"Lest We Forget"
"Lest we forget". We have forgotten.
New Zealand is just as much now as we were back then, a tool of the colonial war machine.
Thousands of us turn up in the streets to demand our government do something about what is being done to Palestinians right now. Letters are being written to beg our MPs not to turn away refugees like we did during the last holocaust.
Our then-Prime Minister cried "get some guts" about deploying troops to Iraq, knowing he himself would never have to fight.
During the conflict in Afghanistan, our troops committed war crimes by injuring and killing innocent villagers, including children.
During the First World War, our troops killed 137 Palestinian villagers in an act of retribution.
Our government imprisoned Māori who resisted being conscripted into fighting on behalf of the people who had invaded and confiscated their land.
At best our ANZACs were just more victims of the war. At worst they were another violent occupying force.
We attempt to give meaning to wartime deaths, because the alternative is confronting the reality: that they died for nothing.
Enjoy your day off.