WARS, ANZAC, AND WAR AGAINST WAR

By David Kitchingman in All Sorts

reflections on ANZAC day-negotiating ethical minefields

WARS, ANZAC, AND WAR AGAINST WAR
Anzac - 99, going on 100. As the rush is on to transcribe names from aging war memorials, the memorializing of the issues shows no sign of fading during the centenary year of the beginning of the First World War. Thoughts and questions on Anzac and the wider world of war come from varied sources. Here are a few from recent reading, viewing, and attendances.
"War: what is it good for?" So asks Stanford University professor Ian Morris in a book by that title reviewed in the April 26 issue of the Listener. In the Stone Age, 10-20% of people died violently; in the 20th century, despite its world wars, just 1-2% died violently. What has made the world so much safer, he argues, was war itself, all due to an unintended side effect of the increasing pacification of subjects in ever larger society units. Whatever the pros and cons of his case, it's a
warning against facile pronouncements either way, or indeed on any aspect of human conflict.
"Marching as to war? The Anglican Church in New Zealand during World War II". This 2008 book by Geoffrey Haworth fills an important gap in church history. According to the 39 Articles of the Church of England agreed upon in 1562, "It is lawful for Christian men...to wear weapons and serve in the wars." While the Anglicans in New Zealand were at most only a quasi-established church, they nonetheless were under more pressure than, say, the Methodists to toe the line. Yet they too had a vocal minority of pacifists who found themselves up against the harshest policy towards military defaulters of any country in the Commonwealth. From the two churches, 32 and 68 respectively were held in detention camps.
"Field Punishment No. 1". Many will have seen this dramatization on TV1 on 22 April of the experiences of 14 conscientious objectors in World War I. This broke new ground for public broadcasting by dealing with the dark side of the military machine in its determination to break the will of pacifists by shipping them off to the front line and even in some cases inflicting crucifixion-like punishment. Archibald Baxter (father of poet James K Baxter) was a particular target who barely survived the ordeal.
The Archibald Baxter Memorial Trust. This charitable trust is now very active in Dunedin and is planning to erect a physical memorial to Baxter. It's sponsoring a secondary schools essay competition on the subject, "They also served who would not fight", and it is organising a memorial lecture to be given in September. Its stance, in Baxter's own words, is that "Passive resistance to evil is the power that will yet conquer the world".
"The casualties of war are manifold". So ran the heading of Ian Harris's article in the Otago Daily Times on Anzac Day. He picked up on the
shocking story of Baxter and cites the striking and sympathetic hymn for Anzac Day written by Shirley Murray - "Honour the dead, our country's fighting brave" (Hope is our Song, no. 61). Harris notes that it has not yet found widespread acceptance or has occasionally been used without its 3rd verse which honours conscientious objectors, "the brave whose conscience was their call". Acknowledgement of the courageous stand made by pacifists is a very much overdue corrective to existing nationalistic remembrance hymns, yet I have always had a reservation about the implications of how it is expressed in this hymn. There seems to be an inescapable inference that no others might have acted in accordance with their own conscience (even if it were considered less enlightened). There is a great need for a nuanced appreciation of how courage and conscience operate in the cauldron of human experience. The hymn might achieve this with rather little change to make it one that the whole nation could really share.
"Anzac Day Dawn Parade, Dunedin, 0630 hrs". The dark walk down to Queen's Gardens Cenotaph affords a unique opportunity for personal reflection. By contrast, a certain carping mood began to affect me as I melted into the large crowd. It has become customary at concerts, funerals and the like for announcements to be made asking people to turn off their cell phones. Would that the same had been said before the dawn service! Constant checking, texting and snapping marred the atmosphere that could have evoked men trembling in trenches awaiting the order to charge. Unfortunately too, the concussion from the gun salute, consisting of two rounds from a 105 Howitzer, had the all too familiar effect of merely triggering tittering among many present. Is solemnity too much to ask for at such a moment? Yes, I suppose it is. One nicer touch to the service - the singing of the Australian National Anthem, even if, by all accounts, New Zealand barely gets a mention in most Australian observances.
"Anzac Peace Ceremony", Peace Pole, Otago Museum Lawn, 4.00 pm.
This multicultural, multifaith service was organised this year by the
faculty and students of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. It cut a much broader swathe through the complex matters arising from remembering past hostilities and casualties. A Maori contribution featured a poi dance and singing, and words from a woman of Parihaka. The four interfaith speakers were Christian (Greg Hughson), Hari Krishna, Tibetan Buddhist and Muslim. Greg (a Taranakian, as I am) paid tribute to the Parihaka pacifist prophets of the 19th century, Te Whiti and Tohu. This ties in with recent calls for national remembrance to embrace our own internal land wars at least as much as our involvement in foreign wars. Finally, two of the speakers from other faiths stretched out the whole range of peace reflection by referring to the vulnerability of the animal kingdom to the ravages of human carnivorousness.
Minefields are a feature of many wars, posing grievous danger. But even for those who merely reflect on war from the safety of 21st century New Zealand suburbia, there are ethical minefields to negotiate. On many varied aspects we need to think with great care.
David Kitchingman