Went to the Aust. War Memorial in Canberra yesterday for the millionth time since being a kid.
I’m increasingly interested to see how it is (re?)aligning its foundation mission to our new Australia. Or does it risk becoming a half buried Statue of Liberty?
The AWM was opened during the Second World War as a museum and Shrine to ANZAC. A physical talisman to the Ofiicial Histories (which were unabashedly written with a social agenda). The place absolutely resonates ethno nationalism, it has no other purpose than to extol our unique ANZAC identity narrative within a firm contextualisation comprising place, time and people. It’s far more than a historical museum.
https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/imag ... P_OsDBXEYA
Here is Australia personified in the Hall of Remembrance, an odd Church of Anzac. Taken yesterday by me. :)
http://i.imgur.com/Zc1vPuj.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/a2gKKwQ.jpg
So. What to do, now the holies of holies is over-run with, well let’s say people with their own cultural origin stories?
Here is a bilious academic from a couple of years ago, asking her rhetorical question:
http://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/doe ... l-identity
The question of Anzac's significance for multicultural Australia generated considerable heat three years ago. A report of the official National Commission on the Commemoration of the Anzac Centenary suggested that Australia's military history was 'something of a double-edged sword'. The centenary might provide opportunities for a great sense of national unity but it might also prove 'a potential area of divisiveness'. The community simply did not know what recently arrived Australians thought about the commemorations', but the centenary commemorations should be 'culturally sensitive and inclusive'.
Ah. So what is the new benchmark for relevancy?
So the question perhaps is not whether there is a place for multicultural Australians in the narratives of Gallipoli and other battles of the past, but whether the values that the Anzac legend now enshrines are ones that transcend culture, ethnicity and faith...
:cdc: :bjarte:
Pretty tough to achieve when the Centre anchors courage and sacrifice to empire and (toxic?) white male mateship all set against Bullecourt and Kokoda.
The Memorial itself is rather self consciously poking a stick at the dangerous issue. They have a classroom resource kit hidden away which comprises “case studies exploring the ethnic diversity of the Australian Imperial Force”. Ie they focus on the 200 part Chinese and 800 part aboriginal recruits (out of 420K) with laser like intensity while begging students to:
explore the cultural and ethnic diversity of the members of the AIF; challenge some traditional understandings of who the Anzacs were; and analyse the qualities attributed to the Anzacs as well as how they have become an aspirational model in the national psyche
https://www.awm.gov.au/learn/schools/re ... -diversity
There’s a slippery slope for you.
There is also a PDF “Ancestry, Stories of Multicultural Anzacs”
https://www.awm.gov.au/sites/default/fi ... y_2015.pdf
How crazy a long bow are they prepared to draw? Well check this out. The Hall has a picture of an Aussie sailor per the British naval tradition and an ode to “ancestry”. How is this defused? Its not. It’s fucking co-opted.
http://i.imgur.com/7vOg526.jpg
In the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra there are 15 stained-glass windows. Each shows a figure dressed in military uniform, and under each figure is a word which describes a quality displayed by Australians during wartime. One window features a sailor in a gunner’s uniform. He represents all the men and women who have crossed the sea in the service of our nation.
This window bears the word Ancestry.
Someone would have had a good laugh coming up with that bullshit.
I see an interesting battle shaping up for this place of pilgrimage for every Year 6 student.