ANZAC Day

The aim of this draft paper is to investigate the claim of the inhabitants of Farnham, Surrey, that the first observance of the Two Minutes’ Silence was held in their town at 11 a.m. on Saturday, 10th May 1916, 3½ years before the first national Two Minutes’ Silence on Tuesday, 11th November 1919.  My methodology will be to analyse and contrast the intentions expressed in respect of the planning of Farnham’s silence plus aspects of the observance itself with those of the national silence, with particular reference to the contextual setting and framework, intended purpose, and aural shape and structure of each.

I wish I would first have checked to see what the Gospel reading was for this Sunday before I volunteered to preside at this service. The Gospel reading is a doosey of a text.
“Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! …” All this talk of fire and division and households deeply divided. All this against stuff in a family. Its as if Jesus some kind of divine family arsonist instead of the Prince of Peace.

Australian Prime Ministers in the 1970s and early 1980s did not incorporate Anzac into their discourse of national identity. However, since 1990 Australian Prime Ministers and their governments have increasingly engaged with Anzac in a manner that has supplanted the traditional role of the Returned and Services League as custodians and drivers of Anzac. This has involved them consistently giving Anzac Day addresses during the last twenty-five years, both at home and at significant sites of Australian war remembrance overseas. But this has not always been the case. Prime Ministerial engagement with Anzac in the past was primarily as a participant, not as a custodian, and was more sporadic, more suburban, and less spectacular.
The thesis explains this shift by tracing the increasing use of Anzac discourse by Australian Prime Ministers from 1972-2007. It will be argued that these Australian Prime Ministers have increasingly shown ‘Anzac entrepreneurship’ – successfully identifying the public’s desire to engage with Anzac and facilitating Anzac’s resurgence by employing the power resources of the state in order to amplify Anzac. Critical discourse analysis is adopted to analyse the integration of Anzac discourse into Prime Ministerial language. Such an approach points to the socially embedded nature of language, whilst simultaneously analysing the linguistic construction of this language.
The thesis identifies that Prime Ministers have engaged with Anzac in order to both constitutively renovate Anzac as a central Australian identity and for instrumental policy ends. These twin developments have pertained especially to the processes of domestic economic reform in a globalising world and the deployment of Australian troops during the War on Terror. Such a study is important, as recent scholarly interest in Australian politicians’ role in the resurgence of Anzac from political scientists and historians has not seen systematic investigation of Prime Ministerial Anzac Day addresses that analyses the evolution of these addresses over time or closely examines their language on a sustained basis.

The Gallipoli campaign is a very important part of Australian history, but the role of myths in the Anzac ‘legend’ play a disproportionate part in the creation of our national identity. This essay explores how Australia’s national identity has been affected by an Anzac story built by myths, myth-makers, mateship and men.

Gallipoli’s status in Australia as the pre-eminent moment of national self-discovery was securely established in the inter-war period. By the end of the century, Anzac Day, the anniversary of the first landings of a campaign that ultimately failed, was the key date for national self-reflection.  Yet the intervening period was marked at times by concern that interest in Gallipoli was waning.  This article traces the shifting level of public interest in Anzac Day in Australia by comparing two milestones, its 50th and 75th anniversaries. Both occasions followed the familiar pattern of commemorative events, both prompted a return trip to Gallipoli for a party of veterans; both gave rise to newspaper coverage and public musing on the meaning of the anniversary and its future. But the scale and mood of these two occasions were quite different. The article explores some reasons for this, including the shift towards a more inclusive rhetoric, the renewed influence of Charles Bean through fresh academic interest in the subject, and the impact of a powerful cinematic depiction of the campaign.

In the early morning of April 25 1982 some 500 or so women walked slowly and silently up Anzac Parade towards the Australian War Memorial. They walked behind a banner that read ""IN MEMORY OF ALL WOMEN OF ALL COUNTRIES RAPED IN ALL WARS". The women stopped at the top of the Parade in front of a cenotaph. In a short ceremony one of the gathered women read a letter written by a woman about the experience of rape in war and another woman made a statement about the significance of remembering women raped in war. Then a wreath was laid and one minute's silence was observed. The women then sang a song called "Lest We Forget" while some from the group laid individual wreaths and flowers. This chapter explores a Women Against Rape interventions in the early 1980s in terms of commemoration. It analyses what it meant to for women, in particular feminist women, to intervene in one of the central mourning rituals of the nation. It also considers the 'national' reaction to the womens' commemorative intervention.

Political speech is a type of performance poetry. That may seem unlikely to those who struggle with its clichés and platitudes, but understanding the links between political speech and oral traditions of poetry allows us to appreciate its strengths alongside its weaknesses, the creativity alongside the banality. Applying ethical standards appropriate to oral performance, rather than the literary default mode of critics like George Orwell and Don Watson, gives us a stronger moral critique of all those anti-intellectual dishonesties cloaked in boredom we know so well. Making the case, Stay on Message explores the poetics of political speeches in Australia, the USA, and elsewhere—with examples of both the good and the delightfully appalling.

"Gallipoli and Kokoda: Enduring resonances"

Some 70 years ago the war correspondent George Johnston predicted that the name “Kokoda” would “live in the minds of Australians for generations, just as another name, Gallipoli, lives on as freshly”.  Johnston’s words proved true. After a more than a century of Australian military history, few names convey as much power or are as symbolic. Tobruk. Changi. Long Tan. These names resonate, too, but it is Gallipoli and Kokoda that have become closely associated with Australian national character.

The attributes displayed by the Australians on Gallipoli and Kokoda – their courage, determination, resourcefulness and, above all else, mateship – have become closely identified with “Australian values”. One hundred and two years ago today the Anzac legend was born on Gallipoli. Seventy-five years ago that legend was upheld along the Kokoda Trail as Australians faced their darkest hour. This address discusses some of the enduring resonances that connect Gallipoli and Kokoda: the rugged terrain and the extreme environment; the conditions endured by Australian soldiers; and the lasting significance of the campaigns.

The Trojan War and the Gallipoli Campaigns are two pivotal battles that took place on the shores of the Dardanelles. They are similar in several respects: Both battles involve several groups coming from different places. Some of the
tactics employed during the Gallipoli campaigns are reminiscent of those used during the Trojan War. Many allied soldiers, as their memoirs and letters reveal, knew well the Trojan War and the deeds of its heroes. Their writings also reveal that they compared themselves to the ancient Greek heroes that fought at Troy. They also thought the Gallipoli Campaign as a sort of New Trojan War.

When The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) entered into World War I, they changed the future of two countries, in particularly that of Australia, where more significance is now placed on ANZAC Day than on Australia Day. The notion of Australian identity was largely formed on the beach of what is now known as ANZAC Cove and the sentiment the Australian public feel for ANZAC Day plays an important role in demonstrating the changing attitude and values of a society over time.  Ultimately though, the reaction of the public comes not from the past, but from the politics of the present day.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between public education and patriotism in the early part of the 20th century. The proposition is examined in two specific areas relative to public schools in New South Wales (a) the numerous patriotic days that were celebrated, and (b) the role of the flag with associated patriotic acts. Patriotic days, with their ritual and ceremony, were used as a vehicle for the symbolic expression of patriotism and were widely supported by educational decision makers.

Following current literature on public and mobile screens this paper discusses the relevance that screens have in our everyday lives by focusing on the combination of mobile and temporary screen-based practices in the digital mediation of a single public commemorative event. We use an account of different screen practices at the Anzac Day dawn Service, an annual Australian commemorative ceremony on a public holiday, 25 April, as a way to ground some ideas regarding the importance of screens as interfaces to mediated practices. By focusing our analysis in a single place for a limited time, we analyse how people relate to screens in different ways, from media reception to spatial organisation to online connection. We suggest that screens form a fundamental element of the entanglement between public space and digital mediations that needs further investigation because this relationship could potentially hold implications for both urban life and citizenship.

The last quarter of a century has seen an explosion in prime ministerial engagement with Anzac, and in particular, the marking of Anzac Day with a national address.  Correspondingly, there has also been enormous interest in Anzac from members of the academy, but there has been little systematic analysis of the breadth and depth of prime ministerial Anzac Day addresses.  This paper seeks to correct this omission by conducting a critical discourse analysis of prime ministerial Anzac Day addresses from 1973-2016 in order to sketch their imprecise, but increasingly institutionalised and consistent, genre boundaries.  The paper delineates the various thematic and characteristic features of these addresses, including where and when the addresses have been delivered; the fixity and hybridisation of the prime ministerial Anzac speech genre; the thematic and tonal representations of Anzac; the wars and battles prime ministers associate Anzac with; and who Anzac’s agents are.  As will be shown, whilst Australian prime ministers may closely adhere to the traditions of Anzac with their addresses, they also subtly renovate understandings of Anzac in alignment with their policy agendas.

This paper argues for the centrality of the Gallipoli campaign in the formation of the national identities of Turkey, New Zealand, and Australia. Each nation undertook its own process of using memory of the Gallipoli campaign to form its national identity during the interwar period. This paper  looks at literature, including school textbooks, national holidays, and on-site commemorative activities including cemeteries, monuments, and pilgrimages.

Political speech is a type of performance poetry. That may seem unlikely to those who struggle with its clichés and platitudes, but understanding the links between political speech and oral traditions of poetry allows us to appreciate its strengths alongside its weaknesses, the creativity alongside the banality. Applying ethical standards appropriate to oral performance, rather than the literary default mode of critics like George Orwell and Don Watson, gives us a stronger moral critique of all those anti-intellectual dishonesties cloaked in boredom we know so well. Making the case, Stay on Message explores the poetics of political speeches in Australia, the USA, and elsewhere—with examples of both the good and the delightfully appalling.

Recent studies regarding reconciliation have argued that restorative justice creates depoliticised consensus. This paper tests this argument by exploring the Hawke government’s role in the reconciliation of the Australian public with Vietnam veterans in 1987, and the opportunities that this resolution created to mark Anzac Day free of the complicating tensions that had characterised the day in the period since the Vietnam War. It argues that the restorative justice evident in the reincorporation of Vietnam veterans into national narratives of Anzac provided opportunities for political elites like Hawke to convincingly employ Anzac as an ideograph and inscribe the day with new meaning. This process had profound continuing effects for the marking of Anzac Day that demonstrate the politically limiting effects of restorative justice.

Krizler ilk olarak yakın çevresini etkisi altına alan ve durdurulamadığında tüm dünyaya yayılabilen yıkıcı olaylardır. Özellikle son yıllarda yaşanan politik krizler; silahlı çatışma, terör saldırısı ve/ veya savaşa dönüşerek tüm dünyayı etkisi altına almaktadır. Politik krizler hiç şüphesiz insan yaşamı için en büyük tehdidi oluşturmaktadır. Ancak turizm için de çok büyük bir tehlikedir. Tarihi ve ekonomiyi yok etmeye çalışan, tarihin kanıtlarını ortadan kaldırmak isteyen ve kültürlerin izlerini silmek isteyen saldırganların ilk hedefi maalesef turistik destinasyonlar olmaktadır. Bu çalışmada teröre dayalı krizlerin ANZAK günü anma törenleri üzerindeki etkisinin incelenmesi amaçlanmaktadır. Bu törenler bir kriz sonrası doğan dostluğun nesillerce devam etmesine katkı sağlamaktadır. 2015 yılında Çanakkale Savaşları'nın 100. yılı olması nedeniyle çok sayıda Avustralyalı ve Yeni Zelandalı bu törenlere katılmak için Gelibolu'ya gelmiştir. 2016 yılında da bu talebin devam edeceği düşünülmüş ancak Türkiye'de meydana gelen terör saldırıları nedeniyle katılımcı sayısı 50.000'den 2.000'e kadar düşmüştür. Bu durum ülke güveni ve imajına zarar verdiği gibi aynı zamanda bölge ve ülke turizmini de etkilemektedir. Bu kapsamda bu çalışmada teröre dayalı krizlerin ANZAK günü anma etkinlikleri üzerindeki etkisi incelenmektedir. Bu amaçla öncelikle literatür taraması ve ardından doküman analizi yapılarak ikincil veriler toplanmış; ziyaretçi istatistikleri incelenmiştir.

This paper will examine the extent to which ANZAC Day can be classified as a ‘sacred’ event in modern Australian society. By applying the works of Mircea Eliade and Emile Durkheim, this paper will argue that ANZAC Day can, to an extent, be considered a sacred event. In saying this, there are some problematic aspects with this conclusion.

In 1885, Peter Bland’s ode to the colonial New Zealand experience ended with the evocative line “I hold back the dark with the blood of my lambs.”  This idea of blood in triumph over darkness is recurrent within colonial New Zealand art and poetry, and has led to a unique creative spirit within the nation. So too has the idea of blood formed the core of many national mythologies from the blood-sacrifice of the ANZAC troops to the national game of rugby. In this presentation, I will explore the role of supra-religious mythologies within colonial and modern New Zealand history, and how these work together to create a civil religion for the nation. New Zealand has explored a variety of nationalist discourses as a means of inventing and solidifying a unique sense of communal identity and ritualistic behaviours. Drawing on the creative output of many artists/poets including Colin McCahon, Allen Curnow, and James K. Baxter, I will explore the creative use of blood as a motif representing salvation and illumination in the dark of the colonial landscape.

I will argue that ceremonial, ritualistic, and recreational violence are important parts of the New Zealand national identity and civil religious identity. The battle at Gallipoli and the subsequent Anzac legend have been employed as a source of national identity and maturity. Anzac mythology provides a blood-soaked couvade where the birth of the nation becomes a rigorously masculine act. This show of strength and sacrifice is ritually echoed in the national sport of rugby, which allows for these same attributes to be acted out in a more playful sense. In all of these mythologies, blood speaks of kinship and lineage. The blood of heroes becomes a hallowed ichor, and celebrates the giving of oneself for the state. I will explore the ways in which these narratives have been employed to create the ‘natural’ citizen who is rooted in the soil and bonded with the land.

In recent years internationally acclaimed veteran sculptor, Ġanni Bonnici has been working on a memorial to commemorate those Australian and New Zealand troops who fell at Gallipoli during World War I and the battles of World War II. Bonnici, who is well known for his large scale monuments found in many localities on the islands, won the competition from five other entries and was awarded the commission. The statue was installed at Argotti Gardens and was unveiled in a ceremony on Saturday 25 May 2013 in the presence of the Hon. Dr. George Vella, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Nicholas Bonnello OAM, Chairman of the ANZAC memorial Committee, H.E. Jane Lambert, Australian High Commissioner and the Honorary Consul for New Zealand, Ms. Jill Camilleri, who delivered their messages for the occasion.

Uses of poems and extracts from poems for ceremonial or ritual purposes within civic discourse reveal the inherently aesthetic nature of all political language. We can read in these civil and stately appropriations of poetry a desire for validation or embodiment of the aesthetic qualities of the events they embellish, and of the public and political agendas those events carry. This paper argues that poetry as public language reveals how public language is poetry. It illustrates that proposition by a critical comparison of excerpts from Australia’s annual ANZAC Day dawn service and from the oath of office ceremony for USA President Barack Obama in 2008.

This roundtable brings together a combination of scholars with a particular interest in the role of Anzac and the centenary of the Great War. Exploring the contemporary politics of commemoration; the relationship between Australian history, identity and politics; the politics of memory; and the role of Anzac in contemporary conceptions of Australia, this roundtable brings together scholars ultimately interested in the politics of history. Presenters have recently published works on these themes in Australian Journal of Politics and History, have manuscripts on these themes forthcoming in the journal, or are members of the journal’s editorial board with expertise on the politics of Anzac in the context of the centenary of the Great War.

The last quarter of a century has seen an explosion in prime ministerial engagement with Anzac, and in particular, the marking of Anzac Day with a national address. Correspondingly, there has also been enormous interest in Anzac from members of the academy, but there has been little systematic analysis of the breadth and depth of prime ministerial Anzac Day addresses. This paper seeks to correct this omission by conducting a critical discourse analysis of prime ministerial Anzac Day addresses from 1973 to 2016 in order to sketch their imprecise, but increasingly institutionalised and consistent, genre boundaries. The paper delineates the various thematic and characteristic features of these addresses, including where and when the addresses have been delivered; the fixity and hybridisation of the prime ministerial Anzac speech genre; the thematic and tonal representations of Anzac; the wars and battles prime ministers associate Anzac with; and who Anzac's agents are. As will be shown, whilst Australian prime ministers may closely adhere to the traditions of Anzac with their addresses, they also subtly renovate understandings of Anzac in alignment with their policy agendas.

This paper examines Anzac Day commemorations over the last century and how it has changed over time. The paper aims to demonstrate how the social context in which each commemoration takes place has a profound impact upon our own interpretation of its meaning.