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Friday 3 May 2024
Bay's war dead remembered
A group of local riders re-enact the Tākaka Mounted Rifles at Tākaka's Anzac Day commemoration last Thursday. Photo: Anita Peters. ANITA PETERS
While Anzac Day usually relives the horror of war on a global scale, services in Golden Bay this year were tinged with poignant reminders of the losses closer to home. Noel Baigent, president of the Returned and Services Association (RSA), spoke at Tākaka’s dawn service of the price paid by so many of our servicepeople, particularly those from this community. The presence of the Mounted Rifles, the Cocker family, marching tunes from the brass band, and speeches and readings made throughout the day, including those from chaplains Rodney Watson, Brandon Sparrow, and Constable Ray Clapp, personalised the terrible impact of war on a local scale. Noel began with an anonymous quote: “A veteran is someone who wrote a blank cheque made payable to the people of the Commonwealth for an amount up to and including their lives.” Remembering Gallipoli, it was a sobering thought that contrasting with this peaceful
moonlit dawn, 109 years ago the story was very different. “At this time of the morning, our soldiers and their counterparts had already been in battle for two hours after landing on the beach at Gallipoli,” lamented Noel. The 77 crosses in our memorial park represent ordinary people from our community who went off to fight to protect our sovereignty and freedom. This year an additional cross was added to the commemorative garden for the unknown soldier, whose remains, exhumed from the battlefield cemetery in France and entombed in the National Memorial in Wellington, came from an area where many Golden Bay men lost their lives. Noel called the Gallipoli campaign a “fiasco”, and an “absolute tragedy”. He questioned the commemoration of such a disastrous battle, suggesting that celebrating Armistice Day instead might be a more poignant acknowledgement of victory and peace rather than the futility and loss of Gallipoli. “World War 1 was described as the war to
end all wars,” said Noel. But this did not become so: World War 2, Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and many others followed, with our own Kiwi soldiers, sailors, and airmen also serving on peacekeeping missions in Cambodia, Bosnia, Somalia, East Timor, Solomons, Sinai, and many other places. Noel spoke about the sophistication of war today, citing terrorism and new technology such as drones, hypersonic missiles, and lasers, amongst modern tactics used to strategise conflicts. This year the re-enactment of the Tākaka Mounted Rifles paid tribute to one local aspect of war rarely focused on. Noel marvelled at the sheer logistics of the nationwide task of training up to 10,000 horses to cope with the sights and sounds of battle before being shipped to a war zone on the other side of the world. Writer and guest speaker Gerard Hindmarsh also acknowledged and praised the commitment of the re-enactment group to our local history. Continued on page 2
scenic flights
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Standing with Palestine SUBMITTED
Last Saturday morning, the Whakatū Nelson branch of Palestine Solidarity N e t wo r k Ao te a ro a ( P S N A) h o s te d a gathering on Tākaka’s Village Green to acknowledge the ongoing military offensive in the Gaza Strip. The conflict has already killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, including 13,000 children, plus numerous aid workers, journalists, health workers, and UN staff. At Saturday’s rally, MP Damien O’Connor spoke from a personal and political perspective before Helen Kingston shared the words of Palestinian Jean Zaru, a Quaker and retired teacher from the West Bank: “Peace is based on respect, cooperation, wellbeing, and the presence of social justice.” With 85 per cent of the population displaced, over 70 per cent of housing damaged or destroyed, no functioning schools or universities, health services and civilian infrastructure severely compromised, and over one million people now facing potential famine, UN chief Antonio Guterres has described Gaza as a region on the brink. “Lives are shattered. Respect for international law in tatters. Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese has stated there are clear indications that Israel has violated the UN Genocide Convention and says its actions are an escalation of “a longstanding settler colonial process of erasure” that began with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. While acknowledging the actions of Hamas fighters on 7 October likely constitute war crimes, PSNA believes the subsequent disproportionate retaliatory action of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) constitutes a crime against humanity, and is calling for an immediate, permanent ceasefire, the unconditional release of all Israeli hostages in Gaza and Palestinians illegally detained in Israeli prisons, the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid, and a “just peace in Palestine”. Other speakers followed Helen’s address: Beth McCarthy cited a recent opinion piece about Anzac Day commemorations providing an opportunity to examine historical and present day conflict; Julie Jones shared a poem by a young girl from Gaza, who implores her mother to write their names on their legs at night so if a bomb hits their house they will be remembered as a family; and Al Gardiner... Continued on page 3
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