Two days after ANZAC Day, Ian and Andy reflect on how our rememberance of the past affects the present. An excerpt from a speech by author Richard Flanagan as well as an interview with David Stephens from the Honest History website as well as poetry and music about the war and discussions about various aspects of the legacy of WWI.
Richard Flanagan
Andy played a recording of this week's national press club lunch where Richard Flanagan spoke about the depictions of World War I and interpretation of history. In his hour long speech, Flanagan spoke of how prime ministers use history as a justification for war. For example Bob Hawke used Gallipoli to justify the First Gulf War in 1991.
The film 'water diviner' claimed that 7000 soldiers were killed at Lone Pine when in fact it was only nine hundred. Much is made of the number of casualties at Gallipoli and in France especially by the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull when in fact the casualties only represented 5% of the total number of people killed during World War I. Hugh white who worked in the defence department says that Australian expeditionary forces were thought to be part of what it is to be Australian eg 15-year-olds think that going to war is to be truly Australian.
Playlist
Mick Thomas Gallipoli rosemary AUS
PJ Harvey On battleship hill
Wilfred Owen Dulce et decorum est
Ancestress War LOCAL
Dropkick Murphys The green fields of France
