Every town in Australia has a War Memorial. Australian dead until the 1st Iraq war were buried where they fell. Originally they were where a mother, father sister or wife could go to grieve because their loved ones were half way round the world. These memorials are solemn places of reflection. I believe new exhibits showing the contribution of indigenous people to these 20th century conflict have been added. Hopefully soon it will include the forgotten conflicts and help the nation heal
One of the things that separates the Australian War Memorial from other lesser memorials and museum is how it honours the soldiers whilst acknowledging the horror of war, rather than celebrating specific acts of heroism.
A statue of a soldier covered in mud, head in his hands in despair seen as you enter the collection - to me is the heart of the memorial (Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier a close second).
This new "upgrade" risks damaging this central tennant of how Australian recognizes the impact of war, the contribution of its service men and women and volunteers and if poorly executed will turn our point of pride into a standard Military Museum, rather than a War Memorial.
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Honor the brave Australian citizens that died in the service of protecting their country when an entire world was at war.
Politicians can best demonstrate their respect and gratitude to those currently serving in the military out of patriotism to protect Australia’s citizens by dedicating their public service to the principle that military force is the least desirable option to any dispute and should be the last resort after all other means are thoroughly exhausted. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and all the other wars in multiple countries by the U.S. military today are all wars of aggression and have accomplished nothing but senseless death, chaos, physical destruction, a massive refugee crisis and veterans suffering from trauma and disabling and disfiguring wounds.
If Australia’s politicians want to tag along with U.S. violence then the brave Australians who died for their country in wars gone by all died in vain.
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Every war memorial that memorializes those who were killed rather than memorializing war should not ever sanitize war.
War memorials should always be anti-war.
Those millions who died are not heroes, and not one died in glory. Kids need to know this before they get blown up, shot through the head, crushed, and burned alive.
Kids should not be forced to learn the hard way that governments lie.
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@Fourteen
@Fourteen
They are all heroes. Heroes because they died trying to save an innocent civilian, a fellow soldier, or simply because the cause they were fighting for was just, and above all because they gave all.
That's not to say they are not innocent victims of idiotic political schemes; but one does not preclude the other.
And the only way for a memorial to be anti-war is not to be anti-war, because every war is different in motive and justification, but is to portray war in its crudest, truest, most gruesome form - so that all know the enormous price that was paid by those who died, those who were maimed, and those that were left behind.
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@Victor There are very real questions as to whether the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and, to a lesser degree, Afghanistan were "just". Remember, there were citizens who refused to be drafted to fight in Vietnam and there were serving soldiers who refused to fight in Iraq. If, indeed, one were to decide that the wars in Vietnam and Iraq were unjust, then it is far from heroic to meekly follow a Government's directive and to participate in the murder of innocent citizens of another nation.
Is the War Memorial meant to reflect and present history or is it now used to promote myths and legends and a narrow, conservative jingoism dressed up as a reflection of current affairs? All countries elevate their own virtues through public war memorials but the AWM is rapidly turning into a theme park. Exhibitions on Australian diplomats in Afghanistan - I mean, how self-serving is that?
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As a New Zealand born Australian citizen it seems fitting to me that we remember all who served in war. We will always remember with deep respect why we get to live in the best two countries in the world but the price was too high. Lest We Forget.
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Australia quickly joined the USA in the middle east after the destruction of the twin towers in New York. The sacrifice of Australian service men & women in the middle east following that disgraceful act deserves appropriate remembrance in our war memorial.
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@Alan, Honest John Howard was in Washington the morning the plane went into the Pentagon, he saw the smoke from his hotel window, he vowed that day to join with the US in any action against the perpetrators. He then blindly followed the US into the 2nd Gulf War despite any evidence whatsoever that Iraq was involved in the attack.
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Although not really that relevant to this story, at the time that Brendan Nelson was Minister for Defense he lived in someones garage in Canberra, where he often signed top secret documents from his camp bed when woken by defense officials. Obviously these defense officials couldn't just storm into someones garden to wake the minister, first they had to wake the garage's owner, Joe Hockey, now Australia's ambassador to the USA.
Back to the story, there is very little, if anything at the war memorial for the frontier wars fought in Australia between 'colonists' and the Aboriginal owners, despite the near 30,000 death toll, the Australian government doesn't like to talk about this unless forced to. Mr Nelson was part of the Howard government who completely ignored the mass protests over the second gulf war even as the evidence for weapons of mass destruction crumbled. J Howard the Prime Minister made a point of never acknowledging or apologizing for the genocide (dictionary definition) of the first Australians or of the savagery of the frontier wars throughout Australia. The deputy Prime Minister of the time was one John Anderson whose forebears took part in or were implicated in massacres of aboriginal men, women and children. The foriegn minister of the time, Alexander Downer is now the Ambassador to the UK who met with your George Papadopoulos, he also 'forgot' to mention he knew of sanction breaches against the Saddam Hussein government, what a nice bunch we have.
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What is not mentioned in the article is the fact that many Australians have been pushing for the so-called 'Frontier Wars' to be acknowledged and represented at the War Memorial. Many thousands of Indigenous people were viciously hunted and murdered by colonial invaders, and specific massacres are well documented.
It is an enduring shame of many Anglo-Australians people like me that the truth of modern Australia's bloody history is not even publicly acknowledged, let alone any kind of reparation pursued.
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I acknowledge that there were atrocities with First Nations people. This was a bunch of murderers taking violence into their own hands. Violence no matter who the perpetrator is ugly. However, with respect, the memorial was initially built as a military memorial to commemorate lives lost in war with enemy nations of Australia. In my mind, Australia as a sovereign nation has never been at war with aboriginal people. That violence involved people who were not representing the majority of white Australians in any way, or in any name concerning the rest of the country. First Nations people who died during colonial violence have a right to be represented, and truly so, but not in a military memorial.
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I have toured this museum multiple times while on business trips to Canberra. I found the museum to be both informative and extremely moving in presenting the Australian experience in both World Wars and the Vietnam war. The exhibits in the museum consist of significant items to anyone with an interest in WWII. However, what I particularly found interesting was the unvarnished presentation of Australian attitudes to their both their enemies in the Asian theatre and to their Imperial leadership. As time passes, perhaps these critical exhibits will be expunged, despite the truth they convey of widely-held feelings.
Any museum dedicated to warfare will inspire some and depress others. But we must honor the sacrifice of our troops without making a qualifying judgement based on the moral grounds on which the war was started. That seems to be the intent of the new exhibits. The article states many reasons for opposing the expansion, but the bad decisions leading to the Iraq war should not be one of them.
Full disclosure: My daughter, son-in-law, and nephew deployed to Iraq. My neighbor's son died in Baghdad. The flawed shaping of intelligence that led to that war doesn't diminish my respect for their sacrifice.
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In front of Central Park in NYC, by Columbus Circle, there is a grand memorial to the Spanish American War and the sinking of the Maine. Perhaps the fakest “war” in American history.
I have yet to hear any fellow citizen ever taken aback by it, or question whether it belong there or not.
Australia is so very different, or perhaps the Iraq War is just too soon.
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