Claire Trevett: Is it reasonable to expect Syrian refugees to fight?

Syrian people arrive on a dinghy after crossing from Turkey to Lesbos island, Greece. AP photo / Petros Giannakouris

Winston Peters clearly used the parliamentary recess for a binge watch of Braveheart before he returned with his solution to the Syrian conflict this week.

Our very own William Wallace came out with his proposal to bring women and children Syrian refugees to New Zealand but send the men back to "fight for the freedom of their country, like we are".

The "we" referred to the New Zealand Army soldiers over in Iraq rather than Peters and his merry men in NZ First who were cosily ensconced in their leather chairs in Parliament at the time.

In Braveheart, the "army" Wallace gathered up for the first Scottish War of Independence were humble, ordinary working men effectively armed with sticks and passion. The vast majority of the Syrian refugees are also normal working men - doctors, students, lawyers, plumbers and architects - rather than soldiers.

If someone chose to give it serious thought, Peters' comments boil down to the modern equivalent of handing a white feather to those male Syrian refugees for failing to stand and fight.

That would come as no surprise to those who recall NZ First defence spokesman Ron Mark recently referring to Iraqi soldiers as cowardly and lacking the will to fight. Fortunately many in the Islamic community treated it with the ridicule it deserved.

They called on Peters to provide detail for the cunning military strategy he had worked out. One wanted to know exactly which of the multitude of fighting groups in Syria Peters believed these men should fight with and which of the unfriendly forces they should fight against. Another wondered if Peters also proposed to train and arm the men in question.

Yesterday Peters continued to insist that it was "reasonable" to expect Syrians to stay and fight, especially because a number of Western countries had "skin in the game", including New Zealand.

However, he had managed to come up with a rather more chivalrous spin on it or perhaps he'd just added Titanic to his movie-watching. Speaking on breakfast television, he insisted women and children should come first. "My concern was in a crisis like this you would take the women and children first because you could take much more of them and you can do it much more quickly."

The reasoning behind his theory that you could take more women and children if men were not coming remained hazy. Was it because in the Winston Age one man equalled two women, yea verily? Did he think Syrian men were fatter than women so took up more room? Was that also the reason the women could arrive more quickly, because they were slimmer and fleeter of foot?

Happily, by midday yesterday, Peters had abandoned his crusade for world peace and turned his attentions instead to the conflict on his own home patch - the occupation of Kaitaia Airport as Ngati Kahu protested the Te Hiku settlement. After Treaty Minister Chris Finlayson described the Ngati Kahu protesters as "miscreants", "oafs" and "louts", Peters donned his butter-wouldn't-melt look and suggested that instead of hurling antediluvian insults, Finlayson should instead look for a way to get Kaitaia Airport back into business.

The focus on Syria meant the other debates du jour had a brief reprieve. But in the background the flag debate bubbled on. The supporters of the Red Peak gnashed away in an exercise of futility. It was futile because Prime Minister John Key had ruled out any changes to the shortlist at such a late stage. The reason Key gave for that was because it would require a law change to add another flag and Parliament had better things to do with its time.

Despite that, yesterday Parliament did have time to stop to congratulate the Queen for her long reign over us. That was a rather ironic turn of events given the primary goal of changing the flag is to get rid of the reminder of that Queen's reign over us - the Union Jack.