Tuesday, April 19, 2005

The Australian: Editorial: Two countries united in loss [April 20, 2005]

"Editorial: Two countries united in loss

April 20, 2005
AS the 90th anniversary of the landing of Australian Diggers at Anzac Cove approaches, our reflections on the meaning of that event � always intense � are bound to deepen.

There are many memorials to that disastrous campaign, not only at Gallipoli but in cities and towns across Australia, where the carved-out names of sons and husbands testify to a lost generation of Australian men. But of the memorials to their sacrifice few can be more precious than the special relationship it has engendered between Australians and the Turkish people. Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, pledged that the 8000 Diggers who died at Anzac Cove would lie there not as foreign invaders, but as honoured comrades. The way that successive Turkish governments, and the people themselves, have made good on that promise � by the respect they have shown our fallen Diggers and the welcome they have extended to generations of pilgrims � is beyond praise."

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