Queen Street, Brisbane, on the 15th of August, 1945 was a party scene.

80 Years Of Peace – A Lifetime Of good Fortune

Baby Boomers like me have been more fortunate than most preceding generations to have never witnessed warfare first hand.

As an amateur student of history and the son and grandson of soldiers, I am keenly aware of my good fortune. The scourge of nationalist armed conflict as a means of settling international disputes, is one I am immensely grateful to have never experienced first hand.

However, the old adage ‘those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it’ appears to have itself been forgotten.

Anniversaries like this 80th of VP Day, are slipping under the radar of most ordinary people who are glued to their smart phones, swiping from one cute cat reel to the next. Our governments are complicit in the neglect. They lavish our taxes on vanity projects like the new Star Casino behemoth on the Brisbane River that is now in receivership. They build multiple new bridges and let our iconic Story Bridge deteriorate. The richest LGA in the country soaks up state funds at the expense of the regions that produce it and end up $6 Billion in debt. And that’s a fraction of the state government’s $200 Billion debt. Were it not for the poorly funded, volunteer-run local history groups, there would be nothing happening to alert the public to the 80th anniversary. Fortunately, for those interested enough to dig a little, there are two events worth checking out. Camp Colombia is hosting a Symposium over the last weekend of this month at UQ, St Lucia and ANZAC Square is hosting free tours all month. Do try to get along to one of them.

Queensland and Brisbane’s bicentenary came and went last year and another opportunity to commemorate the move of the first settlement from Redcliffe to the current CBD was missed this year with absolutely no recognition by our governments. The chance for story-telling by the descendants of the first immigrants (Aborigines) and the second immigrants (the British) on an anniversary of colonial expansion on this continent has been missed.

The Greater Brisbane City Council’s centenary this year is also being ignored by our local government. Again, were it not for local, under-funded history groups pooling their limited resources, there would be nothing happening at City Hall. Due to their dedication, a History Hub at the Sherwood Room will be open to the public on the 1st of October. Now that you know about it, do share the information and get along there.

Second Hand Memories

Some of us Baby Boomers are fortunate enough to have had parents who told them what WWII was like. My grandfather was a stretcher-bearer in France in the First World War and when he came back he cried for 3 days. Despite that, he eagerly re-enlisted 20 years later when WWII broke out, apparently because ‘he’d had such a good time in the last war’. Farming inland from Geraldton, Western Australia must have been very dull.

My mother was in her late teens when she enlisted. She became an ammunition truck driver loading boxes of bullets which left her with life-long back pain. She recounted how ‘the boys’ taunted her to prove her truck driving skills by getting her to do a hand-brake start on a gravel slope without skidding. They put a matchbox behind the back wheel and not only did she not crush it, she left it in place. She passed her driving skills on to me. Mum was prone to exaggeration and for many years I was under the impression she had been an anti-aircraft gunner. She sat up all night once, waiting for Japanese fighter planes to come down the western coast to Perth. Women weren’t allowed in combat in those days, so what actually happened was ‘the boys’ let her sit in the gunner’s seat a couple of times and have a go at setting off some of the ballistics, just for fun. In fact, her job was to help behind the gun making the ammunition ready for loading… and I’m assuming that wasn’t a combat role.

Come ANZAC Day, I don my parents’ medals and join the commemorations. Not celebrations, but an acknowledgement of sacrifice. Having said that, I think ANZAC Day takes humility a little too far. It focusses on Gallipoli because of the appalling losses our troops suffered. But that defeat was not one of our own making; Churchill engineered it. We make too little of our troops’ first victory which was very much an Australian one – at Kokoda.

By getting involved in these kinds of events. I learn more about our culture. Last year, wearing medals on both sides of my chest, I was politely informed that only those that have been earned by the wearer are worn on the left.

Not Pacifist; Non-Aligned.

When the War ended, there were victory celebrations all over the country. It was a hard-won victory and rightfully celebrated. But we don’t want to repeat it. I disagree with us fighting overseas and embroiling ourselves unduly with foreign conflicts like Ukraine and Gaza. They’re not our wars and giving them oxygen only serves to inflame them. Say our piece at the United Nations, starve them of arms and leave it to them to settle their differences.

In a highly interconnected world of trade, travel and commerce, maintaining a distance from geopolitical tensions isn’t easy. But a remote nation continent like Australia has much more potential to be self-sufficient and non-aligned than most countries. We seem to be doing bugger all to realize it.

Some may argue, like John Howard, that peace at home is secured through alliances that nip threats in the bud at the source, instead of waiting until they have grown so big they’re at our doorstep. But his captain’s-pick that took us into the Gulf Wars against popular opinion did nothing to prevent terrorist attacks like the Lindt Cafe. Such an interventionist approach is hubristic and impinges on self-determination. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad ISIS was knocked out, but there will be no international order underpinned by a genuinely global consensus until hegemonic geopolitical competition is replaced with contented coexistence. Reforming representation at the U.N. Security Council to better reflect the make up of humanity’s nation states would be a step toward affirming a commitment to peace.

If we are to enjoy another 80 years of peace at home, perhaps we should try a different approach. If we keep doing the same thing, the next world war will be so high-tech it won’t stop at Darwin.