Community, Memory and War by James Arvanitakis and Alix Beattie

Community, according to cultural theorist, Zygmunt Bauman (2001), is something we crave. In his words, community is “like a roof under which we shelter in heavy rain, like a fireplace which we warm our hands on a frosty day”.

Despite such a longing for the warmth and safety of community, it is something that can be like a double-edged sword; it can produce cooperation and mutuality, but can also be divisive and create conflict. In this way, calls for community can be used to rally and inspire us around issues of justice. Similar calls regarding the sanctity of community have been used to rally violence against those who are different and threaten ‘our’ community’.

In this way, we need to consider “what phenomenon is community?” It may not be something concrete that you can touch, but its sense of existence (or failure to appear) has a real impact on our lives. It is neither stable nor fixed, changing over time. Consequently, we must constantly work to ensure any changes are ones that reflect the values that we are comfortable with.

A sense of shared memory is something that can bind a community. Memories, like community, are also double-edged – being used to unite us as well as exclude. Former Prime Minister, John Howard, for example often invoked the memory of a mythical cohesive community that is threatened by outsiders. John Howard also condemned those who tried to remind us of the dark-side of Australia’s past: the memory of the Stolen Generation or the massacres of Indigenous people.

Such memories can also be used to inspire us: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd did this on the day of the National Apology. He did this by drawing on the memory of those who overcome hardships, and in the process challenged us to ensure that such things never happen again.

One way to gauge the memory that a community attempts to hold on to is by looking at the memorials it builds. Australian towns and cities are littered with memorials and places of remembrance. They are erected for communities to unite and remember Australia’s history.

One example is the Light Horse Interchange; a contemporary memorial placed in the Western Suburbs of Sydney that not only commemorates an historical event but also physically joins communities. The area surrounding the Interchange was part of the training ground for The Light Horse Brigade, men who were farmers and workmen, who sacrificed their lives and their horses for their country. The memorial is significant for the surrounding communities, a place to draw on and recall the men and their horses that never returned home from WWI.

The memorial consists of a reflective crown that is situated on a 55m high centre mast. At night this lights up in representation of a torch in the dark. Surrounding the mast are four sets of red poles. Each pole has a reflective white strip close to the top as well as a handful of wire that juts out of the top of the pole. To the passer by these poles may seem unusual or incomplete, the symbolism which is represented, however, is quite powerful. The pole’s colour represents the Flanders poppy; the white strip illustrates the innocence of the soldiers, while the wire represents the emu plumage that sits on the soldier’s hats.

On Australia Day 1938, the 150th anniversary of the arrival of European society to Australia, a large group of Aboriginal Australians gathered in Sydney for a Day of Mourning and protest at the grim circumstances which confronted most Aboriginal people. The Depression had left all Australians in a terrible position and none more so than the most vulnerable which included many Aboriginals who were frequently not paid a wage, often given reduced rations, forced to live in designated locations (reserves and missions), not allowed to move without permission and denied citizen rights.

We must remember that this was a time when Aborigines, like many other colonised people around the world, were still seen as lesser beings. Australia was no different to other countries that saw massacres, the forced removal of children, the trafficking of women and violent acts by whites who were never held accountable.

A newspaper advertisement for the day encouraged all to gather at The Australian Hall, 148 Elizabeth St., Sydney from 10am to 5.pm.

The Day of Mourning 1938 was a beginning for many future events that begin to parallel the civil rights movement in the USA. The journey for indigenous rights has been a long and difficult road, with a long way to still travel. Despite this, no significant monument marks the first Day of Mourning: indicating it is a day that our community is attempting to purposefully forget.

The symbolism used for the Light Horse Interchange allows the community to become involved in our nation’s past and embrace the memory of lost Australians. Communities unite together through these monuments, which is why they are an integral part of society. Memories of events that should not be repeated, as well as those of heroic deeds, need to be commemorated. The first Day of Mourning should be commemorated as a marker of a community that is proud of our mixed history: the men and women who fought for their rights as well as those dark moments that, if not remembered, can never be forgiven.