Building a national identity on a myth

There are few people about when, with our three wayward sons, we visit the Treaty Grounds at Waitangi this week.

An overseas school group in stark black-and-white uniforms listen attentively to one tour guide; a hotch-potch of middle-aged tourists and young Kiwi families tag along after another.

At the church-like entrance to the museum there, we are reminded that until the arrival of the European sailing ships, there was no ‘‘Ma¯ori’’. It was only to distinguish from these newcomers that disparate iwi and hapu¯ began referring to themselves as ta¯ngata Ma¯ori: the ordinary people.

Similarly, as New Zealand emerged as a nation 100 years ago, we seized upon the experiences of our troops at Gallipoli to shape a national identity distinct from Britain and her Empire.

This week on Anzac Day, we will remember the beginning of the end of the Great War in 1918. And in so doing, we will consider what has emerged from those tense meetings of peoples at Waitangi, from those parched deaths on Chunuk Bair and the Somme, the ascent of Everest and the ban on nuclear ships and all those other significant moments in which we carved the initials ‘‘NZ’’ on a corner of the world stage.

These are not so much our history as our creation myths.

And, we report today, there was none more Kiwi-defining moment than the story of LieutenantColonel William Malone and his famed refusal to follow British orders to attack the peak of Chunuk Bair by daylight.

But, eminent war historian Dr Ian McGibbon argues on page 8, it never happened.

If politicians are looking for an apron strings-cutting moment, this was not it. The lesson of Chunuk Bair was not about severing ties with Britain – it was about trusting our own gut instinct and backing ourselves to argue our case. As Malone did.

On Wednesday, after the Reveille sounds at Dawn Service, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will offer her analysis of how World War I shaped us as a people.

She should resist indulging in jingoistic rhetoric about the birth of a nation. Yes, it is our independence that sets us apart. But it is our collaborative leadership in global politics that defines us.

Think: what are the moments when New Zealand has made the greatest global impact? It is when we have helped broker great multilateral accords in world trade, in disarmament, in protecting the environment.

Our great achievements of the 20th century may have been reaching the top of Chunuk Bair and Everest; those of this century are mounting the podium at the United Nations or the Commonwealth of Nations.

And it is in there that we, as a small nation dependent upon the rule of international law, must make our case. Britain, France and the US have become our friends over the past 100 years, and we owe it to them as friends to be straight-up with them. As Malone was.

When Ardern toasted the Commonwealth at the Queen’s state banquet this weekend, she acknowledged the world faced a time of change and uncertainty. She identified climate change, clean oceans and the spread of inclusive democracy as priorities.

If by that she is signalling New Zealand’s renewed commitment to international cooperation and security, then she has recognised the real lesson of the Anzacs.

It was more than just the blood shed by our nation; it was New Zealand’s gutsy common sense that earned us the grudging respect of far greater nations on either side of those conflicts.