Anzac Day

We attended the Anzac Day dawn parade at Browns Bay yesterday morning.

It was an early start -- dawn is pretty early, you know.  To prepare for it, the girls had progressively earlier bedtimes for a couple of night prior.  And as a result, I was up at 5:30 this morning.

But, first world problems, as they say.

Personally, I think the Anzac Day message is about the horrific evils of war.  That war should only ever be the last resort.  Not the rhetorical last resort.  But the really, genuine last resort. Almost all wars weren't the last resort.

The personal, individual stories should tell us that.  Those who died.  Those who survived, but were broken by their experiences.  And also, importantly, those who refused to participate -- yes, let's include remembrances of Archibald Baxter and other conscientious objectors on Anzac Day.

These stories, sadly, need publicly retelling.  For some weird reason, people otherwise start to imagine glories and excitements.

Some of the messages we get on Anzac Day, in my opinion, are not so great.  A couple especially stood out for me yesterday.

The first incident happened during the parade march.  The various uniformed groups (music band, returned servicepeople, currently military, police, emergency workers, scouts, guides, etc) walked along the closed-off road, past us crowds lining the sides.  The road was wide enough, and the marching groups were small enough, such that they only took up about half the width of the road.  Most marching groups chose to march fairly much in the middle of the road, or a little over towards our side, where almost all of the crowds were.  The police group, however, chose to march really close to us crowd, within centimetres of our noses, leaving the other side of the road completely empty.

Why did the police group uniquely do this?  Intimidation?  Toxic masculinity?  I'm not sure, but, at least to me, their walk past had a different feel than any of the other groups.

The second incident happened during the speeches after the parade march.  During the speeches, it was amazing how many times the word "freedom" was used.  Fighting for our freedom, the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, protecting our freedoms, and so on.  What disturbed me was the distinctly nationalistic propaganda feel to these "freedom" speeches.

It would be okay if these wars actually were about fighting for our freedom.  But for the most part they weren't (the Second World War might arguably be the exception, though it is complicated by the post First World War injustices inflicted by the victorious Allies).  In fact, some of these wars, if anything, were quite the opposite.  Think about the reasons for Gallipoli.

Rewriting history for nationalistic propaganda is a bad idea.  Perhaps the Anzac Day message should also be about that.  In another universe, Anzac Day may even be a time for New Zealand to formally apologise to Turkey for its part in the invasion -- New Zealand's attempt to forcefully take away the freedoms of others.