Posts by Tom Beard
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I'm not sure if people are saying they feel no connection to their European ancestry, just that they feel more "New Zealand" than a vague term like "European".
I've got a screen capture of the form itself, and "European" per se does not appear on there at all. The actual term is "New Zealand European", which is very different from just "European", and is short for "New Zealander of European descent". Which I guess is another way to say "Pakeha" without scaring the racists.
Also, as Sonal pointed out, the form explicitly asks you to "Mark the space or spaces that apply to you" (my emphasis) so it's perfectly possible to mark down multiple ethnicities if that's what you feel yourself to be. The form also allows you to write in one or more ethnic groups of your own, and as the results show, the 231 ethnicities that we have in NZ, from Orkney Islander to Guadacanalian to Kurd (try telling a Kurd in Iraq that he or she is "ethincally Iraqi"!) to Seychellois, make up a much more diverse and fine-grained picture than either the headline stats or most of this discussion suggest.
Russell wrote (way back):
Few New Zealanders would readily identify themselves as pagans, of course. But the derived adjective of the original Latin "paganus" means "rustic" or "of the country", and many more of us would answer to that. We can far more comfortably define ourselves through the land and the sea than through churches at which we have historically been indifferent attendees. When a group of performers attempted several years ago to devise a new national anthem to replace "God Defend New Zealand" (our anthem is another facet of national pride about which we find ourselves diffident), they canvassed all the options and plumped for a song about the land; the one thing they could see we all had in common.
That's probably true, and it's why I eventually decided that I'm not really Pakeha. I have no connection - spiritual, emotional, financial or even physical most of the time - to "the land" per se. I'd consider myself the opposite of "paganus". "Urbanus", perhaps?
I feel an emotional connection to my city, and to the notion of "city" in general, but that connection is more about the people, buildings, shops, bars, galleries, streets, history and future of the city than the land beneath it. It's why I almost considered putting "Wellingtonian" as my ethnicity.
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my god Tom, time on your hands or what?
Well, I was in the middle of doing a bunch of census analysis for work, so it didn't take too long to crunch a few other numbers and bang out a new graph.
You should see what I get up to when I really do have time on my hands!
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> where do all the eligible men hang out these days?
The ones that aren't married are overseas, in "the provinces", or in the ground
To be precise, they're in Otorohanga, Ruapehu, MacKenzie, Queenstown Lakes, Southland, Clutha and the Chathams. Oh, and Upper Hutt (does that count as "the provinces"?)
I've done a quick analysis over on my blog.
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The debate I referred to above is online here.
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I also wonder whether the emphasis on spiritual connection is a bit essentialist and even limiting for Maori. Pakeha and other ethnicities can take on a range of religious or philosophical stances and still retain their membership of that culture.
Are you saying that Maori <i>must</i> feel a spiritual connection to the land? Can a Maori be an atheist or (for want of a better word) aspiritual without renouncing ceasing to be Maori?
As someone of European heritage, I can recognise that I belong to a culture that has been profoundly shaped by Christianity. I can appreciate the works of Bach, T.S. Eliot or Colin McCahon without sharing the beliefs that inform and guide their work. Yet I'm not Christian, and words like "spiritual" mean nothing to me personally beyond what a word like "emotional" would mean. I still feel myself to be very much a European (the debate that I had earlier this year helped me decide to write "European/Pakeha" for my census ethnicity - I was born in London but I've lived here for most of my life), even though I reject many "traditional" European values.
Could it be the same for Maori? Is it possible for a Maori person to recognise that all the spiritual connections, whakapapa to the land and other tikanga are a vital part of their heritage and who they are, yet personally not share those beliefs?
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There is a huge grinning photo of my recent ex partner ... apparently the computer had found my 'perfect match' and I fulfilled all the requirements of his dream woman...
Did you put down that you liked pina coladas and taking walks in the rain?
I don't need to go on an Internet date, I just thought it might be interesting to do so.
Having seen you in action at Mighty Mighty, I'd say you don't need any help :-)
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Wow. A lot to think about here.
I guess one reason that the Michael King argument for Pakeha culture being an indigenous one seems right to me is that I assumed a different definition of the word "indigenous". One that's closer to the old dictionary definition, derived from biology, of simply "originating where it is found". By that definition, Pakeha culture (if not individual Pakeha people) is indigenous, since it is <i>not</i> the same as British culture, it evolved through the experience of living in Aotearoa/NZ (the land, contact with Maori, distance from "home") and it exists nowhere else. In the same way, Maori culture is indigenous to NZ, because it is not the same culture as that of the Polynesian ancestors.
The definition that you're applying seems to be, as you say, something that has arisen specifically to refer to "indigenous peoples", and that thus has specific meaing within postcolonial discourse. By that definition, Pakeha can never be indigenous.
So, what can we use as a term for someone who belongs to a people that has evolved culturally in a specific place, and that exists nowhere else? Endemic?
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I'd smoke more MPs, but I find most of them are too wet to light.
Did anyone notice in the Dom story the comment from the director of the Smokefree Coalition? And that the director is former MP Mark Peck? By now, he's either dried out enough to light, or would come pre-packaged with scotch or port.
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What, no Monica jokes? Or umm, whatsherface?
Finally, we have our very own scandal featuring a cigar and a twat.
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When no-one can understand you any more, you've hit pompous.
When no-one can understand you any more, it's time to get some brighter friends :-)
Actually, I'd say you've hit pompous when you can no longer understand yourself.