Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man was a Jesuit maxim attributed to Ignatius Loyola. It is probably apocryphal, but it is an approach many have taken over the years to implant ideas in young minds.

The Australian War Memorial however is yet another organisation which appears to be testing its validity. Ironically, however, it often justifies its approach with language which Jesuit opponents would have dubbed ‘Jesuitical’.

The AWM makes grants to fund school visits and the AWM has often presented war as an exciting adventure and a site for play. The expanded AWM, when it opens over budget and late, will have a large area devoted to weapons which will involve play and adventure while at the same time making very little room, if at all, for the depiction of Australia’s first war – the Frontier Wars.

The Medical Association for the Prevention of War has recently issued an important report – Time to Talk Peace the Australian War Memorial and Children. The report proposes eight principles which should guide how war is presented at the AWM.

In a Foreword renowned children’s author, Jackie French AM, says “This century was marked by extreme violence and there are threats of worse to come. Young Australians deserve something better than the existing narrative of endless wars. The Australian War Memorial is uniquely placed to provide it.”

The first principle is that there is no place for weapons companies.  In the three years to 2023 such companies gave $830,000 in sponsorships and donations receiving corporate branding rights, venue hire, attendance offers for functions and major ceremonies and other benefits.

The report says: “The never again hopes of First World War soldiers and Lord Gowrie’s plea for the War Memorial to be a reminder that we need a ‘less barbarous method of settling our international disputes than by international slaughter’ is totally at odds with a war memorial that accepts funding from weapons manufacturers that profit from killing military personnel.”

The second principle is that the memorial is no place to play and cites that before its COVID closure, the Discovery Zone children’s area contained WWI trenches, a submarine and helicopter all set up for play and bearing zero resemblance to the real thing.

AWM Director, Matt Anderson, in answer to a Senate Estimates hearing question from Senator David Shoebridge about the use of play activities for children, said it was based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which recognised “the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities.”

Rest, leisure and play in a war memorial is a marked contrast to another UN Convention statement that “The child should be brought up in the spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity.”

Principle three is the need for honest story-telling, including on the suffering and inhumanity of wars. War is hell for soldiers, civilians, the basic necessities of life and traumatises ex-service people and often their families. The environmental damage is also immense – witness the unnecessary Laotian Plain of Jars bombing and the widespread use of Agent Orange in Vietnam.

Principle four is the need for culturally appropriate exhibits which reflect our multicultural society and the percentage of Australians born overseas. There might, under this heading, be some feature on the former Fascists and Croatian Ustashi whose entry our secret police facilitated after WWII.

Principle five is that it is well past time that the Frontier Wars were included. The report says: “Perhaps the Memorial’s greatest failing is its education children about war is its persistent refusal to commemorate the wars fought on this land by white settlers against First Nations people.”

Given Peter Dutton’s refusal to stand in front of First Nations flags this augurs badly for the immediate future of AWM Frontier Wars representation if he wins, as he may well do, at the next election.

Principle six is the need to inspire hope in children. The AWM is not a peace museum and given Australian governments enthusiasm for joining any war it can, it’s unlikely that it will ever fulfil Lord Gowrie’s hope that we should use the AWM to swear ‘never again’.

It does, however, recognise peacekeepers and its records include the invaluable archive of General John Sanderson and the Cambodian peacekeeping operation. It might also organise a major display on the only time an Australian organisation has won the Nobel Peace Prize – the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Campaign which won in 2017

It could perhaps also follow the UK Imperial War Museum’s 2017 recognition of the nation’s peace campaigns including the major People Power: Fighting for Peace exhibition and its ongoing recognition of voices for peace. That’s unlikely while people like Tony Abbott and Greg Melick are AWM Council members and would no doubt be denounced by the LNP as dangerous ‘wokeness’.

Principle seven is about curation of exhibits and the need for an advisory group which ensures that the AWM children’s activities are developed in line with the Australian curriculum. The AWM says it’s all under control but the report says “key skills are notably absent from the Memorial’s activities, including contestability, critical thinking and intercultural understanding.” To adapt the old joke about Mrs Lincoln and that play –we need more challenging questions than asking what did you think about the games on offer?

Incidentally, the AWM is apparently experiencing some staff turnover among various specialist positions which is probably making things worse.

Finally, the report proposes Principle 8 – the creation of a living, evolving children’s space to ensure the exhibits are not misinterpreted. It is impossible for any War Memorial to totally reflect the reality of war, the horrors, the fears, the deaths and mutilations. But while that is impossible, it is possible to avoid glorifying war and big boy war toys.