As part of our drive to keep our comment section the best in New Zealand we showcase each week an example of a top-notch comment that adds value to The BFD.
Today’s comment was written by idbkiwi. Thank you idbkiwi for taking the time to craft such an interesting comment.
Right on cue and without a hint of irony New Zealand’s worst-performing media arms: the former newspaper turned student radical rag, the Dominion Post, and its online owner Stuff, on the approach of ANZAC Day, attempt to dismantle and disparage the day very many New Zealanders consider its most solemn.
It goes without saying some upshot ‘historian’ enlisted for the service of correcting the record, I can’t be bothered with his name except to say he should hereafter be referred to as the historian known as “Mr I” after inserting himself into his own little screed almost as many times as there are paragraphs – “I worked”, “I set up”, “I hoped”, “I also”, “I faced”, “I cringed”, “I can see no evidence”.
Well, good for you Mr I, you’ll be just the right sort for your dream:
“In 2019, the Government announced plans to make history compulsory in our schools. Hopefully, it will provide an opportunity to change the national narrative around Gallipoli and ANZAC Day, and address our history in a more meaningful manner.”
Mr I believes “the complexities of issues around why we supported British imperialism were largely ignored” in referring to the many publications based on the lives of former combatants. It doesn’t occur to Mr I that it was because we were British, yes really, British subjects, as was everybody born in New Zealand between 1840 and 1947, and were part of the British Empire, all of us, including Maori.
Mr I disparages New Zealand’s WW1 involvement, inventing the utter lie
“Then there is Samoa, a country we invaded in 1914 and where our response to its attempts at independence resulted in Black Saturday and New Zealand police turning a machine gun on demonstrators.”
That would be the protectorate of ‘German Samoa’ that was invaded actually, and New Zealand police did not, absolutely did not turn a machine-gun on Samoan demonstrators on ‘Black Saturday’, which occurred more that a decade after WW1 ended, except in Mr I’s imagination.
Poor Mr I, laughably’ calls for “a more honest debate” about ANZAC. Well: Mr I, it’s about a day honouring personal and family sacrifices, loss, and respect for those who suffered, almost no family untouched in the Dominion of New Zealand during the disaster’s long duration. There is no I in ANZAC; Mister. It’s (certainly) not about you.
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