proximity II

After blogging last nite, I watched a bit of TV... and found that on two quite different channels right next to each other there was a piece of home!

First, on a Canadian show about ppl who do major renovations on their homes and stay at home through the building etc (like most reality TV, the people look pretty ridiculous and this after all is the appeal) - in this episode (which is the first I've seen of the show - honest!) the builders were 'Kiwi contractors' (or maybe it was Kiwi builders) and the main builder was known as 'Kiwi' - the two main builders were NZers and I was cracking up laughing at how hilariously understated NZers can be! The younger builder in particular was awesome with his deadpan straight talking which is only emphasised when it's in comparison with the high dramas of the family whose house is being rebuilt.

At exactly the same time, Discovery channel had a doco about an English guy who read in Cook's journal about a man being eaten by an 8 ft monster in NZ - and he wanted to find out if this was a plausible story. He decided it was probably an eel and then spent the programme rushing about talking to NZ scientists, eelers and boaties... again with the hilarious deadpan understatement! At one point he asked a weathered looking boatie who was dropping him off out the back of lake Manapouri whether he thought it was possible for someone to be eaten by an eel. The guy conceded without using much facial expression at all and barely moved his mouth as he mumbled that "someone could fall over and knock their head and land in a river and then it could happen" as if this was something that happened five times a day! Funny as.

I do find myself wondering about my nostalgia for 'NZness' which is often characterised by dominant Pakeha male attributes... how does the boatie remind me of home so much, beyond the scenery behind him? I don't know many people like that. I've never even been to that part of the South Island! How do 'Kiwi' and his Kiwi chippie make me feel a deep recognition even though I don't spend a lot of time with builders (this isn't a policy statement - it's just how things have turned out).

And, importantly given the flurry of grumpiness on fb about the RWC opening ceremony, what is the line between these white men being adorable reminders of home and John Key's spectacular and unsurprising refusal to include any Maori language at all in his speech welcoming the world to NZ? The stakes are different of course - but there's something else as well. There's something symbolic, there's something emblematic about a Prime Minister who is stubborn enough to stay so narrow after such - yes, I'll say it - proximity to other perspectives, including Maori perspectives?

Why am I so happy for Kiwi the builder and the anonymous boatie to stand in for NZness but so angry when John Key attempts to do the same? Where do we draw the line between Key as an individual whose narrow ideas unfortunately get airplay because he's the PM and the deeply racist and colonising roots and ongoing practices of the NZ Rugby Football Union? (1960. 1976. 1981. http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/patu-1983 No Maori 'rugby diplomats' for this RWC. NZ Maori team undermined and not supported. etc etc etc) Why are people actually surprised by Key's inability and unwillingness to take us as Maori seriously? (Don't they know anything about his policies or kaupapa?) Why are they surprised that the multilingual head of the IRB made the effort to speak Maori when the monlingual PM of NZ didn't? (The stakes are so different - for the IRB guy it's just another language; for Key it's a symbol of Maoriness against which 'NZ' needs to be defended.)

That's something for me to reflect on... but as we near a general election in NZ it's something for all of us who vote in NZ elections to reflect on as well. No, don't worry this blog isn't going to become a party political broadcast between now and the elections in November... but some days it's worth calling it when you see it. And tonite I'm calling it.