What does war mean to us now? With our knowledge of the long aftermath, what does it mean to be at peace? What is the difference between post-war and peace? How do peace and remembrance combine? How do we remember in the midst of war?
2015 is the centenary of the landing at Gallipoli, a key date for Australia amidst the global remembrance of the Great War. These global remembrances have expanded our understanding of World War I to recognise the range of involvement, the span of impact and the long aftermath. It has focused us, too, on the cultures of reconstruction and memorialisation. ANZAC Day began as a memorial for the fallen soldiers of Gallipoli, but now includes all those who have suffered in wars of the past century. It is an Antipodean day of remembrance, but with our new understanding of war, what and how do we remember?
Wars of Australian involvement, hostilities within Australia, wartime and post-war emigration and immigration, remembrance and remembering and memorialisation, trauma and illness, and peacetime after war, will all be addressed in the best essays and memoir, poetry, fiction, and reviews in this edition of Southerly.
