Rougey
Most Honoured Aussie
My profile location is wherever the hell I want it to be. People here know I am Australian, I don’t need to tell them. And don’t even bring up patriotism. “Patriotism” is a recent construct for this country, and whenever it rears its ugly head it’s tainted by racism and bigotry. Patriotism appeals to the fools and is used by politicians to manipulate them.
You want to know about Patriotism? This country, at the behest of the British Empire, sent tens of thousands of young men to die during the First World War for no gain. We were a Federation by then; it was a war we had to stake in, no need to fight in. Nearly half a million patriotic young men volunteered for that war on the other side of the world, they were patriots all of them, and over sixty thousands of them didn’t come home. But we sent them. 98 years ago because of a command *dance* up our soldiers were sent to a goddamn meatgrinder. But they took and held that *dancing* meatgrinder for eight goddamn months at the behest of Old Europe.
When those soldiers returned they were disillusioned men who had seen war and lost friends. That was the real birth of our Nation, when we realised that we didn’t need the British Empire, the Empire needed us. But they asked so we went and paid in blood for our participation, and again in the Second World War where we fought the Axis in Africa and bloodied Rommel at Tobruk before being recalled to fight the Japanese closer to home.
The 25th of April was always a sombre affair, quietly carried out each year on the date of the landings where our troops were massacred. Its not a date that marks victory or independence, it marks the bloody start to a long and pointless campaign. But as the veterans who fought in that war died the Howard Era government tried to create a nationalist identify and attempted to change ANZAC Day meant to this country, they morphed it into the kind celebratory of patriotic war glorifying bullshit the Veterans despised and actively avoided for the near century after the landings – it was patriotism that got their mates killed.
Think about our war songs that came about in the 70s – Khe Sanh is a song about a disillusioned Veteran, I Was Only Nineteen is a bloke suffering from PSTD, and No Mans Land is about the most damming and anti-war song ever; those songs come from the generation born after the Second World War who also experienced Vietnam, raised and lead by those who had lost their mates in that great patriotic war.
The kind of “patriotism” you see from the youth of today is a construct aping the American idea, wear a flag, paint your face tacky bullshit. True Australians simply are Australian and don’t need anyone to tell them- a generation paid in Blood for that. You want to be Australian? Spend the day with your mates, go to a pub, have a Barbeque, play two-up and enjoy the public holiday. And take a moment to remember those who didn’t come home, who never got to sit with their mates for a yarn and a laugh on the red soil of their homeland again.
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours... You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Father of the Turkish Republic, Commander of the Ottoman Empire at Gallipoli.
You want to know about Patriotism? This country, at the behest of the British Empire, sent tens of thousands of young men to die during the First World War for no gain. We were a Federation by then; it was a war we had to stake in, no need to fight in. Nearly half a million patriotic young men volunteered for that war on the other side of the world, they were patriots all of them, and over sixty thousands of them didn’t come home. But we sent them. 98 years ago because of a command *dance* up our soldiers were sent to a goddamn meatgrinder. But they took and held that *dancing* meatgrinder for eight goddamn months at the behest of Old Europe.
When those soldiers returned they were disillusioned men who had seen war and lost friends. That was the real birth of our Nation, when we realised that we didn’t need the British Empire, the Empire needed us. But they asked so we went and paid in blood for our participation, and again in the Second World War where we fought the Axis in Africa and bloodied Rommel at Tobruk before being recalled to fight the Japanese closer to home.
The 25th of April was always a sombre affair, quietly carried out each year on the date of the landings where our troops were massacred. Its not a date that marks victory or independence, it marks the bloody start to a long and pointless campaign. But as the veterans who fought in that war died the Howard Era government tried to create a nationalist identify and attempted to change ANZAC Day meant to this country, they morphed it into the kind celebratory of patriotic war glorifying bullshit the Veterans despised and actively avoided for the near century after the landings – it was patriotism that got their mates killed.
Think about our war songs that came about in the 70s – Khe Sanh is a song about a disillusioned Veteran, I Was Only Nineteen is a bloke suffering from PSTD, and No Mans Land is about the most damming and anti-war song ever; those songs come from the generation born after the Second World War who also experienced Vietnam, raised and lead by those who had lost their mates in that great patriotic war.
The kind of “patriotism” you see from the youth of today is a construct aping the American idea, wear a flag, paint your face tacky bullshit. True Australians simply are Australian and don’t need anyone to tell them- a generation paid in Blood for that. You want to be Australian? Spend the day with your mates, go to a pub, have a Barbeque, play two-up and enjoy the public holiday. And take a moment to remember those who didn’t come home, who never got to sit with their mates for a yarn and a laugh on the red soil of their homeland again.
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours... You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Father of the Turkish Republic, Commander of the Ottoman Empire at Gallipoli.
i regret tell u guys that story