National Convenor, Sarah Brasch, speaks in Canakkale, Turkey about the Gallipoli myth and national identity. She emphasised that the current fashion to consider Gallipoli as the sole determinant of Australian characteristics has only been in vogue for 20 years and that it is the product of political spin starting with Prime Minister Hawke’s speech at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1990. She also pointed out that there were no Australian women on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915 and the small number of Indigenous soldiers in the battles weren’t even Australian citizens at the time. So not only was it militaristic but a glaringly exclusive event that has gone on to assume an overblown importance in the national psyche as the spruiking of the myth by politicians has overtaken the facts and commonsense.
Woman for an Australian Republic, Adelaide Ironside, republican poet and artist 1831-1867
Self portrait 1855, Newcastle Art Gallery NSW
