In the speaking club, we talked about the symbols of freedom regarding autumn. I do not think that migrating birds have a sense of freedom; they mostly move for the sake of survival, and they are bound to their instincts. However, I thought about the falling of the leaves as a symbol of freedom. I do not know exactly why, but it came to my mind, and I kept on thinking about it again. This is why I am writing this right now. I think, when the leaves fall, they fly away to wherever the wind directs them to, its relevance to freedom might be questioned here because the leaves do not fly on their own but by the help of the wind, but I see these leaves as people who are not connected to or dependent on someone else any more, and I have been feeling like this for a time being, like I will no longer be connected genuinely to someone ever again or like I am afraid of such connection because it gets tiring after a bunch of experiences of disappointment. “If one day they fly away, then why should I build up a connection with them?”, so this is what I feel like nowadays. But maybe I should not be afraid of it because even when I fall off the tree (this tree might be a metaphor for lots of things, such as family, friendships, relationships, school, work, death, and so on), I will someday be one of the leaves of another tree when the bald complexions of winter grow their hair again (Chaucer’s depiction of spring time comes to mind). Even if there is a kind of loop, I know that a tree will not produce the same fruits every year, one year there may be nothing, and another year there may be plenty

of

love.

Gizliyoruz yanaklarımızı ve gölgeliyoruz gözlerimizi,

Bunu borçluyuz insanoğlunun kurnazlığına;

Paramparça ve kanayan bir kalple gülerken oysa,

Ve ağzımızda sayısız kurnazlık.

Dünya neden haberdar olsun ki

Gözyaşlarımızdan ve iç çekişlerimizden?

Hayır, bizi görsünler sadece

Biz maske takarken.

Gülümsüyoruz ama Tanrım, yakarışlarımız

Ulaşıyor sana acı çeken ruhlarımızdan.

Şarkı söylüyoruz ama çamur iğrenç

Ayağımızın altındaki ve kilometreler boyunca;

Ama bırak dünya başka türlü bilsin

Biz maske takalım!

Çeviren: Avni Turan

Kaynak metin: Paul Laurence Dunbar — “We Wear the Mask”

In 2011, Tate Taylor directed the film adaptation of Katheryn Stockett’s novel “The Help” (2009). In the film, there is Eugenia Phelan, who tries to get a job in a publishing house in New York, but she has to find an interesting topic that could sell, and she witnesses how one of her friends, Hilly Holbrook, mistreats a black maid, Aibileen Clark, to the extent that she does not allow her to use the same bathroom as her. Then Eugenia, or Skeeter, decides to recount the experiences of racial segregation of black maids in her book, which later becomes a best-seller. On this context, bell hooks’ argument could be drawn to analyze the film regarding the commodification of black people for the reason that it centers on a white woman depicting how those black maids suffered because of racial discrimination to attract the readers’ attention, and she not only listens to Aibileen, but another maid Minny as well, among lots of others, to collect enough data to work on her book. Even though the maids enable their voices to be heard by means of this book anonymously, as Skeeter changes their names for fear of dreadful consequences for them, this is achieved by the help of a white woman. I acknowledge it as an example of Hughey’s arguments regarding “The Help” in his article, as he contends that the film can be demonstrated to be categorized as a “White Savior Film” since he asserts that “audiences are free to sanction Skeeter to usurp control of black women’s voices under the guise of freeing them from their state of economic and racial servitude” (2016, p. 222), which produces a “White Savior” image of Skeeter who is benign and benevolent, showing that she is not like other whites. Then, just because Skeeter is depicted as a “good” white unlike Hilly, does this depiction justify her acts of taking advantage of the experiences of black maids to write an “interesting” book, or does this not make her racist?

In conclusion, then, it can be argued that the exploitation and commodification of cultural codes regarding the marginalized groups of people, black people in this context, contributes to the satisfaction, enjoyment, and advantage to white people. As can be seen through the example of black maids who are permitted to give publicity to their narratives and perspectives by the help of a white writer, Skeeter, the readers of the book are attracted to it because this issues regarding the abuse of black maids by white housewives have not been talked about this explicitly before. Even though some may argue that it is a humanitarian approach of a writer to advocate for the rights of disparaged black people by documenting what they put up with, I disagree to this point by renouncing that their experiences are commodified in a sense that can be identified as a marketable strategy.

Yang’in Mika ile ilgilenmesi ebeveynleri için iyidir çünkü genellikle işleri yüzünden meşguldürler ancak bir gün Yang bozulur ve Jake onu tamir ettirmek için birkaç kişiyle görüşür ve Yang’in vücudundan hafızalarının saklı olduğu bir parçayı bulurlar. Daha sonrasında ise Jake ve Kyra, Yang’in hafızasına kaydettiği birkaç saniyelik anıları seyrederler ve Yang’in ailesiyle birlikte geçirdiği anları hafızasına kaydettiğini görürler. Jake’in görüştüğü kişilerden biri Yang’in anılarının bazılarını müzede sergilemek ister çünkü bu onun bu tür “tekno-sapiensler” üzerindeki çalışmaları için bir devrim gibidir ancak Jake ve Kyra bu fikre pek sıcak bakmazlar çünkü Yang’e ne kadar bağlı olduklarını onunla olan anılarını hatırlarken açık bir şekilde görürüz.

Film hakkında üstünde durulabilecek bir diğer nokta ise Yang’in gerçekten bir insan olarak görülüp görülemeyeceğidir. Anılarından yola çıkarsak, kendini yakın hissettiği ailesiyle geçirdiği anları hafızasına kaydetmesi, bir klon olan Ada’dan hoşlanması, doğa manzaralarını hafızasına kaydetmesi onu bir robottan daha fazlası kılar mı? Ya da Jake ve Ada arasında geçen konuşmayı baz alırsak insan olmak tam olarak nedir? Film bize bu gibi soruları sordurur; insan ve teknoloji arasındaki sınırların belirsizleşmesine yol açar, Baysal’ın belirttiği üzere posthümanizm, “insan, hayvan ve teknoloji arasındaki geleneksel sınırları sarsmıştır” (s. 209). İnsanı dünyanın merkezine koyan hümanizm akımına karşı konumlanan posthümanizm, insan dışındaki varlıkların da yaşam döngüsündeki değerini ortaya koyduğu için “insan, ontolojik ve epistemolojik anlamda merkezi konumundan uzaklaştırılmış olur” (s. 215), böylece hayvanların, doğanın ve robotların varlıklarının önemi meşruiyet kazanmış olur ve onların haklarını ilgilendiren etik soruları gün yüzüne çıkar. Filmin büyük bölümünde Yang’in varlığına daha çok anıları vasıtasıyla tanık oluruz ki bu anılar Jake, Kyra, Mika ve Yang’in aralarındaki bağın belki de daha önce farkına varmadıkları yönlerini görmelerini sağlar. Film böylece, hem Mika’nın kendi öz kültürüne bağlılığını hem de Yang’in ailesine olan aidiyetini birbirleri ile paylaştıkları anlar aracılığıyla izleyicilerin önüne serer.

Kaynakça

Baysal, Kübra. (2020). Posthümanist Eleştiri ve Steven Hall’ün Köpekbalığı Metinleri Romanı. In Mehmet Akif Balkaya (Ed.), Yeni Tarihselcilikten Posthümanist Eleştiriye Edebiyat Kuramları (pp. 209–233). Çizgi Kitabevi.

Biz kendimizi yansıtmak için oynayacağız

ve yavaş yavaş kendimizi siyah bir nergis gibi

suya düşüp kaybolurken seyredeceğiz.” (36)

Bireylerin kendi kimliklerine yabancılaşmaları ve bu yabancılaşmanın sonucunda kendi bireyselliklerinden ve aidiyetliklerinden uzaklaşmalarının sebebi olarak içinde bulundukları topluma entegre olmaya ve öteki olarak algılanmamaya çalışmak gösterilebilir. Bu yabancılaşmanın getirisi olarak kendi kültürlerinden uzaklaşırlar, bu durum ayrıca egemen topluma ya da kültüre karşı öfke duyulmasına da neden olabilir. Bu duruma örnek verilebilecek karakterler Fransız oyun yazarı Jean Genet’nin 1958 yılında yayınlanan “Les Nègres” adlı oyununda mevcuttur. Oyun, 2000 yılında Ayrıntı Yayınları tarafından dilimize “Zenciler” diye çevrilmiştir. Kitabın başında ilk ne zaman sahnelendiğine dair bir ifade yer alır: “Andre Acquart’ın dekorları ve kostümleriyle Roger Blin’in sahneye koyduğu, Griots topluluğunca oynanan Zenciler, ilk kez 28 Ekim 1959'da Paris’te Lutèce Tiyatrosu’nda sergilendi”. Genet, daha sonrasında oyunun nasıl oynanması gerektiğine dair yönlendirmeler verir: “Bir beyaz tarafından yazılan bu oyun, beyaz bir topluluğa oynanmalıdır. Olur da bir akşam zencilerin oluşturduğu bir seyirci topluluğu önünde oynanırsa, her temsile -erkek ya da kadın- bir beyaz davet edilmelidir. Gösteriyi düzenleyen bu davetliyi şatafatla karşılamalı, törene uygun giydirip, tercihen en öndeki koltukların ortasındaki yerine götürmelidir. Oyun, onun için oynanacaktır. Oyun sırasında, bir projektör bu sembolik beyazı sürekli aydınlatmalıdır. Hiçbir beyaz bu temsili izlemeyi kabul etmezse, o zaman oyuna gelirken girişte, zenci seyircilere beyaz maskeler dağıtılsın. Zenciler maske kabul etmezse o zaman manken kullanılsın”. Oyunda Genet, “Hizmetçiler” (Les Bonnes) adlı oyununda Claire ve Solange karakterleri ile yaptığı gibi, yeniden ezilen ve sömürülen karakterleri işler; Erbek’in çalışmasında bahsettiği üzere, “Jean Genet’in beyaz dünyaya duyduğu kin, onu sömürge halklarının yanında olmaya iter. Romanlarında, tiyatro oyunlarında, yazdığı gazete makalelerinin hepsinde bu kini görmek mümkündür” (79).

Oyunda “Aziz-Nazarlık-Şehri”, “Ne Köy Olur Ne Kasaba”, “Kellerkeli”, “Yuf”, “Fazilet”, “Uf-Acıdı”, “Saadet”, “Kar”, “Kraliçe”, “Yargıç”, “Uşak”, “Misyoner”, “Vali” isimli karakterler yer alır. Oyun, öldürülen beyaz bir kadının cenazesi ile başlar; diğer siyahi karakterleri yargılayan ve beyaz kadının ölümüne kimin sebep olduğunu sorgulayan Kraliçe, Yargıç, Vali, Misyoner, Uşak gibi beyazları temsil eden karakterler yer alır. Bu iki grup arasındaki çatışma öne çıkar, beyazları temsil eden karakterler ışık, siyahi karakterler ise onların gölgesi diye betimlenir; Ne Köy Olur Ne Kasaba’nın belirttiği üzere: “Biz gölgelerdik, ışıklı varlıkların tersiydik.” (34)

Siyahi insanların kimliklerine yabancılaşmaları ve beyazlara karşı kin duymaları Erbek’in (85) çalışmasında belirttiği gibi beyazların ortaya koyduğu “zenci imgesi” yüzündendir. Bu imge dolayısıyla siyahiler kendilerini belli kalıplara sokmaya çalışırlar çünkü daha da dışlanmaktan çekinirler, sokamayınca da öfke duyarlar. Beyaz kadınlar ondan daha avantajlı bir konumda olduğundan ve toplumda asıl “kadın” olarak görüldüğünden dolayı öfke duyan siyahi bir kadın karakter olan Kar; siyahi erkek karakterleri öldürülen beyaz kadına karşı önceden arzu duymakla suçlar ve kadına duyduğu kendi nefretini şu sözlerle ifade eder: “Aynı şey değil baylar. Sizin ona karşı duyduğunuz kinde birazcık arzu da vardı, yani aşk da vardı. Ama ben, bu kadınlar (Öbür kadınları gösterir.), biz zenci kadınlar, bizim sadece kızgınlıklarımız, kudurmuşluklarımız vardı. O kadın öldürüldüğünde, hiç çekinmedik, korkmadık, oralı bile olmadık” (22). Bu arzunun sebebi ise beyaz kadının estetize edilerek asıl ilginin ve merakın yönlendirilmesi gereken kişi olarak konumlandırılmasıdır. Erbek’in (86) belirttiği üzere bu durumdan ötürü siyahilerin birbirini sevmesine izin verilmez, Ne Köy Olur Ne Kasaba Fazilet’e olan sevgisini özgürce yaşayamaz: “Hayır, hayır, hiçbir zaman bizim için aşk olmayacak…” (36). Bundan ötürü Ne Köy Olur Ne Kasaba’nın kendi kimliğini ve siyah topluma olan aidiyetliğini sorgulamasını da şu sözlerinde görürüz: “Karanlıklardan, içinde kıvılcımların parladığı karanlıklardan, sizin karanlıklarınızdan korkuyorum. Siz karanlıklarsınız. Benim ırkımın ulu anası, gölge” (35). Bu sözlerinde onun kendi ırkının gölgede kalışını ve öteki olarak konumlandırılışını vurguladığını görürüz. Beyaz insanların yüceltilmesini ve siyahi insanların kötüleştirilmesini ise Uf-Acıdı’nın şu sözlerinde görürüz: “(Mahkeme Heyeti’ne:) Sen, solgun ve kokusuz ırk, sende ne hayvan kokusu ne de bataklıklarımızdan yükselen iğrenç koku var” (24). Uf-Acıdı’nın kendilerini tanımlarken “[i]s, boya, kömür, zift yetiyor bize” (35) demesi, Ne Köy Olur Ne Kasaba’nın “Afrika o kadar tekin bir yer değildir,” (76) demesi, Vali’nin Afrika’yı tanımlarken “…her şey cüzamlıdır, büyülüdür, tehlikelerle, deliliklerle doludur…” (70) demesi ve Misyoner’in de oradan “korkunç bir ülke” (71) diye bahsetmesi sömürülen ve aşağı görülen halklar hakkında yaratılan imgeyi destekler niteliktedir ki bu söylemler siyahiler tarafından da devam ettirilir; Kellerkeli’nin Ne Köy Olur Ne Kasaba’ya beyaz toplum içindeki yabancı konumunu hatırlatan şu sözlerinden bahsedebiliriz: “Onların gözünde sen bir hayalet oluyorsun, ve gitgide onları hayalet olarak korkutacaksın.” (36)

Sonuç olarak, oyunda siyahi karakterlerin beyaz toplum tarafından nasıl dışlandığını ve ötekileştirildiğini görürüz; bundan ötürü beyaz topluma karşı kin duyarlar ya da kendi içlerinde ayrışırlar. Bazıları da topluma eklemlenmek için beyazların kendileri hakkındaki görüşlerini benimseyip devam ettirirler ki oyunda beyaz topluluğun kendisini meşrulaştırmak için gölge olarak nitelendirilen siyahlara ihtiyacı olduğu Saadet ile Kraliçe arasındaki şu diyalog ile vurgulanır:

“SAADET: Siz ışıksanız ve biz de gölgeysek eğer, günün bittiği gece oldukça…

KRALiÇE: Ben sizin hepinizi dışarı attıracağım.

SAADET, alaylı: Aptal! Ne kadar sıradan olurdunuz, eğer sizi kabartma gibi ortaya çıkarıveren bu gölge olmasa.” (80)

Kaynakça

Erbek, İ. S. (2018). Kolonyal Söylemin Yarattığı Nevrotik Siyah ve Nevrotik Beyaz: Jean Genet’in Zenciler (Les Nègres) Oyunu Üzerine Bir İnceleme. Tiyatro Eleştirmenliği ve Dramaturji Bölümü Dergisi (26), 77–88.

Genet, Jean. (1958). Zenciler. Ayrıntı Yayınları.

doğurduğundan beri

yer hiçbir zaman

sakin olmadı ki

Oysa sen onun sesini

duymamak için

türlü bahanelerle

avuttun kendini

Söylediler bize önlem almamızı

ama gelince o vakit

akıl terk eder yuvayı

sırtında çantası

Sana doğa ile savaşa girme

demedim mi?

itikatla kanal kurmaya kalktın

çürük temelini ifşa

etmedim mi?

enkaz halindeki Kral Lear misali

isyan etmedin mi?

gece gibi üstüne çöktüğümde

son pişmanlığın izi

fayda etti

mi?

22 Apr 2020

Gallipoli and music seem an unlikely combination, yet — as with every other location during the First World War — melody managed to slither through the misery. It helped to remind the soldiers why they were fighting, or perhaps to forget.

Moments after the troops’ arrival on 25 April 1915, musicians were among the first casualties. Between ship and shore, a bullet hit a singer of comic songs remembered as just “Skinner” of the Auckland Regiment. The stretcher bearers of the Wellington Battalion and Taranaki Company made it ashore quickly. “The beach was utter chaos,” recalled bandsman/stretcher bearer Laurie Smith. “No one seemed to know where anybody else was.”

‘March of the Anzacs’ by Alexander Lithgow, composer of ‘Invercargill March’, 1916. The sheet music cover depicted “the landing of troops and supplies at Kabateple [Gallipoli]”. — National Library of New Zealand.

Their first duty was to one of their own: Frank Shirley, a former Taranaki bugler, was felled by a bullet. “He popped his head up for a look, and got clouted good and hard,” said Smith. His friends had to lie on their backs to avoid the Turkish snipers, as they pushed Shirley over a low cliff to be caught by other stretcher bearers and then attended to by the battalion doctor, Captain George Home.

Just two days after landing at Anzac Cove, 20-year-old bugler George Bissett from Taranaki was killed at Monash Gully during a day of fierce fighting. After a week, Bissett’s body was spotted by his commander Lieutenant-Colonel William Malone; he was lying face downwards, and on his back was a bugle, punctured by bullet holes. After a month, a 24-hour armistice was agreed so that both sides could bury the dead on No Man’s Land, no matter what their nationality. Malone wrote in his diary of the “poor shattered humanity”, decomposing after so many days exposed to the air. “As dreadful a sight I suppose as could be.” Among those buried was “the Bugler lad Bissett”:

I am glad. . . . It is a desecration of the human body to leave it shot up, and unburied for long. . . . At 4.23 [p.m.] the armistice ended, and the firing recommenced. I had a good look at the Turkish soldiers they look good, and well fed and clothed, and seemed cherry [sic] and friendly enough. At 7 p.m. Hawkes Bay Coy gave a concert, but the rifle firing became so furious and noisy that it was impossible to hear, so we sang God Save the King and went to bed, at about 7.30 p.m.

George Bissett’s bugle, punctured by bullet holes at Gallipoli, 27 April 1915. — National Army Museum Te Mata Toa, Waiouru

Major Peter Buck described the difficulties of day-to-day life on Gallipoli. The place itself seemed to “rise steeply from the seashore. We were hanging on by our eyebrows to trenches dug on the near margins of the slopes.” At least the trenches were safer than the beach, but conditions were taxing. The men tried to cook on their own canteens, using twigs and branches from any nearby shrubs as firewood, but mostly these were just for making tea. Water was brought up from the beach in sealed cans, and rationed to one gallon per man. Wiping their faces with a damp cloth was the closest the men got to a wash. Food was out of tins, and when opened a swarm of flies would suddenly arrive from their “usual abode”, a nearby long-drop. Yet singing at Gallipoli was not unknown. A month after the landings, Colonel William Malone wrote to his wife:

We get some music here, all vocal. Last night one of my companies gave a concert. ‘Mary of Argyle’, ‘Sweet and Low,’ and ‘The Veterans Song’ (Long Live the King — don’t you hear them shouting — is the one I mean) were very well sung, but after about 6 songs, we had to bunk off. The machine gun and rifle fire, with an odd shell burst, made such a row that we couldn’t hear.

Immediately after landing on 25 April, the stretcher bearers filled gaps in the line until they could join their battalion. At Walker Ridge, they tirelessly administered first aid, carried the casualties down a steep ridge to the beach, then laboured back up with supplies; several were wounded. Observing them was Malone, who recommended that six be mentioned in despatches. Malone requested the stretcher bearers to assemble near a first-aid post, and suggested they sit down and have a smoke while he said a few words. The bandsmen had begun to respect Malone’s wisdom, despite their confrontations with him back in New Zealand. But they were surprised when he said:

Men, I have seen the work you have done since the landing and I want to thank you personally for it. I also want you to know that when I used to ride behind you in New Zealand and in Egypt, the thought often used to cross my mind that you seemed to be a cold-footed lot sheltering behind brass instruments, and I want to apologise to you for this. I hope that you will forgive me for, like you, I had never been to a war before and knew not what you would be called upon to do. I am sure that the battalion is proud of you, and when I write home to the papers I shall make mention of your work.

Malone had changed his tune about the musicians soon after the landing. Following a night of torrid fighting, in which he estimated nearly three million rifle bullets had been shot at them by the Turks, Malone wrote: “Everybody has done well. Even our — in peace-time — much-abused bandsmen, as stretcher bearers have done great things working night and day, walking, climbing, carrying wounded, mostly under fire.”

Otago Gully Headquarters Staff, Gallipoli, November 1915. — Photo by Lawrence Doubleday (Te Papa, CA000316/002/0017)

Despite being almost absent from the official record, band music was heard by the New Zealand troops at Gallipoli. Enough bandsmen were sent to form four bands. However, the casualties among the musicians quickly mounted. By August 1915, when success at Gallipoli was looking doubtful, it was decided to form battalion bands, principally to revitalise the men’s morale. But the losses were appalling; the Wellington Battalion alone, 700 strong, was reduced to just 48 officers and men. The most that could be managed was to organise 30 soldiers into a brigade band. Laurie Smith, a bandsman/stretcher bearer, recalled an occasion at Argyl Dere on Gallipoli, when a band played “within 100 yards of the Turkish lines … the small band ensconced itself below a ledge jutting into a valley that sloped up to the Turkish lines. There, with bullets whistling past, the men played imperturbably as if their only aim was to fill the valley with sound.”

To forestall battle fatigue, the Canterbury Battalion organised several concerts in the Canterbury Rest Gully. The Turkish trenches were nearby, so the first concert was held in the dark. The bandmaster said before they started that “any man hit during an item must not disturb it by any outcry”. The Turks did not cooperate however, and the Canterbury band’s debut concert was accompanied by the rattle of a machine gun. The next night, the Turks brought their own band into their trenches, “but memories of the previous evening’s entertainment were spoilt, the melody being badly punctuated by a bomb accompaniment. The effects of these concerts, however, proved a miraculous tonic to the spirits of the men.”

An Australian officer recalled New Zealand troops holding a concert at Gallipoli a few months after the 25 April landing: “One man with a cornet proved a good performer; several others sang, while some gave recitations. We all sat round in various places in the gully, and joined in the choruses. It was all very enjoyable while it lasted; but, as darkness came on, rifle-fire began on the tops of the surrounding hills — also, occasionally, shell fire. This completely drowned the sound of the performers’ voices, and the concert had to be brought to a close.”

Some evenings, the Anzac troops could hear talking or music coming from the Turkish trenches. It might be a gramophone, an unaccompanied singer, or a soldier playing the harmonica. The tunes included some significant to the Allies: the ‘Marseillaise’ or ‘Tipperary’. But it was rare for Anzac troops at Gallipoli to have the energy or opportunity for music or concerts. Reading, smoking and gambling — using a “wealth of cigarettes” — were the only diversions Rikihana Carkeek enjoyed in his dugout christened Tangi-o-te-mata Residence (the call of the bullets).

Unlike France, there were no small cafés, no canteens, no towns or civilians. There was little respite from the trenches, apart from the occasional swim in the Aegean risking shellfire. Even their rations were grim: hard biscuits, or bully beef that was vile at the best of times, but which turned to liquid in the summer heat. As historian Max Arthur points out, it is unsurprising that one of the few songs to emerge from the Gallipoli trenches concentrated on food. Although many songs were written about Gallipoli after the event, ‘Oh, Old Gallipoli’s a Wonderful Place’ is a rarity: a trench song created on the peninsular by Anzac troops. Like so many of the soldiers’ songs, it was a parody written to another song’s melody, in this case ‘Mountains of Mourne’: “Oh, old Gallipoli’s a wonderful place / Where the boys in the trenches the foe have to face, / But they never grumble, they smile through it all, / Very soon they expect Achi Baba to fall.”

One of the few Zealand soldiers who, when enlisting, nominated their occupation as “musician” was Auckland-born composer Arthur Vivian Carbines. Before the war he had written hymns, songs and instrumental pieces and became a well-known musician in Auckland and New Plymouth as a singer, organist, pianist and cellist for institutions such as the Baptist Church and Orphans Clubs. In 1907, when he returned from two years’ study in London, the New Zealand Observer described Carbines as “one of the most promising musicians in Auckland … equally at home on any instrument from a tooth comb to a pipe organ”.

Carbines volunteered two weeks after war was declared and soon wrote ‘Toast to Maoriland’, using his own lyrics to the melody of ‘There is a Happy Land’. It naively looks forward to active service, while lamenting the culinary travails at his training camp: “German sausage isn’t it / When at fighting we begin it, / On a tin-in-in of Bully Beef”. On 8 August 1915, during an assault on Chunuk Bair, Carbines was clambering back into a trench after recovering wounded men when an inexperienced British officer mistook him for a Turk and fatally shot him.

On the troopship to Gallipoli in 1915, Lance-Corporal Alexander Aitken carried a violin smuggled in his kitbag. He later became a world-renowned mathematician. — Edinburgh University Library

While music on Gallipoli was uncommon, a discreet exception was the violin played by Alexander Craig Aitken, a Dunedin-born student who became an internationally renowned mathematician. Aitken, a lance-corporal with the Otago Infantry Battalion, left Lemnos for Gallipoli on 9 November 1915. Smuggled in his kit was a violin he had been given on his troopship to Egypt; he hid the instrument during kit inspections, and it was occasionally passed from hand to hand among his fellow soldiers to remain out of sight. Leaving Lemnos, the battalion band played for the departing soldiers as they marched towards their ship, then turned around and returned to base. Aitken pondered the musicians’ status: “For the moment I thought it odd that the ability to play a brass instrument should exempt a man from coming on with us to Gallipoli; but the Army was the Army and had inured us to shrug off any anomaly like that.”

Aitken’s immersion into the reality of Gallipoli was swift. He left his violin in the care of a friendly Australian, “a hard-bitten old hand”, then climbed towards Chunuk Bair. Soon, he comes across a stretcher party carrying a Wellington Battalion soldier, ‘shot through the head and dying”. He recognises him as a friend: “A glance was enough to show that he would be dead in a few minutes.’ In the 7-foot trenches facing Chunuk Bair, Aitken and his Company were 220 yards away from the Turks; between them were “rusty wire entanglements”. They took their duties in shifts: eight hours on, eight off. Fifteen yards behind them was another trench, in which they slept, using the blankets of those on duty as well as their own.

In the bitter cold between midnight and dawn, they were indispensable. We slept in our uniforms, rifle at hand-reach, and, until the December weather made it unavoidable, did not remove boots or socks, and often slept in full equipment in case of surprise. I need not describe vermin; . . . the greater part of modern war, when of the static type, consists precisely of such monotony, such discomfort, such casual death. And so let it be stripped of glamour and seen for what it is.

Aitken quickly became jaded about the war, his leaders, their tactics, the waste — and the euphemisms to justify it all.

We take refuge in vagueness, or in noble phrases like the “sombre aftermath of victory”, or in traditional emollients, dulce et decorum est, or sed miles, sed pro patria, or something found in such a non-combatant poet as Tennyson. From that time on, and lastingly, such usages would rouse in me an impatient protest. Let these things be called by their proper names, and war will be extirpated the sooner.

A blizzard in November accelerated plans for the evacuation of Allied troops from Gallipoli. While preparing a cave for a possible rearguard action, Aitken retrieved his violin from the empty dugout of its Australian minder. He would occasionally play it in the evening.

Each night we had a muted concert in the largest dug-out. My E-string had gone, but a resourceful Aucklander unravelled the strands of a short length of the six-ply field telephone wire, and these substitutes served until I bought proper strings in Cairo next April. There was no room for the sweep of the bow-arm, while the Humoresque, or anything like it, was out of key with Gallipoli; but Christmas was near, and carols with muted obbligati were softly intoned. In its time The First Nowell will have been sung in strange places; this dug-out under Chunuk Bair must have been one of the strangest. After the last of these subdued concerts I stooped under the waterproof door-sheet and stood for a minute waiting for the diffused light to show me the way to my slot-bed. The contrast was extreme; inside, the warmth and comradeship of men far from home but remembering it and forgetting the war for a brief hour …

Gwyllymn (Lew) Jones was another musician with a violin concealed in his pack when he landed at Gallipoli in late September 1915; aged 20, he was a gunner with the New Zealand Field Artillery. Jones and his fellow soldiers soon came under heavy fire. All around him men were being wounded by Turkish fire, and he was quickly surrounded by “dead, dying and wounded comrades”. According to family lore, Jones picked up his violin to comfort the men. “It seemed for at least a moment that the war was silent.” However, Jones and his violin were hit by gunfire and he lay wounded in the hills of Gallipoli until he was rescued, leaving his destroyed instrument behind.

Programme for an Anzac memorial concert, Auckland, December 1916. The cover photograph shows the landing at Anzac Cove. — Eph-A-Variety-1916–01-front, Alexander Turnbull Library

The lingering nightmare of Gallipoli came to a sudden if silent end when the British high command decided to evacuate the Allied troops from Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay. Eight months after the chaotic invasion, the troops’ departure was well planned and executed. Over several days before Christmas 1915, under the cover of night or decoys, equipment and supplies were removed or destroyed, and troops carefully made their way down the valleys to the beaches to be transferred to the waiting troopships.

On 13 December, Alexander Aitken and his men received instructions to report at the beachhead. “We cleared up and reported on time. The violin had to be left; I scribbled a hasty note to Chadwick, batman to Major W. W. Alderman, asking him to look after it if he could.” To Aitken the instrument was as good as lost, but a few days later on Lemnos, Chadwick came looking for him. When packing Alderman’s kit at Gallipoli, the officer had said, “Shove it in with my stuff. Some fellows get attached to these things.” The violin was one of the last personal items to be removed from Anzac.

Aitken describes the various decoys used during the evacuation to trick the Turks into thinking the fight was continuing: rifles set up with devices to make them fire automatically; parties of men with bathing towels heading to the beach, as if for a swim, then returning fully clothed. The Regimental Band “had, indeed, come from Lemnos and played in a secluded gully”. By 20 December the evacuations from Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay were complete: the men were safely on board and the ships were heading to Egypt. In the eight months of the Gallipoli campaign, of the 17,000 New Zealand soldiers who landed, about 7500 were casualties, including 2779 dead.

On the departing troopships, “Restraint was thrown aside”, wrote Fred Waite. “New Zealanders from the Apex and the Lone Pine rear-guard of Australians danced wild measures with the sailors on the iron decks … So we said good-bye to Anzac. Next morning the Turk rubbed his eyes and proclaimed a great victory.”

—

An edited excerpt from Good-Bye Maoriland: the Songs and Sounds of New Zealand’s Great War, by Chris Bourke (Auckland University Press, 2017).

Sources:

Alexander Aitken, Gallipoli to the Somme, OUP, London, 1963; Alex Calder (ed.), AUP, Auckland, 2018.
O. E. Burton, The Auckland Regiment, Whitcombe & Tombs, Auckland, 1922.
John Crawford (ed.) with Peter Cooke, No Better Death: The Great War Diaries and Letters of William G. Malone, Reed, Auckland, 2005.
John Crawford (ed.), The Devil’s Own War: The First World War Diary of Brigadier-General Herbert Hart, Exisle, Auckland, 2008.
‘Hippo’, ‘The Colonel and His Band’, part 3, New Zealand Mouthpiece, June 1965.
Fred Waite, The New Zealanders at Gallipoli, Whitcombe & Tombs, Christchurch, 1919.

Audio and Video links:

Great War Stories 3: Alexander Aitken

Gallipoli: The New Zealand Story: full-length documentary written by Maurice Shadbolt, 1984

Bugle Stories 5: George Bissett and his bugle

NZ On Screen: First World War collection

Farewell Zealandia: RNZ’s 2015 recordings of songs written by New Zealanders during the First Wold War

The Aboriginal activist and widely-acclaimed poet Kath Walker was born on North Stradbroke Island in 1920. Her early working life was spent as a domestic servant, but with the outbreak of World War II she was able to secure employment as a switchboard operator. Shortly afterwards, Walker joined the Communist Party of Australia. It was during the 1960s that she began rising to prominence through her involvement with the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. In 1964 Walker also published her first collection of verse, We Are Going, which reflected on the dispossession experienced by Aboriginal people. In recognition of her services Walker was awarded an MBE in 1970, only to return the honour in 1988 as part of her protest against the lack of recognition given to Indigenous Australians during Australia’s Bicentennial year. At the same time she assumed her Aboriginal name of Oodgeroo Noonuccal. Walker continued publishing poignant verse, and instigated educational programs for Aboriginal people on North Stradbroke Island. She died in 1993.