Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign calls for new ANZAC focus

By Emily Contador-Kelsall

The ANZAC centenary is approaching and while tributes are flowing, debates surrounding the ANZAC legend are moving into the public eye.
Several Marrickville councillors last year attempted to stop an ANZAC debate happening at Petersham Town Hall on Wednesday 22 April, as this edition of City Hub went to print.
The Gallipoli Centenary Peace Campaign (GCPC) organised the debate. Its proximity to ANZAC day was criticised as “distasteful” by Independent councillor Victor Macri who tried to have the date of the debate moved.
Jon Atkins, secretary of the GCPC said the reason for holding the event was dissatisfaction with the way the commemoration of ANZAC had been organised and the discussion around it.
“We think that it should primarily focus on the causes of the war, how Australia got involved in the war and emphasise how we can learn from that awful slaughter that took place,” he said.
“Our emphasis, in that respect, honours those that died and those that were injured in the war because it focuses on how we can prevent such an awful event from occurring in the future.”
The debate was titled “Gallipoli and Anzac after 100 Years: Lessons and the Prospects for Peace Today” and featured three speakers; historian Douglas Newton, Margot Pearson from the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and Anne Noonan from the Medical Association for Prevention of War.
Although Clr Macri said having the debate was like “having a party at someone’s funeral”, he was opposed to the debate’s timing not the actual debate.
“Part of the reasoning for the Peace Group not wanting to move it, they said that the ANZAC week is when all the emotion is about and they want to cash in on the emotion…is that any different to Woolworths?” he said.
Other ANZAC debates have also drawn attention and controversy over the past week. The Socialist Equality Party accused the University of Sydney (USYD) and Burwood Council of attacking their “democratic rights” as the two organisations opposed an “anti-war meeting” on April 26 titled “Anzac Day, the glorification of militarism and the drive to World War III.”
But Associate Professor at the Department of History USYD Richard White thinks it is important to debate national myths and legends like ANZAC.
“Surely if you have a national myth, then one of the things that you should do on the day its being commemorated is discuss it and talk about it – just as you would on Australia Day,” he said.
“Once it becomes a mindless activity where you don’t think about it, which is in a way the alternative position, you’re turning it into something that’s quite dangerous – it’s mindless nationalism.”
Professor White has read many diaries of soldiers who were involved in World War One and said the impression he got from them had “no relation to some of the jingoistic sentiments around ANZAC day”.
“I think a bit more knowledge and debate around what ANZAC meant would be a good way of commemorating it,” he said.