April 24, 2024
ANZAC lessons ignored says historian
Māori historian Monty Soutar says he’s disappointed countries seem to have forgotten the harsh lessons from the two world wars.
Dr Soutar will join Julian Wilcox to anchor Whakata Māori’s coverage of the Dawn Service at the Company Memorial in Gisborne tomorrow, with Peata Melbourne covering the Auckland service.
He says producing books on Māori participation in the First World War and 28 Māori Battalion’s C Company has taken decades out of his life and given him a deeper understanding of the personal cost to the veterans who served and their whanau.
He’d like to think it can never happen again, but the sad reality is every year since 1945 there has been a war somewhere in the world.
“The message I always take out of ANZAC is there must be a better way to solve our grievances between countries but we continually prove over the decades we are willing to go back and fight again. We haven’t learned the lessons of the past,” Dr Soutar says.
The special live Anzac broadcast will include produced mini features on whānau and significant memorials in Te Tairāwhiti, along with a closer look at Sir Apirana Ngata, regarded as the father of the Māori Battalion,