What's Wrong with ANZAC?: The Militarisation of Australian History Paperback – August 1, 2010

I attended school during the period described in this book, and was barely aware of the changing attitude towards ANZAC throughout my school years. This book has brought to focus this change in national attitude, which was facilitated by the demise of the last ANZACs and the increasing discomfort of our leaders with Australia Day as a primary national holiday due to increasing recognition that this was Invasion Day.I found this book an effective counterpoint to mainstream media, and opportunity for people who work outside of humanities to read excellent work by our historians. It is easy to read even for me, and I am not a regular reader of historians' work. As an anthology of different writers it includes a range of styles, so every chapter is fresh.

This book is important and needed in the scholarship of Australian history. It traces the ways we have understood, used and abused the 'spirit of Anzac' since the end of WWI. It is a critical reading of the resurgance of Anzac Day and provides some well researched information for those willing to consider another way of viewing the 'birth of the nation'.I am one of those who have become increasingly uncomfortable with the rhetoric of Anzac and this book has helped me to understand the reasons for that.It is not true that the book doesn't make its case by not closely analysing the material provided by the DVA. Lake answers this criticism in the chapter directly. The incredible level of funding provided for the production of educational resources speaks volumes and is certainly worth questioning. If only more education and historical research was funded at this level!In the end I can do no more than encourage you to read this book and make up your own mind. I think this is the beginning of a conversation Australia is well over due for.

What's Wrong With Anzac?, subtitled The Militarisation of Australian History (New South, 2010) is a new book by several Australian historians. It argues that the Anzac legend has an exaggerated and unhealthy predominance in young Australians' sense of Australian identity. This distortion is being promoted in history classrooms through the use of distorted and propagandist resources, especially those produced by the Department of Veterans' Affairs.What's wrong with What's Wrong With Anzac? I think there are four key weakness:* The book is presented with an ideological zeal that creates a narrow and irrational approach. It is using history to support an argument, and distorting it.* The book distorts the reality of what is happening in history classrooms* It distorts what we mean by `identity'. It looks at 1915 Australia, and freezes it, and says that the responses of students today to the people and events of 1915 must accept or reject those values and attitudes and characteristics. I do not agree with that. Students can discover the ugly aspects of the diggers -- the frequent racism, the occasional brutality, the contemporary attitudes to gender equality -- and reject them, while still embracing those attitudes and values that are still important and desirable in civic behaviour today -- the courage, compassion, self-sacrifice, mateship that are so often identifiable in the soldiers' own writings and actions.* It is bad history, and weak argument.The book's argument goes:* Australian national identity is too much focused on the Anzac legend.* This over-emphasis on the Anzac legend means that other key elements of national identity such as the development of democratic traditions, Indigenous people's rights, and women's equal rights, are all excluded from students' awareness.* What is learned about the Anzac legend is a distorted, `militaristic' and romanticised idea of war.* This distortion is caused primarily by the teaching materials sent to schools by the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA).* These materials are created by a right-wing government to foster a conservative nationalism rather than a more socially critical one.If this claim is true it is a very serious criticism of what is going on in history classrooms. History teachers need to look at themselves and do something about it.I believe that it is not true, and that the writers have no idea of what is happening in classrooms. It is a polemical ideological work, not a valuable contribution to historical or educational understanding.The first five chapters provide some historical discussion of various elements of the development of the Anzac tradition or legend. Each chapter has something to offer, though usually nothing new or compelling, and nothing that has not been argued better elsewhere.Now we come to the main chapter, written by Professor Marilyn Lake, asking `How do schoolchildren learn about the spirit of Anzac?'. This is the chapter that is designed to show how DVA materials are creating the `militarisation of history' in our classrooms.Lake's assertion is that a `veritable tidal wave', a `torrent', a `bombardment' of DVA education resources (four of which I have written over the last five years) are militaristic propaganda created by the evil John Howard to promote his vision of a reactionary nationalism and disarm progressive thought and social action. Her claim is that, through the DVA materials, `History has been appropriated in Australia for militarist purposes and comprehensively re-written in the process . . . The relentless militarisation of Australian history has effectively marginalised other stories, different historic sites and other conceptions of national values.' (page 138)How does she support this? She lists DVA resources and other government programs (many of them from Labor Governments, by the way). And, undoubtedly, there have been a lot.So a historian would say: `Let's analyse these resources, and find out what ideas about war and the Anzacs they actually present. What are these resources doing, how are they creating this relentless militarisation?' Sounds like a reasonable approach -- I just wish Lake had done this.Does Lake describe these resources to the reader? No. So most readers who will not have any ideas what these resources are like will remain in ignorance, being carried along by Lake's implied representation of them.Does Lake show how the resources present a militaristic or romantic view of war? She does not. Does she offer any critical analysis of the resources? Not a word. She does not say one specific thing about the educational nature of the contents of any of the materials she condemns-- except, very strangely, to quote their description by the DVA as being written by `professional history educators . . . employed to produce state-of-the-art materials that would make school teachers' preparation of lessons so much easier' (page 150), and using `State-of-the-art enquiry-based methodologies . . . equipping students for life-long learning'. (page 148), I'm sorry -- can you please explain to me how this is a bad thing?Does she show how the resources stifle debate? No. Does she discuss the inquiry-based approach of the resources, and show how they in fact only pretend to encourage student inquiry, but in fact are subtle and effective propaganda? Not done. Does she show how many of these resources are actually used in the classroom? No figures given, nothing said about it. Does she discuss what other resources are available, and how they are used? No. Not at all.How's that for a strong and persuasive and informed approach! How can you say that the DVA resources are `militarising our history in schools' (page 137) when you do not analyse them in any way, and do not consider any other possible classroom influences?Ah, but she does quote from Anna Clark's study History's Children. Evidence at last! Clark interviewed hundreds of students and teachers about their history education experiences in the classroom. Lake quotes Clark expressing surprise at how many children `now assume a "militarised national identity" is "intrinsically Australian".' Clark certainly does say that in the first half of her analysis of Anzac in schools, and also that she was `concerned that these lessons were generating nationalist sentiment rather than "historical understanding".' (page 137) And we could all agree that this is an important concern. But, surprise, surprise, she does not go on to quote Clark's equal emphasis in the second half of the same chapter, that many students and teachers are critically analysing the Anzac legend, looking to decide for themselves what it means and if it is appropriate. Selective quoting does not make for a convincing argument, and is not, I would say, good historical method.Nor is anonymous quoting. Here is Lake: `Many school teachers are concerned at the way in which the militarisation of Australian history has come to dominate the curriculum' -- no footnote, no evidence given, no source for this information, no names quoted, and no analysis of who studies what in history classes, or even what is required in the curriculum. Yet these anonymous teachers `are acutely aware of their dependence on the extensive resources now supplied by the DVA'! Dependence! Come on, is Lake suggesting that there are no other educational resources on Australia and the wars that teachers can use? If so, she is being terribly gullible! I suggest she looks at the catalogue of any major publisher's website and looks at their range of history text books. Look also at the way they represent war and the Anzacs, and she will not find the mindless romanticisation that she says is in students' minds as they walk out of their classrooms.She will also, by doing this, realise the ridiculousness of her claim that the areas she would like to see more emphasised, `Australia's pioneering achievements in building a democratic society and a welfare state, in extending equal rights to women and Indigenous Australians, in fostering multiculturalism and racial equality' (page 156), are not being addressed in classrooms. They are in fact very well covered in these same texts, and in ways that she would find compatible with her own agenda. Yet she claims these areas are being `silenced' by the DVA resources -- presumably the wars are all that are taught every year! Look at the curriculum documents, Professor Lake!Let's finish by considering the implications of what Lake is saying. If these propagandist DVA resources are flooding classrooms, corrupting the students, creating little Hitler Youth (or Howard Youth), suppressing independent thought, and pushing Indigenous Australians, women and democrats out of the curriculum -- then who is overseeing this? Teachers! Teachers, you are either complicit in encouraging this, or so dumb that you cannot see what sort of lessons you are giving. That is the logic of Lake's claim.Of course we need to be worried about those students who glorify war and romanticise the Anzacs. Of course we need to teach the reality of war. Of course we need to see other historical influences in what we choose as part of our national identity. That's why the DVA produces the materials, to counter ignorance, distortion and unthinking and uncritical acceptance of ideas about war and the Anzacs and Australian identity.The DVA materials she criticises include much primary source material on the realities of war, the existence of racism and sexism among troops, the existence of brutality and of self-inflicted wounds, the physical and mental pain that endures long after war's end. And, all this and more is presented in a way that asks students to think for themselves, to come to informed and balanced conclusions of their own. Readers can see these evil DVA educational resources for themselves at [...] and make their own critical evaluation of them. Lake does not seem to see the qualities of the resources that I believe are there, the blinkers of her ideology are just too narrowing.Lake, when challenged with this claim that she is knowingly and deliberately misrepresenting the nature of the DVA resources in constructing her argument, says that we critics are `missing the point'. She says the real criticism is that the DVA should not be sending any resources out, it's not about the quality of the resources. Her point about the role of a government department in developing classroom resources can be debated, but she is being disingenuous in saying that she is not really criticising the materials themselves. Her argument clearly is that there is a direct connection between what is happening in schools and the primacy of the DVA resources as the agency of those events. She makes the argument, it is the whole basis of her chapter, she cannot say she is being misrepresented or misunderstood.How do schoolchildren learn about the spirit of Anzac? Don't look to this book or to Lake for an answer, she doesn't know. I suggest it's better to start with Anna Clark, who looked at students' attitudes (though not the resources that can produce them), and wrote:'As kids flock to honour Australia's wartime history, their growing commemoration of the Anzac Legend in the classroom needs to be accommodated -- but it needs to be done so that their historical understanding is expanded rather than limited to any simplistic or uncontested national narrative, especially when so many students are interested in Australia's place in the world. This doesn't mean we should reject icons such as the Anzacs, for they are powerful markers in Australia's past. But we do require space for these national narratives to be discussed critically in class. So long as there's social and political pressure to define our national character, surely the best way for students to deal with contrasting ideas about Australian history and identity is to bring the discussion into the classroom. That way they can actually contribute to the debate itself.'There speaks a good approach to teaching history, and the DVA resources seek to support that, rather than negate it.