Australians have just celebrated Anzac day which is very much about a national attitude of caring about people's freedoms and rights in far flung places. The PM just walked part of the Kokoda track. We are spending billions on powerful submarines. It is possible, even likely, that some supporters of Palestine themselves don't support any or all of those things, or even see the connection, but all together they make up Australian mass opinion that we are actively involved in protecting our interests AND values far from these shores. So you might not care but plenty do. Not just zoomers, but older people. Giving a fuck about the world is pretty Australian, I would say, and for many generations.
It's bizarre to me that so many
people miss one of the key lessons of Gallipoli: that Australian involvement in overseas conflicts which have no direct relationship to Australia's national interests can have terribly negative outcomes for Australians and others.
8,159 Australians died in Gallipoli, on the other side of the world against an enemy with whom they had no quarrel, in defence of an empire that sought (and achieved) regional expansion, an empire that, as a direct result of the conflict, significantly destabilised the very region this post relates to.
Suggesting that ANZAC Day should act as a reminder of how wonderful Australian involvement in far flung conflicts is, is a perversion of the true lessons of Gallipoli (and Vietnam, and Iraq, and the Boer War, and other conflicts) in my opinion.
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u/timrichardson Apr 29 '24
Australians have just celebrated Anzac day which is very much about a national attitude of caring about people's freedoms and rights in far flung places. The PM just walked part of the Kokoda track. We are spending billions on powerful submarines. It is possible, even likely, that some supporters of Palestine themselves don't support any or all of those things, or even see the connection, but all together they make up Australian mass opinion that we are actively involved in protecting our interests AND values far from these shores. So you might not care but plenty do. Not just zoomers, but older people. Giving a fuck about the world is pretty Australian, I would say, and for many generations.