This week Woolworths did everyone a favour by setting the boundaries when it comes to profiting from Anzac Day. It’s seriously stupid campaign to link its own slogan of “fresh” with memories of those who have served was so obviously going to come afoul of the public and the authorities that it makes you wonder at the level of competence in place in one of Australia’s largest companies.
Of course the real crime of Woolworths was to be so blatant. Firstly they didn’t seek approval for the use of the word ‘Anzac’ from the Minster for Veterans Affairs, and then they didn’t attempt in some very minor way to make it seem like the promotion was all about sort-of-maybe-who-knows-it-might-be raising money for the RSL or Legacy.
News Corp papers for example were able to plaster the promotion of a “free Anzac coin” over the top half of every Sunday paper because it was done in partnership with “the Royal Australian Mint and the Australian War Memorial” and thus had the mark of officialdom about it.
But it probably helped them move a few more newspapers as well.
With eight days to go till Anzac Day – the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings – we know the avalanche of Anzac Day commemoration to come is going to straddle delicately that line between remembrance and commercialism.
Even in an official sense the day feels overburdened with desires to feast on the day as a celebration, rather than one of soulful contemplation.
Take the official “Camp Gallipoli”. It markets itself as a “once in a lifetime opportunity for all Australians and New Zealanders to come together on the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli to sleep out under the stars as the original Anzacs did 100 years ago”.
Yep, it’ll be just the same – complete with “eating great tucker, watching historic footage on huge screens, seeing iconic entertainers live on stage and camping in authentic swags”
Just as the original Anzacs did 100 years ago...
Politicians of all stripes – but perhaps never anyone more than Tony Abbott – have sought to gain some reflected glory from associating themselves with the military.
But for politicians the day also has pitfalls. While in general terms a politician can never go wrong talking up the sacrifice and the debt and the sorrow, a line as well must not be crossed. Just as companies must not be seen to profit from the day, neither should politicians ever go anywhere near looking like they are trying to look good from association with the day’s events.
But of course this is only limited to the actual day. Politicians of all stripes – but perhaps never anyone more than Tony Abbott – have sought to gain some reflected glory from associating themselves with the military.
From photo-ops with the troops in Afghanistan – whether it be firing a machine gun or even more ludicrously donning a bomb disposal suit – our current Prime Minister loves using the military for publicity purposes.
And if combat troops are not available, then a speech on national security in front of half a dozen flags will do the trick.
Anzac Day is a very much different occasion to what it was when I was growing up in the 1970s and ‘80s. Back then of course WWI diggers were alive; now none are. This year, 70 years on from the end of WWII, there are few veterans from that war still surviving. Given the life expectancy of a 25 year old in 1945 was just another 45 years, those living veterans of WWII are certainly the exception.
My own father served in the Vietnam War. He and his comrades are now in their retirement years, and the time since that war ended is as long ago as was WWII in the late 1980s – in effect it is an event no longer from contemporary history.
With Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott we are now in the era of leaders who came to adulthood after the end of the Vietnam War – where conscription was not a factor for them personally, other than perhaps in the case of Rudd for his older brother.
We now have a vast majority of politicians in parliament who not only never fought in a war, but for whom doing so was never even a possibility.
The Vietnam War affected international politics here and in the US for well over 20 years. The fear of ending up in “another Vietnam” was a shadow of all, and was a major factor behind the first Gulf War not including an invasion of Iraq.
But the memory and concerns of Vietnam faded, not only for those who were in their formative political years during the conflict, but especially for those who were never connected with it.
And thus now we no longer need to look to Vietnam when we search for an example of a military quagmire. It is now nearly 12 years since we were first involved in the invasion of Iraq, and this week 330 Australian troops again flew off to Iraq – not for combat (yet) however the Prime Minister refuses to rule out extending operations into Syria. There seems little end in sight to our troops’ involvement there for whatever purpose, and even less appetite from any in the Labor or Liberal parties to argue against it.
And so on Anzac Day politicians will join with us all and pause to remember the fallen, and take care not to use it for personal benefit.
It is hard however to see if those in power carry with them after the day is finished anything other than a sense that those who served and who do serve deserve to be remembered and honoured – as of course they should be.
But the lessons of the conflicts in which those men fought, however, seems to have passed our leaders by.
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