Anzac Day

This talk begins with bearing witness to Anzac Day in the light of the Ten Precepts, starting with the first precept of bearing witness to the reality of violence and abuse, in myself and in the world. I then give an historical overview of how Anzac Day has evolved over the years since the 1920’s. I then explore what and who does Anzac Day currently exclude and fail to bear witness too? For example, the horror of war – how violence and abuse traumatise people; how not every war is a legitimate war and the exclusion of our First Nations warriors from Anzac Day and the National War Memorial. I conclude by reflecting on the relationship between bearing witness and denial, and suggest that we need to be careful not to value bearing witness at the expense of denigrating denial. As my colleague Rhys Price-Robertson suggested in his guided meditation last week, maybe we need to find ways of making room for and understanding resistance, while, at the same time, empowering ourselves as best we can to bear witness. Finally, I want to leave you all with a question: are we ready as a nation to take steps towards making Anzac Day more inclusive? And if we are not yet ready, what needs to be done to prepare this nation to be more inclusive?