On 25 April ISO member Jasper Auld gave this speech at the 2025 Peace Picnic – organised by Pōneke Anti-Fascist Coalition.
Kia ora, I’m Jasper from the International Socialists. I’d like to talk about what ANZAC Day currently serves as: A day for our colonial state to hide its atrocities in emotional propaganda and outright lies. Uniformed soldiers attend – their top brass – cops, and government officials. It is used by the government to wash their own war crimes in Malaya, Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan.
In fact, this entire parade is a worship of the state, something which fascists adore. The salutes, the artillery fire, the bugles played, the dress-ups, the lauding of civilian mass-murders in Asia in a whole bunch of genocidal projects.
Plenty have talked heartily about World War One, and the horrors there, including one-third of Kiwi men at the time being thrown in the meat grinder for the King. Instead I will reference the other crimes the state is attempting to cover up and look past:
3,794 NZ soldiers were sent to Korea, where the Western forces dropped 635,000 tonnes of napalm on North Korea, mostly on civilians, along with 800 tonnes of regular ordinance (“ordinary” weapons) daily. After this, South Korea has frequently vacillated between liberal democracy and outright dictatorship, and North Korea is run by the dictators who emerged from the rubble.
4,000 NZ soldiers were sent to Malaya, in the so-called Malayan Emergency, in which the British backed forces and Western troops were known to collectively punish civilians, establish concentration camps, and even parade enemy heads through the streets.
3,890 NZ soldiers were sent to Vietnam, possibly one of the most well documented attacks of civilian life by forces that New Zealand allied itself with, including the My Lai Massacre, Operation Speedy Express, the Phoenix Program and Tiger Force. These are amongst the things we can feel ever so much pride in.
3,500 NZ soldiers were sent to Afghanistan, the twenty year war. We have heard of the 2010 Kandahar homicides, the 2012 Kandahar Massacre, 2015 Kunduz hospital airstrike, the use of white phosphorus, and war-crimes by the Australian and New Zealand militaries.
I think we should oppose ANZAC next year more directly, and start organising three to six months in advance. We see Israeli leftist anti-Zionists organise against far worse, yet we are told to fear being improper, making a scene, and ruining peoples’ rituals.
Reject ANZAC Day.
This event was organised with support from Poneke Anti-Fascist Coalition, Peace Action Wellington, Justice for Palestine, Falastin Tea Collective, Alternative Jewish Voices, Students for Justice in Palestine and Just Defence
