Aboriginal soldiers who served in World War I and World War II returned home to systemic discrimination and denial of basic rights, fueling the Indigenous activism movement that would eventually force Australia to confront its treatment of First Nations people, according to new research published in The Conversation.
These soldiers fought for a country that didn't recognize them as citizens. They weren't counted in the census. They couldn't vote. In some states, they needed permission to leave reserves. And when they came home from the war, those restrictions remained.
Mate, this cuts through the Anzac mythology to show the hypocrisy at its core. Aboriginal soldiers fought for freedom abroad while being denied it at home.
Thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men served in both world wars. They enlisted alongside white Australians, fought in the same trenches, faced the same dangers. But the mateship celebrated in Anzac legend didn't extend beyond the battlefield.
When Aboriginal soldiers returned home, they found that military service didn't grant them citizenship or voting rights. In Queensland, returned Aboriginal servicemen were still subject to the state's protection acts, which controlled where they could live and work. In Western Australia and the Northern Territory, they needed permission from a government official to move freely.
The racism was explicit. Aboriginal veterans were often excluded from RSL (Returned and Services League) clubs. They were denied the same benefits as white veterans. Some were forced back onto missions and reserves, their war service counted for nothing.
But their military experience had changed them. Aboriginal soldiers had seen the world. They'd been treated as equals by soldiers from other countries. They'd fought for ideals—freedom, democracy, justice—that were denied to them at home. And they weren't willing to accept it anymore.
The research shows how Aboriginal veterans became leaders in the emerging Indigenous rights movement. Douglas Nicholls, who served in World War II, became a prominent activist and eventually the first Aboriginal person appointed as a state governor. William Ferguson, a WWI veteran, co-founded the Aborigines Progressive Association and organized the 1938 Day of Mourning protest.
Their military service gave them credibility and confidence. How could Australia deny basic rights to men who'd fought for the country? The contradiction was impossible to ignore.
The 1967 referendum, which finally allowed the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginal people and count them in the census, was driven in part by this generation of activists. Many were veterans or the children of veterans. They'd proven their loyalty. Now they demanded equality.
This Anzac Day, as Australia honors its war dead, it's worth remembering that the Anzac legend was built on selective memory. Aboriginal soldiers served. They sacrificed. And they came home to a country that treated them as second-class citizens—until they forced Australia to change.
