brisbane. They were part of an international women's movement against the war which culminated in the first International Congress of Women in the Hague in the Netherlands in April 1915. This was the beginning of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom to which a number of Australian women's organisations affiliated.
Notwithstanding the flourishing jingoism in Australia, the First World War was divisive. The Women's Political Association and the Women's Peace Army campaigned with their newspapers and public meetings against the war and militarism in the face of hostility from the public and the military authorities (who banned an anti-war song judged prejudicial to recruitment which one member of the WPA used to sing to open their meetings). Socialists and the International Workers of the World opposed the war as imperialist. Many in the Irish Catholic community were opposed to the war and Britain — especially after the suppression of the Easter Rising in 1916. Two referenda to introduce conscription were defeated, which speaks volumes for the state of democracy in the country despite stringent regulation of opposition to the war. That is something to celebrate.
Today in a multi-cultural society, the Anzac commemoration seems a celebration of white, British imperial militarism encapsulating the nineteenth century idea that “the nation is tested in war”. The theme of mourning the inhuman scale of deaths, waste and loss is visible but the war itself is seldom if ever condemned by a public figure. As Greens standing for the principle of peace and nonviolence we can — and should — point to the utter failure of the First World War to solve anything at all. The experience of the last decade of sending Australian troops overseas reinforces the failure of force of arms to fix any conflict. We should not hold back from opposing militarism and anything which attempts to celebrate it.
With thanks to Therese Doyle of Newcastle Greens for pointing out that 2015 is the centenary of the founding of WILPF and the Third International Socialist Women's Conference in Berne in March 1915 which lead to the third anti-war socialist Zimmerwald Peace Conference in September 1915.
Image: Vida Goldstein and the Womens' Peace Army