New reluctance about fighting for our country
Anzac Day always raises the question of how ready we would be to follow in the footsteps of the fallen New Zealand servicepeople we remember at the dawn services.
Not all of those who fought overseas in the two global conflicts were volunteers, but readiness to fight, or at least contribute to the fight, at least from this distance, appears to have been strong.
A Gallup International Global Survey in 2015 looked at the present readiness to fight and found the people most keen to make the sacrifice for their country lived in Morocco and Fiji. Pakistan, India and Vietnam were not far behind and Russia and China were up there as well. Japan and the Netherlands were at the bottom of the table, with only 11 per cent of the Japanese respondents (Netherlands 15 per cent) in the survey willing to fight for their country. New Zealand wasn’t part of the survey but in Australia only 29 per cent answered yes.
Reluctance could be due to many factors. We have rightly become sceptical and suspicious of the machinations and real motives for conflicts and tensions and are more careful about choosing sides. Call this an increase in political sophistication.
The West used to be thought of as a force for good in the world. It still has a lot to offer, but its hold on the moral high ground is continually undermined by selfinterest and tricky dealings. We are much more ready to ask: Is it worth it? Do our leaders know what they are doing? We might fight for our country’s interests but are increasingly confused about what they are.
The thought of sending our young people off to be possibly killed or maimed now seems abhorrent, almost inconceivable. Conscription and the consequent disruption of people’s lives seems impossible. Families are smaller, leaving parents far more reluctant to support any war, and perhaps our lack of readiness is due to our comfortable lifestyles. We have more to lose.
Pacifism used to be regarded as cowardice and is now much more respectable.
We also have a professional military. We pay them to put themselves in harm’s way. Meet interesting people and kill them used to be the joke about army recruitment.
Most of my generation has watched 40 years of anti-war films, ensuring the glory of war has lost most of its romantic appeal or nobility.
No doubt New Zealanders would object to being invaded, but we would wonder if fighting and violent resistance were productive. If a large power decided to invade and occupy New Zealand we would have to decide whether resistance was worth it. Lives would be lost for nothing because the larger power would win regardless – unless allies came to help.
A more likely situation calling for our involvement is a multination conflict far away. We would be fighting to protect the interests of the West rather than to defend our land. Would New Zealanders be swept up in a wave of patriotic enthusiasm as experienced in the early stages of the two world wars? Probably not, although anything could happen if our national stomach for a fight is questioned.
That is not to say that New Zealanders involved in previous conflicts were doing it mainly for king and country. The desire for something more exciting than the everyday, and wanting to be with their mates, were probably stronger motivations.
Many would wonder what sort of New Zealand they were expected to
We also have a professional military. We pay them to put themselves in harm’s way.
fight for. A common enemy and a common cause would help to unite a country, even if divisions and disparities are today more marked and entrenched.
Some, like the Ma¯ ori Party’s Rawiri Waititi, might regard some New Zealanders as not worth fighting for.
After a poorly worded tweet in which a staffer suggested Caucasians were an archaic New Zealand species on the way out, he outlined his belief that ‘‘a new Aotearoa is on the rise. Tangata Whenua (Ma¯ ori) + Tangata Tiriti (all other ethnicities who are committed to a tiriti centric Aotearoa) = the Aotearoa I believe in fighting for’’.
Others, like former editor and columnist Karl du Fresne, might regard the transformation of New Zealand as so fundamentally misguided that the New Zealand he felt patriotic about no longer exists.
‘‘New Zealand sometimes feels as if it’s in the grip of a Year Zero cult similar in tone, if not in scale, to that promoted in Pol Pot’s Kampuchea (Cambodia), where everything that had gone before was renounced,’’ he wrote in a recent opinion piece for the Australian Spectator magazine.
The willingness to fight for country depends partly on putting aside the issues that make people despair about their country. Identity politics, where issues are seen mainly through the lens of personal experience or status, do not help develop a patriotic spirit sufficient to motivate people to make the ultimate sacrifice.
I suspect it wouldn’t take much for New Zealanders to rally to the flag if required. Though maybe an all-in war is a thing of the past, and we will never again be tested like the generations before us. Let’s hope so.