Go to Gallipoli any day but Anzac Day

One of the first things that struck me was there were no birds. In fact, apart from the wind and the gentle lapping of the water on to the pebbled beach at Anzac Cove, there wasn’t a sound to be heard as though, even 90 years after the last shots were fired at Gallipoli, the birds still know to stay away.

The silence is as moving as Attaturk’s message to the Anzacs and the lines of graves of dead teenagers. For this place to be exclusive to the handful of us who were there seemed like a privilege and in no time you’re consumed by the quiet and able to communicate and share emotions without saying a single word.

This is what makes Gallipoli so special, which is why I  don’t understand why anyone would want to share it with tens of thousands of others on Anzac Day, where that spiritual calm is lost in an almost theme park atmosphere.

I write this because Victoria University academic and Gallipoli expert Anne-Marie Hede, has called to put an end to the annual Anzac celebrations at Anzac Cove because it’s becoming unsustainable with thousands of tourists, big screens, seating, lighting and portable toilets ruining Anzac Cove.

Professor Hede will probably cop a barrage for suggesting Anzac Day celebrations remain in Australia, but while I gree with her I don’t write this to defend her but to recommend that it’s the peaceful solitude is what makes Gallipoli so eerily sacred and not the day that we have chosen to celebrate it.

The courage, suffering and death didn’t stop after April 25, which is why every day at Gallipoli is sacred, as the various dates on the headstones testify.

Picture: The Age