Anzac Day

How casually everyone walks past cenotaphs these days. With the world filled with phone tranced zombies who barely see anything, how are they expected to see the ultimate sacrifice of others? Chances are, many people are more likely just to walk head-long into the memorial due to distraction, rather than noticing it for what it’s worth.
 
However, ANZAC Day helps focus people’s attention on the importance of sacrifice, love and friendship for a set of beliefs about how life should be. It’s not to glorify war, but to honour the stand against tyranny and the fight for what is right in this world for everyone to live free from fear, hate and oppression and have the opportunity to live a life of their choosing.
 
Sadly, our world is still a long way from this ideal. In Australia, we live in relative safety and security, but the recent events in our neighbouring New Zealand, highlight that we still have a long way to go and we should never lose sight of the fact that the lessons of the past must inform our decisions into the future.
 
In a time when communication across the globe has become instant, and often overwhelming, it’s worth reflecting on the experience of soldiers on the front line. It took weeks or months for mail to get to or from the front. Letters from the front were read by someone else before being redacted and then sent on. Even innocuous remarks about the experience on the front line might have been struck out, in case they could cause disquiet back home. Yet most tragically, of the many letters that were sent, by the time the letters were received in the home country, the soldiers who wrote them had been killed in action, or missing, presumed dead.

​With instant messaging and the ability for news media to live stream coverage of war-torn areas twenty four hours a day, it’s hard to fathom and comprehend the lack of information, and the slowness of communication back and forth between loved ones during the wars of the past 100 years. Yet the value of those communications were timeless. Letters were kept and cherished as an important connection from back home, to those who had left to serve.
 
There’s nothing glorious about war and the scars and emptiness with which it has left so many people, but the fight to defend democracy and freedom is why we must always remain vigilant to protect a way of life that allows freedom of speech, movement, association and the ability for so many to walk around like zombies and see nothing of the world around them. Consequently, on ANZAC Day, it’s important for us to honour those who made a stand against tyranny and oppression, so rather than having heads bowed staring mindlessly at a phone, it’s an opportunity for our nation to bow its head in honour and respect for all those who served to protect the wonderful nation and life we enjoy in Australia today.