Editorial: If you saw it, tell the police

OPINION: It is a sad fact that the vandal attack on the new Caroline Bay interactive war memorial should not come as a great surprise to anyone.

The memorial, unveiled with great fanfare on November 1, is intended as a tribute to the brave people of South Canterbury who fought for freedom in World War 1, including 1006 who perished.

Less than a week after its opening one of its plinths – detailing the efforts of Kiwi soldiers on the eastern front – was smashed in broad daylight by someone with no respect for either the dead or public property.

As last year's series of sculpture vandalism attacks – and more recently the awful beheadings of birds at Temuka aviary – show, there is no shortage of yobs in South Canterbury with too much time on their hands and not enough brains to realise what they are doing is wrong.

Whoever has chosen to deface the memorial has thrown down a challenge to the people of this region. Hopefully how we react will do justice to the memory of the brave people the memorial was built to commemorate.

The best way that citizens can respond is by helping the police in any way they can with their investigation.

Anyone who knows who vandalised the memorial has a duty to go to the police. Whoever carried out the attack – no matter what their circumstances – does not deserve your protection. Anyone who saw anything suspicious has a duty to report it. It is difficult to believe that the memorial could have been vandalised in broad daylight on a Saturday without someone noticing.

Mayor Janie Annear's angry response reflects that of the rest of the community. A new security camera had already been ordered and should be installed in a few weeks. In a perfect world it would not be needed but the reality is it is a sensible thing to do.

The memorial will be fixed and if it is attacked again, it will be fixed again.

Anyone who has seen the new memorial will know that it is a handsome addition to Caroline Bay. It coincides with a renewed interest in our Anzac Day remembrances, and is a user-friendly guide to the Great War for young New Zealanders. With its map of the battlefields around the world it is a reminder of how far our predecessors went to fight out of a sense of duty.

We can be proud of 99.9 per cent of our young generation and the way our education system teaches them about our history.

Given that a recent Armistice Day poll in Britain found that one in 20 children thought Adolf Hitler was Germany's national football coach and 6 per cent believed the Holocaust was a celebration to mark the end of World War 2, it is clear we are doing a lot better than our former mother country on this important front.

- © Fairfax NZ News