Each year around Anzac Day, our settler-colonial nation state invokes the myth of the honourable fallen soldier. The young ANZAC fighting for King and Country features as a convenient figure upon which to project national pride and from which to construct a national identity. As citizens we are led to believe that the sacrifice of thousands of young New Zealanders’ lives in the name of empire and conquest is worthy rather than exploitative. War is presented to us as inevitable, and in the interests of the freedom and welfare of ordinary people, as we are lulled into a comfortable Lest-We-Forget trance adorned with poppies and sanitized beyond recognition. We are made to consume disinformation masquerading as commemoration.

In recognition of the stark urgency for countering the ways in which remember and relate to these narratives, we have a line-up of panellists who are at the cutting edge of thought and advocacy in these intersections, offering us their knowledge and helping us navigate the current atmosphere of disinformation. Join us for an evening of ethical remembering, where we will draw out the links between war, militarism, capitalism, and climate change, while mapping the ways in which colonial and white supremacist historical narratives have allowed for them to propagate. Tune into our online event for some sobering and empowering discussions that remain largely absent from mainstream ANZAC discourse. We invite you to learn, unlearn, and reimagine a just future.

Join speakers Dr Emalani Case, Dr Mahdis Azarmandi, MP Teanau Tuiono and writer/activist Anne Russell