The High Streets of New Zealand had a tale to tell on Poppy Day. As many, if not more, young people were wearing red poppies as those of an age which placed them much closer to the soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought and died in the wars of last century.
The story would be the same at dawn services throughout the country today with young people attending the ceremonies in impressive numbers, signifying a desire to embrace Anzac Day in a manner never contemplated by the generations which preceded them. Some have even gone to the effort and expense of travelling to Gallipoli. The passing years have sharpened the regard in which this country holds its fallen heroes.
It was not always so. In the decade or two after the Second World War, Anzac Day seemed to be observed almost as much out of responsibility as reverence. To a degree, that might have reflected the ambivalent attitude of many of the returned soldiers. Some turned their backs on the horrors they had endured. Their children learned little of what they had gone through. Some, on the other hand, regaled their offspring with too many a tale. Those children had heard more than enough about war.
Anzac Day's stocks slipped still further during the Vietnam War. As popular opinion turned increasingly against that conflict, the day became a symbol of militarism in some eyes. Rarely can a more distorted conclusion have been drawn. Nonetheless, there was reason enough to suggest that Anzac Day might drift out of the public consciousness, just as the likes of Armistice Day faded into insignificance. As the the number of Gallipoli veterans began to dwindle, so Anzac Day exercised a tenuous hold on public sensibility.
Today, all of those who served at Gallipoli have passed away. In fact, only two of the 100,000 men who enlisted in New Zealand for the First World War are still alive.
Yet Anzac Day has defied all pessimistic notions. The grandchildren of those who fought in the second of the world wars have added a new dimension to the commemoration, both in number and sentiment.
Anzac Day has always been about the familiar names on the country's war memorials. It is about young men who left home to go to war, never to return. It is about duty and honour, concepts that have been eroded by modern pragmatism. But to the youth of today, it also appears to be about a sense of history and pride in their country.
Most fundamentally, there seems to be an appreciation of the sacrifice required to forge a shared identity. If Gallipoli was not the birthplace of our nationhood, it confirmed a belief in our New Zealandness.
Until now, the pull of Anzac Day has always been greater in Australia, perhaps precisely because Gallipoli was more significant as the birthplace of that country's identity. The fledgling states of Australia were far flung and more disparate than the provinces of New Zealand. To a greater extent, Victorians, New South Welshmen, West Australians and others discovered what it was to be Australian as the horrors of Gallipoli unfolded.
A similar appreciation of history and sacrifice is now more apparent on this side of the Tasman. It underpins the New Zealand memorial to the Gallipoli campaign in Canberra, which was dedicated by Prime Ministers Helen Clark and John Howard last night. This was the latest step in Helen Clark's creditable cultivation of a nation's burgeoning interest. Last year, a group of young people accompanied her to the Anzac Day commemorations at Gallipoli. Next month, four winners of an essay competition will go with her to the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Crete.
They will find the New Zealand graves at Suda Bay as sobering as the many scattered atop the ridges of Gallipoli. They will also find that the people of Crete remember the New Zealanders who fought bravely but in vain to repel the Germans from their island. The Cretans are a proud people who place great store by a history dating back to Minoan civilisation. New Zealand is a tot in comparison.
Anzac Day suggests, however, that a similar sense of pride and history is stirring.
<i>Editorial:</i> And more of us do remember them
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