Awaiting a new dawn
· Bruce Grant
· April 25, 2009
MY FATHER served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front in Europe. His health never fully recovered and he died aged 57. I often attend the Anzac Day dawn service as a mark of respect to those, like him, who gave their lives.

I have been to Gallipoli — I've stood on the beach, surveyed the heights, marvelled at the heroic eight-month struggle to dislodge the Turk, standing firm on his own soil. I have visited the grave of my father's brother in Cambrai, France, near the Belgian border. He died in 1917, aged 19, while a prisoner of war of the Germans. Their mother, my grandmother, was German, and I thought not only of him — younger than two of my grandsons and dying far from home in the hands of the enemy — but of her. I wondered about a destiny that brought her family as hopeful immigrants to a country that was now at war with her own people.

Respect and honour for the bravery of the soldiers and the forbearance and fortitude of their loved ones does not mean I am comfortable with the public emotion on display.
When I was a diplomat, I presided, as required, over our annual Anzac Day ceremony — but I invited Turkey's ambassador to take part.
All over the world, people gather to remember battles and wars won and lost, and, sometimes, when the moment is ripe, these occasions spill over, sweeping common sense and human dignity aside.
Hitler's manipulation of the German people's humiliation after the First World War is a classic case. His attempt, later, to destroy the Jewish people, in what has been simplified for posterity as the Holocaust, has become a reference point for both friends and enemies of Israel's military activism. Slobodan Milosevic seized on Serbians' emotional memory of ancient history — the battle of Kosovo in 1389 — to justify his campaign against the Albanian minority. In Vienna, the spot where the Ottoman forces were turned back in 1683 became a reference point for Austro-Hungarian revivalists.

When Lyndon Johnson sought to revive the spirit of his country during the Vietnam War, after American forces were overwhelmed at Pleiku in 1965, he drew on the futile defence of the Alamo, a fort in Texas where, in 1836, a couple of hundred Americans (including Davy Crockett) held out against the Mexican army.

In Japan, the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, where 2.5 million of the nation's war dead are commemorated, including 14 who were judged war criminals and executed, has become a touchstone of political leadership. When John Howard wished to incorporate the commitment of Australian troops to Iraq into the national narrative, he invoked the spirit of Gallipoli.
Gallipoli was a moment in history when Australia came to "know itself", in the phrase of the official historian, C.E.W. Bean. The stories my father told were of two kinds. One was his middle-class, city-boy amazement at the crude humour and daredevil antics of his compatriots from the farms and goldfields. Gallipoli was for him not so much a military epic as a personal and social revelation. He discovered that Australia was a more robust, diverse society than he had imagined. The 1981 Australian film Gallipoli touched on this. Under its major theme of British strategic blunders and Australian courage and innocence, a minor theme was the testing of "mateship" in the friendship of two young men from contrasting backgrounds.

My father's other stories revealed an affection for "Johnny Turk". I was confused, as a child, as to who the enemy was, because he was unflagging in his scorn of the British and unstinting in his respect for the qualities of the enemy. After the early assault, the two sides were entrenched side by side, within shouting — and throwing — distance of each other. A camaraderie of shared fear and boredom developed. And there was time to think.

Compton Mackenzie, who was almost ecstatic in his appreciation of the Australian soldiers as Homeric heroes at Gallipoli, records a typically rational moment from his own experience. "I wanted to argue with (the Turk gunners) about the futility of war. It seemed so maddeningly stupid that men should behave as impersonally and unreasonably as nature."
In his anthology of writings on war, John Keegan has noted that, through the history of changing military strategy, one testimonial remains unchanged: war is inhumane. Even in the age of chivalry, the loser paid a terrible price.

Steven Runciman's detailed history of the Crusades is a terrifying account of human degradation for the most exalted reasons.

The secular state continued the tradition, with rape and pillage as spoils. Any Australian who has read the novels of Naguib Mahfouz will know how the behaviour of our men in Cairo en route to Gallipoli has remained in Egyptian memory.

I will attend the dawn service again this year. I will honour brave men and women who have died in war. I will still think, however, that war is a failure of human intelligence. I will still think that the enormous expenditure of states preparing themselves for war could be better spent on almost anything else. And I will remember that the victims of modern war are not only brave soldiers but ordinary people who get in the way.

The weapons of war have become so inhuman and in scale so global and impersonal that the bravery of war has lost its edge. For those who give their lives for country, there are tens, hundreds, thousands of civilians who die because they are in the way.

How should we remember them?

Bruce Grant is an author and former diplomat. For more Anzac views, including an essay by historian Marina Larsson, go to theage.com.au/opinion

Aussies 'forget the NZ in Anzac'

Tamara McLeanApril 22, 2009 - 12:04PM

Australians are ignoring the NZ in ANZAC, say Kiwi social historians who are calling for more recognition of New Zealand's contribution at Gallipoli.
Top New Zealand academics have claimed that while their Anzac Day celebrates the trans-Tasman teamwork after landing at Anzac Cove in 1915, Australia's too often does not.
"Anzac in Australia is commonly AAC without the NZ," said Professor Philippa Mein Smith, director of a specialist trans-Tasman research centre at New Zealand's University of Canterbury.
"We're often not mentioned in ceremonies and indeed many Australians sadly seem to have no idea we were there at all."
New Zealand is sensitive to Anzac exclusions and prickled over the barring of Kiwi expatriates at last year's unveiling of a bronze New Zealand digger on Sydney's Anzac bridge.
Former prime minister John Howard ruffled Kiwi feathers when he opted to snub the New Zealand remembrance service at Gallipoli in 2005 in favour of a barbecue on the beach with Australian soldiers.
Prof Mein Smith said New Zealand's contribution was probably poorly acknowledged not only because of its small size but because they landed at Anzac Cove three hours after the Australians.
"The story has been claimed for Australia, and in doing that the country has probably unintentionally denied our involvement," she said.
Being more inclusive of New Zealand would make the Anzac story "all the more interesting, significant and relevant" for nationals, the academic said.
University of Queensland history lecturer Martin Crotty said Australia's Anzac story had come to represent fundamental concepts like the birth of the nation and mateship.
"It's a genesis story. It's not surprising that New Zealand has been squeezed out the picture," he said.
Dr Crotty, a New Zealander who lectures Australian students, tells a story of one student who "thumped the table after I'd given a seminar and complained at having a New Zealander come and tell us about Anzac".
"He was genuinely shocked when I told him what the N and the Z stood for."
The historian said Australians had a very "parochial" view of WWI and were even less aware of France and Britain's involvement than they were of New Zealand's.
"The push should be not to just understand New Zealand but to see the Gallipoli campaign and the war in general in more internationalist terms," he said.
However, New Zealand's Returned and Services' Association took a softer approach.
"We're the smaller country and as with all such partnerships, the littler party will never get the same attention," said RSA national president Robin Klitscher.
"I've heard it mentioned that the New Zealand flag is not prominent enough, or whatever, but at the end of the day we were there for each other in war time and the bond is still as strong as it ever was."

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/aussies-forget-the-nz-in-anzac-20090422-aer1.html

FFA Tap Into ANZAC Spirit

FOOTBALL Federation Australia today announced a new annual event to emphasise the strong links between Australia and Turkey.

http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/99453,ffa-tap-into-anzac-spirit.aspx

A day for remembrance and perspective
Martin Flanagan April 18, 2009

NEXT weekend is the Anzac round, its highlight being Essendon and Collingwood at the 'G. Among his many ideas, this stands as one of Kevin Sheedy's most successful (and certainly better than telling the Tigers' faithful they had the team to win a premiership this year).
One of my brothers has a painting by Martin Tighe of two footballers, one Essendon, one Collingwood, battling it out on the MCG. The players in the painting don't look like modern footballers. They look like Essendon players of John Coleman and Dick Reynolds' time and Collingwood players of Lou Richards and Albert Collier's time, like eternal figures. Round the ground, where advertising banners customarily hang, are place names such as Gallipoli, Villers-Bretonneux and Kokoda, each written in a vivid, distinctive way as if to remind us each battle has a character entirely its own.

I get all that. In fact, if a visitor to Australia were to ask me for a Melbourne experience, one of those I'd nominate would be Anzac Day in the city. Arrive mid-morning when the march is on and the military bands are playing. Stand under the clocks at Flinders Street where American GIs met Aussie girls during World War II. Not that everyone was impressed by what they saw at the time, among them painter Albert Tucker. But Tucker had been working in a hospital at Heidelberg where solders with serious war injuries were kept.

I'd also go to Young & Jackson's and see Chloe, the naked nymph who came to Melbourne as a French painting for the Great Exhibition of 1880 and ended up in a pub. Lots of diggers had a drink with Chloe on their last leave before going overseas. Maybe, for some young men who didn't come back, it was the only naked woman they ever saw.

After the visitor to our city had a beer with Chloe, I'd tell them to make their way to the 'G, to take a leisurely stroll beside the river around which the city of Melbourne evolved from a settlement called Bearbrass, having previously been the place where the clans of what is now called Kulin nation gathered for ceremonies and games, including, in all likelihood, one in which a possum skin stuffed with charcoal was kicked in the air.

Then I'd tell the visitor about Collingwood and Essendon, one team from the city's 19th century slum, the other an outer suburban club with a Protestant flavour transformed by an Irish Catholic visionary called Kevin Sheedy. He invented the Anzac Day game, which seems to get bigger by the year.
But if the visitor to our country were an intelligent person with an independent perspective, I think they would ask me a question or two. They might, for example, ask me if this is an uncritical celebration of war? I would point out to them that the Anzacs fought the Turks and there is a Turkish presence in the Anzac Day commemoration. Some years ago, I attended a function put on by the president of the Turkish sub-branch of the RSL, Ramazan Altintas, at which the speaker was Bruce Ruxton, then the face of the Returned & Services League. Bruce, who offended most minorities at one time or another, spoke in his usual wayward and picturesque fashion, but the fact was he came in good spirit. And was received the same way.

I'd also point out to a visitor that Anzac Day speaks to me about being Australian in a way which has nothing to do with killing. I cherish the stories about Australian privates refusing to salute English officers because respect has to be earned.

The Australian army, unlike the British, did not execute its own men in World War I. That, in my book, is something to be proud of. The English said the Australians lacked discipline but, if the general trend of reports is to be believed, the Australians proved themselves as fighters at Gallipoli. We were then, as a nation, just 14 years old — in our adolescence. Gallipoli became our bloody initiation rite. But if we're going to promote war on the vast scale that is now implicit in the Anzac Day commemorations, we have to show some discrimination.

Each Anzac Day on the evening news, we hear children repeating the statement that the Anzacs died defending our liberty.

I would argue that is untrue.

The Anzacs died invading a country (Turkey) with which we had no difference other than those determined by imperial alignments. If we want to talk about Australian soldiers dying to defend our freedom, talk about Kokoda.

We should never forget that Gallipoli was a military fiasco.

The ineptitude of those in charge was as much responsible for the deaths of the thousands of young Australians as Turkish bullets.

I would argue that the invasion of Iraq was a disaster on the scale of Gallipoli in terms of the lack of real knowledge about the task in hand that those ordering the invasion possessed when making their bold decisions.

I am not anti-American.

I believe America saved us in World War II.

One of the most moving stories to do with the bombing of Darwin in February 1942 concerns the 10 American Kittyhawk pilots who flew at the hundreds of Japanese war planes. Only one survived.
But those who argue for war in any country need to be endlessly questioned.

For example, what treatment do we expect Australian soldiers will receive if captured in a future Asian war with Guantanamo Bay as a precedent? I ask as the son of a serviceman who was fortunate to survive captivity and the experience of the Burma Railway during World War II.
Nor am I saying that football shouldn't pay its respects to what is now ritually referred to as the Anzac legend.

We all know that legends are stories created by the zoom lens of history, which amplifies certain facts at the expense of others.

The Anzac legend is strong enough to let other truths about war in.

But if the visitor to our country were an intelligent person with an independent perspective, I think they would ask me a question or two. They might, for example, ask me if this is an uncritical celebration of war?

I would point out to them that the Anzacs fought the Turks and there is a Turkish presence in the Anzac Day commemoration.

Some years ago, I attended a function put on by the president of the Turkish sub-branch of the RSL, Ramazan Altintas, at which the speaker was Bruce Ruxton, then the face of the Returned & Services League. Bruce, who offended most minorities at one time or another, spoke in his usual wayward and picturesque fashion, but the fact was he came in good spirit. And was received the same way.

I'd also point out to a visitor that Anzac Day speaks to me about being Australian in a way which has nothing to do with killing.

I cherish the stories about Australian privates refusing to salute English officers because respect has to be earned.

The Australian army, unlike the British, did not execute its own men in World War I. That, in my book, is something to be proud of. The English said the Australians lacked discipline but, if the general trend of reports is to be believed, the Australians proved themselves as fighters at Gallipoli. We were then, as a nation, just 14 years old — in our adolescence.

Gallipoli became our bloody initiation rite.

But if we're going to promote war on the vast scale that is now implicit in the Anzac Day commemorations, we have to show some discrimination. Each Anzac Day on the evening news, we hear children repeating the statement that the Anzacs died defending our liberty. I would argue that is untrue.

The Anzacs died invading a country (Turkey) with which we had no difference other than those determined by imperial alignments. If we want to talk about Australian soldiers dying to defend our freedom, talk about Kokoda.

We should never forget that Gallipoli was a military fiasco. The ineptitude of those in charge was as much responsible for the deaths of the thousands of young Australians as Turkish bullets. I would argue that the invasion of Iraq was a disaster on the scale of Gallipoli in terms of the lack of real knowledge about the task in hand that those ordering the invasion possessed when making their bold decisions.
I am not anti-American. I believe America saved us in World War II. One of the most moving stories to do with the bombing of Darwin in February 1942 concerns the 10 American Kittyhawk pilots who flew at the hundreds of Japanese war planes. Only one survived.
But those who argue for war in any country need to be endlessly questioned.
For example, what treatment do we expect Australian soldiers will receive if captured in a future Asian war with Guantanamo Bay as a precedent? I ask as the son of a serviceman who was fortunate to survive captivity and the experience of the Burma Railway during World War II.
Nor am I saying that football shouldn't pay its respects to what is now ritually referred to as the Anzac legend.
We all know that legends are stories created by the zoom lens of history, which amplifies certain facts at the expense of others. The Anzac legend is strong enough to let other truths about war in.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/rfnews/a-day-for-remembrance-and-perspective/2009/04/17/1239475064862.html?page=2

Ambassador of Turkiye:Murat Ersavci protested South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson...

Turkish anger at holocaust remark
Jamie Walker April 11, 2009
Article from: The Australian

TURKEY has officially complained to Canberra that a state Labor minister tried to lever one of the most sensitive episodes in that country's modern history into votes for the ALP.

What began as a seemingly unremarkable speech by South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson to 40 people at a Greek community function has so angered Ankara that its ambassador to Australia, Murat Ersavci, protested to Foreign Minister Stephen Smith about the "defamation" of his country.

"I feel our relations are too important to be used in these self-serving, petty local politics," Mr Ersavci told The Weekend Australian.
The Turks are see thing over remarks Mr Atkinson made about the role of one of the country's towering figures, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in the tragedy that engulfed its Pontian or Black Sea Greek minority between 1915 and 1922.

Kemal was the commander who broke the hearts of the Anzacs at Gallipoli and then held out a hand to Australia by declaring its fallen soldiers would forever be sons of Turkey. He is revered in his homeland as the founder of the modern Turkish republic.

After doing the honours at the launch of a plaque commemorating what he called the "genocide" of Pontian Greeks by Turkish nationalists led by Kemal's forces -- a contention flatly rejected by Ankara -- Mr Atkinson poured petrol on the flames by declaring that anyone who disputed this version of history was practising a form of "holocaust denial".
When his account was challenged in federal parliament last month by the Deputy President of the Senate, Alan Ferguson, it was the expatriate Greek community's turn to be outraged. The veteran Liberal senator has since apologised for any offence he might have caused.
Mr Atkinson, seizing on this, had Senator Ferguson's speech to parliament translated into Greek and mailed out to thousands of voters from Greek, Assyrian, Syrian Orthodox and Armenian backgrounds in eight state seats in Adelaide.
Other state Labor MPs followed up with letters urging them to remember Senator Ferguson's speech "supporting the Turkish version of history" at next year's state election.
Mr Atkinson denied that he had used the issue as a political wedge against the state Liberals.
"I have an intellectual interest in this ... if there were no Greeks in my electorate, only Armenians and Turks, I would take the same position," he said.
For the record, Mr Atkinson said he knew of 12 ethnically Turkish constituents in his inner Adelaide seat of Croydon, against some 900 of Greek extraction. There were two Armenians.
The 2006 census found that 365,200 Australians described themselves as being of Greek descent, and 59,400 as Turkish.
Mr Ersavci said he had received "thousands of letters" from Turkish Australians concerned that they could face discrimination because of the "defamation situation" in South Australia.
Referring to Mr Atkinson's speech to the Pontian Brotherhood of South Australia last December, the ambassador said: "He seemed to be completely unaware of what is going on in the world. Politicians should not rewrite history, especially when talking about the Black Sea Greeks."
Mr Ersavci, who will attend Anzac Day commemorations with Mr Smith at Gallipoli in a fortnight, said he had asked the Foreign Minister to look into the Turkish Government's concerns. "He said he would do it," Mr Ersavci said.
Mr Smith's office said he had written to South Australian Premier Mike Rann outlining the federal Government's position "on these historical events" in Turkey at the time the remnants of the once mighty Ottoman Empire gave way to the new republic.
Australia believed "dialogue between the governments and communities of the countries concerned" was best and would not seek to intervene in the historical dispute.
Mr Atkinson said he backed independent research findings, contested by Turkey, that 1.5million ethnic Armenians and 350,000 Pontian Greeks were massacred during and after World War I.
Mr Ersavci said Turkey acknowledged that a "war within a war" had taken place, but not on the scale purported. The toll among Pontian Greeks cited by Mr Atkinson was "simply preposterous".
Sticking to his guns, Mr Atkinson said: "To say that is a non-existent event is equivalent to holocaust denial."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25318887-2702,00.html

Protesting South Australian Parliamentarians!!!

Guney Avustralya parlamenterleri David Ridgway ile Bernard Finnigan'a Mr Halit SINDI (Australian-Turkish Community Network Group) tarafindan gonderilen mektup:

=================================================================================================== Dear Mr. David Ridgway,

In relation to the matter described below, please find enclosed with this letter a copy of the Documentary DVD entitled "The Armenian Revolt", for your perusal and reference. As an Australian of Turkish origin, I cannot help expressing my deepest sadness at the genocide motion that recently passed by the members of the South Australian Parliament. This decision greatly upset us and caused a major devastation within our community.

Turkish Australians are honourable and hardworking people. We have contributed lot to Australian economy and culture. We have always been loyal to this beautiful country and its values. We do not deserve to be treated as second class citizens. We deserve a respect, just like all the other ethnic groups in Australia.

Armenian community characterizes the inter-communal warfare between Armenians and Turks during collapse of the Ottoman Empire as "genocide. This issue touches us deeply on a personal level because our families -Turkish Muslim families- faced starvation during that time when Armenians were conspiring with British, French, Greek, and Russian invaders to wipe out the Turkish state. Historian Justin McCarthy in his book "Muslims and Minorities: The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire" estimates that over 2.5 million Muslims were killed during this time frame, and Ottoman Archives document over 500,000 Turkish deaths at the hands of Armenians alone .

This genocide motion is a deliberate insult to 2.5 million Turkish dead (over half million of them at the hands of Armenian militias) during WWI as well as to more than 70 innocent victims of Armenian terrorism in our midst since 1973. One of these terrorist attacks took place in Australia on 17 December 1980 when Turkey's Consul General of Sydney Mr. Sarik ARIYAK and his security guard Mr. Engin SEVER were murdered. The Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG) was responsible for this terrorist act. This vicious and cowardly act considered being as one of the most significant terrorist events in the history of Australia by the ASIO.

While we do not wish to minimize Armenian suffering during WWI, we also feel that Turkish suffering at the hands of Armenians must also be honoured, if values like truth, honesty, and fairness are to be cherished.

It was a terrible human tragedy that victimized all the people of the area, without discriminating on the basis of ethnicity or religion. Just like Armenians, almost every Turkish family had lost loved ones in that terrible war. The hurt is painful enough without politicians fanning the flames of hatred with such unfair genocide motions.

Australia and Republic of Turkey formed an excellent relationship over the years. Politicians should be cautious about damaging this sincere relationship.

For the sake of peace and harmony in this beautiful country, I strongly urge you to retract this genocide motion immediately and save this valuable friendship between Australian and Turkish nations.

Yours Sincerely,
Mr Halit SINDI Australian-Turkish Community Network Group

Shame on you South Australia!

Güney Avustralya Parlamentosu Yasama Konseyi, sözde Ermeni soykırımına ilişkin önergeyi kabul etmesine sessiz kalmayın!

SEND YOUR LETTER URGENTLY TO :
Hon David Ridgway

Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, Parliament of South Australia Address : Parliament House, Adelaide, SA, 5000
Telephone : (08) 8237 9100E-mail : david.ridgway@parliament.sa.gov.au

Hon Bernard Finnigan

Member of the Legislative Council, Parliament of South AustraliaAddress : Parliament House, Adelaide, SA, 5000Telephone : 1800 182 097(Freecall)Telephone : (08) 8237 9340
Facsimile : (08) 8231 2383E-mail : finnigan@parliament.sa.gov.au

Sample Letter:

Parliament of South Australia's acceptance of so called Armenian genocide proves once again that low level politicians can do anything to get votes. Those petty minded politicians think so big of themselves, they even think they can rewrite history without having slightest idea what the facts are. No wonder politicians are not respected in this country.The truth is that Turkey is the most open country on this issue.

While vast archives spanning over 7 centuries of the Ottoman Empire were classified and opened to scholars for research more than a decade ago, Armenian archives in Erevan, Armenia, and Armenian Revolutionary Federation archives in Boston, USA, still remain closed to this day. Not one of the scholars doing a research in Turkish archives has come up with anything yet, supporting the Armenian allegations. However, the documents which will prove that it was the Armenians who massacred the Turks are all kept under lock in Armenian and Western archives.The British were the closest party to the events of 1915 because they were the principal occupying power of the Ottoman Empire and its capital, Istanbul, and the Ottoman archives during the period from 1915 to 1922.

The British led an international war crimes tribunal on the island of Malta against 144 high Ottoman officials who were charged with war crimes against the Armenians. Subsequently 56 out of the 144 alleged criminals were deported to the Island of Malta to stand a trial. After a wide scale frantic search of all the archival material in the British and the US possession they could not find anything incriminating the detainees. Subsequently all the Ottoman detainees were dismissed of charges and exchanged for the British prisoners in Turkey. And there were no war crimes charges.
Parliament of South Australia's attitude obviously is: “Who cares about the facts? We care about our votes. Armenian voters wanted us to accept the so called genocide and we duly accepted it irrespective of what the truth is.”

Shame on you South Australia!

by Umit Ugur ( Australian_Turkish Media Group)