ANZAC DAY 2012

My thoughts about ANZAC Day are well documented on this blog under the label on the right hand side. My only addition at this point in time is to add that I suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after being attacked by two men in 2002, so I can only wonder at the psychological terrors that those young soldiers currently serving (and those who have served) must be experiencing and I feel for them. I'm glad that more will be done for returning soldiers suffering from PTSD because many take their own lives, unable to integrate back into 'normal' society, because after being in combat and witnessing violence nothing can ever be normal again!  Many appear to be able to return to civilian life, only to self medicate in order to cope with their symptoms of anxiety and consequently their friends and family members are greatly affected by their behavior. I watched Restrepo (2010 documentary by journalist Sebastian Junger and British/American photojournalist Tim Hetherington) on ABC the other night and it certainly gave a valuable insight into the feelings of American soldiers deployed in Afghanistan. People who say 'forget what'? in the statement 'Lest We Forget' on social media sites are not only un-Australian but must be hiding their heads in some black hole not to know what ANZAC Day means to the countless people who have been affected by war. It's raining in Melbourne at the moment so we can only hope that it stops long enough for the march to proceed along Swanston Street as it usually does.

The poor, dancing to the tune of the rich...

Inequalities between poor and rich have been well documented throughout recorded history, as is the exploitation of one by the other. Current examples include wealthy people requiring transplant surgery who travel to countries like Iran, China, India, the Philippines and South America to illegally purchase a kidney from a poor person. These people are now providing what Elliott Leyton describes as 'a new world market that offers the wealthy and the well-connected an indefinite extension of life, limited only by the abilities of current medical technology' (2000:40)1. Likewise, rich women, unable to conceive or carry a fetus to term, purchase ovum or rent out the uterus of a poor woman from India where surrogacy costs are considerably lower than those in the US or UK. According to Priti Sehgal, ‘This legal framework encourages more women to serve as surrogates, especially those from socio-economically weak backgrounds’ (2008).2.

After twenty-three years of war in Afghanistan, poverty is widespread. Child abduction and human trafficking is commonplace, girls under sixteen years old are forced into marriage, child sex abuse is frequent and, as the ABC 1 - 'Four Corners' program exposed last night, there is a growing practice of Bacha Bazi or 'boy play'. Boys between the ages of ten and fourteen years of age from Northern Afghanistan are lured by wealthy warlords and businessmen into living the life of a sex slave. They are trained in music and dance, wear make-up and female clothes, are traded and often killed if they disobey their masters. Although pedophilia is a crime, the authorities turn a blind eye. Indeed 'there is no concerted effort being made to stop the practice and the criminal activity that surrounds it'. 3. One man interviewed on the program, who had carried out his own investigations into Bacha Bazi said he wouldn't name names because he liked his life and job; hinting that his life could be destroyed and he could loose his job if he exposed those involved. It seems as though it's not only the poor dancing to the tune of the rich!


1. Leyton, Elliott. (2001) Department of Anthropology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John’s,
NFLD A1C 5S7, Canada (eleyton@morgan.ucs.mun.ca). 24 V 99.

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CA/journal/issues/v41n2/002001/002001.text.html
2. Sehgal, Priti (2008). ‘Reproductive Tourism Soars in India: Adoption and Surrogacy Laws Have Yet to Catch Up’, The WIP

http://thewip.net/contributors/2008/10/reproductive_tourism_soars_in.html

3. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/22/2826024.htm