Submitted by Paul Daley on
Politicians use the Gallipoli landings to justify wars, past and present. They also use them to conveniently define our national history. But this isn’t what the centenary should be about
Time eventually heals old battlefields. A gentle, grassy furrow might indicate where men once hacked a trench and the verdant expanse beyond where they eviscerated each other with bayonets.
But what happened a long time ago is rarely evident on the surface of old war grounds.
Related: Anzac Cove and Gallipoli: then and now – interactive
Related: Ataturk's 'Johnnies and Mehmets' words about the Anzacs are shrouded in doubt
Related: Gravestones of Gallipoli: tributes to lost Anzac heroes – interactive
It is certainly not correct to say that Australia was born at Gallipoli
For those of us spared the terrors of war, to be worthy of our dead, is to remember them
Related: Black Anzac: the life and death of an Aboriginal man who fought for king and country
For those of us spared the terrors of war, to be worthy of our dead, is to remember them. It is to remember that they died, the men and women of this community, in their thousands, in faraway lands, interred in the ground upon which they perished.
It is to remember those who loved them; their fathers and mothers, wives, children and friends. It is to remember that the pain in the hearts of those who loved them, who lived after them, never healed; the promise of their lives together, unfulfilled.
- Log in to post comments