My U-turn on Anzac Day
I’ve always struggled with Anzac Day. I worry that it feels like a jingoistic celebration of war and doesn’t allow for critical commentary.
I worry that any voice that goes against the narrative of the Glorious Dead is silenced by this notion that somehow we wouldn’t have freedom if these poor souls hadn’t been marched off to fight.
I used to sit out Anzac Day – another smarmy pacifist.
But I was wrong. Wrong about what the day represents and wrong about what it will represent in the future.
You see, every Anzac Day my old man heads up to Victoria Park to a service at the 19th Battalion Memorial.
The memorial is a really touching place and I recommend it as a great place to take kids to teach them about sacrifice.
While I’ve stood around being bitchy about celebrating war my dad’s just bypassed his own children. Instead he takes his grandkids.
My nephew is an emotional wee soul. From the time he could talk he displayed a huge emotional quotient. You know when you look at the way a kid behaves and you can already see what they’ll be like as an adult?
Well, I can tell my nephew will be compassionate when he grows up. Hopefully boofhead Kiwi culture doesn’t drum it out of him.
If he were in Captain Planet the wee fella would be Heart.
And to watch him heading up the hill, hand in hand with my father (his grandfather) reminds me that compassion and understanding of what others have gone through is the key message of Anzac Day – not the celebration of war.
Earlier this year I attended Warbirds Over Wanaka. It was a fantastic display of aviation.
But the subtext sat uneasily with me: war is good and must be celebrated.
Pilots flew overhead in their death machines while the commentators blandly announced how many confIrmed kills Major someone-or-other had. The crowd didn’t bat an eyelid. It cheered.
Warbirds Over Wanaka was an unthinking celebration of war. Anzac Day is not and must never be a celebration of murder.
It is and must remain a time to remember those poor souls who were marched off to the other side of a world by a command structure that felt more like it should be fighting Napoleon than the Hun.
The kids who head off with my father are special. They’re the last generation that will remember services where the old Diggers were actually in attendance.
The 19th Battalion dwindled. Last year there was one remaining member at the service. This year there was none.
And my nephew reminds me why Anzac Day is important. And why it’s different from celebrating war. When he looks up at my father with those big eyes full of compassion he asks: ‘‘Why?’’
This, I think, is what Anzac Day is about. Yes we celebrate those that went and died for whatever their personal reasons were. Yes we celebrate those that returned. But the day must continue to be a discussion on war and never degenerate into a mindless, patriotic celebration.
I think Eric Bogle said it best at the end of his stunning poem about Gallipoli, ‘‘The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’’:
‘‘Now every April, I sit on me porch, and I watch the parades pass before me And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march, reviving old dreams of past glories
‘‘And the old men march slowly, old bones stiff and sore, the forgotten heroes of a forgotten war
‘‘And the young people ask, what are they marching for? ...and I ask myself the same question.