2014 is the centenary of start of “the Great War” – “the war to end all wars”. I was tempted to borrow from the Tui billboards but it’s all been said before.
We, the children of the veterans of the next big war, went through a New Zealand educational system that introduced us to the poetry of Wilfred Owen and others juxtaposed against the paintings of McIntyre. Television and war journalism brought some of the reality of South East Asian conflicts to us.
As we’ve grown older war and conflicts haven’t diminished even if New Zealand’s involvement is wrapped in terms like “advisor” and “peacekeeper”. We selectively support “democracy” and have no difficulty in intervening in the Middle East while ignoring sociopolitical behaviours of major trading partners – so what’s new?
We continue to despise contemporary pacifists and war opponents with the same determination shown to Archibald Baxter. Tied to stakes or contained in airport holding areas and embassies? Ironically we also vilify the often very young people we use in conflict who, when placed in unimaginable situations, behave with less than comfortable armchair ethics.
In the early 1980’s I was standing on a tube station platform in London and a very, very young man was struggling with a man-sized kitbag, backpack and bizarrely his army ceremonial sword. He was reporting for duty: he was going to Northern Ireland. My sister and I helped him get his gear on the train. I carried the sword.
We went to the RAF Church in London, St Clement Danes – we cried as we read the daily memorial page. Like the kid on the tube station platform we read the details of another kid who died in World War II.
we send young men out
to war
we push them out
and close the door
we close our eyes
when they do
the things
we pay them for
gallipoli
hamburg
coventry
malaysia
vietnam
iraq
afghanistan
anzac day
Rosemary Balu
THE WINDOW
if you look in his eyes
you cannot see
where he has been
or
what he has seen
at 17
he has seen more
than a lifetime
he carries it all
inside his head
his eyes don’t disclose
the dead
the dying
the bin bags
the shovels
the troubles
the killings
the sword
I never knew him
or
saw him again
the freaked out young man
on
the tube station platform
she carried his pack
and
I carried the sword
I met him today
hair grey and cropped close
we talked
and
we laughed
but the ghost of the shovel
came out of his mouth
I looked in his eyes
but I couldn’t see
where
he had been
or
what
he had seen
Rosemary Balu
