Islands Business - Views from Auckland: CIVILITY AT A PREMIUM

This is certainly not about the hurt-none-please-all political correctness that people like to accuse those in public life of. This is simply about sensitivity and civility—two values that seem to be at a premium in the country’s political landscape.

Dev Nadkarni

One hopes that a mayor calling the recently departed Tongan King “a bloated brown slug” and the leader of the main opposition party publicly voicing his view that there was no pure-blooded, authentic Maori is not symptomatic of a young nation increasingly at odds with the realities of a multicultural, ethnically diverse ethos; much less a growing intolerance to people who look, speak and live differently.

Mayor of Wanganui, Michael Laws, refused to lower his city’s flag to half-mast as a mark of respect for the King, though the suggestion came from the Prime Minister (presumably in her capacity as minister of arts, culture and heritage).

In his role as a radio host, he gave his reasons for it, making some bold, perceptive observations about the King and the royal family’s lifestyle in the manner of a good journalist, though he went overboard with a few. For instance, his likening of the late King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV to Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.

But the epithets he used to describe the deceased royal were not just callous and insensitive but downright racist. His timing—barely a day after the King’s death—betrayed the fact that he had said it more as a bid for his own fifteen minutes of fame more than anything else.

In mourning...Tongans going to pay their respect at the Royal Palace.

Brings to mind the old Indian saying about the opportunist who roasts his roti on the embers of a burning corpse.
It showed no regard for New Zealand’s large Tongan population that revered the King—in fact many Tongans have been educated in the mayor’s very city—and the institution there immediately distanced itself from those unfortunate comments. While many New Zealanders agreed with some of his views, most publicly expressed embarrassment at his choice of words and timing.

Just days later, Don Brash, the beleaguered leader of the country’s main opposition party went on record saying that there were “few, if any full-blooded Maori left here”.

He also questioned if Maori could really be called “a distinct indigenous people” because they were a “diluted race”. That incensed the Maori leadership enough to cancel a dinner invitation the leader had extended. In his usual characteristic style, he later said there was a “misunderstanding”, but the damage had been done.

He is likely to have based his comment on the fact that because of repeated intermarriage with other ethnic groups it is difficult to find a “pure” Maori bloodline anymore. But it is unfair to consider bloodlines to be the only parameter that can be said to define Maori or any indigenous group for that matter. Cultural identity and bloodlines are different things and it is far too simplistic to equate the two in such a manner.

On another occasion he upset Muslims with a suggestion that some of their co-religionists he meets are “possibly” terrorists.

Terrorists could come from any religion and ethnic group. But associating them with a particular religion, particularly by a political leader in public betrays naivety at best.

That comment came close on the heels of another parliamentarian’s comments some weeks before on the culture-defined sartorial habits of some Muslim women.

Though the leader’s comments are not in the same crass class as the mayor’s epithets but what is common to both is the ring of insensitivity. To be able to speak one’s mind without fear or favour is a rare privilege that comes with libertarian societies and must be cherished. But misinterpreting that freedom as license to use insulting epithets and opinions that hurt a large section of the public (only to water it down later as “misunderstanding”) is poor use, if not abuse of that freedom. Especially so, when such comments come from prominent citizens who are constantly in the public eye.

And this is certainly not about the hurt-none-please-all political correctness that people like to accuse those in public life of. This is simply about sensitivity and civility—two values that seem to be at a premium in the country’s political landscape if one goes by the recent muckraking, public washing of dirty linen, setting private eyes to find something to discredit opponents—and of course finger raising.

In fact, the mayor seems quite well qualified for a role in parliament.

MENTAL HEALTH A WORRY FOR PEOPLE OF ISLANDS ORIGIN

A recent survey on mental health has shown that an overwhelmingly large number of people of Pacific islands origin suffer from mental health problems in New Zealand. The figure surmised is as high as one in two. The surveys did not list possible reasons for this high incidence but it could well be that the pressures of living in a western society could be responsible.

Unlike life back in the islands where there are lesser pressures on time schedules, a lower dependability on cash to buy food as well as a wider family and safety net to rely on in times of personal crisis, life in the developed world can be very different and more individualistic.

What could be other contributing factors: problems with integrating into a different culture? Discrimination? Both?