The Prime Minister cut short a South Pacific Forum meeting to return to Australia to be on hand to receive a full military briefing and claimed Australia will see out their commitment. Meanwhile a federal parliamentarian claims that the Prime minister now has blood on her hands for not pulling them out earlier. (www.news.com.au)
Then on one Saturday in early September, five Australians lost their lives on the road in five different accidents from single vehicle situations to a pedestrian. None of these accidents were suspicious. Lack of attention or lack of self care appears to have been the associated announcements. (www.smh.com.au)
In the Melbourne suburb of Fern Tree Gully a heart wrenching tragedy struck with a death from piousness gasses inside a bakery from a petrol generator as there was a scheduled power outage. There was a build-up of deadly carbon monoxide fumes.
The nation mourns its military losses. The nation shrugs its shoulders with motor vehicle accidental deaths and only a local community and family grieve over a tragic misadventure such as the bakery incident.
The question put
The question put, is that, why does the military situation get so much public sympathy, anxiousness and national mourning whereas the other examples mentioned, are given as news items without the anguish of the Commonwealth.
It might be more appropriate to answer such a question in reverse order, in so far as there have been 36 Australian military deaths over 10 years in Afghanistan whereas there were 1292 road deaths across Australia last year (2011) alone. (www.minister.infrastructure.gov.au)
Road deaths are something the nation is able to tolerate as they occur each and every day of our lives. The statistics are put up on the board (as it were) and the nation is pleased when they fall a little as they did last calendar year. We are a mobile nation and this is something we live with, although it is a woeful situation and regardless of the money spent on improved infrastructure, roads accidents still occur.
The silent prayer for safely on the road when your young person leaves the house and gets into a motor vehicle is the lot of parents and loved ones. Everyone of us prays that a knock in the middle of the night will not come to our door. For those to whom it has come, the immediate tragedy and loss of what could have been are insurmountable. Yet the nation does not mourn as it does to a military death.
Accidental death too is horrific and heart breaking but it is locally focused. The bakery accidental death is reported and then slips off the national agenda.
Military is different
Military deaths are very different. The media for one, follow through with every detail and intimate coverage is given to the nation's senior military officer in announcing the deaths. The Prime Minister makes an announcement of sympathy. It is on the front page (as it were) for weeks right through to the family funeral which becomes a time of (symbolic) national mourning.
Another reason is that the military is synonymous to patriotism and this brings the nation together as one (as it were), it is as if each of us, intimately knew the military personnel who were lost in the military conflict. The symbols of ANZAC are all around us, Legacy is a treasured national charity, Self Sacrifice comes to the fore in the spirit of the nation. These military individuals who died in such a way, did what they did, to protect us as a nation (Foreign Affairs national policy).
It is also a political issue. It is national policy issue, and with this comes a political debate as to whether the nation should or should not be, in any such international conflict. The political decision makers defend their military policies in liaison with the military policy makers. It is a political decision that sends our soldiers into harm's way.
The political considerations are strategic, financial, economic, national and international (treaties and signatories) and the nation's media are all over these decisions as the pubic in effect pays (taxes) for these policies to be enacted. They receive a full measure of intricate media critique
The lives of our military son's and daughter's are at stake.
I have often wondered whether a new law might be passed that the leading politicians son's and daughter's (without exception) should be placed in the front line and whether that might singularly bring very different policy decisions.
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.html
