Posted on 01/31/2006 7:24:45 PM PST by NZerFromHK
I make a distinction between self protection and self interest. Yes, New Zealand certainly had a real self interest in being involved in the Second World War, but it was under direct threat of invasion, and was not directly attacked in the way, northern Australian towns such as Darwin and Broomer were attacked. And I do think that difference is partly behind the difference in modern attitudes within Australia and New Zealand.
I don't intend to disparage New Zealand in any sense. I've served alongside New Zealand Defence Force personnel on several occasions, and in terms of ability and dedication they are the equal of any on Earth. And, frankly, I feel New Zealand's contribution to World War II is all the greater because of the fact that they were fighting to defend others more than they were themselves. Yes, there was self interest involved and that was important. But self interest has real limits.
I hope you enjoyed your trip here. But you didn't look hard enough at the memorials. They are indeed covered with the names of the young men who died in WW1. The small farming town I grew up in has one on a hilltop - the names are those of the families who still live in the district. Although it was built after WW1, on the other side you'll find the names of those who fell in WW2. And on some of the memorials you'll find sections for those who fell in Malaya, Korea and Vietnam. They are more than just WW1 memorials.
"Chunuk Bair" was filmed not too far from where I live. The Aussies have a film called "Gallipoli" that's better done, but on a similar theme.
Just to correct a couple of points. Before WW1, NZ sent troops to one British war: the Boer War. The "fuzzy-wuzzies" we were fighting were Afrikaaners - South Africans of Dutch descent. We were still sending troops to fight alongside the British as late as the Malaya emergency in the 1950s.
Even after WW1, NZ was most reluctant to sever links with Britain. The Brits passed a law in 1931 that allowed NZ to claim full independence. NZ refused to ratify it till 1947! I wish I could say we were keener to grasp our independence, but we weren't. So the Kiwis you talked to might have led you astray a bit.
Britain joined the EEC - which became the EU - in 1973. I agree - that was a real psychological shock to NZ, even though we'd had warning.
And most NZ lamb is in fact sold to Europe, despite quotas and tariffs. We'd love it if the major Western countries joined little ol' NZ in dropping most trade barriers - letting us earn all the money we work for - but we're not holding our collective breaths on that. NZ used to be a heavily-regulated, Socialist-style economy. That failed. We're now doing far better after free-market reforms. Even the bunch of loopy lefties in government at the moment don't dare change the economy back to what it used to be. Agricultural reform works. It was hard on our farmers at first, and it's still hard work for them, but they're now successful at growing and raising things that foreigners want to buy.
We are indeed the last and smallest stop on the line, but Kiwis in 1941 still feared that the Japanese train would arrive. Guerrilla units were trained, weapons were cached in the mountains, aviation fuel dumps were created in secret for whatever remnants of the RNZAF and USAAF could get here, bunkers were built along the most likely landing beaches, and so on. I'm sure similar things were done in Aussie. No, we weren't bombed like Darwin was, but Kiwis were convinced that it was a war of national survival, the more so once Japan overran Singapore. There's a fair bit of hindsight involved in saying we weren't under physical threat. The necessity for NZ of forward defence with allies was well understood by the war generation. It's the baby-boomers who overturned that here.
But I know what you're saying about NZ's isolation, and Australia's proximity to Southeast Asia. You guys should remember that according to the NZ Labour Party we're all in a "benign strategic environment". Feel comforted?
Yes, our defence lads and lasses do a brilliant job, particularly given the lack of funding and equipment through the 1990s. Credit goes to the ones who hung in during some tough years. Hopefully the latest spending increases let them build a good base for the future.
I did, a lot. I spent a full month, so I could see everything from Auckland to Invercargill. In America we get a distorted impression of NZ as some sort of leftist satrapy. Just as in this country, this is because the news media are run by a small clique of self-absorbed urban liberals. Notice that the editorials in Scoop are mostly written by foreign leftists, including some America-hating Americans I've never heard of (who in hell is Daniel Patrick Welch, for example?). But out in the rural "red provinces", farmers don't own any newspapers that are read interbationally. You need to do more blogging. That's how we get around them.
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