Lessons From Loafer's Lodge and The Ukraine and Gaza Conflicts

Editor's Opinion

On a recent trip to Wellington, I walked a stretch of road that took me to the city hospital. On the journey back I came upon the former Loafers Lodge. It would have been an unremarkable building but for the horrific fire that unfolded and claimed 5 lives. Like the building (see the photos), the memory of that fateful night has become a forgotten and bordered-up chapter in the country’s history.

Not far from Loafers, the unmistakable blues and yellows of the Ukrainian flag drew my eye to a wall of graffiti. Over the top of this patriotic symbol had been scrawled Gaza-related motifs.

This image-of graffiti placed on top of graffiti-symbolised to me the largely forgotten nature of the Ukraine war and the dead, and its symbolic replacement, the Gaza conflict. As time wears on it seems likely that Gaza will be replaced in the public eye by another conflict. Unless.

Unless time is put in to learning from prior conflicts and tragedies to avert events like the Loafer’s Lodge fire and the loss of life and humanity in the Ukraine and Gaza wars, more wars will likely happen again.

The loss of life in all these situations has been horrendous. But will cool heads prevail?