After Anzac Day, the command to be better

Stupid booing marred Anzac Day and our commemorations of sacrifice. Michael Pascoe Our most solemn day, he writes, is a challenge, a reminder to be better, not an act of deserved national pride.

Monday. It is a public holiday in NSW, WA and the ACT to make up for Anzac Day, which falls on a Saturday. I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do, I’m not sure it pays due respect to a day with a serious foundation that is, for now, our true national day.

However, two days after the event is called a holiday. Discarded rosemary branches were thrown into the trash and flags were wrapped. Literal flags are bunched up or pushed away, figurative flags are at least a little less wrapped around those who want to wear them and wave them.

The stain on the day left by a bunch of arrogant idiots has not been erased yet and will not be removed. The Sydney Morning Herald home page is still gives a nice interview Former CMF member, descendant of diggers who served in the wars, and with his brother, Uncle Ray Minniecon. It was the 75-year-old’s dawn ceremony welcome to the country.

A few anonymous idiots were booed at Martin Place in Sydney.

It’s the nature of the news that the Idiots’ stunt, which was copied in Melbourne and Perth, became the headline of the day. This is the kind of stupidity that is likely to be repeated, given that it attracts the attention of senseless, worthless perpetrators, overshadowing the beauty and respect of countless Anzac Day commemorations across the nation.

It is particularly galling that the action of the racists is a complete contradiction and denial of the challenge posed to us by Anzac.

Yes, we rightly honor and promise to remember those who were willing to pay the price required to serve our country and to commemorate the tragedies their families experienced.

Reflects the horrors of military madness

And far from glorifying war, the commemoration teaches the horrors of military madness. In a sane world, he warns against ultranationalist nationalism.

But there is also a direct challenge for those who came later, for those who came later, for all of us.

This challenge was summed up for me in two short lines from Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, a film known for its depiction of war and death.

However, the crucial point of the movie is in the last lines. For a few decades, I slightly misremembered scenes in which Tom Hanks’ character, Captain Miller, says to the eponymous Private Ryan as he dies: “You deserve it.”

Then, standing in front of Miller’s grave in Normandy, old Ryan asks his wife: “Did I lead a good life?”

When Miller checked he said, “Win ​​this, win that,” and the elder Ryan said to his wife:

“Tell me I’m living a good life.”

Wife: “What?”

Ryan “Tell me I’m a good man.”

Wife: “You”.

And this is the inherent difficulty of Anzac Day commemorations, without Hollywood’s stirring music.

Did we deserve this? Are we winning? Are we good people?

Clearly the booing yokels are not like that. I bet they will be spongers, selfish by nature, narrow-minded, entitled to own a space they never deserved.

But the challenge for all of us remains: Do we deserve this incredibly gorgeous, rich and, yes, lucky country?

The challenge is constant

No one has done or is doing this for us. There is no title deed inheritance. We have not been rewarded for what our ancestors achieved/sacrificed, the hardship is constant.

What are we doing now to deserve this place, these opportunities, to make Australia better, to be better, to help our nation realize its amazing potential?

The cranky, evil disposition that increasingly permeates our politics is the antithesis of this spirit of defiance, of self-sacrifice. It is inevitable that those who display their nationalism the most on stage, and those who ostentatiously wrap themselves in the flag, have a selfish perspective on what “good” is.

To love this country is to love both its majestic physical self and its good sides as a nation, the good we do collectively. This love should not be confused with a pride that puts oneself first. Tim Minchin may have put it best:

“I’m not proud to be an Australian. I’m very happy to be an Australian. Pride should be reserved for the things you’ve achieved, not the things that happen by accident of birth.”

We are good, very good.

I wouldn’t replace it with any other place in the world. To deserve it requires being good, trying to do better, collectively seeking our better nature.

This is our debt to the past and the future. Earn it.

Veterans who know the horrors of war call for reform, but most politicians say status quo