Yesterday was Anzac Day. And like every year I tried my best to 'get into the spirit' and spend the whole day searching my soul for the reasons why that just won't work.
Some people might suggest that it is because I've only been in this country for 10 years. Obviously that may have something to do with it. But not because I don't feel a connection with Australian culture or history. It probably has more to do with where I came from.
There are some very clear differences in the way the topic of the world wars is dealt with in countries that were and countries that were not occupied by enemy forces. The country I grew up in was occupied. Belgium got overrun by the Germans in both world wars, soon after they started.
Sending your young boys off to die in a foreign country to defend the motherland makes it easy to view the war as black and white. There was them and there was us. They were the invaders, we were the defender. They were bad, we were good. Living with the scars of foreign occupation is a whole different kettle of fish altogether.
Occupation means: in every village, in every town, in every community of the occupied country you'll find at least one bastard who will see a chance to earn a buck from the situation and will side with the occupiers and make life even more unbearable for the people who stay true to their principles. They're usually the kind of people who are used to getting what they want by sucking up to others. You all know the ones I mean. You get them in all communities. Then there's the people who cannot cope with the torture of seeing their loved ones slowly starve or die of preventable illnesses. Many of them will get to the point where they would do absolutely anything to save their loved ones' lifes. Then there's the girls falling in love with soldiers from the wrong side of the war, girls giving birth to German babies (regarldess of how they were conceived), neighbours dobbing neighbours in with the Germans and the liberators, repercussions for the collaborators that tear communities apart and scar generations of people, and there's the influence of religion which was shown by the Belgian pastors persuading hords of poor uneducated peasants to go fight in the German army against the heathen communists. The list goes on and on. And there's one thing I do know: for people who have lived through that nothing about these wars is black and white. So people don't talk too deeply about the war. It opens too many wounds for too many people.
So yes, viewing the commemoration of one particular battle in WWI that happened 93 years ago coming from that background does severely alter my perspective.
What also alters my perspective on the event itself is coming from a region where nationalism is always present. And where the dangers of ultra-nationalism have been proven over and over. WWII being the most obvious example of course. But there's plenty of examples of the effects on a smaller scale. There is a thin line between patriotism and nationalism, the latter being the root of all evil if I learnt anything from history.
So yes, I do cringe when I see thousands of young people wrapped in the Australian flag claiming a Turkish beach as part of their national heritage on Anzac Day. And I do feel very uncomfortable to see so many people all over the country get that sentimental about soldiers who died nearly 100 years ago.
What bothers me most about the latter is that there is very little mention of the wars that followed after the war to end all wars on this day. There is no mention at all about the wars that are currently affecting millions of people worldwide. Someone told me that Anzac Day is about "separating the soldier from the politics of war". How can you do possibly do that? How could you even claim that that is the sentiment behind Anzac Day when it is clear that there is a hierarchy amongst veterans, ranking them from the ones who had most justification to fight to those who fought for very wrong reasons, eg. Vietnam? Isn't that all about the politics of war?
And before anyone lynches me for being disrespectful to our diggers: I totally understand the urge and the need to thank our soldiers. I am forever grateful that there is an army of people who are willing to give their lives to protect my life, my freedom and my rights. But the soldiers of today joined the army for exactly the same reason as the soldiers that went to fight in the great war. Why do they not get the same respect?
It's because we don't want to answer the tough questions. We don't want to admit that sometimes our boys died on foreign shores for no good reason at all. So we ignore them. And we ignore the big question: why did it happen? And how do we prevent it from happening again.
And that was what my mind kept coming back to all day yesterday: the absence of a strong "No More War!" message. We should respect our soldiers (or soldiers to be) so much that we want to be damn sure that there is no other way before we ever send them into a combat situation again. And we should make clear to politicians that we will not put up with them sending them to wars except for when it is inevitable, to protect our own country and our lives.
Feeling a strong connection with one's culture and history is necessary for our development as human beings and as a community. But if it isn't paired with learning the lessons of the past, it's meaningless, superficial and just a great big wank.
Just my humble opinion. And I'm glad I got that bee out.
