Editorial: We should keep the Anzac spirit alive

By and large, each country is absorbed with its own experience. Photo / Nick Reed

Opinion

We are different countries but share the fact that we are no longer British.

Australia and New Zealand mark Anzac Day without giving much thought to the link it represents. Speakers at services on both sides of the Tasman today will give a cursory nod to the fact we were once, briefly, brothers in arms. But by and large, each country is absorbed with its own experience.

Even at Gallipoli, the Anzacs were perhaps more united in others' eyes than their own.

They fought in separate units within the corps, they already sensed their slightly different accents and national character, but just as they look and sound the same to Europeans or Americans today, together they would have been a distinctive soldier.

For a century they have both looked back on Gallipoli as their coming of age, sensing they were not exactly British any more.

They were bigger and looked healthier than the British soldiers. They would have tanned more easily in the Turkish summer.

But it was not just the benefits of farm food and clear skies that made the difference. The colonials, as the English officers noticed, did not much care for military protocols.

"Your men don't salute very much," a visiting officer once remarked to the commander of New Zealanders in a later war. "No," he replied, "but if you wave to them they'll wave back."

Australians are the same. We should be Anzacs more often. That does not require federation, a common currency or a black and yellow rugby team, just a few more activities together to keep the spirit of Anzac alive.