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One day for respect
You may find the following offensive. I do not apologise.
As usual, ANZAC Day brings out strong opinions. Most often, it's some kind of anti-war diatribe. Maybe it's the 'war machine' that 'eats our children'. Maybe it's the government who sends our military off to war for 'oil'. Maybe it's the patriarchy, Western imperialism, sexism, rape in war, whatever. The common thread here is that some people seem to think this is a day when it's just fine to make some of the most strongly-worded, bordering on offensive, statements possible, and shout them far and wide.
These people seem to think they're making a protest - and that justifies what they're doing.
Here's a fucking news flash.
You are not making a political protest.
You are trampling on someone's memory. You are invading their remembrance service, and you are distressing their relatives and their descendants.
How dare you?
You have 364 days every year to make your political points. You can write, and yell, and shout and stamp. You can lobby furiously, do your damnedest to change laws or change the culture - whatever you think it takes.
But when you choose ANZAC Day - of all days - to do it, then you're no better than Westboro Baptist Church. Remember them? The fundamentalist whackjobs who think they have a right to turn up to funerals waving their 'GOD HATES FAGS' banners and preaching their own message? The ones who provoke equal parts anger and grief in already upset people and think they're justified, because their message is so important? Those abhorrent, insensitive fanatics?
Yeah. That's you.
Have a bit of fucking respect and give it a rest for one day. You can go back to it tomorrow - and I might just join you, because I have no love for war, or profiteering or any of the many horrors that cause and stem from it.
But today, I will remember and honour the fallen. I will mourn for those who lie in foreign soil like my Great-Uncle Alby, and for those who came home to bear their scars and remember their comrades, like my Gramps. I will mourn for those who remain lost. I will honour them, along with hundreds of thousands of others.
I don't ask that you do the same. I ask you simply to let this day pass.
As usual, ANZAC Day brings out strong opinions. Most often, it's some kind of anti-war diatribe. Maybe it's the 'war machine' that 'eats our children'. Maybe it's the government who sends our military off to war for 'oil'. Maybe it's the patriarchy, Western imperialism, sexism, rape in war, whatever. The common thread here is that some people seem to think this is a day when it's just fine to make some of the most strongly-worded, bordering on offensive, statements possible, and shout them far and wide.
These people seem to think they're making a protest - and that justifies what they're doing.
Here's a fucking news flash.
You are not making a political protest.
You are trampling on someone's memory. You are invading their remembrance service, and you are distressing their relatives and their descendants.
How dare you?
You have 364 days every year to make your political points. You can write, and yell, and shout and stamp. You can lobby furiously, do your damnedest to change laws or change the culture - whatever you think it takes.
But when you choose ANZAC Day - of all days - to do it, then you're no better than Westboro Baptist Church. Remember them? The fundamentalist whackjobs who think they have a right to turn up to funerals waving their 'GOD HATES FAGS' banners and preaching their own message? The ones who provoke equal parts anger and grief in already upset people and think they're justified, because their message is so important? Those abhorrent, insensitive fanatics?
Yeah. That's you.
Have a bit of fucking respect and give it a rest for one day. You can go back to it tomorrow - and I might just join you, because I have no love for war, or profiteering or any of the many horrors that cause and stem from it.
But today, I will remember and honour the fallen. I will mourn for those who lie in foreign soil like my Great-Uncle Alby, and for those who came home to bear their scars and remember their comrades, like my Gramps. I will mourn for those who remain lost. I will honour them, along with hundreds of thousands of others.
I don't ask that you do the same. I ask you simply to let this day pass.