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April 24, 2024
An Australian teacher group’s denunciation of Anzac Day has been labelled an “insidious” attack on national identity over Australia’s historical role in the oppression of Palestinian people.
A group called “Teachers and School Staff for Palestine in Victoria” has urged the community to stop glorifying the past and present actions of the Australian military on the national day of remembrance, which takes place annually on April 25.
The group created a comprehensive report outlining alleged injustices against Palestinians by the ANZAC Corps, during World War I, that they claim are often overlooked in historical accounts and seldom taught in schools.
They claimed the ANZAC soldiers were part of a “European project” aimed at dividing Arab territories among European states.
The group argued that students today should be taught more than what they called “government-funded mystification” about Australia’s involvement in global conflicts.
“Such instances of official remembrance obscure the realities of war, and the consequences of Australia’s role in imperialism and militarisation,” the 40-page booklet titled Teaching for Palestine: Challenging Anzac Day read.
“As teachers, we should strive to resist this, and we should introduce our students to the real history of the ANZACs – in Palestine and elsewhere.”
In its publication, the group repeatedly cites Australia’s involvement in the Sarafand Al-Amar massacre. It came after poor relations between an Anzac Mounted Division and Palestinian Arabs turned critical on December 10 1918, when a New Zealand Trooper was shot dead after disturbing a thief in his tent.
A group of New Zealanders and Australians burned Sarafand al-Amar, an Arab village in modern-day Israel.
Reports of Palestinian deaths as a result of the massacre vary from 40 men to 140 villagers indiscriminately.
The Anzacs refused to co-operate with a subsequent British investigation. General Edmund Allenby condemned them as “a lot of cowards and murderers” as per New Zealand government archives.
The British Army rebuilt the village, with contributions from Australia and New Zealand.
In a fiery exchange on 3AW Radio, host Tom Elliot clashed with Pippa Tandy, a spokesperson for Teachers for Palestine and a Victorian secondary school teacher, over the group’s take on Anzac Day.
Elliot opened the discussion by highlighting the significance of Anzac Day, stating it surpasses other national days in importance.
However, Ms Tandy argued that Anzac Day neglects the darker aspects of Australia’s involvement in wars.
Tandy argued that the Anzacs were involved in a “colonial war” that caused harm to indigenous populations.
Elliot, on the other hand, defended the broader cause for which the Anzacs fought, portraying it as a noble sacrifice for the greater good.
As the debate intensified, Elliot accused Ms Tandy of sounding like a “conspiracy theorist” when she asserted “we are sick of having to do this ideological work for arms companies and the government”.
“You sound like a conspiracy theorist … to say the arms companies are pushing Anzac Day is ludicrous,” Elliot interjected.
Ms Tandy said the current conflict in the Middle East was related to “the same imperial push” seen in WWI, which Elliot took issue with.
“It’s got nothing to do with the Anzacs,” he said.
Ms Tandy said the organisation’s modus operandi offered teachers the chance to teach material “that takes into account the actual history of the Anzacs, the actual history of the European and American domination in the Middle East”.
“Teachers know and their students know what they want to know, and students are desperately hungry for the truth about what’s going on,” she said.
Shadow minister for home affairs James Paterson criticised the act of questioning the legitimacy of a significant day for most Australians, calling it “insidious”.
“On one hand, this is offensive, ahistorical nonsense … but on the other, it’s a deeply dangerous attempt to dismantle one of the last unifying symbols of nationhood in Australia, long after people have trashed our flag, trashed our constitution, trashed our anthem, and Australia Day as well,” Mr Paterson told Sky News.
“Anzac Day is one of those things that has almost universal support, almost universal belief in whether you’re on the left of politics or the right, whether you came here recently or a long time ago. Australians rally around this.
“And I think it’s particularly insidious that even that institution is now under attack, and there are people trying to undermine that.”
Senator Paterson cautioned against criticising Anzac Day because of a select few past events in war, stating that it could stir up deep anti-patriotic sentiment and cause new generations to lose faith in the country.
“No nation can prosper, let alone survive, in a contested geopolitical environment without any belief in itself,” he said.
The document also contained confessions, correspondences, news reports, and scholars’ accounts.
“In order to cease and prevent such a complicity in the future, we must show our students the past as it is, and not as our myth makers wish it to be,” it read.
Anzac Day has been a symbol of remembrance for the brave Australian and New Zealand soldiers since 1915.
Teachers and School Staff for Palestine Victoria is associated with hundreds of schools throughout the state.
A New South Wales branch is currently running a petition calling to end “the silencing of Palestinian human rights in schools,” which has garnered hundreds of signatures from teachers, parents and students across the state.
