Posts by Che Tibby
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yup. there's a link to one above, the tom beard comment.
the tick box says, "new zealand european", which is by any objective measure, a nationality (new zealander) and a racial category (european, although, caucasian might be smarter).
strangely though, the form also lists a whole bunch more nationalities. but, these nationalities can be easily stereotyped into racial groups. all those koreans, japanese, chinese et al are likely to be labelled 'asians' by the stats people.
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john. that's pretty damn funny.
and yamis. i agree with tze ming, persons who state they are new zealanders, and especially if they do so vehemently, are making a statement that they are the one 'true' identity group in this country.
the fact that they are most usually racially european might have been lost along the way in this conversation. people seem to be using 'ethnically' in much the same way.
check out B Jones on pages two.
http://www.publicaddress.net/system/topic,122,yellow_peril_the_identity_game.sm?p=4059#post4059
but! i am in no way asserting that your preference for the term is wrong. rather, i wanted to point out that the kinds of people we're targeting for criticism are highly likely to be disparaging of any person they consider outside their racial preference group.
and as tze ming mentions, there is no box for 'new zealander'. people had to actually write it on the form.
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Lyndon said:
I haven't actually read the letter, but I would abserve that...
hmmmm.... interesting word. 'Abserve'. is that an observation made 'from the gut'?
if it is, i feel we may have captured ms coddingtons journalistic style.
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manakura said:
I can't see a lot of Maori agreeing to the premise that because they are NZ citizens then they are Pakeha. Many would point to the fact that although the Pakeha tried their very best to force just that assimilation
and that's the kicker, and why i recommended you read david pearson.
nzl operates this unique bicultural and multicultural blend you don't see in other liberal democracies. it stems partly from 1970s realisation that maori wouldn't assimilate, and partly from pragmatism (i.e. 'we have to find a way to get on').
so the multicultural idea, that all recent migrants assimilate as part of their social contract ('if you come live here, be as ethnic as you want, but your children will assimilate') extends to one part of the non-pakeha citizen population.
meanwhile, the bicultural idea, that article two of the treaty will be upheld, operates independently, and only to maori.
distinctions between the two completely different types of 'minority management' often bleed into one another, and are confusing to anyone but experts.
but in shorthand? "maori welcome to remain distinct, anyone else better learn english and start drinking leon rouge"
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tze ming, what i was driving at is the uneasy collapsing of the two ideas. national identities always contain ethnic identities, but they are by their very definition not ethnicities.
nationality is a modern construct. one often imbibed with ethnicity to give it greater coherence for it's members, but a construct all the same. but ethnicity itself isn't a modern construct, it's been around far longer. it's an uneasy relationship for liberals, because they want to think they're not ethnic, but have to be to make their nation-states work.
so as you say, the census is asking for your ethnicity, not your nationality. but, if you're a national, you're likely to be a particular ethnicity, as you also say (i.e. 'kiwis' are pakeha. but new zealanders are also pakeha. but, nationals are also pakeha).
there's an interesting rider though, because if you accept that you are a member of a nation then you are also buying into being a member of the majority ethnicity. soooo... accepting citizenship means, accepting that you should be a particular ethnicity, because citizenship and nationality go hand in hand.
it's a weird, confusing little muddle.
i think what i'm trying to get across is that if you take up citizenship, you're automatically buying in to being a majority national. or, your children will be, when they're assimilated by the education system, TV, and popular culture, whether their parents like it or not.
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john, sure. but.... what about a somali refugee, in nzl for less than 10 years (assuming s/he could get a citizenship in that time), and bearing a passport?
new zealander?
many would say that s/he is not, even with that bit of paper.
so shouldn't the same rule apply to your passport?
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it might also value-add to this conversation for me to reiterate that 'indigenous' in relation to maori is specifically centred on the fact of their colonisation by our british ancestors. so while indigenous has a lot of meanings, when you place it near the concept maori, or native american, or aboriginal person, you get a specific meaning.
i understand where manakura is coming from, but i think he's conflating what it is to be maori, and what it is to be indigenous. the two are not mutually exclusive, but are quite distinct. i think he's also imbibed being maori with a large and healthy degree of spiritualism. i think i can speak on behalf of maori and say that not all maori are animists.
i'll also repeat my point that the kind of attachment russell mentions in the above comment needs a name. it currently doesn't have one, so 'indigenous' is coopted by those of us who do feel a deep and abiding attachment to this place.
finally, our national identity, the one we don't have a name for, is fundamentally constructed from the reality of our ancestors role as colonisers. as another part of the Great New Zealand Argument states very clearly, our ancestors of the mind do not wholly reside on these shores.
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heather, great comment. especially glamour vs. relevance.
it's something i suspect a great many struggle with.
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yeah, i think the negativity on the term "pakeha" began in the 80s? it's more the pity, because a decent label is just what the colonial nation needs. i always like 'Kiwi' because it has so many positive associations, is already in parlance, and is inclusive of stroppy asian girls like tze ming.
as for the situation in australia? i conducted a big section of my fieldwork in aboriginal community groups. harrowing is the only word. that said, your aversion to their history makes me want to insist even more that a 'thinking man' like yourself needs to better understand was deeply entrenched racism really does to any indigeous people.
that is, i tracked the emanicipation arguments of maori and aboriginal from the latter C19th to present, and they only really diverge around the 1990s. so while aboriginal people got an incredibly bad package from the British they stuck to their arguments, and with the liberalisation of western democracy in the 1960s and 70s they started to gain rights. the same pattern was repeated in new zealand, but with less shooting, poisoning, rape, incarceration, denigration, and 'enthusiatic' assimilation.
ghassan hage is good because he really gets to the nub of why the 1990s divergence occurred. plus, you need to understand how a semantic argument about indigeneity is important, mostly to ensure that the majority don't undermine the rights indigeneity bestows. but compared to what is still happening to aboriginal people? meaningless.
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PS. clarity [for other observers]!