| Anzac Day | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 24 2017, 10:43 PM (678 Views) | |
| Caro | Apr 24 2017, 10:43 PM Post #1 |
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Today is Anzac Day, commemorating for NZers and Australians the disastrous Gallipoli campaign and soldiers in all wars. It is a half holiday here with the shops shut till 1pm, no newspapers etc, dawn parades. Anzac services in New Zealand tend to be sombre and serious, in Australia more celebratory and patriotic. Since every year this is the subject of radio and television interviews, Moari TV devotes its whole programme to it for the day, and dawn and other services draw ever-growing crowds, it is hard to find something new to say about it. But this morning, and I thought of May-Cee while I was listening, they talked about Messines, which took place 100 years ago in June, and the role of the Irish in this battle and how events in Ireland at the time affected the soldiers. They had a woman called Catriona Pennell (pronounced Katrina; until recently when we had a Scottish Catriona researching native bats in this area, I always thought it was pronounced as spelt but she calls herself Katrina too) talking about this, saying the soldiers fighting alongside each other sometimes resented the fighting between RCs and Protestants back home when they were fighting the Germans and others desperately. She also said the narrative that boys were joining the war enthusiastically for an adventure was only part of the truth and quoted someone saying there were as many reasons to go to war as there were soldiers - some went for adventure, some because they were conscripted, some for duty, some for fear of being thought cowards if they didn't, some to escape an unhappy marriage or a job they disliked, some from pressure from family or friends, some in response to posters, etc. There is some question of security on the Turkish site, but it is being highly protected. We shall see what happens. |
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| waiting4atickle | Apr 24 2017, 11:00 PM Post #2 |
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A quote from George McGovern has been doing the rounds on social media recently: I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. It's derivative, of course - although "fed up to the ears" is a novel expression - but still carries weight. |
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12:24 AM Jul 11