As the Murdoch press gradually loses its cultural reach over normal people, mostly because newspaper circulation is falling and the number of people who actually watch Sky News is numbered in the tens for some programs (not tens of thousands, just tens); after having tried to cause moral outrage over Australia Day and Easter, the Daily Telegraph and the Courier-Mail tired to attack Gen-Z over its apparent apathy over ANZAC Day.
Citing a Newspoll, the papers concluded that less than 25% of people in Gen-Z, presumably Generation Alpha, and probably all of Generation Beta (the oldest of those being about four months old), were "strongly attached" to ANZAC Day, whatever that is supposed to mean.
To that I say... good.
Tired old men, from a tired old war.
And the young people ask:
"What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question.
...
And the band played 'Waltzing Matilda'.
Let's put this in perspective shall we?
VJ Day, was the 9th of September 1945. If someone had turned 18 on the very last day of WW2, then they would be 97 years old now. That means that although there are a few people who might be veterans of the Second World War, there are not many. If someone had turned 18 on the very last day of WW1, then they would be 124 years old today. As there are no people who are that old, the actual memory of the First World War has not only faded but been extinguished entirely. There are no dodecagenarians.
This means that the right to claim who gets to decide what kinds of moral outrage should exist, and who gets to claim that same moral outrage, is certainly not owned by the Murdoch press. About the only moral outrage which can or should be claimed by anyone within the Murdoch press, was ironically Keith Murdoch himself; who expressed shock at the conditions endured by the soldiers at Gallipoli. He bothered to turn up and report what he saw on the battlefield itself.
In fact, isn't that the very point of ANZAC Day itself?
25th April was was declared 'ANZAC Day' by the federal government in 1916. They knew full well of the bloody pointlessness of the campaign which saw 12,401 ANZAC soldiers die for literally zero gain whatsoever. This was not the glorious dead but a campaign which saw at minimum 480,000 people flung at machine gun fire, merely to result in an Ottoman victory. So for the Murdoch press to somehow make sport of the "ANZAC Spirit" or whatever they were trying to do, is not only to completely misread what the whole deal was about, but also to spit in the face of their own former proprietor.
The fact that younger people are not "strongly attached" to ANZAC Day is testament to the fact that the people who saw the horrors of war, twice in some people's lifetimes, didn't want to revisit that again on their children and grandchildren. Organisations like the EU and NATO, now decried by the children who were born in the peace and prosperity that their parents created, were designed not so much to be glorious pieces of cooperation but to gum up the gears of war so that they didn't revolve in the first place.
A few Baby Boomers fought in Vietnam but by the time that the two Iraq Wars and the Afghanistan War arrived, the armed forces were entirely run by professional soldiers. Those wars at least from an Australian perspective, were not fought by conscripts or en masse volunteers. That makes a massive difference.
The people of Gen-Z who were born from 1995-2009, and Generation Alpha from 2010-2024, have only really come of age within the past 10 years at most. Of course they will not be "strongly attached" to a commemoration for a thing which happened 80 years before they were born. In the case of Generation Alpha, the entire generation was born after the last World War I veteran died. The light had already gone out. For them, the First World War and ANZAC Day is only ever going to be something that they will see on film and in print. There are no veterans left to share any experiences.
For Gen-Z, not being "strongly attached" to ANZAC Day may as well be like me not being "strongly attached" to the Battle of Hastings in 1066. I literally can not remember anything before I was born either and 912 years may as well be 100. I was friends with a veteran from the Second World War who flew Liberator B-24 bombers in Italy and had three battle stars, but him relating stories to me was not the same as something that I could actually experience.
Quite frankly, younger generations should not be "strongly attached" to ANZAC Day. In fact becoming increasingly apathetic to the First World War and to its cause, is actually the best policy. We should be horrified when politicians send soldiers off to die. People's lives are the coin of the battlefield and I find it downright horrible and evil that men behind desks and who end up being decorated, spend that coin of the battlefield as though it means nothing to them; especially considering that they are the ones who never actually have to pay.
But as year follows year, more old men disappear
Someday no one will march there at all...
GOOD!
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