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The Forum > Article Comments > The Gallipoli Experience - a traveller's reflection > Comments

The Gallipoli Experience - a traveller's reflection : Comments

By Sharon Fox, published 21/4/2011

How a tourist trip turns into a pilgrimage.

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It was a great pity that the allied attack upon Turkey failed, had we won, we would have expelled the Muslims from Constantinople and given the place back to the Greeks. The taking of Constantinople was a great victory for our Muslim enemies, as it allowed them to cut off Western trade to China along the Silk Road.

Their aim was to impoverish Europe by cutting off trade with the rest of the Asian world, and enrich themselves by forcing Europe to deal only with Muslim traders if we wanted such commodities as silk and spices.

But when Vasco de Garma rounded the cape of good Hope and entered the Indian Oceon, the Muslim blockade of Europe became null and void.

While the land campaign to expel the Muslim Turks from Christian lands was a disaster, many people do not know just how close the naval forces got to forcing the straight and shelling Constantinople. The Muslim Turkish imperialist government was already fleeing the capitol and burning their documents when the news came that the French and British navies had turned back.

Curses.
Posted by LEGO, Friday, 22 April 2011 7:06:26 PM
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Lego
You appear to have your centuries mixed up but in any event thanks for confirming that there was no justification for the Anzac attack on Turkey in terms of defending Australia. It was an unprovoked attack on a country on the other side of the world that had not attacked nor offered to attack us. If successful, Australian troops would have destroyed the homes and lives of many innocent people who were only defending their country from aggressive invasion.
Posted by Peter Hume, Saturday, 23 April 2011 10:10:25 AM
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Dear Mr Hume

It was an attack upon a highly aggressive imperial power which had been attacking Europe for centuries. The Ottoman Turks reached the gates of Vienna twice, had occupied Greece, were pushing into Russia, and had been fighting the Serbs for centuries with the greatest brutality.

The Ottoman Turks were the original reason why Europe launched the Crusades, because the Turks had forbidden Christian pilgrims from visiting the Holy Land. The Turks had conquered all of the Middle East and was attempting to take Persia (Iran). It was only because of Persian resistance that the whole of Europe is not now Muslim and just as backward as the rest of the Muslim world.

The attack upon Turkey was just as justified as the attacks upon Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The Good Guys beat Germany and Japan but unfortunately did not prevail in Turkey. We came very close to driving the Turks back to Turkmenistan and denying the Muslims their foothold in Europe.

However, because of the folishness of humanitarian people such as your goodself, the Muslims are using immigration to launch their next assault. Allowing your tradional enemies to cross your moat and take up residence in your keep, just to show them how non racist you are is definitely not a good idea.
Posted by LEGO, Saturday, 23 April 2011 1:42:48 PM
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Virtually all states also have long histories of aggression, including Spain, France, England, the USA. According to your theory, other nations would be justified in attacking them at any time, even when they were at peace, based on the aggressions of their predecessors centuries ago.
Posted by Peter Hume, Saturday, 23 April 2011 2:25:57 PM
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Not "virtually" all states, Peter Hume, all states.

The history of the entire planet revolves around the fact that stronger tribes have always expanded their borders into the territories of weaker tribes. And those weaker tribes have occupied that land since time when their ancestors expelled the previous tenents.

Civilisation always marched forward upon the point of a sword, and the march of civilisation was as inevitable as the rising off tomorrow's sun.

But civilisations act very much like people. All of us are primarily concerned with our own self interest, but most of us moderate our selfish desires because we have empathy with those who are less fortunate, and we because we understand that there is a common good. But some people are entirely selfish and care only for themselves.

I am a British descended person, who is extremely proud that my civilisation was the greatest civilising force that the world has ever known. Wherever it went, it ended Suttee, Thuggee, cannibalism, headhunting and slavery. My civilisition was exactly like every good person. It combined self interest with ultruism and compassion. It brought peace to warring tribes, introduced commerce, irrigation, education, science, medicine and justice, where all before was ignorance, superstition and capricious rule. It increased in entire peoples their capacity for pleasure and reduced their incidence of pain.

It is the only former colonial power which is still on very good and friendly terms with its former subjects.

Other civilisations, such as the Nazis, the Mongols, the Muslims were entirely selfish, and were only concerned with exploiting their subjects their own enrichment.
Posted by LEGO, Sunday, 24 April 2011 7:34:45 AM
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Without denigrating the erstwhile Author's seminal expose of Gallipoli, I too have made the pilgrimage to Turkey.

Like many Countries suffering the European meltdown, Turkey's lira plunged 28 %, and President Sezer floated the currency to resolve the crisis. Corruption is endemic & after 3 years of belt tightening austerity, still currently owes the IMF $ 11 bn.

Generally, the Turk's are not benevolent, and Tourism props up the shaky Economy. Aussie's pay double. American's ( the World over ) pay triple.And so forth.

After the 25th April, 30/35 tonnes of rubbish was removed from the revered site, which incidentally still belongs to the Turkish Empire. The desecration amongst the white marble tombstones was absolutely appalling.

So much for saving the environment, and Gillard's much vaunted Carbon Tax threshold.

Lip service is a cheap commodity.
Posted by dalma, Sunday, 24 April 2011 11:33:23 AM
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So does that mean the British descended nations have a general right to make war against other nations?
Posted by Peter Hume, Sunday, 24 April 2011 1:55:44 PM
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To Peter Hume.

I think that the civilised world does have a perfectly legitimate right to interfere in the internal affairs of primitive, dysfunctional states. And if that means going to war, to get rid of a poisonous and an entirely self interested regime, especially one which is both a threat to the civilised world and one in which the king, dictator or "President for Life" is mass murdering his own people to stay in power, then so be it.

When it came to Imperialism, that was as inevitable as the next sunrise. It was inevitable, that on this planet, and on any other planet inhabited by intelligent beings, there was going to come a time when the advanced civilisations were going to explore their planet, and impose their authority upon those of their own species who were still enduring a primitive existence.

This happened on our planet, and the British were the very best of the conquoring nations who spread civilisation. Could I remind you that with the wihdrawal of Imperial forces worldwide, many former colonies have reverted to barbarism? You only have to look at how the Somalis behave to understand why it was always necessary for advanced societies to bring barbarian societies into the civilised world. In Rhodesia, they are all now starving to death.

Libya is another example. It was formerly 'The Barbary Coast" who's galleons filled with Christian slave oarsmen continualy pirated European ships. Of course it was the right thing to do, to destroy a pirate administration and set up a colonial government. Today, this same country has a dictator who has bombed European airliners and is now massacring his own people, causing another influx of "refuges" into the West.

It is still appropriate for the West to invade Libya. It is in our self interest, and in the interests of the enslaved people of Libya that we do so.
Posted by LEGO, Monday, 25 April 2011 10:27:13 AM
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Smacks of white man's burden to me.

Yes, anyone has a right to use force to stop anyone who is enslaving or subjugating others.

But they don't have a right to aggress against or subjugate others to do it, and that it is the whole problem with states doing it. It is a complete furphy that states represent the greater good, that they are this selfless and indispensable organisation, and that the poor schmucks whom they expropriate to pay for their military adventures have no right to the fruits of their own labour.

If you want to fund an army to get rid of the Saddams and Gaddafis of this world, I think you have every right to do so. But it is a complete furphy to paint the Obamas and Blairs and Gillards of this world as being on the side of right, for no other reason than that they are the heads of British-descended democracies. The majority can err as much as the minority, and the crimes, frauds and abuses of Obama, Bush, Howard, Blair, and co. against their subject populations are none the less for being done through the agency of political states.

The western democracies, led by the USA, have evolved a culture of perpetual war, and it is the modern democracies who developed total war. These are ever bit as offensive to the values of civilisation and common humanity as slavery or cannibalism- they have certainly killed tens of millions more.

The whole Anzac hoop-la cannot be justified in terms of the defence of Australia, and is part of a wider pattern of unjustified worship of arbitrary government power that has reduced, not increased the values of civilisation in general, and the freedom of the Australian people in particular. It has gone hand in glove with indoctrinated support of big government that is now responsible for thoroughgoing violations of our freedom and property on ten thousand fronts, and a culture and industry of government provoking conflicts in civil society which it then intervenes in to settle in its own favour.
Posted by Peter Hume, Monday, 25 April 2011 6:53:23 PM
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The British descended secular democracies are the model for successful and prosperous states, states which bestow upon their populations individual rights and freedoms that have never been known before in human history. I would have thought that you would be proud of that, and that you would like to see such a successful political and economic system spread.

Far from developing “a culture of war”, the western democracies usually lag far behind the military dictatorships. The history of war in the 20th Century, usually consisted of the democracies providing under funded armies of brave young men armed with inadequate numbers of obsolete weapons, fighting against totalitarian armies lavishly supplied with every modern whiz-bang.

I find your logic contradictory, when you imply that it is OK to “get rid of the Saddams and Ghaddafi of this world”, then criticize the democracies when they do just that. The democracies found it necessary to go to war to “get rid of" a lot of totalitarian crazies, and the world is a better place for having done so. The folly of ”peace-at-any-price” tendencies, meant that we failed to get rid of Kim il Sung in North Korea, and country now has got nuclear weapons and ICBM’s, and is threatening to sell them to terrorists.

The Turks were the descendents of the Mongols, probably the most psychotic people to ever arise. The religious doctrines of Islam, which justified making war on non believers, really struck a chord with the Turks natural inclinations towards aggression, genocide,and the constant expansion of their empire. For 600 years, the Turks were a serious threat to the continued existence of the Christian Europe. They had subjugated the entire Middle East, and were pressing into Austria and Persia.

The one good thing to come out of WW1, was that the Turks were defeated and the Ottoman Empire destroyed. You should be proud that Australians were involved in that. It was a pity that we did not retake Constantinople as well.

Had the Ottoman Empire survived, they would certainly have thrown in with Nazi Germany, and we would have lost the war.
Posted by LEGO, Tuesday, 26 April 2011 7:39:06 AM
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"The British descended secular democracies are the model for successful and prosperous states, states which bestow upon their populations individual rights and freedoms that have never been known before in human history."

Like, for example, Zimbabwe or Uganda?
Posted by morganzola, Tuesday, 26 April 2011 7:53:04 AM
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LEGO,

Gawd...can't wait for your book.
I'd love to read how the British went round sprinkling fairy dust on the cultures and populations it eradicated and enslaved.

Will you include a chapter on the destabilisation to countries caused by colonisation - and perhaps one on the marvellous modern arms industry that supplies the despots with their weapons?

Accurate historical reflection will reveal that British imperialism was, in many instances, more brutish and barbarous than the cultures it sought to subordinate.
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 26 April 2011 8:09:58 AM
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LEGO
My views only seem contradictory if you take the state as the starting point of what is good. The state gives people rights, the state determines what the greater good is, the state makes society successful, the state can do no wrong.

But I don't believe that. It ignores the very real conflicts of interests between those who make their living through the state’s monopoly of coercion as against those subject to it. Thinking of the problem at a collective level only leads to error because you affirm the good things the British-descended states have done and the bad things in the one breath.

I don’t aspire to spread my beliefs and values by force. But neither am I a pacifist: - I believe that anyone is justified in using force to repel aggression.

It’s not true that the western democracies are less belligerent than the military dictatorships. Take for example Burma, Indonesia and Libya. In the last fifty years, they haven’t been in nearly as many wars as the USA, UK, and Australia, and these were *not* wars in which other countries invaded the west, but the other way around!

Also in very many ways, people under those military dictatorships have more, not less personal and economic freedom than people in the west, where the state seems to think its purpose is to monitor, restrict, register, regulate and criminalise any conceivable aspect of human activity. Try setting up a petrol, cigarette or airgun stall by the side of the road in the west and see what happens.

Yes it is good to get rid of political pests and sociopaths by force if necessary. But the western democracies’ stipulation of Germany’s unconditional surrender, after her defeat was inevitable, cost millions of lives. A far more humane and economical way to do it is for voluntarily funded commandos to go and assassinate the chief sociopaths. What stops it is that states don’t want to do it – it threatens their own chief sociopaths and their own coercive monopolies.
Posted by Peter Hume, Tuesday, 26 April 2011 1:02:00 PM
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I am curious about why you are so hostile to “the state”. “The state” is simply an organized form of government for advanced societies. Would you prefer to resort to tribalism or Anarchy?

The reason why military dictatorships are not more warlike, is because they know that the western democracies will come down on them like a ton of bricks if they try it. Then West tried pacifism, Isolationism, and “peace in our time” in 1939, and were almost destroyed. We are not going to make that mistake again. Now if some despot tries it on us, or on one of our allies, we bloody well hammer them.

Would you have preferred that South Korea was now enslaved by the North? Or are you glad that the yanks put the block on Kim il Sung? The USA invaded both Granada and Panama, and I remember the people of those two countries kissing the US troops for freeing them from tyrants. Then British prevented the Chinese minority in Malaya from making Malaya a province of Red China. Was that wrong? What about when the British prevented the Indonesians from invading Malaya and taking Malayan Borneo?

Then the British kicked the Argies out of The Falklands. Do you object to Britain defending itself? Then there was Kuwait, not just a member of the UN, but a founding member of the League of Nations, who was invaded by its neighbour in another blatant grab for another person’s country.

The western nations, and particularly the USA, are the world’s policemen, and I am very happy for that to continue. I think that the world would be a much more dangerous place if the Americans once again embraced Isolationism and let the Kim Sung Il’s Saddams, Galtieris, Noriegas, Austins, Honeckers, Ghaddafis, Castros, Mugabe’s, Assad’s, Khomeini’s, Stalin’s, and every other Hitler wannabe do whatever they like.

Your claim that there is more freedom in totalitarian countries than in western democracies makes me shake my head in pitying wonder. If you prefer the freedoms of totalitaianism, you have my permission to go and live in one.
Posted by LEGO, Tuesday, 26 April 2011 6:50:21 PM
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I suppose you are right, Morganzola, the British are entirely responsible for the catastrophes in Uganda and "Zimbabwe".

After WW2, the stupid British took heed of the whinings of their Socialist "angry young men", who had this peculiar idea that "all men are equal", and they gave Independence to many of their African colonies. The young Socialists thought they were living in a new Age of Aquarious, where the new black societies would show the rest of the world that black people are the equal in every way to whites and Asians.

Anyone who had experience in African countries, and who knew that the Africans were not real bright and could never handle running their own countries, were dismissed as "Imperialist racists".

Every black ruled country has now reverted to little more than barbarism, and is now holding out the begging bowl while spitting at the people who once governed them properly and are still trying to help them. One wonders how many older Africans now pine for the good old days when they had a functioning economy and a legal system that was not totally capricious.

The last to go was Rhodesia, once the bread basket of Africa, and where lately some comical "Zimbabwean" Minister for Agriculture claimed it would be a "good thing" for a couple of million Zimbabweans to starve to death, as there was not enough food to feed them all.

Then there is the total anarchy within Australian aboriginal aparteid areas and all because people like you inssited that it was "racist" to deny aboriginals the right to drink alcohol. When the Oz government tried to save the kids, we were then told that we were committing "genocide" on aboriginals, by "stealing" the kids.

One wonders how long it will be before the western world decides on a aboriginal type "intervention" in Africa to stop the Africans from self suicide. Then people like you can call us all "Imperialist racists" again.
Posted by LEGO, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 8:30:04 AM
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lego,

Voltaire wrote:

"Prejudices are what fools use for reason."
Posted by Poirot, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 9:20:18 AM
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To Poirot.

Voltaire's quote is a prejudgment.
Posted by LEGO, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 1:35:47 PM
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LEGO
It’s you who are advocating violent anarchy, as between states.

And within states, you have not denied that life is more minutely regulated and dictated under the contemporary western states than is life in Burma, Indonesia or Libya, with the exception of forming political parties.

Aggressive war does not further the cause of freedom or civilization.

On the contrary, it sets off a decivilising process. Quite apart from its direct cost in deaths and destruction, it promotes:
• higher taxes and debt
• a military-industrial complex permanently attached to the teat of government
• the acceptance of the principle of wealth redistribution on the basis of political favouritism
• growth of bureaucratic rule with all its attendant dysfunctionality and waste
• government’s sneak tax of inflation, with all its evils including institutionalized wealth transfer from the poorer to the richer, chronic deranging of the economy, the boom/bust cycle, recurrent problems of severe bankruptcies and unemployment and punishment of savers and workers for the benefit of debtors and speculators
• the idea that our freedom is what is left after the government has taken and done whatever it wants.
e.g. see http://mises.org/daily/5236/Americas-Will-to-War-The-Turning-Point

To fail to distinguish between wars of defence and wars of aggression merely exhibits your moral confusion.

The two pieces of intelligence you are missing are that might does not make right, and it’s not your job to forcibly improve everyone else in the world.

I shake my head with pitying wonder that in this day and age there are still people who explicitly believe that racial and nationalist chauvinism justifies aggressive war, and confers a licence for the large-scale killing of innocent civilians including children – because that’s what’s happened in Iraq and Afghanistan - again!
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 27 April 2011 7:47:39 PM
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People from Burma, Indonesia and Libya are presently barging into Australia in little boats, because they do not appear to agree with your premise that their former homelands are more free than Australia.

It is the right of the advanced states to intervene improve the lot of people in the failed states, because if we do not, then sooner or later it will come back to bite us in the form of totalitarian regimes which are totally committed to our destruction, or shiploads of “refugees” who will become a burden to us.

Colonialism and white rule was the best damned thing that ever happened to all of the failed states which are causing so many problems for the world community today. The hope that Muslim societies would evolve into successful states like the Asian societies, was dashed because we did not do our best to destroy this evil religion and replace it with something better. As for the Africans and many other black societies, we failed to understand that people barely out of the Stone Age just did not have the required intelligence to run a modern state. We failed them by abandoning them to themselves.

Once again you seem to be saying that you have a problem with “the state”. Once again, I will reiterate that “the state” is simply an organized form of government. You either have that, or you have anarchy.

The western, secular, democratic, capitalist state is still the very best form of government on this planet, regardless of what problems may accrue, which can be peacefully resolved. Such a state is a high trust society, which depends upon a large number of intelligent people to be committed to its continued existence. It requires that people must sublimate their personnel self interest for the common good.

Unfortunately, there are some societies on this planet who’s collective intelligence is very low, and for whom the idea of working towards the common good is a novel idea, and democracy could never work for them.
Posted by LEGO, Friday, 29 April 2011 7:53:21 AM
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lego,

What sad little rants trickle off your fingertips.

....although they're a telling revelation of just how ordinary, closeted and characterless is the realm of bigotry.
Posted by Poirot, Friday, 29 April 2011 9:36:17 AM
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Look there's no doubt that there's a lot of sh!tholes in the world, that many peoples were better off under British rule than they have been under their own - Burma being a classic example – and that, in my experience, they are the first to agree (it's the comfortable white middle class westerners who squirm to acknowledge it).

But the altenative to the status quo is not "anarchy". It is to be peaceful as well as democratic, not thinking we are making the world a better place by blowing up goatherds and bridal parties in Afghanistan, and shopkeepers and schoolchildren in Iraq.

And good luck with trying to get rid of the Muslim religion. The very attempt would provoke the worst kind of world conflict and I have no desire to experience it.

The best aspects of western society do not consist of the bullying and obedience that you have in mind for the western world and everyone else.
Posted by Peter Hume, Friday, 29 April 2011 11:08:15 AM
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