26 April 2025

After Anzac Day

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The way in which Anzac Day is commemorated reflects the state of New Zealand politics and society in our times. By and large, those who organise these events wish us to remain ignorant about the real history of all the wars in which New Zealand has participated, both the causes of those wars, and the way in which they were fought.

They want to us concentrate our attention on just one aspect of war, which is only half reality and another half myth: the courage and sacrifice of the ordinary soldier. The reality, of course, is complex. The Anzacs, Australian and New Zealand troops, have covered the full gamut from hero to coward, noble idealist to perpetrator of the most atrocious war crimes.

However there is another even more important message to go with that, which is that the conduct of soldiers reflects the moral standards of those who command them. We cannot say anything meaningful about the actions of fighting men without considering the causes in which they fought.

The most significant fact about those who fought for the British against tangata motu during our nineteenth century Wars of Resistance is that they fought in a wrong cause and for wrong reasons. Whether they were brave, skilled and resourceful (in many cases they were) is beside the point. They fought to extend the power of the British empire over our people and they fought for the promise of a share in the confiscated lands. As men many decades dead and beyond the memories of those still living, as a whole they do not need to be either honored or despised. They are mere players in the tragedy of human history. The same may be said of those veterans of the two world wars and other wars which are celebrated on Anzac Day.

Anzac Day commemorations seek to reference New Zealand's historic military alliances, particularly that with Australia (which gives the day its name), Britain and the United States without making any serious attempt to frame those alliances in a moral context. In fact, strenuous efforts are made to exclude the moral context. There may be vague allusions to "freedom", "democracy" and "civilization" which are not developed too far because as soon as you start thinking about those values you begin to question the rationale of New Zealand's past and present wars.

The unspoken rationalization for New Zealand's wars is the reason officially given from the end of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century: that New Zealand must stand with the Britain, Australia, the US and Canada for the sake of the British Empire.

Since the mid-twentieth century the original British empire has metamorphosed into a new imperial order dominated by the renegade former British colonies in the United States. The evolution of this new empire parallels the transmogrification of the classical Roman Empire into the medieval Holy Roman Empire, of which Voltaire observed that it was "neither Holy nor Roman, nor an Empire”.

The same applies to what we can call the Holy British Empire of which the Realm of New Zealand is an integral part. As with the Holy Roman Empire the first among the former provinces have come to overwhelmingly dominate the declining centre. Like the Holy Roman Empire, it has only the appearance of righteousness. It lacks a moral foundation. And like the Holy Roman Empire it is inherently fragmented, with the UK (supported by Australia, Canada and NZ) standing on its historic status and competing with the US for political influence, while the US remains determined to assert its dominance over the whole.

At the same time the non-British element is becoming more conspicuous throughout the empire. Rishi Sunak was a sign of the times. So is Donald Trump with his German ancestry and Czech and Slovenian wives, Barrack Obama, Marco Rubio and a huge element of the political establishment in the citadels of empire. The empire is only nominally British, it is only nominally democratic and it is in the process of fragmenting into nation states.

Yet many of those who attend the dawn services on Anzac Day remain convinced in their own minds that they are part of a British civilization which is somehow associated with the values of freedom and democracy, even if it is not considered seemly to look too deeply into the meaning of "civilization", "freedom" and "democracy" on this "most sacred of days".

Anzac Day is the day on which, more than on any other day, New Zealanders are not allowed to think seriously. Nicola Willis, representing the government at the Wellington commemorations, tried to smuggle in the idea that New Zealand's military assistance to Ukraine and Israel is in keeping with the Anzac tradition. While she was not wrong, in the case of Israel at least that acknowledgement will be offensive to most New Zealanders. With respect to the Gaza genocide, the political establishment in New Zealand is completely at odds with its public.

Last year I attended the Coromandel town Anzac memorial service where I was unlawfully arrested and detained by the New Zealand Police for silently displaying signs which read "Remember Surafend" and "Lest we forget Gaza". (That arrest was strangely incongruent with the idea that the purpose of the day is to celebrate those who "died to defend our freedom"). I attended the same event again yesterday morning, bearing the same two placards. However apart from a silly threat from an RSA official (which he termed "a friendly warning"), events took a different course on this occasion. The police officer on duty could not deny that a genocide was being perpetrated in Gaza and military veterans present expressed their frustration at the New Zealand government's complicity in the atrocities. The regime has reason to be concerned if these are the sentiments to be found within the crowd at an Anzac Day commemoration in 2025.

*With apologies to Ian Cross