Anzac Day troubles me because when all the processions, words and rituals are done, I don't know what it means. That's frightening given its resurgence as a quasi belief system in New Zealand that seems to demand an almost unquestioning reverence.
It's not that I haven't tried to understand. I've ploughed my way through books, articles, films, and documentaries. I've even suffered through Band of Brothers twice. I've taught about Anzac Day, created and led services, attended dawn rituals, blogged about it and when he was alive, interrogated my dad about his involvement in the Second World War.
Despite all that there are two main elements to the Anzac process that have me beat. The catchphrase, lest we forget and the idea of ultimate sacrifice that is central to the remembrance and has a worship aspect to it.
Growing up in the 1950s meant I wasn't far from the war my dad was involved in. Family photos included the ones of him looking dashing in uniform beside my elegant mum draped in fur. Like many women, mum fell for a bloke in uniform.
My parents were pragmatic about wartime but thankful it was over. As was common then, we drew a line under the pain and got on with life, energized by the music of the Andrew Sisters and Vera Lynn; songbirds who had brought light into dark times.
Dad never went near an Anzac parade until much, much later and then only spasmodically. As far as I could tell, he didn't think much good could come of rehashing the whole thing over and over again.
As time passed, my explorations were teaching me how much Anzac Amnesia we were suffering and how faulty our remembering was. I came to agree with my dad that remembering didn't amount to much if it was a sanitized version.
Evangelical Christianity also infused my family life. Jesus, my folks told me, had died a horrible death on the cross for my sins and I needed to believe in him to be saved. Unlike the Catholics who had Jesus pinioned to the cross, our Baptist cross was a body free zone symbolising the resurrection. Jesus had paid the price and made the ultimate sacrifice thereby triumphing over death.
Taken literally, this theology had a short shelf life for me. It survives in Christianity but not universally. It has been questioned extensively so I find it peculiar to have it being resurrected in the developing Anzac Day belief system.
What on earth do we mean by it? Do people really believe that our way of life today has been bought and paid for by the deaths of young people sacrificed for the greater good? Thrown to the God of War to be devoured by his cannon fire and trampled in the mud of his battlefields?
Human sacrifice to any God has been out of favour and illegal for some time. So why does it lurk under the surface in Anzac? Is there a deeper human anxiety that calls out for sacrifice? That wonders if we are good enough to live? That carries an ongoing guilt about life that fuels theologies like these?
Does the human anxiety come first or the theology. Figuring that out seems important. What about the uncomfortable link between this ritual and the theology I was brought up in?
I don't know the answers to these questions but they do make me squirm, full of concerns about what it all means for our society, especially when Anzac seems to be beyond much critique these days.
Other Anzac writing by spiritedcrone:
Image from Field Punishment No 1 an excellent book about New Zealand's conscientious objectors by David Grant.
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