Conflict And Meaning

There has been a lot of discussion of the ANZAC legacy and the nature of war. All of it, likely a good deal more articulate than anything I am able to muster. However, I still feel compelled to write something.

I guess what I’ve taken from today is an understanding that the ANZAC legacy can mean anything you want it to mean. It can represent great courage and great sacrifice. It can represent why we mustn’t go to war ever again; why war is futile. It can represent a reason to be proud and follow in the footsteps of ancestry, enlisting in military. It can represent Australia’s early attempts to forge an identity through great challenge. It can be the namesake of a delicious tasting biscuit. (I include the last item, not to be flippant, but just to demonstrate the scope of conceivable meanings.)

I don’t really know what it means to me personally. To be honest the longer I dwell upon the subject, the more confused and conflicted I become. I thought at first this might be because society at large sends mixed signals about war and conflict itself. “War is bad,” we are told. “War is futile. We shouldn’t have intervened in Iraq.” Yet the same basic experiences are dusted off and repackaged as inspirational reasons for representing one’s country in battle.

The reality, at least as it seems to me, is that the so-called “peaceful nations” are just as militant as those openly declared as battle zones.

I am reminded of something that a friend said recently. He suggested that nobody avoids doing the wrong thing out of a sense of moral obligation, but rather human beings are motivated out of a fear of consequences.

Perhaps a pessimistic view of humanity. It seems to me it might be a workable one though. Would every nation behave more responsibility if they had a missile aimed at their lands? I guess on closer inspection it seems doubtful.

I don’t wish to diminish the value of the contributions of those who have represented this nation. I would, however, hope we never need make similar sacrifices again. We need to find a way of coming together, in a global sense, to respectfully interact. Because, truthfully, I don’t think much is achieved through belligerent aggression.

I see people endangering themselves and others in an attempt to put out the Olympic Torch in parts of Europe and have to wonder, honestly, what impact that would have for the people in Tibet? For the people in China, even? While I can understand the passion these people feel, I do have to wonder about the effectiveness of their actions. Self-help traditions teach us to be results-orientated. What did these protesters hope to achieve by staging such acts? To get increase awareness for the plight of Tibet? To be honest I think everyone understands the problem. And I’m not sure the “Butterfly Effect” is so profound that a torch going out in London would free a people in Tibet. Though I could be wrong…

Surely there are two options. A militant one or a diplomatic one. Surely the latter is worth some consideration.

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