There are now two extremely important ANZAC Day traditions: the Dawn Service in the morning, then the ceremonial scouring of social media in the afternoon for posts to get extremely mad at.
The News Corp mastheads over the past few years have had their April 26th cover cut out for them – just find some employee or contractor of a public broadcaster, see if they posted something that doesn’t quite toe the national line on ANZAC Day, then bam – you got yourself a spicy cover.
The Daily Telegraph had their work absolutely cut out for them:
A quick reminder in case you were just living your life yesterday: people are furious about a post commentator Yassmin Abdel-Magied made on her Facebook, and even more furious about the fact the ABC won’t sack her for said post.
For a bunch of people absolutely incensed by lefty snowflake SJWs and their propensity to take offence, Australia‘s conservative establishment sure is quick to lose their goddamn minds about even the most oblique slight on the ANZAC legacy.
And if this extraordinarily tame post is enough to whip up a firestorm which captures more front page real estate than literally anything else that happened on ANZAC Day, you’ve got to wonder what the hell they’re even standing for in the first place. Does ANZAC Day exist merely to get mad at people who aren’t sufficiently deferent towards ANZAC Day? Very postmodern, if true.
At least the ANZAC Day social media furore from 2015 – where SBS sports reporter Scott McIntyre made a series of tweets about the “cultification of imperialist invasion” – had something to work with. You’ve really got to stretch your moral indignation pretty fuckin’ far to find Abdel-Magied’s post particularly offensive. Unless, of course, you’re particularly inclined towards finding things a Muslim woman says inherently troublesome.
Can we not? If you’re properly passionate about ANZAC Day and the sacrifice and horror of war, maybe focus on venerating that rather than yelling about online posts.
Photo: Daily Telegraph.
