A ‘different’ country now
The march to Anzac Day has inevitably taken a somewhat different route this year. That is understandable, given it is commemorated a day shy of six weeks since the Christchurch mosque shootings, an act of terrorism which cost 50 Muslim lives.
Like it or not, we are a different country from the one that last gathered to commemorate the Gallipoli landings on April 25, 1915, and the casualty-strewn campaign that followed.
The March 15 massacre, of course, has had a practical impact on Anzac Day commemorations – a number of smaller services, almost entirely in the Auckland region, have been cancelled or consolidated, and armed police will attend those
services. The region will see just 26 services, twothirds fewer than planned, as a result of consultation between police, the Auckland Council and local Returned and Services’ Associations. While there was ‘‘no information to suggest a specific risk to public safety at this time’’, Superintendent Kathryn Malthus said, police had recommended the consolidation of a number of planned events in the interests of public safety. That suggests concerns about resources being spread too thinly. Even in the absence of a specific threat, and with our terror alert level downgraded to medium, it’s a sensible step. The buildup has also seen some soul-searching about the point of these commemorations, after it was suggested a prayer by a Wellington imam conclude the service at Titahi Bay, near Wellington, to acknowledge the Christchurch victims. The move drew threats and was canned.
The obvious subtext, that Anzac Day commemorations are only about Anzacs, and are somehow Christian, is interesting and flawed. Later today at dawn, Turkish time, thousands of New Zealanders and Australians will gather for the service at Gallipoli’s Anzac Cove, as they do every year, warmly welcomed by a secular nation with a majority Muslim population, which also suffered horrendous casualties during the conflict there.
The Turkish hospitality is reciprocated here, by another secular nation, where 48 per cent of respondents to the 2013 census claimed a Christian affiliation, and where, in the capital, the Ataturk Memorial, the result of an agreement between Turkey, New Zealand and Australia, has stood since 1990 above Tarakena Bay, a site chosen for its similarity to the Gallipoli Peninsula.
That memorial and, since 2017, the Turkish Memorial at Wellington’s Pukeahu National War Memorial Park carry a reconciliation message widely attributed to Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Republic of Turkey, to the families of those Allied troops who died in WWI and are buried in Turkey. They seem especially apt now.
‘‘Those heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives, you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side in this country of ours . . . After having lost their lives on this land they become our sons as well.’’
There is an abiding message there. Wars have no ‘‘winners’’. They bring permanent loss on all sides. What they should turn our minds to, even as we commemorate those of our number who made the ultimate sacrifice, is reconciliation and peace.