Behind the ANZAC Myth - Conscription and World War 1 : Melbourne Indymedia

The overt politicisation of ANZAC Day during the last decade by the Howard government, is turning it from a day in which the country remembers and recognises the ultimate sacrifice made by Australians who have died in war and the sacrifices made by those who continue to carry the physical and psychological scars that have blighted their lives and continue to blight the lives of their partners and children, to a jingoistic festival. Many survivors have had to carry the added burden of being sent to wars that were fought for short term political and ideological expediency, not the defence of Australia.

It is strange that ANZAC Day, almost a century after the Gallipoli landing, continues to have a strong hold on younger Australians. ANZAC Day has not always played such a pivotal role in Australian society. Between the Great Wars, Remembrance Day - the 11th November - was a much more important day than ANZAC Day to most Australians. The re-writing of history by Australia's growing band of government supported historical revisionists has muddied the waters so much that few Australians are even vaguely aware that Australia was a bitterly divided nation during World War One. The sacrosanct mythological account that has been spun to create the ANZAC myth has little, if anything, to do with reality. Hundreds of thousands bitterly opposed Australia's participation in WWI. When the reality of what was really happening on the Dardanelles and later on the Western Front filtered back home, the deluge of volunteers had slowed to a trickle.

Many Australians believed WWI was essentially a trade war that was fought by workers at either end of a bayonet. The bulk of the trade union movement, the Catholic Church, women's groups and radical groups like the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) were openly defiant of the Prime Minister's plans to send more young Australians to the European killing fields.

Prime Minister Hughes was initially against conscription but when he returned from England in 1916, he had changed his mind. Faced with the reality the majority of Labor members of Federal Parliament had signed anti-conscription pledges and that neither Cabinet nor the Labor Caucus would allow him to introduce a Conscription Act into Parliament, he put his faith in the idea that the electorate would support a Conscription referendum. He gambled that no politician would dare oppose a Conscription Bill backed by the people.

When Hughes introduced his proposal for a Conscription referendum into Federal Parliament, he was expelled from the Political Labor League in Sydney and his own union - the Waterside Workers Union - censored him. The Australian Trade Union Congress called for a general strike if conscription was introduced. Although a large number of Labor members voted against the Referendum Bill, the Bill was passed with the support of the Opposition.

Faced with the prospect of a Conscription referendum in December 1916 and the introduction of the draconian War Precautions Act - an Act which was very similar to the so called 'anti-terrorist' legislation passed after 9/11 - the anti-conscription forces took to the streets to demonstrate their concerns and attempted to organise a general strike to oppose conscription. Across Australia, anti-conscription meetings and rallies were met with violence. The IWW were banned, its newspaper 'Direct Action' was closed down, its assets seized and its members were jailed and deported. Despite government censorship and the violence directed at the anti-conscription movement, the movement flourished.

On the 4th of October 1916, a stop work meeting of workers opposed to the war drew a crowd of 50,000 people to Melbourne's Yarra bank. Two weeks later, the Women's Peace Army was able to mobilise 100,000 people (10% of Melbourne's population) at an anti-conscription rally held on Melbourne's Yarra bank that was addressed by a team of women's speakers.

In August 1916, the Labor electoral leagues (the local branches of what became the Labor Party) held an anti-conscription rally in Sydney attended by 90,000 people. (The Wobblies at War - Frank Cain)

The anti-conscription movement used cartoons, songs and poems to promote their viewpoints; to the relief of everybody involved in the anti-conscription struggle the conscription referendum held in December 1916 narrowly returned a no vote.

Prime Minister Hughes, anticipating a no confidence motion in his leadership, walked out of the Caucus meeting with 23 of the 65 members present. The breakaway minority formed a National Labor Party that established a new government with the support of the Nationals. The torrent of dead and injured, and the deep divisions surrounding Australian participation in WWI, did not stop the new government holding another conscription referendum in late 1917.

Daniel Mannix, the co-adjustor Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, joined the anti-conscription campaign and used church functions to campaign against conscription. He, like the trade unions, Quakers, socialists, the I.W.W. (International Workers of the World) and the Women's Peace Army, had joined the massive national campaign against conscription because they believed WWI was not the war to end all wars, or a war fought to protect smaller nations, or a war to promote freedom or democracy. To them it was just another grubby trade war.

Archbishop Mannix told his congregation:- "We hear a great deal about the cause of the war, that it was a question of the rights of smaller nations, but as a matter of fact, it is simply a trade war. Those who are now our enemies before the war had been capturing our trade. I say, deliberately in spite of all the things we hear about the war, that it is an ordinary trade war".

The second conscription referendum in 1917 was easily defeated. Through the courage and efforts of the Australian people, another 60,000 young Australians would not be sacrificed on the European killing fields for the glory of God, King and country. Considering the historical record, it is ironic that ANZAC Day has become such an important day in the Australian calendar. 60,000 young men from a population of 5 million were sacrificed in bungled military campaign fought over a trade war that was opposed by a majority of Australians. The Gallipoli campaign was an unmitigated disaster. The Allied troops that wrest on that peninsula in Western Turkey died in a pointless invasion. The Turks died defending their homeland, the Australian and the rest of the Allies died in a poorly planned and executed diversionary campaign.

ANZAC Day is an inappropriate day to remember those Australian men and women who have died in war, and those who continue to suffer because of their war experiences. There are other more important and appropriate dates that exist.

The Kokoda campaign in Papua New Guinea in 1942 is a much more important campaign than the failed ANZAC campaign. Faced with imminent invasion by the Japanese Imperial Forces, Australia was a united nation during WWII. The young soldiers who were sent to Kokoda were inexperienced, poorly armed and out-manned. They succeeded with the assistance of the Papuans in defeating the battle hardened Japanese Imperial Army. Their success on the battlefield prevented the invasion by a fascist army which would have reeled havoc among the poorly prepared Australian civilian population.

The Kokoda campaign was everything the ANZAC campaign was not. The Australian military succeeded in driving back the Japanese Imperial Forces. They succeeded in preventing the invasion of Australia; they succeeded in preventing the establishment of a fascist occupation force in Australia. They were fighting to protect the nation's integrity, individual freedom and parliamentary democracy.

Why do we as a nation still continue to remember the horrors of war and honour those who died, those who were injured and those who fought on such an inappropriate day, when other more appropriate and relevant days are available to the Australian people?

I concur with Dr. Brendan Nelson, the Federal Education Minister's call to invoke the story of Simpson and his donkey to inculcate Australian values among Australian students in Muslim schools.

John Simpson Kirkpatrick, an illegal immigrant, jumped ship when the ship he was working as a stoker on, docked in Fremantle. He changed his name to John Simpson to evade deportation. He worked his way around Australia taking on what work he could find. Simpson was sympathetic to the aims of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.), a radical workers organisation that eschewed parliamentary politics and promoted direct action. The I.W.W. was at the forefront of the successful W.W.I. anti conscription struggle. For their troubles, the group was banned under the War Precautions Act. The I.W.W.'s assets were seized and its members were jailed and deported by the Billy Hughes government.

John Simpson was a strong union man and a socialist. In his letters to his parents in England, he called for a socialist revolution in Britain. He volunteered to join the Australian Armed forces thinking he would be able to score a free trip back to England, never imagining he would end up on the shores of Gallipoli. He became a stretcher bearer, believing this was the best way to avoid combat duties. When he arrived at Gallipoli he adopted a donkey which he called Abdul and for 40 days ferried soldiers who had been injured by flying shrapnel back to the beach for evacuation. He avoided going into the thick of battle to take out the wounded and concentrated on carrying out soldiers on his donkey who were not seriously injured.

John Simpson Kirkpatrick had no intentions of dying for God, King and Country in the senseless and pointless slaughter that was going on around him. Kirkpatrick was an internationalist and preferred the company of the Indian artillery at Gallipoli, sleeping with them at night rather than the Australian troops.

His life and death at Gallipoli was immortalised by a publicity machine that was keen to create an acceptable hero among a war weary public back home. Little regard was taken about the real John Simpson Kirkpatrick and a myth was spun to suit the propaganda needs of a government that was coming under increased pressure back home because of horrifying number of casualties that were occurring.

Dr. Brendan Nelson in true spirit of Australian politics has involved the myths surrounding the Simpson and the donkey story to push a political agenda that has little to do with Australian values and everything to do with the Howard government's myopic re-election strategy. Ironically Dr. Nelson has, by promoting this story, inadvertently evoked values that are anathema to the Howard government but which continue to strike a chord with a significant number of Australians.

Even the Australian War Memorial acknowledges that Kirkpatrick was "a trade union activist". Peter Cochrane in his 1992 book 'Simpson And The Donkey: The Making Of A Legend' goes much further and says "Again and again Simpson’s allegiance to class, his vehemence and anger, have been erased, in favour of the simple tale centred on his alleged loyalty to mother, nation, empire and, in the last instance, to his manhood."

One of Kirkpatrick's letters home to his mother in 1912 gives an idea of his political values when he said "I often wonder when the working men of England will wake up and see things as other people see them. What they want in England is a good revolution and that will clear some of these Millionaires and lords and Dukes out of it and then with a Labour Government they will almost be able to make their own conditions."

According to a report in the Age in 2003 "1920s, pacifist schoolteachers adopted Simpson (Kirkpatrick) and his donkey to turn Anzac Day commemorations away from militarism and towards a celebration of the mateship that passed for socialism in the bush." Also in the same report, Captain Hugo Throssell, VC, told the Peace Day gathering at Northam (WA) in July 1919 that the war had made him a socialist.

Much of the idealized myth of Simpson was generated by Reverend Sir Irving Benson, superintendent of Melbourne’s Wesley Mission, in his 1965 book 'The Man with the Donkey'. Simpson’s politics were effectively excluded to fit the anti-Communist ideological crusade of the time with the rapidly expanding Australian military commitment in Vietnam.

The 'real story' of unionist, anti war Gallipoli martyr Kirkpatrick aka Simpson and his Donkey

Remember the IWW on Anzac Day

This is a crucial event which need more support.

So we are now coming around to the fourth annual remembrabce of the great IWW victory against conscription. I am just now buying the balloons to make the skulls for a "War Tree". The enthusiasm is running a little dry but I feel it important that this event be kept up. *

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143843.php

Australia makes WAR on Iraq and Iraqi Refugees

Australian government Ignores plight of Iraqi War victims while organising trans shipment of refugees from Nauru.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143772.php

Howard, Rudd escalate support for US-led Afghan war

Declaring that there “is the distinct possibility of casualties and that should be understood and prepared for by the Australian public”, PM John Howard announced on April 10 that an Australian military task force spearheaded by 300 Special Air Services troops would be deployed to Afghanistan’s south-central Oruzgan province.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143666.php

Iraqi parliament bombing: a sign of deepening crisis

The bombing inside the Iraqi parliament last Thursday has underscored the deepening quagmire created by the US-led invasion and occupation. Four years after American troops entered Baghdad, nowhere in the country—including the heavily fortified and guarded Green Zone where the huge US embassy and Iraqi government offices are also sited—is invulnerable to attack.

http://wsws.org/articles/2007/apr2007/iraq-a17.shtml

What are Britain’s special-forces doing in northern Iraq?

The crash between two military helicopters in Iraq late on Saturday evening raises the question as what Britain’s special-forces are doing in northern Iraq.

http://wsws.org/articles/2007/apr2007/sas-a17.shtml

Baby bonus for early ADF enlistment

The initiative is part of the Federal Government's billion-dollar overhaul of recruitment and retention schemes in the ADF.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143588.php

Australian Army - Don't Become A Statistic For Capital!

UNkNOWN News: "News that's not known, or not known enough."

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143575.php

Call for skilled migrants to be sent to the ADF

Prime Minister John Howard wants the migrants to help fill chronic shortages in the Defence [WAR] Force.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143498.php

Time to go to war with your country?

Unemployed to be offered jobs in war forces. She says the scheme will provide opportunities to unemployed people who would not otherwise have considered a job in the ADF?

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143481.php

Afghanistan war political slaughter

Former British serviceman opined that most of what British troops do in Afghanistan is not constructive at all and it only works to further alienate Afghan population.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143316.php

THE ANZAC MYTH - PART 1

"Hundreds of thousands bitterly opposed Australia's participation in WWI"

The ANZAC myth has become an integral part of Australian folklore, as the last living witnesses to the carnage that occurred cannot personally challenge the idealised sanitised accounts that are being trotted out each ANZAC Day...

http://perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action=newswire&parentview=54774

What is more, the recent Russian sales of military defense systems to Iran, in particular, 29 TOR-M1 surface-to-air missiles for alleged $700 million to $1 billion as well as Russian Navy torpedoes of the type VA-111 Shkval (’Squall’), should enable Tehran to considerably harm the U.S. when attacked—an outcome much desired by Moscow as it would revive its superpower ambitions. And also during the war, Russia could speed up its military exports to the Middle East. The recent UN arms embargo on Iran could hardly prevent its military industry from huge war-time profits. Besides these multi-billion dollar businesses, Moscow can speculate about a geostrategic gain of tremendous proportions.

As it can be expected, an Iran War will considerably weaken the aggressed (as a regional great power), but also the aggressor (as the global superpower). The power vacuum then produced in the whole Middle East region would be gladly filled by Russia. Thus it could gain highly significant terrain in the much-disputed Eurasian grand chessboard and pay back the geostrategic losses it had to suffer in its ‘immediate neighborhood’—i.e. Central Asia—in the wake of 9/11 through heavy U.S. militarization of former Soviet nations.

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/04/368510.html

Defence [WAR] Minister Brendan Nelson has used a visit to Iraq to tell Australian personnel serving there that their role is important and on-going.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1903636.htm

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Important to capitalists! And what a democracy with over 655,000 democratic lost souls.

The US Navy destroyer being promoted as the model for an Australian naval contract is visiting Sydney this morning.

The USS Lassen is to berth at Garden Island on the first leg of its Australian tour.

The Federal Government is considering the allocation of $10 billion for new ships for the Navy.

The other contender, the Spanish frigate Alvaro De Bazan, visited Sydney last month.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1903910.htm

Sinday April 22, (earth day is hippy for tree huggers lets ceebrate war ?)

Forced Anzac Day work not on, says Top Bloke Hockey

image of polly wrapped in Ausfailure flag kissing baby at Anzac Cove (oohhh,aahhh, Bump Me Into Parlaiment chorus)

The federal Workplace Bossy Boots Relations Minister, Joe (head-kicker) Hockey, has warned businesses they face prosecution if they force people to work on Anzac Day.

"we'll lock up bloody strikers and anti-conscription commo bastards ..what oh Bosses ? well do be nice chaps no don't worry about these cob web laws they are iron chains for the plebs Lads !"

The RSL is concerned workers can be forced to work on Anzac Day under the Government's industrial relations legislation.

"Strewth there are uppity bar staff at RSL Clubs that have to be paid LHMU organised public holiday rates of pay - the dirty commie rats how UnAustralian is that they should volunteer donate their Labour instead."

But Mr Hockey's told ABC TV's Insiders program they cannot and he says business should be careful.

"Yes we have wet pieve of paper to slap them on the wrist with for the TV news just to show how seriosu we are while off screen we can gas and bash the peace creeps!"

"Be fair and reasonable - of course RSLs themselves will want to open on Anzac Day so that diggers can have a drink and a bit of two-up," he said.

"So long as the bar stff donate their labour free in the National Interest of course just like CUB Brewery gives their beer away free to diggers mate!"

"There will be people working on Anzac Day, police, security guards, I suspect people in the media will even be working on Anzac Day and it's ever been like that."

Propecting private property and repeating Government propaganda are two essental services surely eberyone who knows what is good for them accepts that."

Rock concert

Mr Hockey also says a concert run by the unions today proves they are struggling to attract widespread support for their campaign against the Government's industrial relations policy.

Unlike the happy workers of LiberalLand who skip to work, sing all day and work unpaid overtime because they know it is the Australian way eh maaaate!

A number of high profile rock bands will play at an anti-WorkChoices rally in Sydney.

Mr Hockey told Insiders program that the unions' fear campaign is not working.

"This is all part of the $100 million union and Labor Party campaign to create fear," he said.

"The fact that they have to use rock stars to try and get a crowd illustrates that it's not a widespread fear in the community.
We control the fear of Muslims, illegal migrants the ALP are just amateurs at the Fear Factory we are the real captains of that Industry.

"What it is about is bread and circuses for the Labor Party and the union bosses."

Whereas we are about better baguettes and higher class events for the Liberal national Coalition and the Corporate Bosses.

They were just a bunch of dumb murderers sent into a foreign country for no reason except to rape and pillage.

Two Australian militants have been wounded after a roadside bomb attack on their convoy in Iraq overnight, the Department of Defence [War] has confirmed.

The militants were in the first of two Australian Light Armoured Vehicles (ASLAVs) carrying out a routine patrol during the occupation of Iraq when they were attacked.

One man has leg wounds while the other suffered less serious injuries in the explosion, which destroyed their ASLAV.

The militants were treated at the site of the attack before being evacuated to a US hospital at the Tallil airbase. They may be moved to Baghdad for further treatment.

Family members have been informed of the attack.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1905017.htm

Joe Toscano should know all about jingo militaristic spectacles - he's been behind one at Ballarat for the last decade or so. Some historians are useful to us in spite of their prejudices - I'm prepared to say that about Manning Clark. But you can only read so much lengthy history from any one source and Joe Toscano makes himself expendable with his idiotic, inane and hypocritical stance toward violence.
The only good street fighting revolutionists are dead ones according to this 'libertarian' fraud. Really Joe Toscano is just another national socialist lamer leftist loser. There is not one marxist boot-heel in australia he wont lick. What a disgrace that such a racist fascist lunatic is able to besmirch the good name of anarchism. He is probably also a quack as a doctor. I wouldn't let him near a brown dog.

Reading the quotes from Brendan Nelson's speech at the dawn service on the Gallipoli peninsula I was very disturbed:

<blockquote>"To understand what happened here, to feel a connection with this place, is to be fully Australian," he said.</blockquote>

What about the Turkish descendents of those tens of thousands who died there? They must feel a connection to the place. Are they also "fully Australian"? What a ridiculous statement, but wait there's more:

<blockquote>"No group of Australians has given more, nor worked harder to shape and define our identity than those who have worn and now wear the uniform of the Australian Navy, Army and Air Force."</blockquote>

How can this be so? Australian identity should not be defined by the military. This is the situation in North Korea, not in a democratic state. Australia as a nation, at its best, is the product of millions of peaceful individuals pursuing a way of life that is based on freedom, respect and a "fair go". Few of these values are represented in warfare.

<blockquote>"Precious Australians who lie here and in distant places of the world do so as silent witnesses to the future that they have given us," he said.</blockquote>

The Gallipoli campaign was a disaster. Coming from a military family myself I know that the soldier's (and nurse's and sapper's) lot was a miserable one where mistakes and bad planning were as common as effective military actions. Those Australians killed at Gallipoli and in all military campaigns on foreign soil are the victims of those that sent them there. Even as volunteers the loss of so many so young should never be glorified in any way.

<blockquote>"We honour them by the way that we use our lives and shape our nation."</blockquote>

This is true. For this reason ANZAC day should be a day for the condemnation of all military spending, planning and deployment. In its name money should be made available for international youth exchanges between conflicting states. Peace and conflict studies should be taught in high school. Defence spending (currently around 2 per cent) should be tied to the overseas development aid budget (currently at 0.30 per cent), whereby no more than the percentage that is spent on aid can be spent on weapons and war.

This is how the diggers should be remembered.

I despair of the direction that public opinion seems to be taking in Australia in recent years. Everywhere is a provincial jingoistic nationalism that celebrates a one dimensional version of the nation’s history and culture/s.

Both the USA and Australia are preparing for a conventional war with China. The war will be mainly fought in the South China sea and on the waters surrounding Taiwan.

The bellicose buffoons of the Anzac Parade are the fattened fodder to be used in that war.

I am glad that my tax will be used to facilitate the means for them being blasted to bits.

According to this report, Iraq recorded a staggering 150 percent increase in the rate of infant deaths between 1990 and 2005. In raw figures, 122,000 Iraqi children died in 2005, half of them newborn babies. The rate was 125 deaths of children under five for every 1,000 live births, compared to 50 in 1990. According to the Iraqi health ministry, conditions have only worsened since, with the ratio climbing to 130 deaths for every 1,000 births in 2006.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/05/145195.php

The US war and occupation of Iraq—the murder of a society—Part two
This is the second part of a three-part series. Part one was posted May 19. Its purpose is to examine a series of recent reports establishing the immense scale of death, destruction and oppression that have been wrought by the US occupation of Iraq, now in its fifth year. Taken together, these reports confirm that US operations in Iraq have amounted to sociocide—the deliberate and systematic murder of an entire society. The third and concluding part will be posted May 22.
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/05/145305_comment.php#145333

The US war and occupation of Iraq—the murder of a society—Part three
This is the final part of a three-part series. Part one was posted May 19 and part two on May 21. Its purpose is to examine a series of recent reports establishing the immense scale of death, destruction and oppression that have been wrought by the US occupation of Iraq, now in its fifth year. Taken together, these reports confirm that US operations in Iraq have amounted to sociocide—the deliberate and systematic murder of an entire society.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/iraq-m22.shtml

US Democrats abandon Iraq pullout date plans
US war criminal president George W Bush has won a battle over funding the Iraq war as congressional Democrats abandoned troop withdrawal efforts for now, but pledged to fight with new legislation in July?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1930494.htm