April 25, 2008...11:01 pm
April 25th - ANZAC Day
April 25th is one of the most significant days of the year in Australia. It marks the day that the Australia and New Zealand Army Corp (along with other armed forces of the British Empire) landed on the beaches of Gallipoli on the Turkish peninsula.
A long, bloody, pointless and quite frankly disastrous campaign ensued the ended with a retreat. It was, like all of World War One, an horrific and senseless waste of life. And yet it was certainly a turning point in the establishment of an individual identity for Australia and for modern Turkey. Interestingly, there is quite a bit of closeness between Australia, New Zealand and Turkey over the commemoration of Gallipoli with shared respect for the sacrifices made and bravery shown on both sides. I don’t know of any other major conflict where the opposing sides now identify so closely over the conflict.
Here’s a video I made to mark this year’s ANZAC Day.
For anyone who wants to know more, this link leads to the official Australian government site. Also, here’s a series of videos I made last year.
5 Comments
April 26, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Doesnt war make you so proud to be a member of the species?
We have intelligence and choice, yet instead of choosing to live in peace we beat each other to death, maim and kill
April 26, 2008 at 10:38 pm
I messed up that comment -_-
Beat each other senseless should have been
April 28, 2008 at 9:26 am
World War One was a particularly horrific example of how bad humanity can get.
April 28, 2008 at 7:27 pm
The last 80 odd years have not been much for good examples of humanity either.
In WWII the death toll was 39 million as opposed to the 15 million or so for WWI, including over 6 million civil jews.
Then there is all the nasty little 3rd world scraps, Korean and Vietnam included.
I reckon any alien anthropologists looking on would have written us off years ago, as the next big one could mean nukes, and that is a major fuckup in the making.
In the meantime thanks to the WWI diggers for the life we have now…RIP lads.
April 29, 2008 at 9:19 am
Yes, there are a few things that give me grave doubts about humanity.
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