ANZAC, forging a national identity

Marrielle is a Brit currently living in Australia who has become embroiled in that nation's search for a national identity in the face of massive immigration changes and issues that pose a risk to national stability and security. That Australia would choose a WWI defeat involving Australian and New Zealand volunteers at Gallipoli in Turkey upon which to forge a national identity - the ANZAC spirit - amazes her and most everybody else.

"Everyone I speak to here (not so much in NZ) talks about ANZAC Day's remarkable transformation over the past 25 years from a veteran's event to a jingoistic national identity event and they cannot understand it," says Marrielle. "I tell them it’s very likely to be a deliberate ploy by the republican movement to galvanize immigrants into believing Australians are special and separate and distinct from everybody else on earth (but particularly the British)."

"ANZAC Day should have ceased to exist when the last of the original ANZACs died - just like Trafalgar Day or Spanish Armada Day commemorations ceased over time," says Marrielle. "So, to understand why the public holiday wasn’t scrapped (as was the old Empire Day) and suddenly became more important than any other public holiday in Australia's national calendar – promoting bigger and bigger crowds at dawn services around Australia (and particularly at Anzac Cove in Gallipoli) each year – you need to examine the conditions that led to the formation of ANZAC Day in the first place (Australia's post-WW1 thirst for regional power and global recognition) and the conditions that are necessary for a republic to be formed (breaking all ties with Mother England and becoming a global power)."

"In order to forge the separate and distinct national identity the republicans deem necessary for the success of their cause there has been a deliberate shift in immigration policy over the past 25 years from being predominantly British to being predominantly Asian," says Marrielle. "There has also been an equally dramatic shift in Australia's economic and political ties (away from Europe, towards Asia and America), and with these shifts has been a deliberate mythologizing of the ANZAC spirit and the demonizing of everything British."

"The ANZAC spirit – courage, endurance and humor in the face of crushing adversity is a human trait, not something peculiarly Australian," says Marrielle. "Gallipoli was a human disaster, not just an Australian disaster, and incompetence in wartime is not something peculiarly British - Australians had their incompetents too."

"So, it's disingenuous for the Australian government to indoctrinate school kids with the ANZAC spirit as a national identity and to fund war commemoration in all forms - services, monuments, films, TV shows, books, songs, etc – particularly as funds supporting the welfare of vets is woefully inadequate," says Marrielle. "Also, it's disingenuous to give the impression that Australians went to war to fight for freedoms (when freedoms had already been won long ago by peaceful means) and to promote the myth that the ANZACs were bronzed 'Australians' when in actual fact many were British born and were voluntarily fighting at Gallipoli for Empire (not Australia) and for higher wages and adventure (not heroism)."

"Empire Day has long gone and Remembrance Day, Nov 11th, already exists to honor the sacrifices of Australians and others in wars," adds Marrielle, "but is not a public holiday and it has been deliberately eclipsed by ANZAC Day in order to separate Australia's military sacrifices from that of others.”

“Australia Day represents nationhood, not independence, and ANZAC day, it appears, has now taken on the mantle of the war of independence Australia never had from Britain," says Marrielle. "Seen in this light ANZAC day must necessarily be preserved and revered by the republicans' as the most important day in Australia's calendar because when they finally achieve their dream, the Queen's Birthday holiday will go, and because of its commemoration of Captain Cook's arrival in Australia (and the subsequent decimation of the indigenous population) Australia Day has to go, too, along with the Union Jack in the corner of the Australian flag."

"As a Brit I am saddened that Australia needs to deny its heritage and demonize everything British in order to forge its national identity," says Marrielle, "and after speaking to a lot of immigrants here, from all corners of the world, the ploy may in fact backfire on the republicans."

"What the republicans fail to understand is that many immigrants chose Australia as their new home because of its British heritage, traditions and ties and cannot relate to the ANZAC spirit because it is related to war, not peace, and happened so long ago that it is totally irrelevant in today's world."

“I think republicanism should come from the people, not be imposed on them by ambitious politicians wanting to play on the world stage, and the same goes for national identity," says Marrielle. "And while it may take a very long time for a multicultural immigrant country like Australia to forge its own national identity, I don’t particularly think it is necessary in order for a republic to be successful.”

desperate iraqi refugees

Ashley's grandparents escaped Nazi Germany in the 1930s and the stories they tell her about the terrible effects of war on civil populations have made her a champion of refugees everywhere. She is appalled by the way Iraqi refugees were treated by Australia in 2001, and now Greece is doing the same thing in 2007 -- turning away boat people to sink or starve on deserted islands.

"As soon as George W. Bush came to power the movement of refugees out of the Middle East became obvious to everyone," says Ashley. "People in those countries knew his focus was going to be his daddy's unfinished business in Iraq and they were getting out as fast as they could by whatever means they could."

"The most spectacular of these refugee movements occurred in September 2001 when a sinking boatload of Middle Eastern refugees heading for a save haven in Australia was rescued by the Norwegian container ship, the Tampa."

"The Australian authorities requested the captain of the Tampa to return the refugees to their port of origin, Indonesia, but instead he headed for Australian territory because the refugees were agitated and did not want to go back."

"A stand-off for a considerable length of time occurred while Australian, Norwegian and Indonesian authorities passed the buck, during which distraught refugees, some sick, some pregnant, some very old, some very young, were trapped in the scorching heat on the deck of the Tampa."

"The Australian authorities claimed that the refugees were queue jumpers -- illegals who forced their way into a country ahead of those who waited for official processing of their claim for refugee status -- and eventually the refugees were offloaded at Nauru, a tiny Pacific island, where they were processed by United Nations officials and then either farmed out to whatever country would take them or returned to the misery of the country from which they had fled."

"A short while later, another sinking boatload of Middle Eastern refugees heading for save haven in Australia was not so lucky," sighs Ashley. "Every person on board, an estimated 350 people, lost their lives."

"The whole scene was reminiscent of my grandparents' story," says Ashley. "Thousands of people tried to flee Germany in the early 1930s when Hitler came to power, but they were refused entry by country after country because they they did not enter with official permits."

"As a result of the world's indifference to refugees, millions of people were exterminated in Europe, mostly Jews but also people who were considered undesirable by the Nazis -- gypsies, homosexuals, disabled people and political dissenters."

"In Australia, not even the demise of the second boatload of refugees, softened the black hearts." says Ashley. "On the contrary, the feeling at the time was that their watery end was their own fault."

"Apart from the simple fact that everybody in Australia who is not aboriginal is either a boat person themselves -- or a plane person, illegal or otherwise -- or descended from such a person or, worse, a convicted felon," says Ashley, "the lack of compassion for the Middle Eastern refugees was shocking."

"It was difficult to comprehend that the self-proclaimed 'lucky country' could treat refugees so badly," says Ashley. "Only a year before, in 2000, Australia had hosted the Olympic Games in Sydney and the world was applauding the warm hearted Australians."

"It's difficult to imagine how the black hearted people responsible for this so-called War on Terror crime go to sleep soundly at night," sighs Ashley. "How can they look at a future full of splendid opportunities for their children when they have effectively diminished their own humanity by treating the Middle Eastern refugees so inhumanely?"

"And now Greece is going the same thing!" sighs Ashley. "Is there something about holding the Olympic Games that makes nations heartless?"

Ashley's story first apppeared as boat people and is reprinted with permission.

early migration routes

Unlike more modern migrants, whose journey is defined by a target destination and a well-trodden route, the first migrants had no idea where they were going or the hazards they would face.

It is important to remember that many millions of years ago, when the initial emigration was taking place, the geography of the Earth was very different to what it is now. There was one continental land mass, called Pangaea which facilitated migration west towards what is now South America and east towards what is now India and Australia.

After the cataclysmic events that split Pangaea into our present continents, the most amazing isolation of all species took place. North and South America - and Australia - remained unknown continents, with unknown people, and unknown civilizations until relatively recent times.

Africa remained the centre of the human universe, but now the migratory routes had to follow coastlines and mountain ranges. The region between the western Highlands of Cameroon and the eastern mountain ranges appears to provide a natural inland corridor north, as well as a coastal escape route south and west.

Without the means to ford wide rivers or traverse high mountains, this corridor provided the means by which countless people and animals over countless years migrated out of Equatorial Africa.

Those who trekked north either followed the banks of the River Nile as it flowed down to the Mediterranean Sea through lands we know now as Sudan and Egypt; or they followed the East African mountain ranges through lands we know now as Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. Taking the latter route, some may have found a pass through the mountain ranges to end up on the shores of the Indian Ocean in the land we know now as Kenya, and trekked from there along the eastern coastline and the Red Sea up to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

Those who trekked west followed the coastline west, and then north, to lands we know now as Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Senegal and Mauritania; and when they reached Morocco, on the western shores of the Mediterranean Sea, they were then able to cross into Europe via Spain - just as they do now.

Fossil evidence, however, shows that the very earliest of the migrants trekked south - following the coastline to lands we know now as Angola, Namibia and South Africa. From the southernmost tip of Africa, it was then possible for them to follow the coastline north up the eastern coast of Africa through lands we know now as Swaziland, Mozambique, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt until they, too, reached the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.