Raise a Glass, or perhaps a Caffé Latte

Poor old ANZAC Day. What a transformation it has undergone.

When I was little, in that unfortunate decade, the 1970s, Dawn Service was attended by old returned servicemen – men who had gone to war and many of whom had fought. Following the Service – at places like Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance – the old soldiers would totter off to a few pubs holding early morning liquor licences, where from about 7am beer was served and drunk.

As the decade wore on the number of diggers dwindled. Occasionally the ANZAC Day parade would get into the news, particularly if demonstrators placarded the march, complaining that it glorified the horrors of war.

By the end of the century, however, how things had changed. A new generation of Australians so distantly and remotely linked to war took to ANZAC Day like an RSL regular to his club’s bar. On the 25th of April at Shrines around Australia stood tens of thousands of people; Gallipoli resembled a Bledisloe Cup fixture.
With this popular swing in favour of the Day there have also come some strange attendants.

Near Melbourne’s Shrine sits Café Vue – an offshoot of the internationally acclaimed restaurant in Melbourne’s city centre, Vue du monde. It released this electronic message a few days before ANZAC Day this year:

“With the endorsement of the RSL, Café Vue at 401 St Kilda Road will be open on Anzac Day, Sunday 26th April from 5am for express coffee and pastries and from 7am with a full liquor license and breakfast menu. We are pleased to offer all serving and ex-service Defence Force members a 50% discount on food and beverage from 5am to midday.”

For some strange reason this information unsettled me. I turned off the computer and turned on the television. Very quickly an ad came on featuring General Peter Cosgrove, former Chief of the Australian Defence Force. He was sitting in a pub with a glass of beer. A couple of blokes stood in the background doing ditto. Cosgrove encouraged the viewer to ‘raise a glass’ on ANZAC Day and remember or donate to the "Raise a Glass" cause.

This is not a new campaign; indeed, “Raise a Glass” got into trouble in 2009 when the Queensland RSL refused to take part in it, stating that it thought it linked ANZAC Day to problem binge drinking. Oh, Victoria Bitter is the ‘sponsor’; the beer’s cartons come with commemorative decals for the ANZAC period, and the brewer donates money to the RSL and Legacy. They hope to raise $1.3 million in 2010.

I wonder what Sir John Monash – Australia’s greatest army commander, and the man who did so much to establish ANZAC Day and supervise the planning of Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance – would have to say about these new developments.