by Marilyn Lake
Should history get emotional?
Writing in 1935, the philosopher RG Collingwood reflected on whether emotions should be the stuff of history. He thought that history was an account of men’s thought and rational life. ‘Many human emotions’, he reflects ‘are certainly bound up with the spectacle of … life in its vicissitudes … but this is not history … [T]he record of immediate experience with its flow of sensations and feelings, faithfully preserved in a diary or recalled in a memoir, is not history. At its best, it is poetry; at its worst, an obtrusive egotism; but history it can never be.’6 In recent times Collingwood’s view has been challenged, although many historians would still agree with him. Numerous historians continue to prioritise stories of rational decision-making and tend to see the play of emotions as irrelevant to historical inquiry, politics or culture. Since the 1980s however a new field of historiography and cultural analysis has opened up questions about the role of emotions in national and political life.7
Historians of the emotions have approached their subject in three ways. Firstly, by looking at historical attitudes towards emotions through popular advice literature relating to anger, violence or, for example, crying in public. Secondly, by providing grand narratives of the history of the West as a place of increasing emotional restraint: from the violent, barbaric and unashamed, even childlike, Middle Ages to the control, self-discipline and repressions of modernity. Finally, historians have examined the process whereby emotions are shaped and managed though specific social discourses and vocabularies. The expression of emotions may be universal, but ‘the ways those emotions are themselves elicited, felt and expressed depend on cultural norms as well as individual proclivities’.8 The story of Anzac joins individual sentiment to powerful narratives about nation and war promoted by government agencies and political leaders as we see in later chapters.
All three approaches to the history of emotions have been important in opening up discussion on emotions and the past, but it would seem especially relevant here to see emotions as key dynamics in cultural and political life, informing political mobilisations and movements for cultural change. In my own work on mourning, memory and the two world wars, and using psychoanalysis as a cultural theory, I pointed to the ways in which grief was politicised, as the suffering of marginalised groups became a force that animated their political claims.9 In these studies, I looked at the fathers, mothers and widows who lost their sons and husbands in war and reflected on the ways their collective group memory of historical loss and suffering mobilised them to not only claim compensation for their losses, but also to demand cultural and political recognition of their grief. For them, this history of loss was fundamental to who they were as they attempted to win acknowledgment of their private loss. Emotions then can be seen as central to the social, political and cultural process itself.
As chapter two states, although the colonial expeditions to the South African war were enthusiastically supported, they were also resisted, notably by Liberal intellectuals HB Higgins and George Arnold Wood. Some radical nationalists – such as those associated with the Bulletin magazine – opposed the war upon their fellow white men in the Boer Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Others queried why – especially at the beginning of Australia’s life as an independent Commonwealth – Australians should be part of a war in which they had no say.
World War I created emotional divisions on the home front as well as destruction in the trenches. Violence erupted in the fiery conscription debates of 1916–17 with speakers pulled from platforms and physically assaulted. The anti-conscription pamphlet, produced by the Women’s Peace Army called ‘The Blood Vote’ appealed to mothers of the nation to resist sending their sons to kill other mothers’ darling boys. At the same time, pro-conscription propaganda appealed to the need to stop the murderous Hun raping women and slaughtering children. The ongoing conflict between returned soldiers, socialists, women’s activists and peace activists was marked by verbal and physical violence. During the years between the wars, different groups ranging from the Returned Sailors’ Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Imperial League of Australia to widows’ organisations raised their voices in an attempt to be heard by the authorities, making emotional arguments about their special status deriving from their experience of loss. Some returned soldiers, impatient with the compromises of civilian life, also joined aggressive right-wing political movements such as the New Guard.
Australian involvement in World War 2 generally attracted strong and widespread support; divisions in Australian society were not as pronounced as during World War I. Different forms of violence erupted on the home front with public brawling, for example, between Australian and American soldiers based in Australia which left some combatants dead. Australian involvement in the Vietnam War incited strong opposition from the late 1960s that often focussed on the annual commemoration of Anzac Day. The feminist critique of rape in war – expressed in confronting public demonstrations – provoked angry responses in turn from the guardians of the Anzac tradition in the Returned Services League (RSL).
Interestingly Australian historiography on Anzac over the last decades has itself been marked by a discernible shift from studies of the political aspects of the history of Australians at war, which dominated narratives from the 1970s to the 1990s, to a recent sentimentalising of wartime experience. Works with titles such as The Cost of War and Loyalty and Disloyalty: Social Conflict on the Queensland Homefront, 1914–18 have been replaced by studies such as Returning to Gallipoli and Shattered Anzacs which adopt a markedly more sentimental perspective on the impact of war and its history and which have enjoyed publication subsidies from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) and the Australian War Memorial. The focus of earlier studies was on how war created new tensions and conflicts in society and exacerbated old ones, such as those between men and women. Instead of unifying the nation, the effects of most wars had been to divide it. The new status given to returned men after World War I and the assertive conservative political stand of their official organisation, the Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA), often added to these divisions. Bill Gammage’s The Broken Years and the film Gallipoli set the new trend in their focus on soldiers as the innocent victims of war. This theme has continued in recent scholarship, especially historians documenting the emotional response to the battlefield pilgrimage.10 As Ken Inglis noted in the Age in 2005, the rhetoric of the Anzac, whether in political speeches or academic histories, now drew more and more on ‘the vocabulary of sacrifice and victimhood’.11
Some interesting questions arise from an examination of the history of the emotional response to Australian involvement in war, in particular with regard to the ways emotions have animated, and been manipulated by, larger political movements. There are also questions about the role of renewed national pride – at a time of international insecurity – in inspiring more widespread identification with the celebrations on Anzac Day. Alan Davies has noted that ‘political movements intensify, hoard, refine and bind anger and hatred … Ideology binds anger by proving that hostility serves a purpose – and can be, and is being, deployed according to some systematic and efficacious strategy’.12 Anzac ideology serves to disarm the critics of Australian participation in war and of the militarisation of Australian history. Supporters of Anzac Day become hostile to critics; they lash out at doubters as disloyal and un-Australian.
These emotional responses were evident in the Age online discussion that followed the publication of Marilyn Lake’s article on the ‘Myth of Anzac’ last April (see the introduction). Indeed it is arguable that the ascendancy of the ‘blog’ forum has encouraged a new form of public discourse, which is emotional, spontaneous, polemical, anonymous and uncensored. Significantly, in the debate on the ‘Myth of Anzac’ many bloggers introduced themselves by establishing their personal family connection to the Anzac tradition, which implied a special right to speak: ‘My family has been military every gen
eration for over 200 years, and fought in a multitude of wars.’ Another contributor who thought that it was important to know more history than that of Gallipoli nevertheless pointed out: ‘for the record, 3 of my ancestors fought in the Great War, all three in France, two never returned. My grandfather was in Darwin and Papua New Guinea.’ Prime Minister Howard exemplified this approach – the fact that both his grandfather and father had served in World Wars 1 and 2 – to demonstrate his own authentic relationship to the Anzac tradition.
Military history and family history
The connection between military history and family history is promoted in schools by DVA curriculum materials and pedagogical strategies and genealogical resources, including Nominal Rolls, provided by DVA and the Australian War Memorial (see chapter six). This link between family and military history has shaped a new sense of pride in the role of military sacrifice in shaping the nation, and in encouraging families to locate themselves in the national story. The emotional tie that connects military history and family history is encouraged by the use of the blog which presents debate in a particular form, creates a community of participants who generally use incomplete identifications and adopt a polemical style and provide immediate responses. As a medium for debate and exchange of ideas, it operates in different ways from nineteenth and twentieth century modes of debate about war, which involved face-to-face encounters or arguments in print, though as we have seen these debates could be just as emotional.
In the Age online discussion, Ian thus expressed pride in his family history of military service. He had a father who served in World War I, a brother in World War 2, and a grandfather in the Boer War. Their ‘sacrifices’ had ensured ‘our freedom today’. Sean made a similar point:
My ancestors also fought in all wars since the Boer War and all served, including women family members in whatever capacity they could. They and their comrades DESERVE honouring and remembering … ANZAC Day is glorious and at once sad, terrifying … inspiring and part of our history. That it commemorates sacrifice and not revolution, so much the better!
Sinistra also emphasised the familial investment in the national story:
Five men from my family went to Gallipoli – 2 died on the beaches, 1 went on to Africa and died there, 2 went on to France and both survived. Neither was ever truly whole … and would rarely speak of those days. And while neither ever went to a dawn service, both would go to the pub, and raise a glass for those who would not again …
It is not about honouring the guns … It’s about honouring the guts behind them … and thanking them …
‘I am a war widow’, wrote one aggrieved woman, ‘and I deeply resent the comments made in this newspaper, after seeing the trauma my husband went through, memories too painful to talk about … This is what the first Anzacs did, they heard the cry for help, saw the injustice been dealt and answered the call. They did not stop to query the rights and wrongs of it, they acted, if they hadn’t would we enjoy the freedom we are so lucky to have today?’ Interestingly, Deputy Prime Minister Peter Costello cast the Anzacs’ actions in remarkably similar terms in a radio interview with Neil Mitchell on 3AW on 25 April 2003:
There are problems in the world today just as there were in 1915. You can’t turn your back on them … and young Australians, even today, are serving in the Middle East because they want to make a difference … And you think back how their grandfathers and great grandfathers would have felt the same in 1915.
All generations of Australians from World War I through to Iraq, he said, had ‘answered the call’.
Having family connections – fathers and grandfathers who answered the call – did not always lead however to uncritical support of Anzac Day flag-waving as Troy noted:
As an ex-member of the Australian Defence Force and having members of my family having served in both WW1 and WW2, I attended ANZAC day ceremonies without fail. That was until I attended a ceremony at the Shrine of Remembrance at the height of John Howard’s reign, and in my view, the height of the trumped up mythology for the purpose of social identity and political gain.
During that ceremony many stories and speeches were given, each of which related to Gallipoli. The service then concluded. What left me quite disturbed is that at the time we had defence force servicemen in harm’s way in Iraq, Afghanistan and East Timor and not a single mention was made of them. Not to mention the countless Vietnam and Korean War vets present. I have not attended a dawn ceremony since.
Australia needs to drop the sentimental garbage that ANZAC day has become. The soldiers of Gallipoli must be honoured, however, they are not apostles to be given religious reverence.
Daniel suggested that a history of family sacrifice in war should lead to protest rather than celebration:
I’m surprised why relatives of people who served in World War I aren’t angry about it. I would be angry if my grandfather died at Gallipoli. He would have been enlisted against his will, sent in without adequate strategy and resources against a heavily armed opponent who had a superior tactical position defending the cove. They were doomed from the start … LEST WE FORGET is a good motto, we should never forget how stupid it was to have all that unnecessary death and destruction.
And Chris had learnt a critical attitude to war from his father:
My grandfather was an ANZAC; my father and both his brothers fought in WWII. None of them ever attended an ANZAC service and none of them ever went back to an RSL club after the first visit. The only thing my father ever told me about the war was that he would spend the rest of his life trying to forget what he experienced.
Significantly, the right to dissent from Anzac mythology and celebration was also grounded in and justified by a history of family engagement in war:
My grandfather fought in WWII. He steadfastly refused to attend an Anzac day event for the rest of his life. He felt that it glorified killing, revelled in death and perpetuated hatred.
So much of the online discussion of the ‘Myth of Anzac’ was characterised by what one participant called ‘raw emotion’ that calls were made for more rational and historically informed debate. All the ‘emotional responders’ were urged to ‘calm down’. Warwick called for attention to the ‘facts’, but still felt obliged to point to his own family’s tradition of military service:
It would be great if we could deal with facts and not get so emotional about things such as Gallipoli without knowing what really happened. People die in wars sometimes for noble causes and some less noble. I think there is a point in mourning the loss of life in all wars, but at the same time not brandishing people as heroes unless the cause was really a good one to fight for. There is definitely a lot of mythology around Gallipoli and it is really difficult to have an honest discussion about the subject. My great grandfather died in World War I leaving a wife and 5 children. He had already gone to the Boer war. I believe this was a waste of life and that it would have been more noble of him to stay home. World War I was so tragic in so many ways and in the end caused the problems that led to World War 2. It would have been great to have heroes of diplomacy and peace at this time.
Another correspondent also believed the emotional response obscured the facts of history which were many and various:
Some people just miss the point and use raw emotion rather than a clear head to formulate their answers. No one has an issue with honouring those who served and died at Gallipoli. The issue is that Gallipoli is always championed as a point in history where our nation was born/came of age. I have never been able to understand this … Gallipoli is hardly relevant for the development of this nation at all. We are where we are today because of a whole host of events that have happened over the years, and as time marches on the importance of Gallipoli only becomes less than it ever was. I mean federation in 1901, the rolling back of the white Australia policy, women’s and aboriginal rights gained in the 1960s, the great migrations in the 1950s and 60s have all had a far bigger impact than Gallipoli. I would put the constitutional
crisis of 1975 above Gallipoli …
Disturbed at the flow of ‘raw emotion’, one contributor suggested that schoolchildren should be better educated to become critical readers and even more unusually, thought that academics and teachers had a key role to play in this:
If there is a fault with Australia’s education system, as suggested by some, it lies in its apparent failure to teach so many how to read critically. Questioning the cultural primacy of the ANZAC myth is neither traitorous nor disrespectful to the dead. One of the key roles of academics is to raise important questions, no matter how uncomfortable that might be.
Wes considered that raising such questions with a view to ‘moving on’ was in the current circumstances ‘daring’:
If only we as a nation could truly move beyond the glorification of war. We all grieve the loss of so many in such atrocious circumstances. Hopefully we will one day move our focus more onto more positive and non-violent themes that seek to build tolerance and equality.