Gallipoli 100 years on: Is Anzac Day a 'nationalist circus'

Anzac Day 25 April 2015: Gallipoli 100 years on

25 April 2015 marks the hundredth anniversary of the start of the British-led military invasion of Gallipoli on Turkey’s Dardanelle Peninsula, which resulted in over 200,000 dead and wounded in an eight-month period.

Gallipoli was a military disaster. Yet, a century on, politicians seeking to glorify the First World War, are calling the huge loss of life at Gallipoli "a price worth paying."

As the Australian government spends $300 million commemorating the WWI centenary, and using it to promote militarism and nationalist myths, veterans' groups have condemned the "nationalist circus" that Anzac Day has become.

The UK government, which is spending £60 million on its own nationalist circus commemorating WW1, has a number of Anzac Day events, including in London and Turkey. There will of course be little mention of Winston Churchill's role as prime mover of the Gallipoli catastrophe, which lead to his dismissal from the British government a hundred years ago.

Rather than celebrating the rewriting of history to promote new wars being waged on this 100th anniversary, it is important to remember what really happened at Gallipoli.
The No Glory website aims to capture the reality of what took place, with a dedicated page, Anzac Day 2015 - the Gallipoli disaster 100 years on, that has links to articles, videos, songs etc.

Among the features are two conflicting views of The Water Diviner, Russell Crowe's film about Gallipoli, which was Australia's highest grossing film in 2014. One reviewer says the film is anti-war, the other says the opposite.
Armenia: the genocide that dare not speak its name

"The Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence," said a US senator named Barack Obama in 2006, adding in 2008, "As president I will recognize the Armenian genocide."
 But, as President, Obama has refused to do what he promised. He is not alone. David Cameron and other western leaders have also made the slaughter, that killed 1 to 1.5 million Armenians, the genocide that dare not speak its name.

Why? For fear of upsetting Turkey, their ally in Nato and in various western military interventions - eg Syria. Turkey refuses to acknowlege the scale of the crime perpetrated on Armenia.

The No Glory website is featuring a number of brilliant articles on the issue, including:
These dangerous women - the women who tried to stop WW1
Hardly mentioned today, one of the most important, creative, and admirable initiatives against war and in favour of a different world order was the International Women’s Congress held in The Hague from April 28 to May 1, 1915.
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