Boers

• Historians and Māori leaders are now worried about the mixed impact of the day – known as Te Pūtake o te Riri – amid wider fears it is already slipping from public attention.
• Unlike Anzac Day, however, Te Pūtake o te Riri was not made an official holiday – and this may partly explain its struggle for wider recognition.

A question of timing

• It emphasises Māori experiences, and each year’s commemoration is hosted by different hapū and iwi.
• In 2023, for example, it focused on Ngai-te-rangi perspectives of the battle of Pukehinahina – “Gate Pā” – in Tauranga.

Evolution of Anzac Day

• The comparison with the first world war invites an intriguing question: what lessons might we learn from the history of our most visible war commemoration, Anzac Day?
• Indeed, in 1965, the 50th anniversary of Gallipoli, there were real doubts Anzac Day could survive the passing of the last Anzac veterans.
• Read more:
  New lessons about old wars: keeping the complex story of Anzac Day relevant in the 21st century

  Instead, it has survived as a sacred day – helped perhaps by the 1920 Anzac Day Act which made it an official public holiday.

War memorials and public memory

• The growing public ownership of Anzac Day ran parallel to the decline of Armistice Day, which marked the end of the World War I on November 11.
• As the sculptor Brett Graham has noted, war memorials became the dominant sculptural form of public life.
• Nowadays, they are among the nation’s most prominent public sites, including the Auckland War Memorial Museum, the Pukeahu National War Memorial in Wellington, and Christchurch’s Bridge of Remembrance.

Gallipoli and national unity

• Significantly, the Gallipoli story – the central focus of our Anzac mythology – has been adapted and retold by each generation.
• Māori Television (Whakatā Māori) established a national Anzac Day broadcast in 2005, deepening the shared cultural languages and motifs of April 25.
• Since the 1990s, successive governments – especially Helen Clark’s in the early 2000s – invested in Anzac Day as a commemoration of national unity.

Need for a national policy

• Some have suggested Te Pūtake o te Riri will never achieve the necessary public attention until it becomes a statutory holiday.
• As Joanna Kidman noted, many New Zealand Wars cemeteries, memorials and battlefields have been neglected or are on private land.
• The issues raised all point to the need for a national policy on the commemoration of the New Zealand Wars – guided by iwi, with critical input from scholars – that enhances community relationships.

New ways of remembering

• After its service on October 28, the museum hosted whānau descendants of 28th Māori Battalion veterans who had never claimed their medals for serving in World War II.
• By choosing Te Pūtake o te Riri for the ceremony, the organisers were able to bridge past and present through themes of service, sacrifice and citizenship.
• As trusted institutions of public memory, museums are ideally placed to tell the stories of the New Zealand Wars.

Rowan Light does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• Ground raids in the Belgorod region of Russia, adjacent to the north-eastern frontier of Ukraine, appear to have upped the ante.
• It creates legal complications in international humanitarian law (IHL) that will be difficult to untangle unless responsibility for the operations can be definitively attributed.

Who is involved

• The incursions have been carried out, according to Ukrainian officials, by two separate groups of Russian citizens.
• These are the Freedom of Russia Legion (FRL) and the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC).
• Its status is unclear when it comes to the group’s relationship with Ukraine’s military command and control.
• The answers to these questions determine whether captured fighters are protected under IHL, and who will be held accountable for their actions.

Irregular fighters and international law

• The participation of irregular units in armed conflict has been a persistent feature of warfare since at least the Peninsular War (1808-1814).
• The development of international law to reflect this reality of modern warfare was further spurred by the French use of francs-tireurs (literally, “free-shooters”) in occupied areas of north-eastern France during the Franco-Prussian war (1870-1871).
• In the second Anglo-Boer war (1899-1902), meanwhile, the entire army of the Boer republics consisted of irregular farmers who were mobilised into kommandos to resist the British invasion.
• This defines entitlement after capture to the rights and protections of prisoners of war (POWs).
• A notable feature of that conflict had been the activities of armed resistance movements in occupied territory.
• And if the FRL has been incorporated into the Ukrainian Foreign Legion, as has been reported, its fighters should be considered part of the Ukrainian armed forces.
• Because they come under the IHL definition of combatants, they should be protected from being treated as saboteurs after capture, which carries a heavy penalty under Russian law.

• Launched in 2022, the Schneider Electric Sustainability Impact Awards celebrates leaders that prioritize innovation and decarbonization.
• The first, "Impact to My Company" recognizes those who exhibit outstanding sustainability leadership in their own operations.
• The second, "Impact to My Customers" rewards those who demonstrate exceptional sustainability leadership by helping customers achieve their decarbonization goals.
• "Through the Schneider Electric Sustainability Impact Awards, we acknowledge and highlight the valuable contributions made by our partners worldwide towards decarbonizing not only their own operations but also their customers'.

• TEL AVIV, Israel, July 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- CropX Technologies, a global leader in digital agronomic solutions for farming operations, recently offered farmers in the Netherlands greater insight into how the government's new proposed nitrogen emission reductions will affect their farms.
• This helps farmers understand and prepare for the impact it will have on their operations and gives members of the general public and policymakers an easier way to understand the proposed nitrogen targets.
• Nitrogen is a vital nutrient for crop and pasture growth but causes ecological problems when too much is released into the environment.
• "Making the Dutch government's nitrogen reduction map accessible helps everyone understand better the emission standards that could affect how farms are run in the foreseeable future," says Gert Sterenborg, Product Manager at CropX.