Editorial - Sept 18, 2012

The handful of people who gathered at the RNZAF memorial at Waipapakauri on Sunday were once again invited to remember those who gave their lives in the World War 2, specifically the young men, some of them teenagers, who died in the Battle of Britain.

Seventy-two years ago young men from throughout the British Empire took to the air to defend Britain against a foe who had already crushed France, and was expected to invade England as well. Those plans were well advanced when the Battle of Britain began, Hitler entrusting his Luftwaffe to clear the skies of Allied resistance before sending his armies across the English Channel. And so began four months of aerial combat, England's winning of which represented the first major setback for the would-be conqueror of Europe. More than 3000 men, 574 of them from outside Britain, were 'The Few' who helped turn the tide, 544 of them losing their lives. Another 791 died before the war ended.

Every September, we are invited to remember the sacrifices those young men made, and of course again on April 25, a commemoration inspired by the ill-fated invasion at Gallipoli in 1915, an awful baptism of fire for New Zealand and Australian troops that neither country has forgotten.

We are told that Anzac Day has grow in significance over recent years, that New Zealanders have increasingly come to recognise its importance. Perhaps. Certainly the attendance at services around the country, including Kaitaia, suggests that it has not lost its place in our national psyche. Our actions say otherwise though.

When one looks at our world as it is in 2012, we have to ask if we are remembering those who died on our behalf as some sort of historic irrelevance to the 21st Century, and if we could do more to genuinely honour their memory.

The best hope comes from the teenagers who over recent years have addressed Kaitaia's Anzac Day services, and who, without exception, have made the link between the courage, sense of duty and selflessness of those young men (and women) who sailed for the far side of the world in 1914-18 and again in 1939-45, and to other destinations since, and the obligation we have to honour them not only with words but with actions. Perhaps as those teenagers grow older they will bring with them a greater sense of commitment, a sense of history, and a desire to use those sacrifices to build a world that those who died might be proud of.

It is difficult to believe that those who launched themselves into English skies day after day in 1940, not knowing if they would return but always knowing that there was a good chance they would not, would view New Zealand in 2012 with anything but dismay. They could not help but see that the sense of duty with which they were so richly endowed, the need, even if bolstered with youthful bravado, to play their part in serving the greater good has been supplanted by a culture that values the individual above all else.

Where once there was a sense of duty there is now greed, where once there was determination to contribute to building a nation and a society there is now selfishness and laziness, where once there was pride there is now venal self-service.

In 2012, New Zealand is a country where politicians ignore the realities of a global financial crisis by maintaining government spending that is sustainable only while others fund it, without thinking of the day of reckoning that must come. If they are not in a position to spend money they promise new ways of doing so when the opportunity arises, aimed at currying enough favour to win an election and to reinforce the malaise that afflicts the many who see no connection between effort and reward.

We live in a country where the state is now preparing to feed the children of parents who cannot be bothered doing so, who are so bereft of common decency that they believe their wants and needs come before those of their children.

The young men who flew to their deaths in 1940 cannot have imagined a world where parents would one day abrogate their most fundamental obligation to their children, to feed them. There is surely no other society in the world, and many are poorer than ours, that treats children so disgracefully.

So if parents won't do it, the taxpayer will. The taxpayer who complains about how money is wasted, but sits and watches, almost without objection, to money that might be invested in health and education being spent on toast and fruit for children whose parents have utterly failed them.

This is now a world where politicians threaten to deprive parents of their welfare benefits if they don't enrol their children in some form of pre-school education, enrol them with a general practice and ensure they receive specific health checks as they grow. New Zealand's education and health services were once a source of envy by the rest of the world.

New Zealand children, certainly compared with many in Britain, have traditionally grown up bigger, stronger and healthier than others, with a world-class education available to each and every one of them. They began life with advantages other countries could only dream of. Now The Government has to threaten to punish parents if they do not avail themselves of those advantages.

How on Earth did we get here? How is it that in three or four generations we have descended to the point where The Government has to threaten to punish parents who do not meet the most basic needs of their children?

What does New Zealand in 2012 have in common with Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jnr., the Shanghai-born American who was educated at Rugby and went to Canada so he could fly with the RCAF? Nothing. There is no way of knowing what this remarkable young man would have done with his life had he not lost it in a mid-air collision over Lincolnshire in 1941, just a few months after he celebrated his 19th birthday, but it would be worth betting that he would not have allowed the state to feed his children.

The teenager who wrote the extraordinary poem 'High Flight' would surely not have needed a stick to beat him into giving his children every opportunity to succeed that was within his power to give. The man who 'slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings,' who 'topped the windswept heights with easy grace where never lark, or even eagle flew,' who 'trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space, put out my hand and touched the face of God' was clearly made of better stuff than that.

Seventy-one years later we have come a very long way, mostly downward. We have lost the vision that John Gillespie Magee, Jnr., possessed in spades, we have lost our sense of duty to ourselves and to others, and we have desecrated the example set for us by so many not so very long ago.

Some by their appalling inability to see, let alone do what is right, others by allowing them to descend so far without rebuke.

We can recite the words every April 25 and mid-September, we can undertake to remember them at the going down of the sun and in the morning, but without actions those are simply words, and words mean nothing.