Rather than embodying Charles Bean’s vision of a solemn temple of reflection honouring service and sacrifice – ‘Here is their spirit’- over time, the Australian War Memorial has morphed into a theme park of war souvenirs, half-truths and omissions.
The Australian War Memorial arguably has been the most influential institution in shaping our national self-image. For many of us, the ‘Digger’ defines what it is to be Australian. But misguided management by successive governing Councils has seen the Memorial lose its way.
The devastating Brereton report into allegations of war crimes committed by Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan has shattered decades of trust. Intense scrutiny is about to descend on every part of the military domain. Our most revered national shrine, the Australian War Memorial, should not escape attention.
Immediately following the release of Brereton’s investigation, former Defence Force chief Chris Barrie called for the Council of the AWM to be ‘fundamentally changed’ and for the Afghanistan gallery to be closed off. That gallery holds a special interest for the Council’s current chair, Kerry Stokes, whose (curious to some of us) obsession with the Special Air Service Regiment has been well-documented.
We can be confident that the great majority of Special Forces who have fought in Afghanistan have done so with honour and courage. It is a tragedy that the many good soldiers are likely to be the worst-affected by the disgrace brought about by the rotten few.
It is self-evident that character is built on truth. It is less self-evident when ‘history’ becomes ‘propaganda’. In the wake of this disgrace, it is clear that the half-truths told in the AWM’s Afghanistan gallery have not served the best interests of either the good soldiers or the Australian public.
Thus, for example, when it opened, the gallery told us that the Australian Defence Force had ‘built schools, roads and hospitals [and] mentored the fledgling army of a new democratic nation’. But it didn’t tell us that many of those programs were collapsing as the US-led armies withdrew, that about 80 per cent of all development money had been stolen by Afghani officials and criminals, that the ‘democratic’ government our troops were propping up was one of the most corrupt in the world, that the Afghani Army would probably disintegrate, and that the war had destabilised every country in the Middle East.
Rumours of possible criminal behaviour by Australian forces were circulating several years before the gallery opened. But you wouldn’t have found any mention of that on the story boards. Nor did the gallery confront visitors with the ‘unfathomable depravity’ of war.
The same observations can be made about the Vietnam gallery, which presents only part of the story of a conflict which most informed analysts now regard as having been unjust, unlawful, unwarranted, and an utter disaster, and which was stained by shocking war crimes by our American allies.
The corruption of values inherent in this telling of half-truths has been compounded by the continual expansion of the AWM’s displays of the instruments of war. From a modest beginning, those displays have grown inexorably. Tanks, ships, aircraft, guns, knives, radars, videos, sound and light shows, etc, etc – much of the Memorial has been turned into a vast theme park. And don’t forget to buy your souvenirs as you exit via the shop.
It’s true that the Memorial’s charter includes the requirement to educate Australians about our war history, but that’s not the same thing as gratuitous exhibitions of military hardware.
Currently, there is heated debate over yet another proposed expansion. Seemingly either unable to resist pressure from interest groups (veterans, politicians seeking favour with powerful veterans’ associations), or wilfully unaware of the meaning of ‘here is their spirit’, the Council has gained government support to spend $500 million on an enormous structure to house even more hardware.
Professionally curated collections of the memorabilia of war are important social and historical records. But a museum is not a memorial, and a memorial should not become a museum. Perhaps some of the $500 million could be used to separate the theme park from the memorial by establishing an Australian Military Museum, in a different location with a different purpose.
None of this is to question the sacrifice of our service-men and -women, but it is to question how their story is told and its effect on our national identity.
The centrepiece of the AWM always has been and always must be the Hall of Memory and the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier. In those quiet, respectful spaces, the feeling of solemnity and reflection is profound. In truth, that’s all the AWM needs, and that’s all it should be. ‘Here is their spirit’.
A disturbing connection can be made between the preceding narrative and the refusal of successive governing Councils to recognise the most consequential war ever fought by Australians. That war was, of course, the Frontier Wars, fought from 1788 to the 1920s between Indigenous Australians and an invading coalition of white settlers, militia, police, and colonial soldiers.
Deniers of the Frontier Wars, including most notably a former director of the AWM, Brendan Nelson, assert that it was not a ‘real’ war, an extraordinarily arrogant and insensitive viewpoint. Most of our leading historians disagree, and have no doubt that the first Australians’ defence of their land, of their rights, and of their values was conducted in the manner of a ‘war’, a conclusion endorsed by many contemporary senior military commanders.
This ‘war for Australia’ lasted 140 years and caused 20,000 to 30,000 Aboriginal deaths, perhaps many more. By comparison, during the thirteen years of the morally corrupt and strategically disastrous Vietnam War, just over 500 (white) Australians died. Yet Vietnam is honoured in the AWM and is the subject of regular, large, government-funded commemorations.
Do members of the Council of the AWM think that the first Australians didn’t have ‘spirit’? I don’t believe so, but based on the bare facts it wouldn’t be an unreasonable inference.
Council members predominantly have been people either with a military background, or with a passion for the Anzac myth and sufficient political influence to be rewarded with a seat at the table. Clearly the Council must be informed by military experience; equally clearly, its thinking should represent a far broader understanding of what it means to be ‘Australian’.
The corruption of the AWM’s vision can be seen as a contributing factor to the toxic culture that ultimately infected our combat forces in Afghanistan. Any path to redemption must, therefore, include reforming the Memorial. Three relatively straightforward changes would have an immediate, positive and far-reaching effect. Cancel the $500 million extension; replace the current Council with a representative selection of Australians; and tell the true story of our war experiences.
Perhaps in time it might again be said of the Memorial, ‘Here is their spirit’.
Alan Stephens is a visiting fellow at UNSW Canberra. He served in Vietnam with the RAAF.
Dr Alan Stephens is a military historian and defence analyst whose work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He is a former RAAF pilot.
Comments
17 responses to “‘Here was their spirit’ – the corruption of the Australian War Memorial”
Thank you very much for this, it is my, less knowledgable, experience of the AWM too. In my recent submission, I included a criticism of the AWM’s rejection of the Frontier Wars. There is data to show that while the musket was the key weapon of white soldiers, the Indigenous peoples won easily. With the self-loading weapon, that changed. A related point is that lost wars seem not to be mentioned, e.g., the Anzacs at Gallipoli and in the Greek campaign of WWII. As well, the sense of so much futility, and political decisions that were unfortunate, to put it politely. I was shocked in 2000, there for a small ‘do’ when the Director talked to me, apparently knowing very little. My AWM submission was hardly acknowledged this year [vast excel file anyone?] and I have since written to the AWM to support Rtd. Admiral Barrie’s proposal. Maybe more pressure can be exerted while Morrison is contorting himself about copying the US approach to China, or whatever passed as Trump’s approach.
Thank you for your comments, Jocelyn. The refusal of the AWM’s governors to acknowledge the Frontier Wars should be a national scandal.
Regards, Alan
Alan, as a Vietnam Veteran myself, I wholehearted endorse your comments. I used to visit the AWM to remember my Uncle who after being wounded enough on the Somme battlefield to be ‘medivaced’ back to England, was sent back only this time to be killed-for what? I had a mate killed on operations in Vietnam in his role as a “Dust Off” Medic . I remember him. I remember those who have prematurely died ( by suicide ) since their ‘RTA’.
I no longer visit the Memorial .It is no longer a Memorial .It is now a theme park .It is a disgrace to us who served and paid the ultimate sacrifice .
Thank you Gavin. As you say, a memorial should be about remembrance, not entertainment.
Regards, Alan
Thank you Gavin.
The creeping corruption of the AWM has done enormous harm to our Defence forces and, worse, the people who serve.
Alan
Congratulations Alan. A most apposite, compelling and very properly thought provoking piece.
Thank you, Rowan.
Alan
Thanks Rowan.
Regards, Alan
Thank you Dr. Stephens for your summary. I note your reference to the Australian War Memorial and the absence of any mention of the Frontier Wars. Like yourself and a growing number of others, I do regard this
as a singular lack in the Memorial’s (reference) collection. I believe this situation can be rectified thus:
(1) If the Government of the day was willing to amend the relevant legislation which governs the activities of the Memorial and in particular the collection and dissemination of historical material, which by definition, is limited to Australian Military History. At present and quite simply, the Frontier Wars (so called) don’t form part of Australian Military History (as defined), given that such history is interpreted as meaning: “…the history of:
(a) wars and warlike operations in which Australians have been on active service, including the events
leading up to, and the aftermath of, such wars and warlike operations; and
(b) the Defence Force.”.
(2) The governing Council of the Memorial can obtain whatever material it wants to, provided always that material is “historical material”. That’s the problem, and I don’t blame the Council for not wanting to act without authority – that is, beyond its authorized remit.
However if the Council (or any member) sought to step outside the legislation and obtain and/or present “other” material such as an exhibition dedicated to the Frontier Wars, it’s a fair bet there would be an
uproar – certainly from some members of the present government, to say nothing of the likely response of a certain media company. In that event, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, who has the responsibility for the administration of the governing legislation could theoretically step in and sack the Council. In the present circumstances that could be regarded as a plus but the underlying issue would remain.
Thank you Julian.
As is the case with much of the history of white settlement, rejection of the Frontier Wars has its origins in Australia’s officially-racist past. In this case, mendacious legislation governing the AWM seems to have been deliberately drafted with the intention of excluding the Frontier Wars.
According to the Australian War Memorial Act (1980), the AWM’s purpose is to recognise ‘active service in war or warlike operations by members of the Defence Force’. The act then defines ‘Defence Force’ as ‘any naval or military force raised in Australia before the establishment of the Commonwealth’. That definition allows the AWM to commemorate the wars of choice fought by white ‘Australians’ in the Sudan, South Africa, and China before Federation, but excludes the war of necessity fought by Indigenous ‘Australians’ for Australia itself between 1788 and the 1920s.
In other words, pre-Federation white volunteers who chose to fight overseas for the British crown and its commercial and colonial interests have been legally defined as ‘Australians’, while pre-Federation Indigenous warriors who fought invaders for their homeland, their families, and their way of life, have been officially defined out of our war commemoration history.
As the late professor Jeffrey Grey observed, Aboriginal Australians have not been ‘conceded the dignity due to worthy opponents’.
The implications of this wilful distortion of our history are profoundly disturbing, both for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and should be addressed by the government and the AWM’s Council as a matter of national importance.
The establishment of a Frontier Wars wing at the AWM – not a gallery, or a hall, or some other token affair, but a separate, comprehensive wing – would be the single most powerful action official Australia could take to promote reconciliation and honesty.
A Frontier Wars wing would fundamentally change both the perception Indigenous Australians have of themselves, and the distorted perception many Australians have of our history. And it would fundamentally change the relationship between black and white Australians, for the better.
Regards, Alan
Agree entirely Alan, and am obliged for your response.
Thank you Alan. I will endorse all three of your recommended changes.
When Walter Burley Griffin (an American architect) laid out Canberra, he positioned the War Memorial to directly face Parliament House. For decades, I explained to visitors that this was so that politicians were directly confronted with the evidence of their mistakes.
But two major changes have occurred. Parliament House has retreated further so that the War Memorial is barely visible. And the War Memorial no longer displays evidence of mistakes but joins in the conspiracy to conceal them. Yes it has contributed to the toxicity in the culture. Yes, it is no defence that its contribution was not deliberate.
The Hall of Memory and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier are true and sacred memorials. But they need explanation, they need illustration, they need the stories and the exhibits. Many Australians need the props to get the message. The message is to honour the sacrifice. It is not to honour the wars. The place is to be the place for their spirit. It is not the place to glorify technology, nor to conspire in cover-ups. Yes, the War Memorial has lost its way and those who governed it should step aside.
Thank you Glen. As a former military pilot I have an abiding interest in military/aviation museums. But in no sense can those kinds of exhibitions be equated with the notion of ‘Memorial’. And in many ways, galleries that perpetuate half-truths are more insidious than static displays of technology. As you write, honour their sacrifice, honour their spirit.
Regards, Alan
This is another excellent and sensitive piece by Alan Stephens. He captures the inherent tension between the AWM as a solemn memorial mourning the loss of so many young Australians and a propaganda machine generating tendentious ‘narratives’ and mythic memories. And if the AWM commemorates immigrant Australia’s loss in other nations’ wars, where do we commemorate Indigenous Australia’s loss on and of their land?
Thank you, Allan. Imagine the stunning effect it would have on visitors to the AWM if there was a wall of remembrance with the names of the 30,000 Indigenous Australians (some estimates go as high as 60,000) who were killed fighting for their country during the Frontier Wars. Deniers may not realise it, but their rejection of truth equates to contempt for First Australians.
Regard, Alan
Thanks, Alan. There is much to be thought about here.
I repeat one important aspect of your cogent article:
“We can be confident that the great majority of Special Forces who have fought in Afghanistan have done so with honour and courage. It is a tragedy that the many good soldiers are likely to be the worst-affected by the disgrace brought about by the rotten few.”
That is the bitter truth. Some good men and women serving in our Army have been deeply wounded and will be scarred for life. In addition to bringing the “rotten few” to justice we must, at the same time, give support where we can to the innocent casualties, and not as an afterthought.
Thank you John. It will take years to clean up this shameful mess, if we ever can, and I’m afraid that during that time the lives of some good people will be ruined. It should be the immediate and first priority – that is, do it right now and before everything else on the agenda – of the minister for defence, the minister for veterans’ affairs, the chief of the defence force, and the chief of army – to ensure that the full range of support services is available to all affected service-men and -women.
Regards, Alan