On 25 April, a group of Neo-Nazi protesters booed Uncle Mark Brown’s Welcome to Country at the Melbourne Shrine Anzac Day service.
These protesters seemed to come from the same cohort of Australians who opposed the Howard-era gun buybacks, complaining that the government shouldn’t take their guns away because they might need them to defend Australia. As Keith Payne VC said at the time, 'If they want to defend the country they ought to join the Army – if they can pass the psych test'.
After Anzac Day, the RSL, to their credit, said they would continue with Welcomes to Country.
On 20 September 1917, 21-year-old Private Daniel Cooper, killed in the Battle of Menin Road Ridge in Belgium, was buried at Perth Cemetery (China Wall) Ypres, Belgium.
On 6 December 1938, Daniel’s father, William Cooper*, heard the news about Kristallnacht, in which Nazis attacked Jews and their property all over Germany. He led an Australian Aborigines Advancement League delegation to deliver a letter of protest to the German consul in Melbourne. The delegation was not allowed into the consulate, so the letter was left with a guard. (Cooper’s grandson, Alfred Turner, delivered a copy of the letter to German officials at the Australian Embassy in Berlin in 2017.)
While the RSL's strong defence of Welcome to Country was good news, the story of First Nations involvement in our many wars is not so well recorded. As a commemorative plaque in Shepparton, erected by the local Council, Yorta Yorta Nation Aboriginal Corporation, the Rumbalara Cooperative and the Shepparton RSL records, 'At the time of WWI, when young men were flocking to enlist, Australia’s Defence Act of 1903 actually forbade Aboriginal people from representing Australia in war'. Somewhere between 900 and 1300 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders served during World War I, although the records are not complete.
The Shepparton plaque also records that once the World War I veterans were back in Australia, they faced discrimination, including exclusion from Soldier Settler Land Grants, and were denied membership of the RSL.
In World War II, at least 3000 First Nations people served - the numbers are still uncertain - and were again refused rights given to other serving men and women. Parcels of Aboriginal land were allocated to other returned servicemen. Troops in Indigenous units received roughly half the pay of other troops and it was not until the 1980s that back pay was paid.
Since then, First Nations soldiers have served in the Korean War, Malaysia Emergency, Borneo and Afghanistan, Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Celeste Liddle, Arrernte, writing in Crikey, said the booing at Anzac Day was not an aberration but a symptom of deeper sickness. Her grandfather, Harold, served for more than five years in Darwin and various South-East Asian theatres but was never legally considered a citizen.
Liddle added that Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, never misses an opportunity to promote divisiveness. She wrote:
The sad thing is, there are votes in fuelling this ignorance. Peter Dutton twisted himself into a pretzel chasing the racist vote by first condemning the booing – indicating Welcomes were an important part of the proceedings and acknowledging Indigenous service people – before backtracking on Monday by suggesting Dawn Services did not warrant a Welcome ceremony, saying that the day should be about "our veterans".
Are my grandfather and other Indigenous service men and women no longer counted as veterans now?
The Trumpet of Patriots’ endless prime time ads also misrepresent the Welcome to Country meaning, in line with President Trump’s 'anti-woke' agenda.
The Shepparton plaque includes a quote from Professor Mick Dodson: 'If you fight for your country, it owes you equality. If you fight for freedom, you should be entitled to that freedom, too.'
Those words are also apposite for the Australian War Memorial, which has consistently refused to acknowledge the fight for freedom involved in the Australian Wars – the Frontier Wars – Australia’s first, deadliest and longest war. So far, the Memorial has agreed to provide just a tiny proportion of its galleries for the Australian Wars, while also deciding to commemorate Frontier Wars victims only if they subsequently served in uniform.
As Liddle wrote, 'It’s tiring, it’s deceitful, and while many Indigenous people have "fought for this country", I’d wager they sure as hell did not fight for this to be its future'.
* The federal electorate of Cooper is named after William Cooper and it is where this article was edited.
Picture credit: Partially destroyed Fasanenstrasse Synagogue in Berlin, Kristallnacht 9-10 November 1938 (Wikipedia)
An earlier version of this article appeared on Noel Turnbull's Blog and in Pearls and Irritations. The Blog’s friend Gary Max brought the Shepparton Cooper Memorial plaque to its attention. Noel Turnbull is Secretary of the Defending Country Memorial Project Inc.
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