"The past is not sacred: the ‘history wars’ over Anzac " Topic

Old but still a Quite interesting article…

"The term "history wars" is best known in Australia for summing up the fierce debate over the nature and extent of frontier conflict, with profound implications for the legitimacy of the British settlement and thus for national legitimacy today.

That debate, though hardly resolved, is now taking something of a back seat to a public controversy focused on Australia's wars of the 20th century and particularly on the war of 1914–18, called the Great War until the Second World War redefined it as the First.

If "history war" is a public controversy about past events that raise disturbing contemporary questions about national legitimacy and identity, then this Great War controversy also qualifies as such. The polemic unfolded in a familiar fashion. "History warriors" from the political right have publicly insisted that historians and left-wing commentators were distorting the past and violating cherished understandings about the First World War.

In various forums, they stated and restated their now-familiar case: Australia's vital interests were at stake in the Great War and it took part to protect these interests. The warriors insist there is a left-wing "orthodoxy" arguing that Australia's national interests were not served by participating in the war and that Australians were duped by the British into fighting…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Let's not get too concerned by these articles – the name of the Australian contribution, the Australian Imperial Force (and in WW2 the Second Australian Imperial Force) gives a pretty good insight as to the "real" situation. We were British citizens of the British Empire living in a British Dominion. With tight family and historical bonds. It would have been most unusual if we didn't support the Empire.

More statues to scrap?

FoxtrotPapaRomeo +1

If it can happen in Durham, NC I suppose it's possible we'll soon have PC leftist thugs pulling down our statues.

Slightly anent to this, in the sixties and seventies when Britain was finally getting out of so many places that it had no right to be in the first place, the question was raised as to what should be done with all the statues to Queen Victoria that had been painstakingly inflicted on all and sundry over many decades. It was feared that they would be defaced, scraped, whatever (there were similar fears over military cemeteries but that if I recall was handled discreetly and humanely). One idea floated at the time was that they should be lovingly returned to the Mother country.. but then the question was where to put the damned things – (every self respecting burgh or town already had its own.. the Empire had a sort of weird egalitarianism of questionable taste)..and one idea was mooted to put them all back up in Windsor Great Park… an idea that found some support until someone pointed out that the result would be countless Victorias staring at each other every 5 yards or so all the way up the Long Walk! I suspect most ended up as scrap.. a far more dignified and less daunting solution…

Well the huge Queen Victoria bronze that used to stand outside the Irish Parliament before the partition ended up being 'donated' to Sydney in Australia to put outside the large, heritage listed 'Queen Victoria Building' right in the centre of the CBD.

Nelson's demise was slightly more spectacular!!!!

Sorry to hear you got saddled with it – and slightly surprised one had not been inflicted on you prior to that. Perhaps we should start donating them to the US – it might strike a chord with those who believe Britain is Downtown Abbey and they could fill the gaps left while the controversial stuff is relegated to museums or wherever…