Tradition

  

It's the anniversary of the Gallipoli landing and the representatives of the troops who fought that ill  thought out battle for the heights around Gallipoli are parading down Whitehall. Gallipoli a tragedy in the making, the presumption by our General Staff and the Politicians of the day that Johnny Turk, who in those days represented the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, would succumb to a navel bombardment and allow the troops to scale the cliffs rising sheer from sea.

The troops were from all parts of the Empire. The Anzacs, Australia and New Zealand are famous for their valour and tenacity in trying to scale the heights but also a Sikhs regiment who were literally wiped out in the attack, the Gurkhas, the South Africans the Canadians and of course the British. In terms of the death toll over 35,000 British, and over 10,000 Anzac troops were the main ones to fall but heroism knows no national boarder and the troops who are doing the parade  today are unique.

Watching the men, we see the medals and the different uniforms worn proudly as a tribal badge, the headgear symbolic, the Boy Scout type hat worn by the Canadians, the Australian bush hat, they all commemorate a tradition. 

Tradition that scorned word in this era of no boarder Globalisation where all these people seen today are simply units of consumption, part of a boardroom spreadsheet, part of someone's bottom line. As the marketeers spread their products into every corner of the globe and we all become homogenised into a bland sameness it's so refreshing to see these proud symbols, each unique, each representing a marker to say we are not all the same.