Is the Australian War Memorial being hijacked to be a Temple of Militarism?

16 April 2021

Here is an article in Meanjin asking why the Australian War Memorial airbrushes history.  It seems to me that this is to be expected.  The lesson of the War Memorial should be respect for those who died, but a reminder that we must work for peace.  Under Brendan Nelson with $500 million for the armaments industry to modernise the weaponry on display it is becoming a shrine of militarism.

ANZAC was a military debacle and the incompetence of the British generals on the Western Front was appalling.  The ANZAC ‘legend’ of the birth of Australia was created to cover up this incompetence, so that any criticism of what happened was changed into a lack of respect for those who died.  Presumably any criticism of what is happening at the War Memorial will get the same treatment.