Editorial: Standing on sacred ground

Anzac Day, it seems, remains deeply embedded in the national consciousness. Throughout the country, young people attend dawn services in numbers that pay no heed to the increasing gulf in years that separate them from last century's wars. The ravages of time have only heightened the esteem in which those who fought and died in those conflicts are held. And as a new, and welcome, sensibility permeates dawn services in this country, so there is a growing impulse to attend the most poignant of ceremonies, that held at Gallipoli, the birthplace of the Anzac tradition.

To the vast majority of the 16,000 or so young New Zealanders and Australians who attend, it is a solemn and sobering experience. An acclaimed ABC television documentary, The Fatal Shore, depicted a group of young backpackers in a tour bus en route to the Anzac Cove ceremony. As Gallipoli drew near, guitars were packed away, joking subsided and the bus fell silent. For these descendants of the Anzacs, this was a time to contemplate the sense of duty and the sacrifice of the men who landed on the peninsula on April 25, 1915.

And when Gallipoli was reached, it became a time to regard with awe and pride what was achieved in the harshest of circumstances. No memorial stands higher for the New Zealanders than that on Chunuk Bair. And no one is immune from feeling sorrow when viewing New Zealand graves scattered in small cemeteries across the Gallipoli ridges.

The increasing popularity of this pilgrimage has, however, seemingly become a double-edged sword. To some European-based New Zealanders and Australians, it appears to have become as unthinking an experience as other alcohol-fuelled trips on the OE - the Running of the Bulls at Pamplona, Munich's Oktoberfest and such like. So distasteful have the antics of these louts become that there is talk of avoiding Gallipoli on Anzac Day.

Some blame tourism companies for cheapening the occasion. At the very least, these companies have made what was once a relatively inaccessible spot into an easy, and even traffic-congested, destination. But in the main their increased presence reflects simply the demand for this pilgrimage.

Probably, the dim-witted behaviour of a few has attracted undue attention. And, certainly, people must not take to avoiding Gallipoli on April 25. That would serve the purpose of any louts, and help to undermine the respect and emotion which attends the Anzac Cove service. Young Anzacs prepared to sleep rough and cold under Turkish skies should surely be able to shame those who would devalue the occasion. Errant behaviour will never be acceptable at services in Australia and New Zealand. Nor should there be less solemnity at Gallipoli.

If anything, the reverse is true. Gallipoli is sacred soil for Turks, too. The rugged landscape is pinpointed with Turkish memorials, many acknowledging this was the battle in which Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey, made his name. There could be few complaints if the Turkish authorities took the dimmest view of drunkenness. Relations between Turks and New Zealanders and Australians mirror a respect forged during the Gallipoli fighting. That will not survive if the descendants of the Anzacs tread this ground with disdain.

But the problem should not be overstated. The wretched few will surely come to regret their antics. And they should be viewed as an aberration. In no way can they detract from our increasing reverence for Anzac Day, and all that it entails.

Feature: Anzac Day

Anzac photo exhibition:
Harold Paton's pictures of WW II