Three-day weekends are always good. I like it that Anzac Day landed on a Friday this year - the only drawback is that we'll lose a public holiday two years in a row because the damn thing isn't Mondayised. Or Fridayised. New Zealand had its usual maudlin wallow in sentiment and the TV was unbearable - although I admit to turning on the service held at the National War Memorial, but only because two of my friends were singing in the Wellington Cathedral Choir and the Dean of Wellington (another friend) was leading the service. The choir was in particularly good voice, which is good as they've got a huge tour to Europe coming up soon (taking in Westminster Abbey, St George's Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral etc....).
Not that I'm against the whole honour-the-fallen thing but I fail to see how one of the most poorly-planned, poorly executed operations of WWI (Gallipoli) could "create a nation". Yes, I've read about Chunuk Bair (I had to study that appallingly bad play Once on Chunuk Bair by Maurice Shadbolt), yes, I've studied the Gallipoli campaign, and I had years of honour guard for Anzac Day dawn services when I was in ATC and was absolutely exploding with pride standing on the cenotaph with my rifle grounded in ceremonial rest. Politicians go on and on about how Gallipoli changed NZ, and to a certain extent it did, but it was more the entirety of WWI and its aftermath: one quarter of the entire NZ population killed in action, and then the 1918 influenza epidemic put paid to a whole lot more.
I think it needs a lot more than just one operation to "create a nation" and to create a national spirit and national pride. And I'm not sure NZ has got there yet.
Pachyderm
2 comments:
I think Once on Chunuk Bair was a good play - I too studied and remember thinking it was well structured and well developed -character and storywise.
I would also suggest that NZ has a national identity, it's uncertain at times, but it's there. But as you prob noticed from my rant on my blog, I hate the concept of national identity as determined by war... Our artists, musicians (particuarly the Dunners sound in the 80s/90s, and Wgtn in this decade) do define NZ well - as do the All Blacks and the Cricket team.
b.
You know that even before I opened the comments section on this post - I knew exactly who it was :-p
S.
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