Anzac rhetoric and the Iraq war

I recently posted a comment on facebook expressing my outrage and disgust at Hekia Parata's comments in support of the move to send NZ troops to Iraq. Like many other people in New Zealand I'm angry at the Key government for maneuvering us into this misguided war. My emotional response was further inflamed by these words quoted in a recent (26/02) Herald article :

Education Minister Hekia Parata said in a fiery speech she was raised on the history of war heroes and turning out for Anzac Day and the point of having a defence force was to carry out such deployments. She said the country could not evoke the emotion of turning up to Anzac Days but then turn away when the practical reality of what that meant presented itself.

The article continues with sickening details from Parata's speech. She links Anzac “values” with the content of the New Zealand school curriculum, and argues that we should send troops to be true to that legacy of courage, responsibility and wisdom.

The Curator's Reply

The short history of this blog has so far been a fairly lonely one. I have received a few positive comments from like minded friends and people who share my perspective on New Zealand's role in WW1. While these are appreciated, I had hoped to receive some critical comments too. Many of the opinions expressed in this blog are clearly opposed to the more mainstream views of Anzac day seen in Newspapers, TV and various magazines. I provided a link to my blog at the official government “WW100” site, and various other internet sites which related to this topic. The results were a handful of views, but no comments on any of my posts.

Letter to the Otago Early Settler's Museum

I'm a regular visitor to the Otago Settler's Museum, it's a great place for my 2 year old boy to run around in and occasionally look at the exhibits. The 'Dunedin's Great War' exhibit has been going for several months now, and over time I have managed to look at a few snippets of it when I am not busy looking after my boy. The title of the exhibit, and the central image of the small child saluting the union jack, I find highly objectionable. The emphasis on remembrance of the dead and military history, and the marginalisation of almost all other aspects of the war is not really very surprising. These more or less obvious ideological points aside, I was motivated to write a letter to the curator because of some factual innaccuracies and omissions. I think I have succeeded in being polite and reasonable sounding, while at the same time not pulling any punches:

In the shadow of Gallipoli - review

In the Shadow of Gallipoli: The hidden history of Australia in World War I

By Robert Bollard

Pub. NewSouth 2013

I spotted this book in the display section in Dunedin Public library a few months ago. There's a mountain of literature on Gallipoli, and a fairly large chunk of it seems to revolve around questions of military strategy and personal details about the soldiers who died. I knew nothing about Robert Bollard, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that he was a Marxist historian, and that the book wasn't really about Gallipoli at all. Instead, this book tells the fascinating story of the labour struggles in Australia between the outbreak of WWI in 1914 and the early 1920s.

Some thoughts about courage (part one)

I've been working on this for a while and it's still not really finished - I need to tie it back to Baxter again, so I will write a part two later.

The motivation for this post is a recent article in the ODT about Archibald Baxter and the conscientious objectors. There's an interesting quote in the article by Professor Tom Brooking, who describes both the pacifists such as Baxter and the regular soldiers as brave:

Robin Hyde's 'Nor the Years Condemn' and the ideology of Anzac Day

The following is the text of a speech I gave recently at the 'War Memorialisation and the Nation' conference at the University of Otago. It turned out to be far too long for the 30 minute time limit, and although I'm reasonably happy with it as it stands, there's a lot more work to be done. The concept of Anzac ideology is just a sketch, which requires a lot more further development. 

The Anzac – Silver Fern – Security Council Trifecta: Prospects for NZ nationalism in 2015

Our Anzac day has always been a fairly muted and low key version. Compared to Australian version it is nowhere near such a big deal here. But at the same time it has definitely gone under a resurgence of popularity recently. With the centenary in 2015, it will be a big deal – lots of media attention etc etc. At the same time later in the year there will be a flag change referendum. And at the same time NZ has spent millions, and won a place on the UN security council. The spin is we are able to contribute a “unique and independent voice” to the council.