A great nation is one which cherishes the memory of its warriors always.
KIWIS are birds found only in New Zealand. Not that they don’t want to fly; they cannot. Their local cousins would be our Keruak (Water Hen). However, the Kiwis are much bigger than the Keruaks.
They come out during the night to find food and sleep during the day. They don’t work like the other species of Kiwis do.
Some 40 of the latter species are flying into Kuching today. But these are not ordinary Kiwis. Twenty-eight of them are army veterans of the First Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment (1RNZIR) on a three-week tour of Malaysia. Their wives are with them.
Most of them are over 70 years old, and they’d love to see the camps or what is left of their camps in Malaysia.
No doubt, fond memories and sad moments will all come flooding back at those places. They hope to meet again with old buddies if any are still around; otherwise, they would include them in prayers for the welfare of their families.
In Sarawak, some of them might remember the joyful occasion in 1965 when the Kiwis handed over duties to the then Second Lt Edmund Abit of the Sarawak Rangers at Nanga Mepi in Lubok Antu.
They were first deployed here from May to October 1965 under the command of Colonel RM Gurr to relieve the Gurkha battalion and were redeployed here the following year.
Welcome to Sarawak
Reader, say after me, Selamat Datai – Haere Mai – to every one of them. While they are here, I hope the Sarawak Federation Heritage Committee, New Zealand Malayan Veterans Association, Malaysia-New Zealand Chamber of Commerce and the WAK Festival folks will take them to the Wild Life Sanctuary at Semenggoh to meet our mutual cousins in their homes, have breakfast with them at 9am, or high tea at 3pm.
By the way, in New Zealand, there’s no such thing as Tea; Tea is in the evening, what you and I call dinner. And dinner time in New Zealand is when the Kiwis eat cakes and cakes and more cakes, and they call this orgy: Supper.
Their mission this time
Part of their mission in Kuching is to unveil a plaque at the Heroes Grave Memorial to commemorate New Zealand’s contribution to the security of Sarawak during the Confrontation.
Coming as retirees, not as combatants, they will be under the ‘command’ of a diplomat, HE Dr John Subritzky, New Zealand High Commissioner to Malaysia. During the Malayan Emergency (1948 to 1957), New Zealand armed forces were doing their bit during and after Malaya’s independence.
At the time of the formation of Malaysia, these troops helped us defend our country with their lives. This was a crucial time for us; we were seeing the possibility of the death of a nation at infancy!
When we needed help, help came from true friends. These Kiwis were such friends and are still friends in war and in peace.
In the country, the Kiwis are our guests before they fly (okay, they can fly, with the help of an aircraft) home again, laden with souvenirs and local delicacies of which we have plenty to offer.
We hope to see them again next year, with more members of their families – the more the merrier. We’ll go swimming, hiking, mountaineering and dancing.
Gratitude of Colombo Plan students
Those who have been to New Zealand either as students (technical school, college or university) will remember that these people from Aotearoa (Land Of The Long White Cloud) were very kind to us.
We must treat the visit of the war veterans as a symbolic gesture of the maintenance of goodwill and long-standing friendship between people of the two countries.
I hope that many New Zealanders at home may be able to read this column online. I wish to thank them all, rather belatedly, on behalf of those Sarawakians who were studying in New Zealand under the auspices of the Colombo Plan. We are grateful to the government and people of New Zealand for all the kindness and the generosity accorded to us while we were in that beautiful country.
We wish that we could personally thank the families who looked after us and made us feel at home away from home, but this is obviously impracticable.
A number of the students caught young Kiwis (of the female gender) and together they flew to Borneo after their studies. As a result, there are a number of new species around.
Compared to the contribution of these NZ veterans to Malaysia, the students’ return contribution to NZ is very small.
Mine was particularly minuscular. I was serving NZ, not in the army, but on trains during varsity holidays. Yes, I was in uniform – that of the NZ Government Railways. I was also serving in the Land and Deeds Division of the Magistrate’s Court down the Prince Albert Park in Auckland, as trainee assistant land registrar, and was partly responsible for ‘splitting’ land registries into Auckland South and Hamilton Registries.
This is nothing compared to what the 1RNZIR veterans did for the safety of Malaysia during troubled times. They will never forget the heat, the rugged terrain, the swamps, the mosquitoes, and the weight of their equipment as they carried out their task to help defend another Commonwealth country. But they never lost the fighting spirit. Does anyone else remember this message, daubed on the ramshackle ‘kiosk’ by Bau lake at a time when Bau area wasn’t exactly safe:
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
“If the Aussies don’t get you, the Kiwis must!”
For what it is worth, I wish to commemorate the visit of the veterans to Kuching by reminding them of the Maori proverb, “Me Ara Te Mata Hi Taua” – A warrior must always be alert.
Have a pleasant time in Malaysia, mates.
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