Then an even larger group of much younger men - again all in jackets and ties and with medals and banners proclaiming Alamein, Crete, Italy and, of course, a handful of Battle of Britain fighter pilots. Then a much smaller bunch of much younger looking Korean War vets brought up the rear together with Wrens and bands and other things to impress my young mind.
This was the way that Anzac Days had been commemorated ever since the first Anzac Day in 1916 and, because of its sacred character and deeply personal meaning for those who had lost loved ones, that is how it should always be commemorated - except that the old men in the jeeps are no longer those who fought on the veldt but the diminishing band of those who served in the Solomons, Normandy and elsewhere in the Second World War.
That was then - when New Zealanders were one people and before the newly formed tribal elite of one-eighth and one-sixteenth part-Maoris have tried to take over the country, pushing the rest of us out of the way - even on Anzac Day. Governments - both National and Labour - have been collaborators in this crime, starting with renaming the National War Memorial in Wellington "Pukeahu" - whatever that means.
The Ministry of Culture and Heritage produced a programme that had everything from prayers to hymns in two languages - with the so-called Maori language taking first position and primacy over English. In other words this wretched Ministry is collaborating with the tribal elite to bring about division in a society that was once united. There is nothing more divisive than promoting two languages where there was only one before in all official functions.
The ceremony at Wellington began with a "karakia" - in Maori, of course - as if the 2% or 3% of New Zealanders who understand this primitive and largely recently made-up tongue are the only ones who matter. There was also a "karanga" - whatever that is - and a response (all in Maori). The ceremony finished up with a Maori hymn "E Te Ariki" and an ode by the President of the Returned Servicemen's Association (R.S.A.) in Maori which appears to be a translation of that well-known and moving verse "They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old". This followed the Maori "ode" even though an ode is a form of English poetry that had no place in Maori culture as the Maoris didn't even have a written language until the missionaries arrived in the early 19th century and gave them one.
Then it was the National Anthem - in Maori first, of course - and the last thing that the people were forced to suffer was yet another karakia in Maori to polish off proceedings.
In Rotorua the Dawn Service in 2025 was conducted not by the Rotorua R.S.A. , which includes all returned servicemen, but by some race-based racket called Te Arawa Maori Returned Servicemen's League. This one started with a "mihi" (welcome) and then all the rest in an exercise that was more about advancing Maori culture and language and putting down the white man than honouring the war dead.
If anything it was worse in Australia where gutless Returned Servicemen's Leagues, in cahoots with state governments, began many of the services with the new phenomenon of "Welcome to Country" - the Aborigines welcoming Australians to their own country!!!!!
One of the worst of these "humiliation rituals" across the Ditch was in Melbourne where some part-Aborigine, with the very English name of Mark Brown, said, "I'm here to welcome everybody to my father's country [not everybody else's country!]". He then hogged the limelight for four minutes with similar nonsense. "They didn't die for this" called out someone while others booed this demonstration of divisiveness and racism. Oh, and Mark Brown charges up to $4,500 per Welcome to Country ceremony that he presides at.
In Sydney the main Dawn Service was hogged by another part-Aborigine (all part of Australia's tribal elite) called "Uncle" Ray Minniecon, who gave his Acknowledgement of Country as if the Anzac service could not proceed without this little piece of arrogant racism. Not surprisingly he was booed too. He was wearing three medals that he did not earn - and on the wrong side of his chest!
In an interview after the service "Uncle" told the ABC, "This is Aboriginal land. Always was and always will be too. So we stand on the truth. And the truth can't be shaken". Why have an enemy of Australia such as this clown to spit venom on Australia's heritage and rights that the brave Diggers fought for in the two world wars?
When asked about the booing of his "Acknowledgement of Country" Uncle said that those who booed "should understand their place". In other words in a country that once respected free speech they should now bow down to the demands of the tribal elite and say nothing.
So, what is this new phenomenon of "Welcome to the Country" to Australians whose families have lived there for 200 years, who built the country and whose taxes now pay for the massive Aborigine welfare bill? Well, this is what South Australia's Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Kyam Maher [a man], said, "Being welcomed to country is something that Aboriginal people have done for tens of thousands of years, welcoming OTHER ABORIGINAL PEOPLE to their particular country". So why use it for welcoming non-Aboriginal Australians who do not need such pious and condescending waffle as they travel around their great continent? Even his statement that aborigines welcomed each other is a lie; in Tasmania, for example, they were divided into five tribes each of whom spoke its own dialect, and whenever they encountered a different tribe, fighting usually took place, using wooden spears and stones.
The barely concealed racism and race hatred towards white people at these ceremonies was described by "First Nations woman" [not "Australian woman"] Colleen Clarke, as "It's welcoming people to OUR country".
Instead of clamping down on the introduction of all this racism into Anzac services many of the authorities in Australia are promoting it. At the Dawn Service at King's Park, Perth, a few hours behind the eastern states, police moved in on certain persons in the crowd and moved five people on from the gathering, saying "Due to your association with the March for Australia group you're being moved from the ceremony due to the belief that you'll interrupt it".
This is the stuff of dictatorship. How do the cops know whether or not someone will do something before it is actually done? Do they think they're God? And what about free speech which was one of the things that our servicemen fought for in the world wars? Australian police are better known for their corruption than their efficiency and this is yet another example of that well known fact.
In the two world wars Australian servicemen fought our external enemies such as Germany and Japan. Now we need to fight the internal enemies such as "Uncle" and all the others who are trying to use Anzac Day to promote their own greedy and racist agendas. And yet the authorities, including some of the R.S.L.s, give such types a platform on Anzac Day.
Fortunately not all R.S.L.s in Australia were so craven and cowardly as they were in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and other places. There was none of this nonsense in Townsville where the President of the Townsville Returned Servicemen's Association, Mr. Colin Mosch, said, "The Anzac Day Dawn Service is about one thing, remembering those who have served and have paid the ultimate sacrifice". Neither Shakespeare not Kipling could have expressed it better. That is the line that we should have in New Zealand too.
John McLean is an historian who has written several books on nineteenth century New Zealand.
That was then - when New Zealanders were one people and before the newly formed tribal elite of one-eighth and one-sixteenth part-Maoris have tried to take over the country, pushing the rest of us out of the way - even on Anzac Day. Governments - both National and Labour - have been collaborators in this crime, starting with renaming the National War Memorial in Wellington "Pukeahu" - whatever that means.
The Ministry of Culture and Heritage produced a programme that had everything from prayers to hymns in two languages - with the so-called Maori language taking first position and primacy over English. In other words this wretched Ministry is collaborating with the tribal elite to bring about division in a society that was once united. There is nothing more divisive than promoting two languages where there was only one before in all official functions.
The ceremony at Wellington began with a "karakia" - in Maori, of course - as if the 2% or 3% of New Zealanders who understand this primitive and largely recently made-up tongue are the only ones who matter. There was also a "karanga" - whatever that is - and a response (all in Maori). The ceremony finished up with a Maori hymn "E Te Ariki" and an ode by the President of the Returned Servicemen's Association (R.S.A.) in Maori which appears to be a translation of that well-known and moving verse "They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old". This followed the Maori "ode" even though an ode is a form of English poetry that had no place in Maori culture as the Maoris didn't even have a written language until the missionaries arrived in the early 19th century and gave them one.
Then it was the National Anthem - in Maori first, of course - and the last thing that the people were forced to suffer was yet another karakia in Maori to polish off proceedings.
In Rotorua the Dawn Service in 2025 was conducted not by the Rotorua R.S.A. , which includes all returned servicemen, but by some race-based racket called Te Arawa Maori Returned Servicemen's League. This one started with a "mihi" (welcome) and then all the rest in an exercise that was more about advancing Maori culture and language and putting down the white man than honouring the war dead.
If anything it was worse in Australia where gutless Returned Servicemen's Leagues, in cahoots with state governments, began many of the services with the new phenomenon of "Welcome to Country" - the Aborigines welcoming Australians to their own country!!!!!
One of the worst of these "humiliation rituals" across the Ditch was in Melbourne where some part-Aborigine, with the very English name of Mark Brown, said, "I'm here to welcome everybody to my father's country [not everybody else's country!]". He then hogged the limelight for four minutes with similar nonsense. "They didn't die for this" called out someone while others booed this demonstration of divisiveness and racism. Oh, and Mark Brown charges up to $4,500 per Welcome to Country ceremony that he presides at.
In Sydney the main Dawn Service was hogged by another part-Aborigine (all part of Australia's tribal elite) called "Uncle" Ray Minniecon, who gave his Acknowledgement of Country as if the Anzac service could not proceed without this little piece of arrogant racism. Not surprisingly he was booed too. He was wearing three medals that he did not earn - and on the wrong side of his chest!
In an interview after the service "Uncle" told the ABC, "This is Aboriginal land. Always was and always will be too. So we stand on the truth. And the truth can't be shaken". Why have an enemy of Australia such as this clown to spit venom on Australia's heritage and rights that the brave Diggers fought for in the two world wars?
When asked about the booing of his "Acknowledgement of Country" Uncle said that those who booed "should understand their place". In other words in a country that once respected free speech they should now bow down to the demands of the tribal elite and say nothing.
So, what is this new phenomenon of "Welcome to the Country" to Australians whose families have lived there for 200 years, who built the country and whose taxes now pay for the massive Aborigine welfare bill? Well, this is what South Australia's Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Kyam Maher [a man], said, "Being welcomed to country is something that Aboriginal people have done for tens of thousands of years, welcoming OTHER ABORIGINAL PEOPLE to their particular country". So why use it for welcoming non-Aboriginal Australians who do not need such pious and condescending waffle as they travel around their great continent? Even his statement that aborigines welcomed each other is a lie; in Tasmania, for example, they were divided into five tribes each of whom spoke its own dialect, and whenever they encountered a different tribe, fighting usually took place, using wooden spears and stones.
The barely concealed racism and race hatred towards white people at these ceremonies was described by "First Nations woman" [not "Australian woman"] Colleen Clarke, as "It's welcoming people to OUR country".
Instead of clamping down on the introduction of all this racism into Anzac services many of the authorities in Australia are promoting it. At the Dawn Service at King's Park, Perth, a few hours behind the eastern states, police moved in on certain persons in the crowd and moved five people on from the gathering, saying "Due to your association with the March for Australia group you're being moved from the ceremony due to the belief that you'll interrupt it".
This is the stuff of dictatorship. How do the cops know whether or not someone will do something before it is actually done? Do they think they're God? And what about free speech which was one of the things that our servicemen fought for in the world wars? Australian police are better known for their corruption than their efficiency and this is yet another example of that well known fact.
In the two world wars Australian servicemen fought our external enemies such as Germany and Japan. Now we need to fight the internal enemies such as "Uncle" and all the others who are trying to use Anzac Day to promote their own greedy and racist agendas. And yet the authorities, including some of the R.S.L.s, give such types a platform on Anzac Day.
Fortunately not all R.S.L.s in Australia were so craven and cowardly as they were in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and other places. There was none of this nonsense in Townsville where the President of the Townsville Returned Servicemen's Association, Mr. Colin Mosch, said, "The Anzac Day Dawn Service is about one thing, remembering those who have served and have paid the ultimate sacrifice". Neither Shakespeare not Kipling could have expressed it better. That is the line that we should have in New Zealand too.
John McLean is an historian who has written several books on nineteenth century New Zealand.
16 comments:
Everything about indigenous agenda, of course. As far as I can tell , indigenous Australians specialised in sitting in circles out in the desert and playing with bones. Maybe that warrants an entry in the Encyclopedia of World Achievements.
With the ever increasing maori twaddle content I gave up attending the local parade. For a while I turned my back but with the culture of utu and being easiy recognised this too dangerous. And became too prolonged.
And next we will be told - to quote - " And of course we all know it was the maori ballalion that secured victory in The Second World War "!
Steve Ellis
What is NOT an indigenous agenda in NZ today? Especially the item on dwindling rapidly European population numbers in the NZ Herald. A loaded message ! Who in their right mind would support endless indigenous demands?
The good news, Anon 905, is that the parasite is beginning to disable the host - a cardinal rule in biology is that parasites that kill their host seal their own doom by so doing. This host is reaching the stage where it can no longer support the parasite. Parasite beware.
Let's just think what would have happened if the bloody British Colonists were not around to protect the Aboriginals in Australia, and the non indigenous Maori in NZ ?
Would they have fought off the Germans, Japanese, Russians, etc with their sharp sticks and boomerangs ?
Just a little bit of gratitude for the protection that we gave them, or even some acknowledgement that they were extremely vulnerable to some extremely bad colonists before the relatively benign Brits happened along .
This Welcome to Country nonsense was made up especially for the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000.
The officials thought they needed to be inclusive and added this fake Welcome to the opening ceremony.
Please, challenge me to find an earlier version of it.
I empathise with the feelings expressed here. I am an old soldier, who undertook 3 active service tours of duty in the 60s. At each one I count myself fortunate to not, now, exist in no-one’s memory but as a name on my home town’s war memorial. At the last ANZAC service I attended I did not understand a word of a public greeting from a young man who clearly had never served this nation, and did not appear to be part of it in any unitary sense.
I left the ceremony with a profound sense of sadness for the direction that this nation is now, apparently, committed to. The unified sense of King, Country, and service to the people as a whole has gone, perhaps never to return.
Thanks for your service, Anon @ 1557. A lot of us share your sadness.
To Anon @ 3.57pm.
You have very clearly spoken for the many of you that served and now feel themselves disenfranchised by the maorification of ANZAC Day. It is tragic that it has come to this.
I believe the younger generation, being those of the ages 30 through 50, have no real grasp on how their democracy is being undermined and threatened by the current goings on. These elite practices of a largely tax payer subsidised/funded sham and for a minority bunch of part maori people in New Zealand is a nonsense!
Steve Ellis
A beautiful celebration of kiwi culture at a uniquely poignant and kiwi event. Inclusion is something that has always mattered, but in the last 40 years we have finally started to see it happen without fear or fervour. Well done to the NZ armed forces. We’re with you as one.
I too have given up on ANZAC day in NZ. But I suspect the malaise may be worse in Oz. Flew to The biggest city in Queensland and on to the second biggest, and could not pronounce their names. A year later I was at ANZAC Hill in Alice Springs and discovered there was no NZ Flag there, but about 4 Aboriginal ones
Perhaps it’s time to remember that on raw numbers, around 17% of New Zealanders have a Maori ancestor, and 83% don’t, and stop cramming Maori language and culture down everyone else’s throats.
While the Maori language and culture are very great treasures for those that value them, for those who do not, they are not.
There are many New Zealanders of Maori descent — myself included— who see no value in Maori language and culture, and don’t give a monkey’s crutch-piece about it.
If anyone can point to a single discovery, invention, or innovation that has come out of Maori culture towards the wider benefit of humankind, I might take another look at it.
But until then I’ll stick with the Western post-enlightenment culture of my white ancestors that comes to us by way of Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem, before being exported all over the world by white Europeans, that came with the settlers.
Said culture has lifted more people out of poverty, ignorance, and barbarism than all the other cultures that have existed since the dawn of time put together.
As far as Maori culture goes ‘Me Warrior!’ and an ugly, gesticulating, eye rolling, tongue poking, thigh slapping war dance of limited curiosity value when deployed before a rugby match is atavistic nonsense of no value in the modern world, other than as a marker of group identify for brown supremacist part-Maori full of denied European who have turned their white ancestors into a toilet bowl to identify monoculturally as ‘Maori.’
I suggest these brown supremacists are maybe 2-5 percent of the population.
It is this group that— with the connivance of post-colonial guilt-tripping white liberals — is aggressively thrusting Maori language and culture into the public square, demanding financial and political patronage from their fellow-citizens far in excess of their actual market value as productive human beings.
Racism is often conflated by leftists with simple prejudice, which it is not.
Racism occurs anytime a group of people with an ethnocentric membership base creates or colonises a system to afford themselves separate, different, or superior rights on the basis of group membership.
When brown supremacist part-Maori bang on about ‘racism’ they don’t mean getting rid of any ‘racism’ that might exist.
Just placing it under new management.
Theirs.
These racists are filth on the face of my country.
As for the Maori language and culture that is the spearhead of their attempt to subvert individual equality in citizenship, one law for all, and colourblind government, do it in your own time and on your own dime.
It doesn’t belong in the public square and you have zero, zip, nada claim on your fellow citizens to fund your preferred language and culture; or to expect them to lick your paru nono for being part-Māori.
Thankyou for your insight anon 4-11. Totally agree with you. Everyone in this country should be free to follow their own beliefs and cultures BUT not to force those on others against their will. The suggestion earlier that the main problem seems to be the "white guilt ridden" people is correct. They also seem to be of socialist political persuasion, and similar to "born again" religious fanatics, think everybody else should be made to follow their beliefs. Unfortunately a lot of our politicians (both at national and local level) seem to ascribe to this view
Well I remember in the 1950s, marching in the ANZAC parade with my fellow Girl's Brigaders, down the street of a small Waikato township.
Carrying our flag and laying a wreath. Back then WWII was still fresh in many minds.
The service,following on from the march and held in the town hall was mainly about giving thanks to those who suffered, and to the many who gave their lives to keep us free from oppression.
Hymns were sung in our common language to the God who gave us structure to live by, for the peace of our country. We prayed and asked God to " defend New Zealand.From dissension,envy,hate and corruption,guard our state.Make our country good and great"
The last time I watched the National Service in Wellington, I was disgusted as God had no mention at all. Just everything that could avoid mentioning Him at all. I have not watched again.
Our faith is under fire in this day and age and it is being replaced,quite forcibly, with the religion that existed here before the first missionaries carried the good news to Northland.
This ignorance of the living God who made this planet is what is bringing this country down and I don't see that it can get back up again.
It appears that has even invaded the beautiful ANZAC commemorations .
What a rant from John McLean! But it is so true! Time for the silent majority to object to being battered by Stone Age beliefs and having a non-language jammed down our throats. Maori are an important thread in the fabric of New Zealand society but there are many other threads too and no one of them can exist without the support of all the others. A democracy is successful as long as all the members work together but for one small faction to try to dominate the others and force their culture on everyone else cannot but fail in the end.
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