Remembering A Year of Anniversaries, 2015

2015 was a year of significant anniversaries and commemorations related to the Commonwealth, Magna Carta, World War II and the United Nations. In this article the author reflects on these events, on his personal participation and on the media coverage of the events.     

THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THE MIDDLE EAST

The First World War in the Middle East swept away five hundred years of Ottoman dominion. It ushered in new ideologies and radicalized old ones – from Arab nationalism and revolutionary socialism to impassioned forms of atavistic Islamism. It created heroic icons, like the enigmatic Lawrence or the modernizing Atatürk, and it completely re-drew the map of the region, forging a host of new nation states, For many, the self-serving intervention of these powers in the region between 1914 and 1919 is the major reason for the conflicts that have raged there on and off ever since. Yet many of the most common assertions about the First World War in the Middle East and its aftermath are devoid of context. This article argues that, far from being a mere sideshow to the war in Europe, the Middle Eastern conflict was in fact the centre of gravity in a war for imperial interests. Moreover, contrary to another persistent myth of the First World War in the Middle East, local leaders and their forces were not simply the puppets of the Great Powers. The way in which these local forces embraced, resisted, succumbed to, disrupted, or on occasion overturned the plans of the imperialist powers for their own interests in fact played an important role in shaping the immediate aftermath of the conflict – and in laying the foundations for the troubled Middle East.     

“Then in 1915”: Eric Bogle’s “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”

The anti-war song “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” has become a cultural icon in Australia, and elsewhere has been recorded over 130 times in 10 different languages. The song was written in 1971 by Eric Bogle, a Scottish immigrant to Australia, who has penned more than 250 powerful compositions, which, among other things, focus on the failure of history to impress upon youth the futility of war. Appropriately, Bogle was named Australian Humanist of the Year in 2001 for capturing “the ethos of humanism through his perceptive and individualistic songwriting with its exposure of racism, bigotry, warmongering and injustice of all kinds”. Additionally, he was awarded the United Nations Peace Medal (1986), and was made Member of the Order of Australia (1987). This article asks why a song written by a Scot in Australia, fifty-six years after the Dardanelles campaign, feels as if it has “always existed. That it belongs to culture and country”. It questions what the appeal imbued within the lyrics of those five short verses might be and recounts the story behind the creation of what Pete Seeger referred to as “one of the world’s greatest songs”. Through interviews with the writer, and an examination of the relevant historiography, this article presents a study of “the most potent ballad of the age”. It also examines what Bogle meant when he said that it was a song that “came into its time”.