Tuesday, April 21, 2015

All ANZACed out

Generally I read Colin James' ODT columns without exception. As I subscribe, they appear in my e-mail box weekly. But today I read the headline (Mateship, sacrifice, a fair go and all that) and first line and abandoned it. Immediately I felt a surge of guilt. But I have to say it. I am all ANZACed out. It's been going on for weeks, at every turn, and it'll just get worse. Though last night's TV3 news provided a slight deviation. They led with rugby and followed with ANZAC. I am so bored with both but accept I am probably in a tiny sacrilegious minority. Berate me if you like. In  fact that would lift the ennui.

6 comments:

Mark Hubbard said...

The amount of TV News coverage is insane, and we're still a week out. Totally bored with it in this household.

The statist legacy we now have does nothing to honour them, it's obscene and I'm over it. Will start watching news mid next week again.

JC said...

Here for your ennui are 10 big myths of WW1.

Note especially No 10 on rations. The BBC here says 4000 calaries a day for the men, others say nearly 5000 and comment that many,many soldiers never wanted it to stop and go back to semi starvation in the country or in the cities.

Not covered here but in WW2 the UK civilian population "subsisted" on 2800 calories whereas today we feast on about 2200.
The difference of course was in early times everything was a much more physical chore from hand washing clothes, working the land or feeding the primitive machines.

The reasons for conflating WW1 probably have a lot more to do with our continued lack of a true commemorative day of nationhood.. a day that celebrates all of our history and not just war and a treaty both of which after all are a small slice of colonial and Dominion status.

Maybe I'm being perverse but a better day to celebrate might be in 1973 when Britain joined the Common Market and told us "You're on your own, son".

Thats when we truly had to shift for ourselves as a nation.

JC

JC

James said...

I'm a serving officer in the NZ Army, have been deployed overseas, and I too am THOROUGHLY sick of it all now.

Is it too much to call it a state sponsored religion?

It's important to remember those who served and / or died, but to elevate the dead to deities, with state-mandated rituals and ceremonies is too much. I've had mates die overseas, I remember them, I pray for their families, but I won't be going to any ANZAC Day service this year.

I especially get sick of hearing the tired old line "The ANZAC's died to give us the freedoms we enjoy today". No they didn't. The original ANZACs died on a fruitless campaign, against a nation who posed no threat to NZ or NZ liberties, in a war more about European geo-political imperialism, not at all about "defending freedom".

JC said...

Its a bit late now, but here's the piece I should have pasted in my first post..

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25776836

JC

FAIRFACTS MEDIA said...

The British have a religion too.
The NHS.

Anonymous said...

NOT PC, for which you have a link, has several very interesting blogs
~very much supports James, serving officer, above comments.
Given TV has been showing celebration of mythology c/w much bloodshed, it's easy to become fatigued as you've become
Peter