ANZAC Day Training

ANZAC Day here in Australia today, and a particularly big one at that, being the Centenary of the Gallipoli landings. For any non Australians reading, ANZAC day is a day of remembrance, officially for soldiers who fought at Gallipoli in World War One, but really a wider day of recognition for all returned service men. Most of the activities of the day are centred around the morning, with dawn services happening all over the place and a veterans parade in all the major cities, and smaller versions in some regional areas.

How much ANZAC Day impacts you is really down to the individual. I know lots of people either in the armed forces or with direct links to it, for whom ANZAC Day is a massive deal. A lot of other people make the effort to get to a Dawn Service to pay their respects. I think a lot of others just like being a part of something. Everybody else is going so I should too sort of thing. And then for others it is not much different to any other day, except that the shops are shut. For our family, with two young children and no direct links to the Australian Armed Forces (my Grandfather fought for Great Britain in WWII), we are closer to the shops are shut end of the spectrum. Although as the kids get older and they get more of an understanding of what ANZAC Day means, I expect that that might change.

Over the past 15 or 20 years the significance of ANZAC Day has increased in Australia, similar to what we have seen with Australia Day. A lot of that has to do with the increasing national pride that we have been seeing here for a while now. For many people ANZAC Day signifies the manifestation of many of the characteristics of what people associate with being Australian. Mateship, loyalty, duty, lack of respect for authority. Those sorts of things. I am fairly sure those things were in a lot of Australians before Gallipoli, but ANZAC Day is held up as sort of glowing example of those things all in one place. In fact I think for a lot of Australians, ANZAC Day is more of a celebration of those things, and a good excuse to feel good about our country, than any particular chance to remember fallen soldiers.

In fact this year particularly, with the centenary, I have been a little turned away with how much of a big deal the media has made of the day. They have really grabbed it and run, and taken much of the Australian public with them in turn. I have no great objection to this, at the worst it is fairly harmless and on the bright side it means there are great numbers of people at the various events, which can only be a good thing. But it does make me wonder how many people are actually at these events observing the intended meaning of ANZAC Day.

Still at least the undercurrent of respect that goes with ANZAC Day means you generally don't see some of the thuggish behaviour that goes with Australia Day. Unfortunately for a vocal minority, patriotism and racism translate as the same thing. Or at least one is seen as an excuse for the other. You don't get that with ANZAC Day which is wonderful. If anything you might see a slight increase in tolerance as people realise that not everybody who has ever fought and died under the Australian Flag has been white.

So that is today. There has been some training, an easy spin on the bike, and there will be some more later on, a trip to the pool. But with the shop closures there won't be much else.

Training brick tomorrow for the last major session before Busselton 70.3. After that, taper time. The taper will start with that other aspect of ANZAC Day, a Public Holiday on Monday, which I have been led to believe only us over in Western Australia get this year. Oh well, we will just have to make sure we get in enough Public Holiday for the rest of the country too.