Leunig on Anzac Day

Michael Leunig usually reserves his words for the characters in his wonderful cartoons - but a few years back he wrote an opinion article for Anzac Day in the Melbourne Age newspaper. I uncovered it this week - it is worth a read...

Here's a snippet:
"Anzac Day, it seems, must now be done with bluster, hoopla and media hypnotism. Like the landing and the campaign itself, there is something appalling about this in the eyes of many Australians new and old - some disgraceful misuse of humanity by the wielders of political and economic power."

And I cannot resist another snippet, as he has a go at the appalling Onward Christian Soldiers hymn that in 20 years in ministry I have never chosen for a service (though once someone else chose it and I had to put up with it)...

"Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe; Forward into battle see his banners go!" This drab, common little hymn, this melodramatic Anglo jihad song was taught to us in the 1950s, and in Sunday school or religious instruction class we were often heard singing it. The volume and gusto we usually displayed came from the intuitive belief that if we sang loudly and vigorously enough we would somehow have the choral momentum to go the distance and get through it quickly - a bit like running fast over hot coals.
To sing it on the back foot might mean that the song would become so feeble as to break down and groan to a halt, leaving us stranded forever in the dull wasteland of its meaningless words.
The lyrics seemed to be more about a rampaging gang of morons than a wandering prophet who espoused radical love.

My grandfather Lloyd Campbell Stewart fought in Italy in 1943-45. He returned but said little - my father recalls that he came back a different man - dark hair replaced with grey - but more than that, distant. On Anzac Day I want to remember the cost and sacrifice without glorifying warfare. I believe that war is ugly and dehumanizing - a denial of God's creativity. Even though at times a stand has to be taken...

Read more...
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/04/26/1177459869956.html