They fought for dickheads too: Lest We Forget

An expurgated article from The Age by historian, Marilyn Lake with ShadowLands' comments in italics:

I have been pondering the Anzac myth. [Oh God -here we go. Only dickheads use the term "Anzac myth".] Clearly it continues to exert power. It taunts and troubles us. [By "us" I take it you mean those few academic tools involved in your group-think.] It looms larger than ever in Australian historical memory — with the generous help of the Australian War Memorial and the Department of Veterans Affairs. [What kind of activity were you expecting from the War Memorial? Cookery classes perhaps? Batik workshops?]

But this business of memory-making demands analysis from historians, not cosy collaboration. [Personally, I would like to see more historical research, and less analysis. Try it some time.] A schoolboy selected to join the Government's annual pilgrimage to Gallipoli said he wanted to see the place where Australian history really happened. Really? To see the sites of Australian history you have to go to Turkey? Popular memory and scholarly history are clearly at odds here. [Where do you suggest people go to see Gallipoli for fuck's sake? BTW, you've never been there, have you? Have you? ]...

The Anzac myth has become more significant in recent years, having been mightily subsidised by the Howard government. [You mean, the thousands of people attending services are only doing it for the money? By all accounts, they are not quite so well subsidised as your extremely well paid job at Latrine University, fishface.]

War stories have figured ever more prominently in our culture, our schools, on our TV screens, in our bookshops — but they do not usually tell of the "perpetual state of warfare", as one colonist described it, entailed in the colonisation of Australia. [You mean you missed all those tedious and poorly researched taxpayer-funded documentaries and text books?] Rather, modern Australian history has been defined by the exploits of the expeditionary forces sent to engage in military operations overseas... [Actually, I tend to think that with the exception of a few historians, like Windschuttle and Blainey, modern Australian history has been defined by a cabal of elitist liars with chips on their shoulders, but do go on...]

When participation in foreign wars becomes the basis of national identity, it requires the forgetting or marginalising of other narratives, experiences and values. [What's the matter sweetheart - can't walk and chew gum at the same time?] The Anzac myth requires us to forget gender and racial exclusions, the long history of pacifism and anti-war movements, the democratic social experiments and visions of social justice that once defined Australia... [No, actually, Anzac doesn't require anything of you at all, toots. However, common decency requires that you show at least an ounce of fucking gratitude.]

Anzac was a celebration of race and manhood... Later attempts to include women in the Anzac legend — as nurses, servicewomen, Land Army girls, as grieving mothers and widows — should not prevent recognition that the myth seeks to locate our national identity in the masculine domain of military warfare. [You mean, just because women have been included, we should not take this to mean that women have been included? WTF?]

The myth ignores the fact that participation in foreign wars has always generated opposition, and that many wars have been deeply unpopular. [And you ignore the fact that if it was not for the selfless service of thousands of men and women, you might now be a long-discarded comfort woman, barefoot and begging for noodles.]

Before World War I, Australia had an international reputation as an egalitarian democracy and progressive social laboratory... [Actually, before WWI, Australia was considered a nation derived from convicts and sheep fuckers, and after it, not so much, but do go on...]

As one contemporary said, we had "infinite potentialities". [Why would anyone choose this dumb quote?] In the next few years, as we prepare to inaugurate a republic, we have a rare opportunity to focus on that potential as we give birth to a nation committed to the values forged over many decades of activism in civil and political society, of democratic equality and social justice, joined by a desire for reconciliation and restitution...

[You mean, you had a political agenda all along? Who would have thunk? Now bugger off back to your third rate university.]