ANZAC Day commemorations

By Ken Russell in Articles

Further thoughts on the futility of war

I am indebted to my friend Elizabeth Brooke-Carr for last week's beautifully written piece on 'Warbirds or Skylarks,' written against the backdrop of the Wanaka Air Show and its nostalgic reincarnation of the sights and sounds of world war. Her title encapsulates exactly my attitude to Anzac Day. I am both touched and confounded by the ironies its annual commemoration inevitably arouse in me, and this year, one in seven, as it falls on a Sunday, there is no escaping it.

Anzac Day honours the memory of brave men and women, and most of us count a family member in the roll of honour. An uncle I don't remember was one of them, killed at Crete. I am riveted by the pictures we will doubtless see again today of the sheer scale of the human export to the killing fields of Turkey and France in the first war, young men, bright-eyed and eager to serve God, King, Empire and Country, embarking on the great ships to their "adventure in arms." Their heroic exploits, and their many deaths, are well documented.

But this solemn memorial day also stands sentinel to the failure of war. The Great War was supposedly the war to end all war, to strike from the face of the earth that most ancient and ruinous of scourges. It was not, nor ever will be. Since 1914 the arms industry has grown exponentially, and with it a ravenous consumer appetite for its product, and a shareholder taste for its profit. And with the encouragement of the same industry, experience in the arts of war has seen succeeding generations expanding and perfecting their weaponry, and in this nuclear age having the capacity to annihilate all living things - with the possible exception of the cockroach!

And that, in its turn, is the evil to which Nobel Prize Winner President Barack Obama, has turned his attention in 2010, to eliminate nuclear weapons from the face of the earth. Easily said. He has mind-boggling problems, not least his credibility as Commander in Chief over the world's most powerful nuclear arsenal. I hold no brief for Iran under its present leadership, but last week's description of the USA by a spokesman for the Iranian regime, that 'America stands alone in the world as the only nuclear criminal,' highlights the very problem of credibility with which this brilliant US President approaches his task. We should pray for him this Anzac Day.

Warbirds or skylarks? Like many men I am more familiar with warbirds. Having grown up through it I have a fascination with the history of World War 2, its battles, its leaders, its changes in fortune - ironical in a would-pacifist! I even shared a birthday with Hitler! And here I make a confession. Unlike Elizabeth, my acquaintance with the wilderness, where only the flutter of skylark wings disturbs the silence, is tragically sparse.

But ask me about the future and I will tell you it must be with the skylarks of this world, not the warbirds with their destructive payloads.

On this Anzac Day we gather around our memorials of stone, sing our hymns, say our prayers, and read again the long list of yesterday's heroes. They are long dead, but they are not forgotten.

This last week I recovered a DVD Documentary made in 2005 called "Tau Te Mauri - Breath of Peace." It is a story from other heroes, eight people from the New Zealand peace movement, who no less than the "glorious dead" of world wars have put themselves on the line for the peace we enjoy in New Zealand today. Their names are not written in stone - Jack Rogers, Mary Woodward, George Armstrong, Pauline Tangiora, Bunny Mcdiarmid, Nicky Hager, Moana Cole and Kate Dewes. Their stories are told in the context of the sights and sounds of our own iconic flyers and sailors, the white heron and albatross, the dolphin and the whale, overridden by the haunting voice of Maori peace myths. It is a moving witness.

Following attendance at the Anzac Parade we will open our home for another viewing of the Breath of Peace. Figuratively speaking, from the Warbirds to the Skylark.

"The ill wind, the wind of misfortune
Strikes the peoples' skin
Afflicting the spirit of the world
A deadly wind, this wind of Tu (matauenga)

The people make a stand
To stop the killing of the people
Offer instead the leaf of love
As a gift to our mother Papatuanuku (the earth)."

-- Ken Russell

First printed as a Connections article in the Parish weekly bulletin, April 25, 2010.