A few thoughts on this Anzac Day morning:

When I was a teen, going through my punk days, listening to Discharge, Crass and The Mob, dreaming of anarchy and peace, I was an anti-war lunatic. I went on the anti-nuclear marches and argued enthusiastically with my dad about things I knew nothing about. Oh, the innocence of youth!

What did I know as an indulged, middle-class 14 year old about anarchy (sheesh, I can't even cope with a dirty toilet) or about peace or especially about war??!! Now, when I see those annoying pimply uni students selling communist newspapers on the corner of George and Park Streets I want to shake them and say "wake up to yourselves, you know nothing, you understand nothing".

I used to smirk at the idea that some guys long ago gave up their lives so that I could live in freedom. "I never asked them to do that," I would say as only an arrogant, know everything teenager can. While I still feel I understand very little about the world, I do at least understand that there is no such thing as passive "peace", it's not something that just is if you wish it hard enough.

For whatever reason human beings are not peaceful creatures, in different ways and for different reasons (though religion often has a role to play) we like to step on each other's toes, to oppress and dominate each other, to hurt and control those less powerful than otherselves. Sometimes we must also stand up for each other, help those who are oppressed, stand up for the less powerful. This is war and I'm afraid human kind is doomed to the eternal repeating of a variation on the theme; very few generations appear to live unscathed by it. It does make me sad but I'm a realist and I've come to understand that there is no escape. The people who march, who burn effigies, who write pontificating letters to the editor have all got it so wrong it's beyond funny.

When you listen to the stories of the Aussie Diggers you learn what it's really all about. On days like today I am ashamed of the stupid teenager I once was. I know it's natural to go through these stages but I still cringe at those memories. What did I know, or what do I know even now, about sacrifice, about courage, about fear? I whinged like a spoilt bloody brat when the power went out for 2 hours on Sunday night. How would I have coped on the Kokoda Track? at Gallipoli? For god's sake, the idea of camping makes me break out into a cold sweat! Reading Nancy Wake's biography made me really think about what people are willing to do to protect freedom, and I'm afraid "Not happy, John" stickers or George Bush email jokes just don't really seem to cut it.

These people have sadly chosen the wrong "enemy" and I wonder how they would have felt over the last twenty year, waiting for Saddam's henchmen to knock on their door. Do people really have a clue as to who the bad guys are in our postmodern, everyone is equal world? I don't think the Iraq war is the problem at all, it's that as free people we don't stand up enough to help others. We whine, we make snide intellectual comments about our own leaders, we talk about being "ashamed" to be Australian or American (jeez, that makes me sick) and we do sweet bugger all in terms of actually helping anyone. If all those protesting, whinging middle class "lefties" (sheesh!) actually did something useful: cooked a meal for the homeless, fundraised for the hungry in Africa, knitted a blanket or helped out at the local hospital, than the world would truly, in a million little ways be a better place. Instead the world is full of useless hot air, a lot of indignant dinner party conversation and knowing nods about how "it's all about the oil" (oh, you mean the oil you and I don't use... that special oil that only John Howard and George Bush use in their special evil powermonger machines... lucky it's not the oil you and I use to drive to work everyday, imagine how stupid we'd feel if that was the case!).

Not sure how I ended up there, I guess that's been stewing for a while! All I know is I'm so bloody lucky. My own parents sacrificed everything to get me out of the former USSR and now I live in a country that allows me the sort of personal freedom and opportunity others are willing to kill and die for. On Anzac Day, a day I used to scoff at and ridicule, I want to say I private thanks for the sacrfice and the courage.