Another ANZAC day comes around...

and what have we learned?


Hmmm.

This sticks in my neck every damned year. It's the anniversary of a time when "we" meaning Australian troops with the support of the Australian Government and apparently that of Australian citizens, attempted to invade a nation with which we were not at war, at the behest of our Imperial betters.

Not Vietnam. Not Iraq. Not Afghanistan. Not Korea... Turkey.

The Turkish are very good about allowing Australians to visit the site of the Gallipolli invasion, despite the twisted and inflamatory red-neck nationalism that has propagated here since John Howard took his turn at the helm and set us back a century. For the Turks it's an anniversary of them successfully seeing off an attempted invasion by stupid convicts who couldn't think for themselves.

But what have we learned? Bugger all, really. There's a whole bunch of flag waving, a flag mind you that didn't exist in the first two world wars, but we'll wave it anyway and get drunkenly patriotic in substitute for any real self-esteem. Or honesty. There's some marches and memorials, of people who did what they were ordered to do despite the illegality in these cases. And there's the mention of brave soldiers... Yes, many of them were. Certainly seeing off Hitler's axis was no mean feat. But is it really serving the memories of those who died defending their homeland and families from ruthless, greedy, lawless murderers by behaving in that manner ourselves? WTF does the flag stand for anyway, if that's the case?

Do us a favour. Be honest about who's worth remembering and for what.