Don’t let hatred ruin Anzac Day
DID I just panic, I wondered, following my youngest son as his school band marched in an Anzac Day parade. What do the usual Anzac Day haters really matter? How can they hurt what I see here?
That’s what I first thought, following my son. Proud as.
See, Australia had again turned out in the streets to pay their respects to those who gave this country their lives.
There were the veterans, and the relatives bearing the medals of men and women now gone, while tens of thousands of us clapped and cried out “good on you”.
There were the men and women of today’s military and bands and volunteers from dozens of schools. At the parade’s end the Salvos handed marchers bickies and drinks, near a gum tree raucous with green rosellas.
Isn’t this the real Australia? Could all this really be shaken by a troll like Guardian columnist Catherine Deveny calling Anzac Day a “Trojan horse for racism, sexism, toxic masculinity, violence, homophobia and discrimination”? Will it really be hurt if the head of Change.org and ABC host Yassmin Adbel-Magied urge followers to tweet, “Lest we forget (Manus)”, hoping to turn Anzac Day into a shame pit?
Who cares if celebrity “human rights” lawyer Julian Burnside demands we remember not just Manus but Syria and Palestine, preaching: “We must never forget our bad deeds.”
Does anyone seriously think the Syrian civil war or terrorist-run Palestine are proof of Australia’s “bad deeds” rather than of the dysfunctional culture of those who live there?
Against the Australia I saw yesterday, what are these yabbering few?
So I thought, trailing my son. But then I noticed things.
Those concrete bollards, dumped by the route to stop terrorists from running us down.
There were none nine years ago, when my eldest son first joined this parade with his bagpipe.
Nor did I see then so many police to guard us, including scores of the new Public Order Response Team.
How curious. We were commemorating soldiers who fought the enemy without, while needing guarding now from the enemy within.
It seems our military did their job, but then our politicians freely let in those who wish us harm.
But our challenge now is even bigger than terrorism, thanks to those politicians letting in so many immigrants that — at last year’s rate — we’ll double our population in just 40 years, mostly with newcomers with no ties to Australia of family or culture.
Many will be from prouder or even hostile cultures. Already we’ve had more Australian Muslims fighting for the Islamic State than now serve in our defence force.
So very soon there will in one sense be no “us” any more. There will be only tribes — unless our culture inspires the love and loyalty of even new arrivals.
How long can it do that? Anzac Day is perhaps the last remaining national day when we take pride in our past and honour what we hope are our finest qualities — self-sacrifice, mateship and courage even in a losing cause.
It is our last national day when we unite to remember those who built or protected a country and culture we all share.
Forget Australia Day. It’s gone. It’s now so polluted with manufactured guilt that its power to unite has virtually gone. Some Left-wing councils even refuse to celebrate it, claiming it marks the start of “genocide”.
And, of course, our culture and history are being whiteanted and drowned in guilt by our schools and the ABC.
We cannot let that happen to Anzac Day. We cannot ignore attacks on it.
For a start, the extremist critics simply give cover for a wider assault on the day.
Many academic historians already mock our “Anzackery” and The Age yesterday decorated its Anzac Day edition with a Leunig cartoon of medals, each with a legend: Fear, Hate, Anger, Violence, Homicide.
Meanwhile the City of Sydney again backed a “Coloured Diggers March” and the ABC reverentially covered a ceremony for just Aboriginal soldiers.
Yes, even Anzac Day is being turned — if we don’t resist — into a day of division and resentment, not of unity and gratitude.
Yesterday a mother of a boy in my son’s band told me: “This is a spiritual day. How much we need that.”
She’s right. If we strip this country of even this day of reverential gratitude and pride, what is left of “us”?
To what could the millions of newcomers pouring in give their heart? Watch Andrew Bolt on The Bolt Report LIVE 7pm week nights