We should remember the civilian toll of war and the danger of militarism, writes Michael Leunig. "I hate it when they say, 'He gave his life for his country'. They don't die for the honour and glory of their country. We kill them." - Rear-AdmiralGene R. LaRocque We live in a national culture that glamorises soldiers, yet the sight of a military uniform with its obvious connotations of morbidity and violence provokes in me the question: "What sort of person is attracted to the killing professions?" Army recruiting advertisements beg the same question. The raising of this query in public will bring hostile responses as well as the inevitable, "If it wasn't for soldiers you wouldn't have the liberty to ask that question", as if I owe my ration of happiness, sanity or spiritual health to militarism. It seems to me, however, that human rights have historically been considerably established by those who were not soldiers and who indeed, in many instances, had to face the terror and repression of state military force in their various campaigns for social justice. It could be said, for instance that it was the troopers who fought against the cause of freedom at the Eureka stockade in Ballarat and slaughtered those who sought liberty and justice. Soldiers mostly follow orders, they have "a job to do" regardless of whether they are rescuing civilians or shooting them. Where the Prime Minister sees courage, decency and goodness in professional soldiers - all those "best and finest" qualities - I cannot help but also see the possibility of perversity, emotional sickness and a latent murderous impulse. The innocent question won't go away: "What sort of person volunteers to devote their life to the skills of destruction and the business of hunting, trapping and slaughtering humans?"
Anzac Day brings this question strongly to mind because I am asked each year to remember the soldiers who fought and to spare a thought for them, which I always do, but that's where the trouble starts because before too long questions arise and I try to imagine what sort of men would volunteer to invade a far-off land and perpetrate such murderous violence against its inhabitants. The mind can travel a long way in a minute's silence. Inevitably I then start to think and wonder about the forgotten men who on conscience and principle refused to take part in this monumental violence (where is their monument?), which then leads to a yearning for an Australia that would honour and remember the most horrible and sad truth of all: the civilian victims of war. In the grisly light of the fact that Australian soldiers so recently took part in the invasion of Iraq, which involved the killing of more than 100,000 civilians, and lost not one soldier in the process, it feels somehow obscene, bizarre and shameful to be commemorating, yet again, Australia's part in the invasion of Turkey in 1915. More than ever it feels to me that soldiers have been honoured more than enough and civilian victims have been honoured far too little. In the commemoration of war, as in war itself, civilians don't ultimately matter. The failure to prioritise the remembrance of civilian victims is a reinforcement of the military right to abuse or obliterate them with impunity in times of war. As for the men who refused the way of violence, there appears to be little cultural recognition or consciousness of those who rejected jingoism and the call to homicide, but who served their country well for an entire lifetime in creative, constructive and unglorified ways that are immeasurable. Like so many other groups and other types, it is possible that they have been cold-shouldered out of the official, heroic version of the national story. Yet their lives and their efforts may have contributed more to what is valuable in the Australian identity than we care to contemplate, and the legacy of Gallipoli and war may have much to do with what is dysfunctional, tragic and ugly in our society. It is not just the examples of courage and sacrifice that we take from war but the trauma also, which permeates insidiously into successive generations. We now know of, and can statistically track, the Vietnam Morbidity Syndrome, a mysterious psychological condition that has seriously plagued children of Vietnam veterans and which indeed may have dire consequences for grandchildren and beyond. And even more surreptitious are the myriad ghosts of war, which return from the battles, banalities and atrocities and attach themselves to the civil situation, entering destructively into the living culture of the nation. This inevitable, postwar militarist invasion of the homeland demands much reparation and imposes hugely on civil society, domestic life and the new generation. Grim authoritarianism, paranoia, guilt, fundamentalism, hostility, bitter or brutal outlooks and a difficulty with Eros, beauty and the feminine are all aftermath qualities that insinuate or assert themselves into family and institutional life with profound consequences. The remnant tones and gestures of war become normalised and the character of society is rewired. The violent, frightened mentality and fetishism of war, the domineering impulse, and the addiction to the "evil other" forever corrupt, disfigure and limit the societies that wage and prosecute the violent solution. A nation may win a war but its people can't get away with it. Many Australians who served in war felt the degrading effects of militarism and upon returning home renounced it. In the 1950s it was commonly known that many men refused to march on Anzac Day, refused to join the RSL and threw their medals away. It was a conscientious and dignified position but one hears little of these men or this phenomenon any more; it doesn't suit the current, government ideology about warfare: the violent new jingoism crafted and cultivated by those who mainly have never heard a shot fired in anger and never will. Not only have they reshaped the slopes of Gallipoli for their convenience, they have reshaped the story of war to suit their purposes. The late life testimonies of veterans tell us that the horror and sorrow of war is not confined to the battlefields but can unfold in one's mind over a lifetime, yet these many stories are politely ignored or cruelly assigned to the "doddery old man who's gone a bit vague" category or buried with the owner. The bard Eric Bogle is now denounced for expressing in song the poignant wisdom so many veterans have pleaded for us to understand. Yet The Band Played Waltzing Matilda is held dear and touches deeply because it is utterly truthful and no amount of fashionable hostility, fatuous insult or boycott can ever diminish the strength or integrity of this great song. Yet what the leaders would have us believe about old soldiers, and what old soldiers believe about leaders can be two fascinatingly different things. Recently, a friend who is a Vietnam veteran, offered to me in a low, menacing and theatrical growl, his view on the Prime Minister's anti-terror piety and his fawning soldier-groupie antics: "Mr Howard, WE ARE the effing murderers you are so frightened of." Soldiers can quickly tire of patriotism and piety in the globalised world. Many become mercenaries now and sell their souls to the highest bidder as hit-men; which may tell us something about what it takes to be a soldier. Iraq is crawling with these lapsed "best and finest" people. No doubt many of those innocent young ADF people in uniform, photographed with the leering, beer-juggling Prime Minister, may in time see the light, take to his private enterprise ideas and move on to the big bucks - to hell with the medals and to hell with the cosy car parks of Gallipoli. At the end of the day, as Socrates said: "All wars are fought for money." Michael Leunig is an Age cartoonist. ________________________________________
Ann Jackson-Nakano is right to ask why we do not commemorate the victims of White invasion - but it begs the question - Why would Aboriginal people support ANZAC day at all? In a country where the invasion of Australia by Europeans is celebrated as Australia Day - there is little hope of a commerative day for the vanquished A more effective stance would be to have Australia Day changed to a less devisive and insulting date - and to protest the glorification of militarism that is ANZAC day under Howard
The ANZACs were victims of British imperialism/militarism - just as Aboriginal people were - an ironic commonality we should build upon mick | 
