{"id":1385,"date":"2011-11-16T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-11-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=1385"},"modified":"2022-04-07T19:58:52","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T11:58:52","slug":"44-gallipoli-and-the-call-to-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=1385","title":{"rendered":"44. Gallipoli and the Call to Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reflections on a Pauline Pilgrimage to Turkey [11]<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have heard that it was said, \u2018You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you<\/span><\/strong>\u201d [Matthew 5:43-44<\/span>].<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0The Gallipoli Peninsula. [2]\u00a0\u00a0Drawings by Major Hore. [3]\u00a0ANZAC cemetery.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gallipoli was a welcome break in this Pauline pilgrimage to Turkey.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have heard so much about Gallipoli. We have sat through a TV live broadcast of the ANZAC Day celebration. And we have read up on this important historical event before. So when a request came from an Australian couple in our pilgrimage group, Max and Annie, for it to be included in the itinerary, we heartily supported it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Battle of Gallipoli took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli<\/a> in the Ottoman Empire<\/a> (modern day Turkey<\/a>) between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War<\/a>. The British<\/a> and French<\/a> mounted a joint operation to capture the Ottoman capital of Constantinople<\/a> and secure a sea route to Russia<\/a>. The operation failed, with heavy casualties on both sides. What the Gallipoli campaign did was to profoundly impact the consciousness of all nations involved. In Turkey, the battle is perceived as a defining moment in the history of the Turkish people, firing as it did the Turkish War of Independence<\/a> and the foundation of the Republic of Turkey<\/a> eight years later under Mustafa Kemal (Atat\u00fcrk)<\/a>, himself a commander at Gallipoli. As the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps<\/a> (ANZAC) undertook their first major battle, the Gallipoli Campaign has since become the singular galvanizing event that awakens the national consciousness in both of these countries. ANZAC Day<\/a>, 25 April, is their most significant commemoration of military casualties and veterans<\/a>. As pilgrims travelling with four Australians in our group, we were conscious and respectful of both<\/span> the sacredness and the tenderness of their memories.<\/p>\n

Concerning the details of the war, however, we are neither qualified nor inclined to comment. Browsing through various reports and comments, our impression is that history can be a strange creature, depending on who writes it. Before the Gallipoli campaign even got started, Lloyd George had prophetically written: \u201cExpeditions which are decided upon and organised with insufficient care generally end disastrously.\u201d Overall, there is no denying that the Gallipoli campaign, vehemently proposed by Churchill as a strategy to weaken the opposition, was a disaster of the first order. The tally of Allied casualties was over 200,000, and while the number of Turkish casualties is not clear, it is generally accepted as being equally horrendous.<\/span><\/p>\n

Standing on a cliff overlooking a beach at Gallipoli, we were infused with sensitivity to the treachery of the terrain and the drama of the surrounding, but even more, with the tragedy of war. What was infinitely more captivating of our mood was the human factor \u2013 the effects wars had on the people, and even on generations that came after them. And this is resonated in a refreshing way in a recent Chinese ancient-war movie, The Warring Sates<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>In The Warring States<\/em> [\u6230\u570b], we have a Chinese movie featuring the brutal battles and raging melodrama set in the 5th<\/sup> to 3rd<\/sup> centuries B.C. China, the Warring States Period of Chinese history.\u00a0 The story-line hovers round the states of Qi and Wei, leaving aside the five other warring states.<\/a> The singular item of the movie which continues to detain us in reflection is a clip that comes right at the end. It is the statement of inner conviction uttered by Sun Bin, the favourite student of Sun Tzu (\u5b6b\u5b50) \u2013 the world renowned military strategist. In some business schools and military colleges in the West, The Art of War<\/em><\/strong> [or Sun Tzu’s Military Strategy<\/em>\u5b6b\u5b50\u5175\u6cd5] is compulsory reading. Sun Bin led the army of the Qi Kingdom in a brilliantly successful military campaign against the vastly superior force of the Wei Kingdom. His strategy not only won the battle but decimated the entire enemy army. On seeing the insane devastation to human lives, far from celebrating a brilliant victory of which he was the architect, Sun Bin in utter despondence said, \u201cI hate wars!\u201d and jumped off the cliff to his own death. All his life, he had wished that soldiers would all go home to till their lands and raise their families in peace and harmony. There are no winners in wars, only a diminution of our humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n

And that was precisely the sentiment we each felt at Gallipoli: \u201cI hate wars!\u201d Lines of tombstones of young men testified to lives wasted and futures snuffed out, all on account of\u00a0 politicians and warlords who made plans of aggression and issued orders. They were the ones to decide – a mantra that exudes from the mouths of many in all sorts of power-position today wherever we turn, in church as in secular society. They have directly caused all those vicarious deaths, while their own lives [and in all probability their own sons\u2019 lives too] were never actually put in jeopardy in the battlefields. And when we factor in our reflections the death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq the last few years as a result of a groundless Western invasion, we must wonder why the President of the United States who ordered the invasion is not charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gallipoli brought back memories of our visit to the war museum in Ho Chi Ming City some years back. As we followed the display of photos and write-ups, emotions gradually welled up and the eyes began to fill. What is it with this creature of the Good God called \u201chuman being\u201d that he can be so inhumanly<\/em> atrocious towards other humans? And when we reached that familiar iconic picture of a naked little girl running away from a napalm bomb, crying and in hysteria, with her back burning, and panic, pain and terror written all over her face, we just had to suspend the tour. Unable to proceed without a pause, we went to a little side-garden outside the building to shed tears, to mourn human suffering in the hands of\u00a0 atrocious American warlords, and to breathe some fresh air, before we could resume our tour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

[1]The Warring Sates<\/em>, a Chinese ancient-war movie. [2]\u00a0The Art of War, in a classical bamboo book<\/a>. [3] 8 June 1972: Kim Ph\u00fac, center left, running down a road near Trang Bang after an American napalm attack.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n