April 25th is ANZAC day; the day New Zealand does the ‘yay soldiers’ thing. While I’m writing these thoughts in the New Zealand context, I think they also apply in other countries where commemoration and celebration of war are never far apart.
Anarchafairy and Span have both written about how left-wing people should respond to ANZAC day. I’m going to write more about that tomorrow. But Span’s comment thread puzzled me, and I wanted to respond to the predominant feeling there first. ((I’m not even going to go near the idea that we need to honour the ANZAC soldiers because they died so we could be free. I understand (and don’t necessarily agree with) the argument when it comes to World War 2, but World War One? What freedoms is that supposed to have won?)) As Stef said:
I think that ANZAC day is about honouring the soldiers, not the politics of the day.
I don’t understand why it is we honour soldiers, when we don’t honour so many other groups of people. We don’t honour the people who died in the influenza epidemic, that followed the war. We don’t honour people who die in their workplace. Those deaths are just as senseless, just as cruel, and just as much a result of our fucked up system, as the ANZACs.
We don’t have an annual holiday to honour all the women who have died in childbirth. Who really did die so the next generation could live.
Why are soldiers special?
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I understand (and don’t necessarily agree with) the argument when it comes to World War 2, but World War One? What freedoms is that supposed to have won
The freedom to be such vindictive winners that WWII was almost guaranteed to happen, perhaps?
I don’t know much about NZ holiday’s. But in the US we have mother’s day which honors mothers, and labor day that honors workers. I think the point is that (for the most part) soldiers join knowing that there is a high chance of injury and/or death. In the best of cases they’ll be fine and merely have to do horrible things to other people. All while knowing that part of the deal is following goals set by politicians you may not agree with for a cause that won’t be fully judged until long after the killing is done. It’s brutal and vile but history is full of nations that are gone because other people were more violent than they were.
Soldiers are special because they put their lives between a nation and its external enemies.
It saddens me that a question like this would come up. I am not from NZ but speaking in defense of soldiers everywhere I can only compare it to air. You don’t think about what it does for you until it is gone. Where would the world be without those individuals willing to freely sacrifice themselves for what they hold dear.
Even soldiers from nations we don’t agree with serve what they are taught is right. They give of themselves to further the ideals of the society they live for. I would say live in, but so many times those individuals are not protected equally or given the same liberties as other citizens in the nations they serve.
Without the sacrifices of those now gone I would be writing this post in German or Japanese, if my “kind” was deemed worthy of being taught to write.
Australia does the whole ‘yay solidiers’ thing today too (ANZAC standing for Australian & New Zealand Army Corps).
I think it’s important to separate out the politics (and the stupidity) behind a war from those who are actually involved in it.
My understanding of ANZAC Day is that it is a day to commemorate the soldiers who fought and died, more so than the anniversary of the day of our countries’ first involvement in major military action.
You’re right though, we don’t honour women who have died in childbirth or people who have died at work or in car accidents. Maybe we should.
How else do you persuade the next batch of disposable, cannon-fodder to sign up to being disposable, unless you sell them a whole load of guff.
I have a very conflicted opinion about soldiers/armies – on the one hand, I don’t care for the killing or the othering that war represents or the many other reprehensible aspects of war. I don’t like what armies do to people who enlist, how it tends to bring out the worst in many otherwise splendid people, by encouraging brutality and blurring their sense of right & wrong. However, I also recognize that given the way that the world currently is, I do depend on soldiers in so many ways, and I depend on there being people who are willing to sacrifice things like a not-fucked-up family life (a sacrifice their families also have to make) for the sake of ensuring … peace. etc. Whether I like it or not, a standing army is part of what allows me to live in a country (Canada) that generally runs things in a way I find to be ok. As such, I don’t have a problem aknowledging the sacrifice made by soldiers and by those who love them – of life, of sanity, of safety, of so many things a person should have.
Why would you honor people that dies in car crashes? Mourn them sure but honor?
you have to remember that in many of these past wars soldiers were conscripted. as a society we forced young men into an unbelievably hard job which left many of them dead, maimed, or pyschologically ruined. i think a day of recognition isn’t much to ask.
as for your examples of influenza or died in childbirth victims, the government isn’t as directly responsible for those deaths and so they should not weigh on our collective conscience in the same way.
I don’t understand your issue with soldiers being honored. I wish you would explain more why they should not be.
Lincoln argued that we should support soldiers by dedicating a portion of our attention and give honor to those who risked their lives that the nation might live, and that it is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, he argued that it is not for the benefit of soldiers that we do this, for soldiers – living and dead – have bestowed honor on themselves far beyond our powers to add or detract. It is for we the civilians, rather, to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought have so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these soldiers we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their devotion — and that we highly resolve that their efforts have not been in vain.
Similarly, Napoleon reveled in the insight that people will die for ribbons.
In short, honor is a kind of compensation. We give it to motivate current troops, and to encourage future troops to sign up. Honor is a currency that continues to hold some attractive force even in the face of withering fire when money can seem less motivating.
Plus, as Napoleon noted, honor is cheap. Don’t feel like honoring soldiers above other social groups? Then realize that we’ll have to find some other way to pay them. Considering the cost of ribbons and badges and parades and statues, I suspect honor is a bargain.
I can see why the government honours soldiers rather than women who have died in childbirth, what I can’t see is why ordinary people do.
World War 1 didn’t get anyone anything. The sacrifice those soldiers made was a complete waste of life, because of a lie (several lies). Turkey wasn’t an external threat to NZ – NZ invaded Turkey.
I think what happened to those soldiers was awful, but I’d never attend a ceremony that was organised by the people who did it to the soldiers (the government, and generals). I also don’t understand why they’re singles out.
Joe is mothers day a public holiday in America?
I can see why the government honours soldiers rather than women who have died in childbirth, what I can’t see is why ordinary people do.
Most ordinary people feel an emotional and mental connection to the nation. The soldiers are seen as an integral, indeed foundational, component of the nation. The people thus love and honor them, for making their more or less secure existence possible.
Maia, Mothers’ Day is a huge event in the United States. According to Wikipedia it was originally proposed by Julia Ward Howe in 1870 as a call for peace and disarmament. This didn’t catch on. Local celebrations started in 1908; the first national Mothers Day was proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914 as a day to show the American flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.
The holiday commercialized within a few years, and remains so today. I’d guess that not one in 100 people know about why the holiday first became proclaimed; it’s now generally a day to honor mothers and motherhood. It’s the second Sunday in May. It is generally celebrated by buying the living mothers in one’s family (including your wife if she has had children) flowers and greeting cards (and possibly more substantial gifts) and taking them out for brunch. People often visit and put flowers at the graves of their mothers if they have passed away. In fact, I haven’t made a reservation for brunch for Mothers’ Day and it may well be too late to do so. There is absolutely no way to escape hearing about the holiday in all American media. Any public event going on that day recognizes it.
Diane said:
The freedom to be such vindictive winners that WWII was almost guaranteed to happen, perhaps?
That was a failure of the politicians, not the soliders.
I have a question about ANZAC day. Does it honor all servicemen and servicewomen, or only those who have died in wartime service?
In the United States we have two different holidays that honor servicemen and servicewomen. Veteran’s Day honors all of them, living and dead; it’s November 11th, specifically to relate to the end of World War I (it was instituted soon after the end of that war by Presidential proclamation). Government offices are closed, but private businesses and schools stay open. Memorial Day honors specifically those who died in wartime service, and began after the American Civil War. It’s used to be May 30th but is now timed as the last Monday in May. Everyone gets the day off, unless they are working in retail businesses, as it’s a very busy day for them. While the day has become highly commercialized, the significance has not been lost; there are parades and commemorations of the sacrifice that these men and women have made to establish and preserve freedom.
I’d also add that we do have Workers Memorial Day here in NZ, specifically about those killed while working, but it’s a very low key event, not a public holiday or anything. It’s April 28th.
I don’t understand why it is we honour soldiers, when we don’t honour so many other groups of people. We don’t honour the people who died in the influenza epidemic, that followed the war. We don’t honour people who die in their workplace. Those deaths are just as senseless, just as cruel, and just as much a result of our fucked up system, as the ANZACs.
Regardless of the politics that effect soldiers’ lives and deaths, they do commit to a principle that might cost them their lives, which cannot be said of those who died of influenza or car crashes or most other stuff. We honor cops and firefighters who die on the job too. It’s because they took the job that risked their lives, and their commitment is considered a public good.
That was a failure of the politicians, not the soliders.
No arguments. But a soldier, even a draftee, makes a choice. He or she decides to allow the politicians to use him or her as a weapon. Often in the absence of an obvious external threat. That doesn’t strike me as a particularly honorable thing to do. I’d like to see a day set aside to honor those who made sacrifices to avoid being used as a weapon in an aggressive war. I sing of Olaf, big and glad…
I think honoring soldiers is part of the process of ending a war, even if it also makes the next war easier. Honoring soldiers is a way of moving their deaths into a free-floating realm where both the killing they did and the fact that they were killed by individuals from another nation gets lost. It sometimes least puts off the desire for vengeance, and may shut it down altogether. Sometimes, there’s even the idea that the dead of both sides should be honored. This is insane from one angle, and shows respect for grief on both sides from the other.
All this makes me crazy because I’m much more apt to identify with civilians. Why not have a tomb of the unknown civilian? Or the unknown refugee? I feel as though the military is a weird death cult which I’m supposed to respect more it kills people.
Still, honoring the dead soldiers may well be functional, and not just for getting the next generation to sign up.
I think the people who are mentioning Mothers’ Day are missing the point that it is for ALL mothers, while Maia was specifically singling out those mothers who have died in childbirth.
ANZAC day is mainly worship of obedience to the state.
Most these guys were either tricked into joining the war with dreams of travelling to exotic places, or filled with propoganda based fear about our country being taken over by monsters or coercively conscripted away to suffer or die.
The fact is these soldier weren’t too bright and were conned by the government. The day should be one to remember how much harm adoration and obedience to the state can do. But instead it is used to reinforce the importance of being obedient to the state.
The whole day is a sad one for me, for completely different reasons than it is to the braiwashed masses. It is sad for me that so many were sent off for slaughter and almost no lessons were learned. Hence, history may be repeated.
Good point. I think the difference would hing upon whether you think a soldier is making a sacrafice for their country and whether that sacrifice is valuable.
I’m going to go with yes. The fate of people who’ve lost wars in the past is too grim not to.
Well Joe, then Maia’s point, I’m guessing would be whether mothers who’ve risked their lives to bring new lives into the world and unfortunately died in the process have also made a valuable sacrifice.
Evidently most people think not, which is the real problem.
I do get a wry chuckle when someone blathers about American soldiers “defending our freedoms.” The last time American soldiers actually went to war to defend our freedoms was WW2 (and even then, the case can be made that if FDR hadn’t goaded Japan into attacking, we’d have been perfectly safe if we’d sat back and let the rest of the world chew itself up). The last time before that was 1812. Since then, all wars the U.S. has fought have been about one or more of the following:
1. Defending the freedom of non-Americans;
2. Infringing on the freedom of non-Americans;
3. Infringing on the freedom of Americans.
Most people believe that motherhood is intrinsically sacrificial, and that women who live through childbirth and women who die in childbirth both have risked themselves for the sake of the species, and that this is honorable service.
That the sentiments expressed, while often individually fulsome, are not collectively as great as that offered to soldiers, is probably explained by the fact that most of us lived with or near our mothers throughout childhood, and hear fairly regularly from our mothers about their sacrifices and sufferings. This tends to cut down on the felt emotional need to say “thanks”.
If everyone had a soldier following them around and saying “you know, you wouldn’t have the freedom to do that if not for my constant sacrifice”, we’d probably still be thankful to soldiers, but not as enthusiastically thankful in a collective way as we are now. People who talk about their own sacrifices tend to burn off a little gratitude, even when they’re absolutely correct and they are being incredibly sacrificial, like mothers.
Robert, got mommy issues dude?
crys-t she also said that people who died from disease should be honored in the same way.
but i don’t really want to argue against honoring women who died in childbirth. I was just trying to answer the question.
Joe: and maybe they should. This idea that all soldiers sign up out of altruistic motives is oversentimentalised nonsense. Some of them throughout history may have, many others have been conscripted, have enlisted in times of peace only to get caught up in a war, have enlisted out of ignorance (remember how very, very young many of them are) due to propaganda that makes it look like being in the armed forces is like playing a video game/living a Rambo movie, have joined up because they’re weirdos who like the idea of indiscriminate slaughter, etc. etc.
It’s ridiculous to assign noble motives to soldiers as a whole, because most of them throughout history have been barely more than children–or even sometimes actual children–who really weren’t capable of fully understanding what they were being sent out to do. And those of them on the winning sides (on the level of battles or entire wars) have usually ended up committing unbelievable atrocities on the losing sides.
I hate to break it to you guys, but war isn’t like you see in the movies. There’s absolutely nothing glorious, noble, self-sacrificing or good in it.
This is exactly why it’s important to have a high quality, professional military.