IPAN Supports the Raising Peace for ANZAC Day 2024.
“Australia can become a global champion of peace” asserts a recently issued statement from Raising Peace for ANZAC Day 2024, in which the peace alliance network outlines that while remembering fallen soldiers, the reflection shouldn’t be through a “war first” lens.
These words resonate in particular this year, as the day prior to ANZAC Day marks 200 days of open genocide in Gaza, the war in Ukraine has continued for over two years and the nation of Australia still denies recognition of the colonial Frontier Wars.
“It is remarkable and distressing that Australians are being told that the lesson of ANZAC Day, built on a calamitous campaign at Gallipoli, is not that war is a disastrous endeavour, but rather that war is noble,” the statement makes clear.
“The trauma and moral injury of war remain unrecognised and unacknowledged.”
And Raising Peace are in no way suggesting that those who sacrificed their lives, or parts of them, in the theatre of war should not be remembered and recognised, but in doing so, the various peace organisations making up the network see the path forward as one where we “outgrow war”.
A land of increasing militarisation
Right now, the peace organisations making up Raising Peace are well aware that Australia is on track to fighting a war against China, the nation’s greatest trading partner, at the behest of the US, and so caught up in Washington’s foreign policy outlook are we, that it has simply become our own.
Australia has been steadily cruising on this trajectory since World War II: there was the 1960s imposition of US facilities at Pine Gap and North West Cape, and after that came the 2014 Force Posture Agreement, with its initiatives ever-increasing US military presence on this continent.
Yet, since former PM Scott Morrison dumped AUKUS on us in September 2021, this has all escalated.
And it hit overdrive after current PM Anthony Albanese announced the “AUKUS optimal pathway” in March 2023, and since then, the continent is taking on all the trappings of the 51st state of the USA.
The AUKUS bill for the nation is $368 billion: a conservative estimate. And Australia has just handed over $4.6 billion each to the US and the UK to invest in their submarine base on the off chance that our closest allies are able to first satisfy their defence needs, prior to producing anything for us.
And just to make sure we’re all well aware that Uncle Sam’s war path is our road ahead too, defence minister Richard Marles announced last week that the nation’s defence spend is going to increase from 2 percent of GDP to 2.4 percent by 2033-34.
Lest we get caught up in war
Raising Peace was founded in 2020, and it consists of 40-odd peace organisations. It was born out of a networking peace festival, and these events continue to be staged to raise the prospect of steering the ship towards peace. And First Nations voices have been leading the way.
“Australia is uniquely placed to become the world’s leading proponent of First Nations approaches to peacebuilding,” the Raising Peace statement ends.
“On ANZAC Day 2024, Raising Peace urges all Australians to remember the fallen and work for a peaceful future for all the peoples of the world.”
Sydney Criminal Lawyers spoke to James Cox, an organiser of the Raising Peace network, and also, the executive director of Peacifica, an organisation that advocates for peacebuilding in the South Pacific. And Cox told us of the path towards peace, which is already progressing in the community.