Club Politique by Che Tibby

Something has to be said for live music. And that something is 'not all of it is crap'. Went out with a housemate this past Sunday to a local bar and took in a little alternative country under advice from someone I shouldn't have listened to. I rang beforehand to check on times etc., and the band described themselves as 'celtic-kiwi americana'. And a bit like a baileys-drenched hamburger wrapped in a paua fritter it probably should have been avoided. Or, the fact that the band was already in the bar at 4pm should have set off the alarm bells.

Ah well, there weren't any expectations of the White Stripes at the Dogs Bollocks a la 2001, but still, all a bit howz it goin' really. Mind you, I didn't think of stuffing up their gig with the same kind of heckling Jack had to handle, instead giving the appearance of stoic silence.

The flatmate was more annoyed however, and obliquely commented that he'd wasn't up for listening to people play music at half the skill he could muster. I wasn't so sure though. If there's one thing we seem to be missing in this brave new world is any kind of respect for both learning and old age.

Still, old bastards can be a right royal pain in the rear, the only thing saving them half the time being that they don't go all skippy like teens. But, in between these two ages are the rest of us, kind of perched like a burglar caught half way over a fence, wondering whether to just resign ourselves to the inevitable fall to the ground, or to try making out like we're still athletic enough to muster a decent 'bounce and run'.

And it's right there that I wonder about why in the hell old blokes stand up in front of an audience of however many people and play crap original songs?

As I said they weren't all that bad, I could see where they were trying to take us aurally, but... Which is where I started respecting them a little. None of those old farts were ever going to be Jimmy Hendrix. None of them were particularly pretty or fit, being kind of balding, wrinkly and skinny to a man. But, they were doing something the seemed to just plain love.

Averagely.

But that wasn't the point. Sure, the flatmate was maybe a better musician, and when I cross-compared it to my own type of expertise, I could see how sometimes a person can get frustrated. I should add that my expertise is very, very narrow. I'm hardly a guru in the field of nationalism or nation-building, but I'm a hell of a lot smarter than some of the stupid assholes canvassed on Upton-On-Line.

What can really get my goat is trying to explain something to someone, something completely reasonable, not too ideologically slanted, not too loaded towards what I actually think should be the case, and only have them go all the way back round to their original argumentative position when they reach brain overload.

For reference, that's like trying to argue that a reasonable approach to moral issues like 'shaggin' to a fundamentalist Christian. At some point their eyes will glaze over and a switch in their head will be hit that flips their entire consciousness back to 'THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB'. End of story.

Another case in point these days is most obviously the current immigration debate, which seems to automatically default to 'aliens are bad'. The key factor being what constitutes an alien. Maybe 50 years ago that definition still encompassed 'the Maoris', but luckily we've moved on. Or should I say, hopefully.

Anyhow, music. What's great about seeing live music is watching people improving their skills in front of what can easily be a hostile audience. Maybe it's not about fitting in perfectly to what people want to hear, but instead being about playing stuff that you want to play because you just love doing it, even though you're too old and clapped out to be Mick Jagger with 'the ladies'.

It seems that all too often these days live music has to be spunky young things in great fashion playing snappy tunes and appearing on the cover of magazines. Now, while I'm partial to hearing really good music, I patronise the decidedly average because I think I respect them much, much more, because they've got much more on the line. There's every chance that I could be intolerant and write them off just because they don't fit my definition of what is and is not permissible in my presence, again like the immigration debate, but what kind of dick would that make me?

Mind you, if they're crap, I'm sure as hell not paying good readies for some self-burned CD, they're lucky I'll stuck round for two pints. Decent musicians do not play country.

Expect maybe Calexico. Or the Supersuckers. Or Giant Sands.

The thing that always gets me about a season really kicking off is the way the first few overly hot or cool days are always a slog to the guts. Damn it was cold in Wellington yesterday. Really cold.

Complaints about this to a mate in Melbourne only resulted in a counter-whinge about "not being able to wear thongs for at least nine days". You can imagine my outpouring of sympathy.

Walking home from the opulence of my new workplace today was a necessary retreat into little dreams about the last summer, when I was forced to lie around in a beanbag in my undies, scratching my vast expanse of pasty puku, playing Xbox, and drinking beers in a vain effort to cool off.

What was great about that time wasn't the heat. The heat was incredible, on account of staying in a dive with no insulation. What was great was the people I house-sat for had a huge barbeque. It was a monster 5-burner with special do-dahs for Africa, and all a short walk from the beer fridge.

On account of the heat, the trip to the Barbie had to be short and sweet, but shorter and sweeter than trying to fix myself something in the kitchen. So, this leads us to talk about cooking steaks. After all, like those great hey-days of parties and debauchery, last summer is always a memory padded by the good bits we like imagine occurred, and not the crap.

Now, I know I said I'd never send you near the delicatessen, but, I lied. Sorry. You'll get over it. But I couldn't not talk about this meal. I described it to the housemate earlier this evening and her eyes glazed over with haze of bygone meals on the beach. And that's just the place for this.

I should also point out that many of the recipes I'm putting up here for your perusal are really not 'real' recipes. They're just some rubbish I threw together one time, that happened to work, and became standards in my repertoire.

Antipasto
An antipasto is usually just a bunch of cold foods put together on a plate. It can be anything really, which makes it such a great meal on those stinking hot summer days we're all missing. This one uses two things to separate it away from pretentious shyte. A steak, and heaps of cheap white bread.

The mistake people always make with things like antipasto is too assume that it has to be made up of expensive things. It doesn't. But, it can't be made out of complete rubbish. Don't get those Spanish black olives for example, they're not the right stuff for this type of meal.

So the ingredients list is pretty simple.

You'll need.
A small deli container of semi-dried tomatoes.
A small deli container of decent olives. Go for the kalamatas. It's hard to stuff those up.
A medium container of hummus, or baba ganoush, or red pepper dip, or something.
A heap of white bread, either French loaves, or just a big loaf of tip-top, doesn't matter.
A couple of small porterhouse steaks.

Now is where we get tricky.
A small container of Artichoke hearts.
A small container of marinated mushrooms.
Or any other fancy stuff you see in the deli that grabs your interest.

I love antipasto because you get to try out some of the weird stuff in the deli, and if you don't like it, no big deal, let your shifty flatmate eat it, and don't buy it again!

But, olives, semi-dried tomatoes and at least one type of dip are essential.

To prepare this, cook the steaks however the hell you want. Charcoal or blue, doesn't matter. Personally? Depends on the cut (ask your butcher. If he doesn't know? Change your butcher. Don't let munters sell you food that can poison you), but usually mid-rare. I say buy small steaks like porterhouse because the meat isn't the main item on the menu, it's the bread. In fact, if you're feeling risqué, buy some good prosciutto or other cured meats like smoked chicken instead.

Then, when the steaks are done, let them sit for a minute, while you pile the other stuff, i.e. olives and like, onto the plates. Make sure you keep the dips separate, so you can use a knife to get them out of the container and onto the bread.

Add steaks to plate, and enjoy!

This is one of those meals you need to sit outside for, a glass of wine or a really cold beer in hand, some good sounds on in the background (I was listening to the Veils a fair bit then), and maybe a view.

Having nearly resigned myself never actually finding anything meaningful in Aussie, the only job I was offered in Melbourne was being back in the sink, I forced myself to abandon the wonderful life of a North Carlton bohemian and here I am in Wellington (for those of you at the back).

Now, while the first while was a mad scramble to get myself into a decent pad, get on the rock and roll, and squeeze out yet another (near) final edit of the thesis, the last two weeks have been pretty staid. This is because my CV is a bit weak, to say the least, and I signed on to a few different agencies. But before I knew it that blue suit was being worn regularly for the first time ever!

Somehow my first job has been working for the Police, sorting through mountains of files in relation to one of the Commissions of Inquiry. It is Just that my first theft of stationery should be from the Police National Headquarters. Even better news is that my security file must be squeaky-clean, or else I wouldn't be reading privileged documents. Plus, I learnt two new tie knots from senior Police members!

So, 'ladies', if you need a reliable source of Police envelopes, I'm your trust-worthy man.

And so there it was. Eight working days after the first Monday be-suited, a paycheque. Not some dodgy, bludgers money. Not some shifty under-the-table backhander from a restaurateur trying to save money by avoiding the PAYE tax bill. And not some miserly hourly rate from providing some schmuck with 'service'. But a paycheque of genuine taxpayers money spent to have me sifting through thousands of pages of highly difficult materiel.

And thank Christ it's ending tomorrow.

The main stress has been trying to work extra editing of the thesis around the 8am starts and a bit of 'background' research worked flicked to me from a consultant mate. Then there's trying to keep you lot entertained and trying to keep up my news intake in a house inhabited by Shorters watchers (although two characters introduced since I left New Zealand are particularly alluring). Geez, this working lark is for the birds.

Fortunately, I'm finding ways to take the piss out of myself and amuse others at the office. The latest laugh began with me being drawn into me into the Farmers (of all places) last week when I realised that two business shirts from 1996 and one suit just weren't going to cut it.

It turns out that Farmers had these cheap wash n' wear trousers and some shirt/tie specials that will do the trick till I can afford some flashy Armani suits and Yves-Saint-Laurent shirts. Not.

What you may not know about wash n' wear things, only recently discovered myself, is that they're usually plastic. Polyester that is. 100% polyester, so that besides being a little shiny, they're also kinda clingy. And the shirts, well they're only 20% cotton but not too bad, with a slim fit in the torso, and almost the right length in the arms (I have arms like an orang-utan and hands like a gorilla).

Next was shoes. I bought some good Italian leather interview shoes a few years back, but I don't want to wear them out trudging to work and back, so I got some ones that compared to what I'd normally get have the biggest damn heels. But, only $40. Sweet as.

As a bunch of work-gear I had a weird shock about my purchases though. Firstly, I was dropping my 'Police National Headquarters: Temporary Staff' badge into the top pocket because the chain was bothering me. But, I then I noticed that my shirt was (dark) brown. Jesus... I thought. I'm wearing a tightish brown shirt, black, clingy, shiny polyester trousers, shoes with big heels, a bad tie, and a chain with a badge.

MOTHER-F@#KER!! I AM THE 70s!!

I wonder how that will fly when I start at the Treasury on Monday?

One of the easy targets for critics of Australia has always been the way in which the Aussies are so much more 'like Americans' than we are here in Godzone. Often that means you can point to words like 'chance' and 'dance' in the vernacular and how they're obviously influenced.

Mind you, overlooking that not so long ago both New Zealand and Australia pretty much wholesale bought into absolutely anything dear old Britain produced in the line of political spin or thought, it's a bit rich of Kiwi's to knock the Aussies for liking being like the leaders of the free world. Still, I have this nagging doubt about just how much over there is original compared to New Zealand.

There's been two things happen in the past couple of weeks that you might find interesting. The first is that pompous ass Alexander Downer making a wonderful little speech about how the Australian Labor Party has obviously identified with the forces of EVIL since it's inception. As an indication of how stupid it really was, even Tony Parkinson, an Op-Ed writer one step away from being a Right-Wing-Death-Beast, makes somewhat muted criticism of it.

Stuart Macintyre on the other hand, seems to get stuck in. Especially in regard to Downer trying to whitewash the role of Prime Ministers like Menzies in 'appeasing' Hitler, as pointed out by Kevin Rudd.

Other than being a small part of his larger bid for the leadership of the Liberals, again, what Downer has produced is a fine little piece of historical revisionism that is part of a larger 'culture war' that Australians seem to have been engaged in for the past few years. More or less since Keating was PM that is. Although New Zealand seemed to jump this bandwagon as well, Keating's hobbyhorse was Australia being 'part of Asia'. There's been a fair bit of literature produced since that time indicating two things, one that mainstream Australia definitely didn't see itself as an Asian nation (let alone the 'real' Asians wondering where in the hell these white boys got their ideas), and second that the backlash to Keating's nation-building agenda was the rise of everybody's favourite celebrity dancer, Pauline Hanson.

Anyhow, as part of this culture war conservatives like Keith Windschuttle have produced Holocaust-denier-esque books like The Fabrication of Aboriginal History in an attempt to produce what left-leaning critics call 'White blindfold' revisions of the country's past. I've read Macintyre getting stuck into Windschuttle's ideas as well, with a little help from Robert Manne of course.

So what you have is two camps, each producing a polar depiction of the country and the way it should advance into the future based on contrary reactions to revelations about the past, and the way they see themselves cosying up to their more powerful friends. It's actually kind of amusing to observe. Nasty at times, but interesting.

And into this culture war then walks this dickhead. Professor of Law at Deakin University (Melbourne) Mirko Bagaric, in an article obviously aimed at a very narrow market, tries to argue for the morality of wait, you'll never guess... torture.

Yup, you heard right, torture.

In a nutshell, what Bagaric is arguing is that torture is already widely spread, so there has to be some means implemented to control the practice. Secondly, he also makes the argument that if torture can be used to save lives, then it is a moral imperative that we do our utmost to ensure that lives are saved.

In an incredibly shallow example, he makes example of the hostage situation, a la Hill Street Blues, in which a hostage can be saved by a cop with a clear head-shot on the hostage taker. Do you take the shot? Sure, why the hell not, Bagaric answers, it's in everybody's interest.

Other than the fact that Bagaric is careful to state that we don't want to become complacent about torture, it is after all a 'bad thing', he argues that banning the practice has merely driven it underground, like cannabis, and it should therefore be legalised and controlled.

Anyhow, if you're a little outraged, good on you, so are these people, this guy, and Malcolm Fraser. They all make good arguments about why the idea is sheer lunacy, including that torture simply doesn't work as a reliable source of information gathering, that it dehumanises both the victims and the torturer, and that there's every chance the wrong people can be tortured, only to have the torturer go, 'oops...'.

Myself, I'm more concerned about what purpose this idea serves. Like the case of Downer shooting is mouth off in half-truths and partisan bullshit, the case is clearly that of a particular type of might-is-right political thought. Take the case of what Bagaric is arguing. If you pose the question as a straw man, as Fraser points out, then of course you're going to say yes to the idea. It's like asking someone if they'd shoot a bad guy to save their own daughter. Of course you would, anyone would. But posing that sort of straw man is irresponsible in a world where this argument will be used to justify things like Abu Grahib.

And that's the crux of the problem. Reverse the situation, and have 'terrorists' torturing Australian citizens, and their behaviour is absolutely reprehensible, but have the 'good guys' doing it is not. Furthermore, and as Saul points out, does this mean we can also legalise other psychological acts used by armies to end wars quickly, like mass rape?

Frankly, if you have to produce this type of crap to get into a US journal of Law, then you need to think seriously about what it is you do for a living. And if you need to constantly draw yourself nice and close to the US to make yourself feel safer in the world, then you need to think about your self-image. If you can cut the apron strings to dear old Britain, then why tie yourself to a whole new familial figure?

In perhaps my final word on the subject of multiculturalism, it has after all been a year to the day since I snuck on into Public Address with a post on the subject, is to have a little talk about good old New Zealand biculturalism. When discussing biculturalism, it seems to have become customary to evoke images of either: the blending of the two cultures in a Hobson-esque affirmation of the marriage of peoples, or, the assumption of Maoritanga by the mainstream and the 'browning' of the settler peoples.

The cynical truth of the matter, and in my most humble of opinions, New Zealand biculturalism is neither. Instead, "biculturalism" is largely a means to manage the issue of incorporating Maori governance into the mainstream. Sure, on another level it's also a sociologist's dream, but in a political sense (if that's not an oxymoron), when you put biculturalism into practice it ends up being about finding ways to have a minority manage it's own affairs.

The last time I waxed lyrical about this subject, I argued that biculturalism was a far less paternalistic way to manage a minority than was Australian multiculturalism. My perspective is of course that of 'Whitey', thanks Tze Ming, but my out is that my arguments tend to be about the way white people assume, and not about how minorities should or shouldn't act. I was pulled up on my arguments at a seminar up at Vic Uni the other week for example.

What really complicates the issue and generates the most points of difference between us here in the Antipodes is that Australia is very much intent on an exclusive, majority-focussed nation-building. Migrants come to Australia, and assimilate into the mainstream. And the system works pretty well, despite the current Government's unusually hard line to towards migrants and refugees. Godzone shares this concern, but has since the 1970s adopted a different tack towards indigenes.

To a politics geek like me who gets excited about these things is what sets New Zealand apart, and that's the emphasis on a non-standard nation-building. Once again, in my humble opinion, most policy-makers and commentators probably don't realise it, but New Zealand nation-building is unique. And unique in a good way.

Biculturalism doesn't argue that New Zealand is 'two-nations'. Sure, you can interpret it that way, but it's a bit like the two-yolker, 'New Zealand' is the shell, and inside you have two separate but increasingly similar cultures that are also nations. Pesky, academics perspective? Absolutely. But I have about 100k words you're welcome to read if you've got the time or inclination. And not all of them are crap even!

What my argument centres on is the way in which these two cultures interact along the interface between them. In the past, the mainstream has dominated, but many bicultural arguments since the 1970s have argued that the minority gets to call the shots on what happens inside their society. Yes, this society is also part of the mainstream, and many majority members participate in it, but the key is that the minority gets authority over itself. Sounds banal, but Maori get to put the brakes on mainstream people that want an undue influence over everything happening New Zealand-wide.

In the world of politics, this is a very important concession by a majority, and I don't know another nation-state that does it in the way New Zealand does.

I will concede that having this type of arrangement does complicate politics, and society in general. But it does it in a way that works to benefit both groups. Sure, it does act to co-opt the minority into governance in the interests of the country as a whole, but it's their country too, after all. And that's the final key, Maori get to share the country in more than a abstract sense. All too often indigenes are referred to as 'our [insert minority here]'. So it's our Aboriginals and your Maori.

And that is patronising in the extreme. Instead, the current framework of biculturalism, as interpreted by yours truly, allows for all parties to stake a claim in belonging and owning the ongoing project of New Zealand nationalism. And it's something we can genuinely be proud of, if we keep it on the right track.

So thanks to all you readers over the past year, I hope I've provided entertainment and thought alike, before I did this blog I was convinced my life was a little boring, but now... now I'm not so sure.