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Cake day: June 11th, 2023
  • zero_gravitas@aussie.zoneOPtoAustralia@aussie.zone•Pro-Palestine educators send teachers new classroom resource challenging ‘Anzac mythology’English
    5·
    11 days ago

    Are you talking about Australian war crimes in 1918 or the fucking events of 1947.

    Both - they’re drawing parallels between the two events.

    That quote is actually from the booklet they published last year, which you can find here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FzMIZo-GZLtrakJKkdITx5zhzRSvnPeK/view

    Specifically, in this section:

    WHAT DOES PALESTINE HAVE TO DO WITH ANZAC DAY?

    Few students and teachers sitting through the annual Anzac ceremony, for instance, would associate Anzac day with Palestine — but the first Anzacs invaded Ottoman Palestine in World War I, and they took control of the land and the people for the British Empire.

    After the armistice in 1918, Anzac soldiers of the Light Horse brigade remained in Palestine, waiting to be demobilised and sent home to Australia. During this time, some returned to the Gallipoli Peninsula, where they engaged in what was described as the “holy task of locating the graves of Anzacs, and in collecting trophies for the Australian national memorial collection,” solidifying the nationalist myth of the Gallipoli Landings, the anniversary of which was already being observed as Anzac day from 1915 onwards.[1]

    Such acts of quasi-religious myth-making about the Anzacs have continued to this day. In 2017, to mark the centenary of the Anzacs’ capture of Palestinian territory, then Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull and opposition leader Bill Shorten attended a commemoration service at Beersheba with Benjamin Netanyahu.

    In his official address, PM Malcolm Turnbull stated that the Anzacs “like the State of Israel has done ever since … defied history and with their courage fulfilled history. Lest we forget.”[2] His words are striking, not only because of the monumental historical narrative that they invoke (the Anzacs “defied” and ‘fulfilled’ history), but also because of the way in which they situate the Anzacs as “courageous” heroes who birthed two nations.

    Turnbull was right to connect the Anzacs’ military successes with the creation of Israel. The Australian victories set in motion a series of devastating events, enabling the fulfilment of the Balfour Declaration, where Britain agreed, despite separate and contradictory promises, to recognize “a National Home of the Jewish people” to be located in Palestine, and the establishment of a “Jewish National Colonising Corporation for the resettlement and economic development of the country [Palestine].”[3] In short, the British mandate was secured in part by the Anzacs, and this laid the ground for the creation of the state of Israel, while preventing the creation of a Palestinian state.

    There are some other parallels with Israel that Turnbull did not draw. If both countries form their identities through stories of noble military successes, they both also hide a history of horrific, racially motivated violence against Palestinians. More than this, the brutal massacre committed by the Anzacs at Surafend chillingly portended the Nakba, the catastrophic displacement of Palestinians in 1947-1949.

    Turnbull did not share this darker parallel because it did not suit the heroic myth-making project of the Australian and Israeli governments to do so. As teachers, however, it is our obligation to bring this history to light.