Tag Archives: History

Sydney’s Historical Revisionism – divisive not productive

Posted on by Brad Heap

Last night the City of Sydney Council voted to use the word ‘invasion’ to describe the arrival of European settlement in Australia in official council documents. The decision was made under the threat of the resignation of the Aboriginal advisory panel if the word was not used. However, instead of moving Sydney and Australia forward, the decision by the City of Sydney has opened up a can of historical worms with its attempts at revisionism.

The reality is Australia was settled not invaded. If Australia was invaded it would have involved guns, wars and people conquered. However, for the most part the initial establishment of Australia was peaceful. Sure there are stories about violence against some Aboriginal communities, however, there are equally as many stories about the trade between the European arrivals and established Aboriginal communities. The main problems in Australia’s history, such as the White Australia Policy, came later.

I believe it is right to attempt to amend the wrongs of the past. It is especially important to help those people where as a result of the past there is still pain, disadvantage and suffering today. However, this change does not seek to make any difference to the lives of people; instead it is mere political pandering to a select few who play politics.

What the city of Sydney (and Australia) really needs to do is work to be inclusive to all, acknowledging its indigenous heritage, and building partnerships with all communities to move forward together as a united nation. However, while Europeans continue to be seen as invaders and Aboriginals as lazy this will not happen. It is time for both sides to stop living 220 years in the past and instead have a cultural perspective change and focus on future.

 

Remembering the Glorious Dead for the right reasons

Posted on by Brad Heap

There is a very unpatriotic opinion article in the Sydney Morning Herald today suggesting that we don’t honour the ANZACs.

While the author, Martin Flanagan, does well to point out some of the history surrounding the Gallipoli campaign his tie in arguments against remembering the dead simply do not stack up.

Gallipoli was a military disaster. We should note that in justice to the young men who died there. Do we owe them less than we owe those who die in bushfires like Black Saturday? We should also note it in justice to future generations. The voices that urged Australia into the invasion of Iraq were of the same character as those that propelled Australia to Gallipoli in 1914.

Flanagan is correct in stating that Gallipoli was a military disaster, one of the primary reasons for this was that the ANZACs landed at the wrong beach. But I do not want to get bogged down in historical arguments. The most offensive and false claim by Flanagan in this statement is comparing the Gallipoli campaign to Iraq. There is a big difference in roles between the two, in Gallipoli the ANZACs were defending, sure they were invading Turkey, however the only reason for doing so was to defend the British Empire and end the war, they did not start the war but their goal was to end it. In Iraq the Australian Army is among the aggressors, they did start the war and they did make the choice to attack.

What the Australians won at Gallipoli was huge respect, including from their enemy. It really is time we started making clear to young Australians that the Anzacs didn’t die protecting Australia from being invaded. Rather, we were invading a country on the other side of the world – to wit, Turkey – with whom we had no difference as a people outside the larger politics of the day.

Surely it is time we owed Turkey, and Turkish Australians, that respect. Look at the respect Turkey shows our dead.

I ask this question most seriously. Does any country in the world – other than Turkey – permit a people who tried to invade it to commemorate the fact of that attempted invasion on their shores each year? I know of not a single one. Imagine if the descendants of the Japanese pilots who bombed Darwin held an emotional service beneath the Japanese flag on the shores of Darwin Harbour each year.

Again there is a massive difference between the attack on Gallipoli and the attack on Darwin. The attack on Gallipoli formed the basis of the ANZAC bond that has seen NZ and Australian troops work together jointly in a number of wars, exercises, rescues, peacekeeping missions, trade and politics over the last 95 years. It also formed the basis of maturing as two nations independent of Great Britain and through the war a bond with Turkey.

The services at Gallipoli are not the celebration of war they are remembering the dead, the dead who died serving their country, defending their country, and believing in their country. They are also about respecting those who fought to give us the freedoms we enjoy today – including the freedom to criticise what they fought for.

The difference with the attack on Darwin is that the scars between the actions of Japan and Australia have never fully healed. The way in which the author compares the attack suggests this. The way in which Japan and Germany among other countries avoid talking about the war also suggests that they are not at a point yet to move on from the past. The attack on Darwin was an attack and only an attack, the Gallipoli campaign was a lot more than just an attack, it was the forming of nations and what is honoured on ANZAC day is those who helped form those nations not those who needless died in a failed campaign.