The Australian War Memorial’s decision to more fully chronicle the frontier wars between First Nations resistance fighters, colonial troops, police and militias is a welcome progression from an institution that for decades has obstinately defied the bloody truth of Australia’s foundation history.
The noble mandate of the memorial, this country’s most revered and politically protected national institution, is to “assist Australians to remember, interpret and understand the Australian experience of war and its enduring impact on Australian society”. But under a succession of memorial directors the AWM has resisted meaningfully depicting the wars for this very continent – those of violent dispossession and ongoing oppression of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people upon which the Australian colonies, their wealth and finally the federation were constructed.
The decision, apparently at the behest of the memorial’s notoriously conservative governing council, comes at a time of great change (and controversy) at the institution.
Brendan Nelson, a former federal opposition leader, defence minister and memorial director is stepping away from his most recent role at the institution as council chair to become president of weapons manufacturer Boeing International in London. It ends, for the time being, his long and influential formal association with the memorial during which he has argued: Australian frontier conflict did not equate to war; it was the agreed job of the National Museum of Australia to depict colonial Black-white conflict, and that Australian-raised military units were not involved in such fighting.
Under his directorship, celebrated by Labor and Coalition governments, a $500m expansion of the memorial was announced to enable it to, among other things, stage more exhibitions on contemporary military operations and display more military hardware. The expansion (the cost of which has blown out by $50m) was opposed as unnecessary and as an affront to the institution’s commemorative dignity by many supporters of the memorial, including eminent historians and former directors.
(Many were also angered by the memorial’s continued acceptance of funding from companies that manufacture the weapons of war.)
Once the memorial expansion became a fait accompli and building started, opponents shifted their anger: despite all of the imminent new display space there would, apparently, still be no significant gallery dedication (besides some visual art bought in recent years) to frontier conflict.
Today’s announcement by Nelson that the AWM governing council wants a “much broader, a much deeper depiction and presentation” of frontier violence is, undeniably, a significant about-face for an institution that has been stubbornly intransigent on the issue to the point of historical denial.
Defenders of the status quo have long cited a memorial act which allows it to document colonial and post-federation operations of crown military forces raised in Australia, while denying the mandate extends “beyond the experience of deployed Australian forces overseas in war and in peace”.
A former war memorial military historian, Peter Stanley, recently succinctly explained the AWM’s contortions regarding frontier war:
‘The problem you see’, the Memorial explains, shrugging its institutional shoulders, ‘was that frontier clashes involved British soldiers, or police, or armed settlers. None were members of military units raised in Australia. What can we do … besides display an abstract painting alluding to frontier violence?’
Two problems. First, members of the Mounted Police, a British military unit raised in Sydney in 1825 did conduct ‘campaigns’ against Indigenous resistance. So, one of the Memorial’s responses is and always has been wrong historically.
Second, the Memorial’s evasive response relies on a ridiculously legalistic definition of war. We now know . . . that conflict accompanied European settlement. Those ‘warlike operations’ made possible the creation of this nation, perhaps Australia’s most costly conflict. How can an institution intended to commemorate ‘wars and warlike operations’ evade that reality? Because of a definition in the Act? . . . Here’s an idea: change it! Every parliament amends dozens [of acts]. We need to change the Memorial’s legislation to make it accord with the reality of Australia’s history.”
Over the decades a veritable platoon of government ministers has held the AWM’s conservative line. Partly this is because, as the Australian shrine to the Anzac national foundation story, the memorial has largely been sacrosanct from criticism on a range of fronts.
As historian and novelist Peter Cochrane has written, “Drape Anzac over an argument and, like a magic cloak, the argument becomes sacrosanct.”
Indeed.
But perhaps, as Australia engages with broader notions of Indigenous recognition (including a voice to parliament), and mainstream truth-telling about frontier violence such as Rachel Perkins’ powerful series The Australian Wars, the Anzac cloak is becoming that little bit less opaque.
Matt Keogh, the minister for veterans affairs (which administers the AWM) rightly points out “the recognition and reflection on frontier conflict is a responsibility for all of our cultural institutions, not just here at the war memorial”.
No other institution has shied away from doing so. Most have long assumed this responsibility in various ways. But if this is Keogh’s diplomatic way of dragging the AWM into the progressive face-saving light on one front at least (too much of the ugly, brutal truth of Australians at war generally is culturally sanitised including at the memorial in my opinion), he should be commended.
I hope today represents the beginning of some broader evolution of government attitude on how the memorial operates more generally.
The integrity of Australian history deserves no less.
