In my sixth form year of high school, one major thing happened to me. My grandfather, Derek Hay, was diagnosed with dementia. This happened after he suffered a stroke during a hip operation. One day after I returned home from school I got a call to say that Poppa had had a fall, and that I should come over and help Grandma. When I got there Poppa was having a flashback from his service years. Suddenly we were transported back to some battlefield in Southeast Asia, and I was no longer Jackson, but a brother in arms. Poppa was calling for more ammunition and that he was wounded. Whizz bangs were going off around us, and suddenly I transmogrified into a Jap…
This was the first and only time I heard anything like this from my grandfather. He didn’t talk about the experiences he had to anyone. Not my mother, uncles, or his wife Joan. He did however always instill a sense of proprietary into me that we should honour those of us who fought to keep New Zealand free, and that we should never ever glorify war.
I was at the dawn parade on ANZAC day. Not because I support war—far from it—but because I believe the sacrifices our grandparents and great grandparents made for us are worthy of me losing a few hours sleep and solemnly standing reflecting on how good it is to live in a free and democratic society.
New Zealand is a place where a happy medium has been reached. We turn to the state to intervene in our lives—generally when it suits us—and in return the state asks that we pay tax and abide by the laws that parliament sets down. We may not agree with those laws the whole time, but hey, that is the price of democracy; there is nothing magical about this social contract. You work. You study. You make money. You lose money. It is not that bad and it definitely could be worse. This isn’t an argument for apathy—far from it. Complacency with a situation leads to erosion of rights and freedoms and once again we are lucky that we attend a university that can and does act as the critic and conscience of society.
Universities are here to teach us to think critically—if not skeptically—about the world around us. Which is why people—whom I like to call Reactionary Radicals—always surprise me. People who blindly follow some vague ideology with no actual basis. Who protest for change but are afraid of changing themselves. Polemicists.
People like this mess with democracy by simply yelling the loudest—marginalising those who speak sense. To quote those poets of our age, NOFX: “sometimes the smallest softest voice carries the grand biggest solutions”.
People like my Poppa fought so that we can now make the choice not to support war. Their sacrifice has ensured our secluded corner of the globe has had fifty years of steady social and economic progress. We should respect them and their fallen comrades for that reason alone.
I cannot think of a time at primary school, high school or university, where I have ever been taught or told that ANZAC day glorifies war, conflict and violence in any way. I remember veterans coming to my school around ANZAC day and relating stories to us about the horrors and atrocities of war, about the friends they lost, about the physical and emotional wounds they suffered. I could not think of a better advert against war.