So, are Pākehā native to Aotearoa New Zealand? No, not if you’re using the word Pākehā in its most common form, first used by Māori and taken up recently by many descendents of European settlers. If Pākehā culture is indigenous for the reasons often given - because it’s specific to this place, formed in relation to original inhabitants and the landscape – then by the same logic Afrikaans is the second indigenous language in South Africa. I’m not here to debate definitions of the terms Pākehā or indigenous, although discussing what we really mean when we use words is an important part of the work we can do here at ‘Sweet As’. I’m interested in tracing the development of claims of Pākehā culture being indigenous, why this idea is used, who by, and the kinds of work it does. The idea shows up some limitations and blindspots in Pākehā identity, things that have to be addressed before the desires that motivate Pākehā claims to indigeneity can begin to be realised.
Issues of belonging, of striving to be local and settled, repeat through Pākehā history. This long-standing Pākehā desire used to be worked out in opposition to English identity – a collection of essays from the 1950s, Distance Looks our Way, is a great example. Claims to Pākehā indigeneity are relatively recent. Michael King’s later work is vital in putting forward the idea of ‘Pākehā’ as a specific, local white identity. King edited a collection of essays, in which Being Pākehā is seen as an ongoing process of decolonisation, cultural pride and a sense of social responsibility. This and other writing in the nineties went a long way to normalising Pākehā as an ethnic label. It was King’s Being Pākehā Now - Recollections of a White Native that staked a claim for Pākehā indigeneity most clearly. That was in 1999. Three years ago MP Trevor Mallard said that Pākehā are indigenous, and the Prime Minister’s response was that she, at least, was a New Zealander. MP Jerry Brownlee had a public art showdown with Tame Iti in which Brownlee claimed to be a native New Zealander. MP Nandor Tanczos took a very reasonable position, one laid out by Treaty workers – that Pākehā are not indigenous but allowed to be here under treaty which we have to then honour.
What we see here is a lot of fighting over what a couple of words, which could be fixed just by giving them strict enough definitions. I’m not interested in joining the argument. I am interested in what gives the idea of Pākehā indigeneity its currency and power and what effects the use of the idea has in the world. Discourse is the set of things that can be said about something. King’s claim to be a white native, backed up as it was by his respected position in both Māori and Pākehā worlds, became available to others to explain their personal feelings or to make political points. When MPs and writers discuss ideas, they are staging a public conversation, trying out what can and can’t be said, using phrases and ideas that will be picked up by others. Discourse is as much about what is not able to be said in certain contexts – for example people get away with saying “Māori were thought to be a dying race” in a school text book but not with saying “Māori suffered a holocaust” in a political debate. Why, and who gets to say? Attention to discourse can highlight areas of active suppression that allow the status quo to go on unchallenged.
Why is Pākehā indigeneity an idea with currency now? For Brownlee’s purposes, claiming to be cultural too uses the work done by Māori to have indigenous rights recognised, in a way that devalues the power of tangata whenua status. But most people I’ve encountered claiming to be native Pākehā have no conscious intention to disempower Māori; only a great desire to feel at home. Many Pākehā are sick of guilt and work they associate with dealing with Māori political demands and want resolution. Some, like those in King’s collection, have spent their lives working on local, and often explicitly decolonising, issues, and saw this as a vital form of self-recognition. For others, Pākehā identity needs protection from global development, and seeing Pākehā as native offers renegotiating relationships to the land, to the social world against increasing globalisation, capitalism and development. It offers a Pākehā identity that is locally focussed and no longer Eurocentric.
These claims show a desire for identity, belonging, and yet miss an analysis of historical and continuing power structures. When I was thinking what I was going to say today I met a Pākehā man I knew and told him my topic. He got excited and told me about his feelings for where he grew up, the mountain he identified with, fishing for eels, his spiritual engagement with the land, his research into his ancestry, and how that had made him feel settled and had a place here. I asked him, what is the history of the particular piece of land you grew up on? How did it come into your family’s possession?He didn’t have an answer. My question was not one that Pākehā usually ask themselves, though I’ve heard his statements many times in different forms. Pākehā may consider themselves native because “Pākehā have nowhere else to belong”, because “Pākehā culture is formed out of relationship to Māori”, and because the person speaking has “as strong an attachment to the land as any Māori”. In these statements it’s what’s missing that’s important. How did we get here, what’s the nature of the colonial project? What is the relationship of Pākehā culture to Māori, not just symbolically but in terms of power, now and historically? Who gets to say whose land it is and how was it secured? If my ancestors were often cogs in an imperial machine, this makes an understanding of the machine more important, not less.
What’s apparent in Pākehā discourse is an active amnesia about colonisation. The modern European nation state imposed itself upon Aotearoa with legal, religious, educational and economic systems intact, as a part of the British Empire. The institutional structure has developed in line with other Western states ever since. European culture as it was established here is inherently mobile, designed to replicate itself with little change. This is done by spreading and keeping control of discourse thru media, and political and religious institutions. One of the ideologies was that of European progress and Enlightenment, in which Pākehā had nothing to gain by taking on influences from Māori, which effectively prevented Māori challenges from being heard in Pākehā public sphere. The discursive suppression that propped up the empire is what has historically prevented a local post-European ethnicity forming. To be native is to be born in and formed by a place but Pākehā power structures continue to use Western ideologies to authorise themselves to control resources, to run institutions, changing not so much with local demands as in line with global developments.
The contemporary New Zealand state presents itself not as primarily Pākehā, but as an objective, acultural modern state. This is part of a general trend in Western democracies. The breakdown of traditional mode of political domination – which claims that European cultural superiority gives the right to rule – is replaced by the image of Pākehā culture as separate from the interests and structures of the state and state-backed institutions. Pākehā culture is naturalised as New Zealand or Kiwi culture. An example is the foreshore and seabed legislation, which could be described as Pākehā using Pākehā institutional structures to protect the Pākehā tradition of going to the beach (not to mention retaining the right to develop and exploit it), but was claimed as a democratically elected government protecting the rights of all New Zealanders. In this way Pākehā culture is hidden, and Pākehā interests present themselves as natural, apolitical and inevitable.
The seeming objectivity of institutions that now hides Pākehā power also motivates Pākehā desire for a visible culture or ethnicity. The old European idea that to be cultured means to be in touch with a tradition of high art and Enlightenment thought has been replaced with the idea that being cultured means possessing ideas, feelings and beliefs that have not been broken down by the nihilistic force of capitalism and scientific materialism. In this light, it’s not possible to be objective and acultural and also be fully human. Traditional European modes of subjectivity have lost their authority but Pākehā culture has not been independent enough to work out new ways of being. At the same time, the State and the Pākehā mainstream have had to become more open to the importance and validity of non-European cultures, especially that of tangata whenua.
Culture-based challenges to Pākehā institutional dominance push Pākehā to search for identity, ethnicity and belonging, but this is held back by a Pākehā public discourse that has few ideas of history, of power structures or colonisation. Claiming to be native is one of a number of ways that Pākehā attempt to get distance from the spectre of white supremacy. Articulating personal family experiences of oppression under British Empire is another common way Pākehā respond to issues of colonisation. Another is to point to other ways in which you are minoritised, on the presumption that if you can’t dominate then you are innocent. Other ways of dealing emotionally on a personal level with colonialism are cultivating a strong interconnection with Māori, or an anti-individualistic drive to identify at local level against state, European traditions and globalisation. Desire for resolution often causes a personal approach to complex political issues.
Personalising the issue through claiming to be native is dangerous because ‘Pākehā’ means the institutions, ideologies and discourse of dominating New Zealand European systems as much as it indicates a personal project of decolonisation. There is a slippery area between ‘Pākehā’ as Māori have often used the word, to mean a non-Māori person, and how it’s been taken up by Pākehā who are committed to local issues. Many people identify as ‘Pākehā’ to show that they’re taking on decolonising political responsibilities as part of being at home here, but another side of ‘Pākehā’ culture is state reaction to Māori treaty claims – well-intentioned but balking at the point of handing over power. A redefinition of Pākehā ethnicity to come to terms with colonisation and white privilege is not a widespread project. Claiming Pākehā indigeneity ends up making Pākehā institutional power seem natural, by giving us a vision of two native groups, one of which just happens to be in control of most of the resources.
Pākehā claims to indigeneity reflect a warming desire to be local, but without deeper questioning of Pākehā power and colonial history they stay limited at best. What’s needed, as Avril Bell has said, is not resolution. It’s to continue the process of saying what hasn’t been said, of changing mainstream discourse, of getting better ideas. Investigations into the cultural specificity and history of Pākehā power are necessary. It’s great that Pākehā are inspired by Māori discourse around land, family and belonging to find ways of being more responsive to the local, more social, more resistant to new global forms of imperialism, but that’s not enough. The reality of being here and being Pākehā is the need to face up to colonial history and continuing white privilege.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Freedom Roadworks - Building a Road to Freedom: A new model for sustainable struggle - Suzanne Menzies-Culling
Freedom Roadworks is a family-based community group that was formed in Dunedin in 1993. Initially there were six families, 1 Māori, 3 Samoan, 1 Cook Island 1 Pākehā and we were connected through ties of blood or political struggle. Prior to 1990 some of the women had been active in local national and international political work and networks including Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific, Youth, Women, Treaty, Justice and development. We were part of te Whanau a Matariki which great into a large political group active on Treaty issues and NFIP issues.
However by 1990 many of us had burnt out and most had left town. We were also faced with situations in our families where younger siblings were involved destructive lifestyles, drugs and alcohol, young parents ill equipped for parenthood who were neglecting their babies, and young people who were involved in violent relationships who had themselves suffered violence in their childhood.
First Born Women
We decided to use a tool of Polynesia by inviting women who were the eldest in their families to begin to talk together to see how we could support them working with their families and also how to begin to do the decolonisation work that needed to be done if we were to break cycles of abuse and violence and then in 1992 we began working with two groups of young parents from our families.
The decolonisation workshops were designed to explore colonisation in Aotearoa and the Pacific which is historical and ongoing; it is a process of violence which breed violence in families and communities and is a process of loss and alienation. Most importantly we wanted to help them see how colonisation has taken over our minds.Setting up
Freedom Roadworks
In 1993 the mothers of some of the young children got together to talk about how we deal with three of them approaching school age and how we look after them. Because most parents had really negative experiences of the NZ education system they were very loath to put their own children into school. After more hui - now including the fathers we came up with a plan which would help us work together to home school the children as well as continue to work in the community and not isolate them or ourselves from what was happening and the political work that we were committed to.
We decided that families were the foundation of our work and also knew that this was our greatest strength. We were also committed to tino rangatiratanga and to a nuclear free and independent Pacific, so the liberation of all peoples was an important stand for us. We wanted to finding another way to live self sufficiently,We wanted to work collectively, work with our families, and make sure that what we are doing was connected to everything else - reflecting our beliefs,~ having a political analysis,~ building new models and making choices to develop the whole person.
What we expect of ourselves and each other
1) To do the personal healing work we need to do to make sure we can continue the struggle for liberation, that people deal with old unfinished business so that they are fully able to commit themselves to go for the vision.
2) To do the political learning so we can decolonise ourselves and our families and that as part of de -colonising our “self”, we each stop acting individually.
3) To support each other with the healing work we need to do with our families.
4)That people will stick around, growing old together and staying in ONE place.
5) That our vision will not be restrictive- there will be room to move - that we will make space to negotiate and talk things through - there is ALWAYS another way.
6) Being resources for our communities
Our Vision
We are working to build a way of life that is decolonised, where people have control over how they live and what they do, and where people can live with dignity.
We want a world where Māori exercise Tino Rangatiratanga in Aotearoa as is the responsibility of tangata whenua, accepted in the Declaration of Independence in 1835, and affirmed in te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840.
We believe that the rebuilding of families is crucial in our preparation for independence, and we made our own political and personal decolonisation work the cornerstone of the whanau and community development programme that we designed.
LIBERATION FOR ALL PEOPLES (WORKING FOR EVERYONE)
However by 1990 many of us had burnt out and most had left town. We were also faced with situations in our families where younger siblings were involved destructive lifestyles, drugs and alcohol, young parents ill equipped for parenthood who were neglecting their babies, and young people who were involved in violent relationships who had themselves suffered violence in their childhood.
First Born Women
We decided to use a tool of Polynesia by inviting women who were the eldest in their families to begin to talk together to see how we could support them working with their families and also how to begin to do the decolonisation work that needed to be done if we were to break cycles of abuse and violence and then in 1992 we began working with two groups of young parents from our families.
The decolonisation workshops were designed to explore colonisation in Aotearoa and the Pacific which is historical and ongoing; it is a process of violence which breed violence in families and communities and is a process of loss and alienation. Most importantly we wanted to help them see how colonisation has taken over our minds.Setting up
Freedom Roadworks
In 1993 the mothers of some of the young children got together to talk about how we deal with three of them approaching school age and how we look after them. Because most parents had really negative experiences of the NZ education system they were very loath to put their own children into school. After more hui - now including the fathers we came up with a plan which would help us work together to home school the children as well as continue to work in the community and not isolate them or ourselves from what was happening and the political work that we were committed to.
We decided that families were the foundation of our work and also knew that this was our greatest strength. We were also committed to tino rangatiratanga and to a nuclear free and independent Pacific, so the liberation of all peoples was an important stand for us. We wanted to finding another way to live self sufficiently,We wanted to work collectively, work with our families, and make sure that what we are doing was connected to everything else - reflecting our beliefs,~ having a political analysis,~ building new models and making choices to develop the whole person.
What we expect of ourselves and each other
1) To do the personal healing work we need to do to make sure we can continue the struggle for liberation, that people deal with old unfinished business so that they are fully able to commit themselves to go for the vision.
2) To do the political learning so we can decolonise ourselves and our families and that as part of de -colonising our “self”, we each stop acting individually.
3) To support each other with the healing work we need to do with our families.
4)That people will stick around, growing old together and staying in ONE place.
5) That our vision will not be restrictive- there will be room to move - that we will make space to negotiate and talk things through - there is ALWAYS another way.
6) Being resources for our communities
Our Vision
We are working to build a way of life that is decolonised, where people have control over how they live and what they do, and where people can live with dignity.
We want a world where Māori exercise Tino Rangatiratanga in Aotearoa as is the responsibility of tangata whenua, accepted in the Declaration of Independence in 1835, and affirmed in te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840.
We believe that the rebuilding of families is crucial in our preparation for independence, and we made our own political and personal decolonisation work the cornerstone of the whanau and community development programme that we designed.
LIBERATION FOR ALL PEOPLES (WORKING FOR EVERYONE)
- Breaking the shackles of capitalism, the emotional physical and mental shackles.
- Decolonising our minds and our lives
- Breaking out of the insular world we live in - NOT just looking at You, Your family, Your people and NOT looking at only liberation for Indigenous/Black/White
- Women and men working together
- A Transfer of knowledge, knowing how to use the knowledge and understanding and dealing with the BLOCKS in your culture and conditioning and Building a clear analysis - so that you can change the situation (of oppression, injustice, colonisation)
The personal work that we agreed to do for ourselves and our families grew out of our exploring the violence of colonisation and the need for us to find another way of living, so that we live our political vision now, rather than talk political and live our lives as abusers of ourselves and our loved ones.
How we funded our work
Our commitment to independence meant we agreed from the beginning that we would not seek government funding for any of our work as Freedom Roadworks.Tithing, sausage sizzles, catering, quiz nights.
Caucusing
Because of our experiences in the 1980s we wanted to find ways to debate and discuss differences that were safe for people. It was necessary to find ways and forums to explore our differences and share those values. So we always met as families, but also at time in women’s and men’s groups meetings where we had saunas, massage and celebrations. We also talked as First Born Women, Women of Polynesia, Tangata Whenua caucus, Samoan Caucus, Recovering Catholic Caucus and Values Groups. The men also organised fortnightly “Boys’ and Men’s tim” which was especially valuable for the boys who did not have a relationship with their fathers.
Have we achieved what we hoped
Freedom Roadworks is still a work in progress and has undergone a number of changes since 1993. However there are some measurable things we can point to.
- Unlike the previous generation, none of our teenage girls have had babies before the age of 16;
- We were able to home-school up to 15 of our children for 12 years from 1993- 2005;
- Only 4 people were employed in 1993, 2 were students and 10 were on benefits. Now in 2007, everyone is employed apart from the 2 youngest who are students. This is one reason we are no longer home-schooling.
- We were able to support each other to do tertiary education and get off benefits
- We were able to network and mobilise many sections of the Dunedin community to challenge the racist treatment of Māori and Pacific workers at Work and Income in 1995.
- Unlike the previous generation, none of our teenager girls has been sexually or physically abused.
- None of our teenagers is living a lifestyle of drug and alcohol abuse
- We have been able to build a different model in the community.
- Other families have decided to try home schooling their children because they saw we were doing it.
- No one in the next generation is on a benefit.
- One family was able to set up a family trust to buy their family home and purchase the house next door for the overflow.
- We set up a community garden to teach each other how to grow food.
- We worked with a Dunedin housing trust to build a house for one of our families
We have survived !
Prepared by Suzanne Menzies-Culling
Race and the construction of New Zealand’s national identity 1890-1907 - Nigel Murphy
This talk will discuss the historic foundations of New Zealand’s national identity, particularly how it ties in with the theme of white dominance, which is one of the major themes of this conference. So it will be a history talk. But I am of the school that believes there is no such thing as history. As William Faulkner said ‘the past is not dead, it’s not even past.’ What happened in the past informs, and explains, and influences the present and the future. When we say ‘legacy’, we are not talking of something dead, we are talking of how the past has influenced and continues to influence us today. In other words ‘who we were is who we are’
So when I talk of the history of our national identity, I am not talking of something safely consigned to the past, I am trying to explain why we are who we are, and trying to why we still react so negatively to certain people and events.
It is often said that nations are imagined communities - meaning we create nations in our minds by an act of collective imagination (although it can also be useful to have some actual military power to back up the power of the imagination as well) - and the same can be said of national identity and if we create nations and national identities in our minds, the same can also be said of race. Races, like nations, are largely imaginary. Races are created and the concept of race is mostly a creation of the European mind. There is really no such thing as a black race or a white race. The white race does not exist, it was created as a means to create and maintain power and to mark limits of inclusion and exclusion.
Race and Empire
So how did New Zealand’s national identity come into being? How was the imagined community called New Zealand created? The myth is that New Zealand identity was born either on the shores of Gallipoli on the 25th of April 1915 – ANZAC Day - or on 6 February 1840 at Waitangi – Waitangi Day. I maintain that our identity was formed during the period from 1890 to 1907, and that the hard work of forming the identity that was supposedly created at Gallipoli in 1915 had been done in the 20 years before 1915.
Before 1890 the idea of New Zealand as a nation was quite weak. Provincial identity was stronger than national identity, and the settlers still thought of themselves more as transplanted Scots, Welsh, Irish or Yorkshire people, and as Cantabrians, Otagoites, Aucklanders etc. By the 1890s communications and transport problems had largely overcome these problems and the possibility of a unified identity was made possible.
Two key factors, however, were required to help create a unified national identity, and these were the ideas of Race and Empire.
Empire
Identity and imperialism
Imperialism was a key factor in the formation of our national identity. It was a key factor because it linked our identity to both the British empire and to the idea of race. So what was happening in the British Empire that caused us to link our identity with British imperialism?
The main cause was that the British Empire was under threat. From the 1870s other countries began to compete seriously with Britain. There was a scramble for the last remaining pieces of uncolonised land, esp in South-East Asia and Africa, and Britain was being outstripped ecomonically by countries such as America, France and especially Germany.
The reaction to this competition in Great Britain and the British Empire was a feeling that the Empire was in danger, and the response was a rise in imperial loyalism that became aggressively jingoistic. This response has been called the New Imperialism, and is said to broadly cover the period from 1870 to 1914.
New Zealand responded in a similar way. The insecurities felt in Britain were reflected and magnified here. We felt vulnerable and insecure, and geographically, politically and militarily isolated. If England wasn’t there to protect us, who would? Our response was to tie our identity to the British Empire as a means of collective and national security. We were also British, of course, which helped.
Race
But we also tied our identity to the British Empire because of the idea of race. Although the idea of race had been around in European thought for a long time, it was during the latter part of the nineteenth century that it gained the predominance it does today. Why? The reason is because of the change in the idea of race from being seen as merely a natural phenomenon, to an ideology. The racial lines hardened, with far less crossing over racial boundaries being allowed. The period from the 1870s also saw the rise of scientific racism and social Darwinsim. These gave a pseudo-scientific base to the growing belief in races and that the British and Anglo-Saxon race was the greatest in the world. It also gave pseudo-scientific credibility to the idea that there was a hierarchy of races, and that the Anglo-Saxon race belonged at the top, with a sliding scale of races with black people at the bottom. This was not a matter of races being equal but different, it was a belief in the superiority and inferiority of races, and the right of superior races to rule over the inferior ones. Race was also linked with civilisation, with the white races being deemed the most civilized, and the other races being deemed increasingly primitive the darker they became. Social Darwinism also introduced the idea that races were in a struggle for survival - a survival of the fittest - and that the white race had to struggle to survive against the ‘lower’ races. Some races were also deemed to be particularly threatening - the most dangerous being the Asiatic and Chinese races.
Scientific racism created the theories of eugenics and miscegenation, which stated that selective breeding would create an improved race, and breeding between higher and lower races would create a deteriorated and sub-human race.
Imperial racism
Imperialism and race theory combined to create the ideology of Anglo-Saxonism, which was the belief that the British race was the greatest in the world and that the British had a divine right to rule the world.
Whiteness
The next factor in this chain of events was the invention of the white race, or more accurately, turning the idea of whiteness and the white race into an ideology. Whiteness was basically British Anglo-Saxonism writ large. The British race was too localised to truly function as an ideology outside the British Isles and the British empire, and Anglo-Saxonism was also too narrow to encompass the ideas summed up by the new ideology of whiteness. One of the strengths of whiteness was that it was not tied to any nationality, it was the idea of whiteness that mattered. Whiteness transcended national boundaries. Whiteness was as much about values and beliefs as about a place or a race originating from a specific location. Whiteness was more aggressive than the belief that the British race was the best the world had seen. Whiteness was about power and privilege, about the natural God-given right to rule the world. The great African American scholar W E B Dubois called whiteness ‘ownership of the world.’ Whiteness was a privileged and exclusive club, but membership was not necessarily based on being British or Anglo-Saxon. For example in England the Irish were deemed to be as savage and as primitive as the most ‘primitive’ tribesman of Africa, but once they had left Ireland and the British Isles they - after a probationary period – were permitted to become white. Whiteness was also a means of remaking the various regional identities in the white settler societies - such as Cornish, Scottish, English and Welsh - and creating a new identity. Whiteness was therefore a new imagined community. This is not to say that whiteness supplanted Britishnesss or imperialism as the key identity or definer of membership of New Zealand identity, it merely became another and more over-arching means of creating an identity.
Whiteness was also a relatively new concept. Although the term ‘white people’ - meaning Europeans - has been around for centuries, ‘White’ in its modern sense only came into being in the first decade of the 20th century. About the same time as the term Yellow peril was invented, as it happens.
Dirt and morality
At the same time as the ideologies of race and whiteness were gaining currency, there was an allied growth of the Victorian fear of contamination and dirt. This fear led to an obsessive desire to tame and domesticate society, and was reflected in moral movements such as the temperance movement. There was an increasing obsession with cleanliness. The obsession with dirt and contamination tied in with the rise of scientific racism and feelings of race supremacy. The result was that so-called lesser races were linked in the minds of white people with dirt and contamination and disease. The Victorian obsession with cleanliness and domesticity was also shown in the desire for moral cleanliness. The outcome of this thinking was that other races came to be seen not only as physically dirty and diseased, but morally contaminated as well.
Why was race so important in places like America, Australia and NZ?
Race was important in the white settler societies because, as well as providing a means of creating a new identity, it performed the function that class did in the Old World.
British attitudes to race and class
In the old world, esp. the British Isles, class was more important than race. For the British at ‘home’, ideas of race varied markedly from those held in the white settler colonies. The British perceived class and race as equivalent. As Kenan Malik says ‘The concept of ‘race’ today is so intertwined with the idea of ‘colour’ that it is often difficult to comprehend the Victorian notion of racial difference. For Victorians, race was a description, not so much of colour differences, as of social distinctions. The English lower classes were, to nineteenth-century eyes, as racially different as were Africans or Asians.’ Nancy Stepan points out that during this period ‘the labouring poor were represented as the “savages” of Europe, and the criminal as “Negros.” But the white settler societies such as New Zealand were determined to create a world free of the worst aspects of British society, the class system and inequality of opportunity being foremost among them. A classless and egalitarian society—a working man’s paradise—was part of the utopian dream for New Zealand. Therefore race was a much more important defining factor in national identity in the new world than in the old. In Britain race was unimportant, class and status were the keys. In the new world the reverse was true. Class was unimportant, but race was everything. In the white settler societies such as New Zealand, race, not class, were be the means to create identity and unity.
Outcome
All these factors – race theory, imperialism, whiteness, morality, egalitarianism and insecurity – combined to create New Zealand’s national identity: New Zealand was to be based on racial purity, racial superiority and whiteness: A White New Zealand. There was a further element: the idea of being a model society and a ‘Better Britain.’ ‘Better Britain’ was the idea that New Zealand would be an improved version of England, an England in the South Seas, only better, without the problems of the old country.’ Better Britain’ also meant we would be better than Australia, another very important part of our national identity.
Māori and white NZ identity
But what about the most obvious thing that I seem to have overlooked so far? What about Māori? Where did they fit in? If being a New Zealander meant being a white person, then it was a simple matter to exclude those who were not white, people such as Chinese and Indians. But Māori were indigenous, so it was not possible to exclude them physically, and because we believed that New Zealand was a utopian and model society, we could not exclude them from the definition of ‘New Zealander.’ This would be treating them like the Americans, Canadians, South Africans and esp. the Australians treated their native peoples and we, of course, were better than that. But having Māori equal to us did not fit the racial theories of the time. They were not white, so how could we make them equal? The answer was to promote them, to remake them as ‘honorary whites.’ In fact we went one better and actually made them white. We did this by creating a myth that Māori were in fact members of the Aryan race. They had just gone off in another direction to us. Therefore although they were savages, they were family, and could be treated, at least in theory, as equal. So though Māori were not white, they were honorary white, and the story we told ourselves, and the world, was that because of this equality between the races – unique in the world – New Zealand had the ‘best race relations in the world.’ At the same time, however, as we were proclaiming this myth, we were quietly hoping that Māori would die out, if not physically, at least by intermarriage and cultural assimilation. The only trace of Māori that would be left would be in museums and, as a result through intermarriage, as a ‘golden tinge’ in the faces of the New Zealand people.
The other of the role of Māori in the creation of our national identity was Pākehā appropriation of Māori culture as a basis for an indigenous white New Zealand culture. By taking over elements of Māori culture, Pākehā New Zealanders aimed to gain indigeneity, and this claim to indigeneity would cement Pākehā’s right to be here. Māori would then become colourful tourist attractions or a nice backdrop to Pākehā identity, like pohutakawa, ferns, Kiwis and Rotorua’s mudpools. From the 1890s Māori symbols - for example Māori stories, the haka and the adoption of Māori names like Rewi and Ngaio – were being used to signify Pākehā New Zealand identity. (it could be argued that this still goes on today)
The appropriation of Māori culture as Pākehā culture also mirrors the appropriation of the land itself. Between 1890 and 1900 about 28% of land still held by Māori was taken by the government. Making Māori white and appropriating Māori culture as our own meant we could have our cake and eat it too. The Māori were erased, but remained as well, as a non-threatening Pākehā reinvention. The ultimate aim was that Māori would not disturb our national identity. As the New Zealand Herald happily noted in 1901 ‘Owing to his exceptional characteristics, the Māori interferes in no way with our national homogeneity. His position is unique.’
Conclusion
Because our national identity was based on race and whiteness, it was inevitably exclusionary. Race exclusion and racism were not aberrations, they were inevitable outcomes of our national identity. Our White New Zealand immigration policy was also not an accident. It was an expression of our identity, as well as a means to achieve it. Race exclusion was really an expression of what it meant to be a New Zealander. If being a New Zealander meant being white – and for 100 years from the 1890s to the 1990s at least that is what it meant – then exclusionary racism against non-whites was the core and centre of that identity. Anti-Chinese and anti-Indian racism was not an aberration or a fringe element in our national identity, it was an expression of its core values, values that were formed between 1890 and 1907. During these years we decided who were to be, and who we were to be was white. Race was therefore the key factor in the formation of our national identity. From 1890 to 1907 the call was: ‘make New Zealand white’. In the period after that the call was: ‘Keep New Zealand white.’ [Of course we have largely lost the imperial loyalty part of our identity – the empire has ended so we don’t need to be loyal to the empire any more – but have we lost the white part? Once we were proud to be called white, not embarrassed or ashamed – to be called white was a mark of appreciation and approval.
That our identity was tied to whiteness, explains - for me - the continuity of our negative and exclusionary reactions and responses to Chinese, Indians and other non-white people in New Zealand. Our national identity has not changed – our definition of ‘we’ has not really shifted from the ‘we’ - meaning white people - that we created between 1890 and 1907. Our national identity as a model society where Māori and Pākehā are equal, and a place where there are no race problems, also remains. Part of our national identity is to believe that race problems are a problem of other countries, not ours. The myth that New Zealand is a country with the ‘best race relations in the world’, however, tends to blind us to the fact that there are issues of race and whiteness that we need to deal with here. But if our national identity – our ‘imagined community’ - was based on the idea of an exclusive racially pure White New Zealand, then it is just as possible to re-imagine it in another way, a way that is not based on the definition of a New Zealander being solely, and exclusively, white.
So when I talk of the history of our national identity, I am not talking of something safely consigned to the past, I am trying to explain why we are who we are, and trying to why we still react so negatively to certain people and events.
It is often said that nations are imagined communities - meaning we create nations in our minds by an act of collective imagination (although it can also be useful to have some actual military power to back up the power of the imagination as well) - and the same can be said of national identity and if we create nations and national identities in our minds, the same can also be said of race. Races, like nations, are largely imaginary. Races are created and the concept of race is mostly a creation of the European mind. There is really no such thing as a black race or a white race. The white race does not exist, it was created as a means to create and maintain power and to mark limits of inclusion and exclusion.
Race and Empire
So how did New Zealand’s national identity come into being? How was the imagined community called New Zealand created? The myth is that New Zealand identity was born either on the shores of Gallipoli on the 25th of April 1915 – ANZAC Day - or on 6 February 1840 at Waitangi – Waitangi Day. I maintain that our identity was formed during the period from 1890 to 1907, and that the hard work of forming the identity that was supposedly created at Gallipoli in 1915 had been done in the 20 years before 1915.
Before 1890 the idea of New Zealand as a nation was quite weak. Provincial identity was stronger than national identity, and the settlers still thought of themselves more as transplanted Scots, Welsh, Irish or Yorkshire people, and as Cantabrians, Otagoites, Aucklanders etc. By the 1890s communications and transport problems had largely overcome these problems and the possibility of a unified identity was made possible.
Two key factors, however, were required to help create a unified national identity, and these were the ideas of Race and Empire.
Empire
Identity and imperialism
Imperialism was a key factor in the formation of our national identity. It was a key factor because it linked our identity to both the British empire and to the idea of race. So what was happening in the British Empire that caused us to link our identity with British imperialism?
The main cause was that the British Empire was under threat. From the 1870s other countries began to compete seriously with Britain. There was a scramble for the last remaining pieces of uncolonised land, esp in South-East Asia and Africa, and Britain was being outstripped ecomonically by countries such as America, France and especially Germany.
The reaction to this competition in Great Britain and the British Empire was a feeling that the Empire was in danger, and the response was a rise in imperial loyalism that became aggressively jingoistic. This response has been called the New Imperialism, and is said to broadly cover the period from 1870 to 1914.
New Zealand responded in a similar way. The insecurities felt in Britain were reflected and magnified here. We felt vulnerable and insecure, and geographically, politically and militarily isolated. If England wasn’t there to protect us, who would? Our response was to tie our identity to the British Empire as a means of collective and national security. We were also British, of course, which helped.
Race
But we also tied our identity to the British Empire because of the idea of race. Although the idea of race had been around in European thought for a long time, it was during the latter part of the nineteenth century that it gained the predominance it does today. Why? The reason is because of the change in the idea of race from being seen as merely a natural phenomenon, to an ideology. The racial lines hardened, with far less crossing over racial boundaries being allowed. The period from the 1870s also saw the rise of scientific racism and social Darwinsim. These gave a pseudo-scientific base to the growing belief in races and that the British and Anglo-Saxon race was the greatest in the world. It also gave pseudo-scientific credibility to the idea that there was a hierarchy of races, and that the Anglo-Saxon race belonged at the top, with a sliding scale of races with black people at the bottom. This was not a matter of races being equal but different, it was a belief in the superiority and inferiority of races, and the right of superior races to rule over the inferior ones. Race was also linked with civilisation, with the white races being deemed the most civilized, and the other races being deemed increasingly primitive the darker they became. Social Darwinism also introduced the idea that races were in a struggle for survival - a survival of the fittest - and that the white race had to struggle to survive against the ‘lower’ races. Some races were also deemed to be particularly threatening - the most dangerous being the Asiatic and Chinese races.
Scientific racism created the theories of eugenics and miscegenation, which stated that selective breeding would create an improved race, and breeding between higher and lower races would create a deteriorated and sub-human race.
Imperial racism
Imperialism and race theory combined to create the ideology of Anglo-Saxonism, which was the belief that the British race was the greatest in the world and that the British had a divine right to rule the world.
Whiteness
The next factor in this chain of events was the invention of the white race, or more accurately, turning the idea of whiteness and the white race into an ideology. Whiteness was basically British Anglo-Saxonism writ large. The British race was too localised to truly function as an ideology outside the British Isles and the British empire, and Anglo-Saxonism was also too narrow to encompass the ideas summed up by the new ideology of whiteness. One of the strengths of whiteness was that it was not tied to any nationality, it was the idea of whiteness that mattered. Whiteness transcended national boundaries. Whiteness was as much about values and beliefs as about a place or a race originating from a specific location. Whiteness was more aggressive than the belief that the British race was the best the world had seen. Whiteness was about power and privilege, about the natural God-given right to rule the world. The great African American scholar W E B Dubois called whiteness ‘ownership of the world.’ Whiteness was a privileged and exclusive club, but membership was not necessarily based on being British or Anglo-Saxon. For example in England the Irish were deemed to be as savage and as primitive as the most ‘primitive’ tribesman of Africa, but once they had left Ireland and the British Isles they - after a probationary period – were permitted to become white. Whiteness was also a means of remaking the various regional identities in the white settler societies - such as Cornish, Scottish, English and Welsh - and creating a new identity. Whiteness was therefore a new imagined community. This is not to say that whiteness supplanted Britishnesss or imperialism as the key identity or definer of membership of New Zealand identity, it merely became another and more over-arching means of creating an identity.
Whiteness was also a relatively new concept. Although the term ‘white people’ - meaning Europeans - has been around for centuries, ‘White’ in its modern sense only came into being in the first decade of the 20th century. About the same time as the term Yellow peril was invented, as it happens.
Dirt and morality
At the same time as the ideologies of race and whiteness were gaining currency, there was an allied growth of the Victorian fear of contamination and dirt. This fear led to an obsessive desire to tame and domesticate society, and was reflected in moral movements such as the temperance movement. There was an increasing obsession with cleanliness. The obsession with dirt and contamination tied in with the rise of scientific racism and feelings of race supremacy. The result was that so-called lesser races were linked in the minds of white people with dirt and contamination and disease. The Victorian obsession with cleanliness and domesticity was also shown in the desire for moral cleanliness. The outcome of this thinking was that other races came to be seen not only as physically dirty and diseased, but morally contaminated as well.
Why was race so important in places like America, Australia and NZ?
Race was important in the white settler societies because, as well as providing a means of creating a new identity, it performed the function that class did in the Old World.
British attitudes to race and class
In the old world, esp. the British Isles, class was more important than race. For the British at ‘home’, ideas of race varied markedly from those held in the white settler colonies. The British perceived class and race as equivalent. As Kenan Malik says ‘The concept of ‘race’ today is so intertwined with the idea of ‘colour’ that it is often difficult to comprehend the Victorian notion of racial difference. For Victorians, race was a description, not so much of colour differences, as of social distinctions. The English lower classes were, to nineteenth-century eyes, as racially different as were Africans or Asians.’ Nancy Stepan points out that during this period ‘the labouring poor were represented as the “savages” of Europe, and the criminal as “Negros.” But the white settler societies such as New Zealand were determined to create a world free of the worst aspects of British society, the class system and inequality of opportunity being foremost among them. A classless and egalitarian society—a working man’s paradise—was part of the utopian dream for New Zealand. Therefore race was a much more important defining factor in national identity in the new world than in the old. In Britain race was unimportant, class and status were the keys. In the new world the reverse was true. Class was unimportant, but race was everything. In the white settler societies such as New Zealand, race, not class, were be the means to create identity and unity.
Outcome
All these factors – race theory, imperialism, whiteness, morality, egalitarianism and insecurity – combined to create New Zealand’s national identity: New Zealand was to be based on racial purity, racial superiority and whiteness: A White New Zealand. There was a further element: the idea of being a model society and a ‘Better Britain.’ ‘Better Britain’ was the idea that New Zealand would be an improved version of England, an England in the South Seas, only better, without the problems of the old country.’ Better Britain’ also meant we would be better than Australia, another very important part of our national identity.
Māori and white NZ identity
But what about the most obvious thing that I seem to have overlooked so far? What about Māori? Where did they fit in? If being a New Zealander meant being a white person, then it was a simple matter to exclude those who were not white, people such as Chinese and Indians. But Māori were indigenous, so it was not possible to exclude them physically, and because we believed that New Zealand was a utopian and model society, we could not exclude them from the definition of ‘New Zealander.’ This would be treating them like the Americans, Canadians, South Africans and esp. the Australians treated their native peoples and we, of course, were better than that. But having Māori equal to us did not fit the racial theories of the time. They were not white, so how could we make them equal? The answer was to promote them, to remake them as ‘honorary whites.’ In fact we went one better and actually made them white. We did this by creating a myth that Māori were in fact members of the Aryan race. They had just gone off in another direction to us. Therefore although they were savages, they were family, and could be treated, at least in theory, as equal. So though Māori were not white, they were honorary white, and the story we told ourselves, and the world, was that because of this equality between the races – unique in the world – New Zealand had the ‘best race relations in the world.’ At the same time, however, as we were proclaiming this myth, we were quietly hoping that Māori would die out, if not physically, at least by intermarriage and cultural assimilation. The only trace of Māori that would be left would be in museums and, as a result through intermarriage, as a ‘golden tinge’ in the faces of the New Zealand people.
The other of the role of Māori in the creation of our national identity was Pākehā appropriation of Māori culture as a basis for an indigenous white New Zealand culture. By taking over elements of Māori culture, Pākehā New Zealanders aimed to gain indigeneity, and this claim to indigeneity would cement Pākehā’s right to be here. Māori would then become colourful tourist attractions or a nice backdrop to Pākehā identity, like pohutakawa, ferns, Kiwis and Rotorua’s mudpools. From the 1890s Māori symbols - for example Māori stories, the haka and the adoption of Māori names like Rewi and Ngaio – were being used to signify Pākehā New Zealand identity. (it could be argued that this still goes on today)
The appropriation of Māori culture as Pākehā culture also mirrors the appropriation of the land itself. Between 1890 and 1900 about 28% of land still held by Māori was taken by the government. Making Māori white and appropriating Māori culture as our own meant we could have our cake and eat it too. The Māori were erased, but remained as well, as a non-threatening Pākehā reinvention. The ultimate aim was that Māori would not disturb our national identity. As the New Zealand Herald happily noted in 1901 ‘Owing to his exceptional characteristics, the Māori interferes in no way with our national homogeneity. His position is unique.’
Conclusion
Because our national identity was based on race and whiteness, it was inevitably exclusionary. Race exclusion and racism were not aberrations, they were inevitable outcomes of our national identity. Our White New Zealand immigration policy was also not an accident. It was an expression of our identity, as well as a means to achieve it. Race exclusion was really an expression of what it meant to be a New Zealander. If being a New Zealander meant being white – and for 100 years from the 1890s to the 1990s at least that is what it meant – then exclusionary racism against non-whites was the core and centre of that identity. Anti-Chinese and anti-Indian racism was not an aberration or a fringe element in our national identity, it was an expression of its core values, values that were formed between 1890 and 1907. During these years we decided who were to be, and who we were to be was white. Race was therefore the key factor in the formation of our national identity. From 1890 to 1907 the call was: ‘make New Zealand white’. In the period after that the call was: ‘Keep New Zealand white.’ [Of course we have largely lost the imperial loyalty part of our identity – the empire has ended so we don’t need to be loyal to the empire any more – but have we lost the white part? Once we were proud to be called white, not embarrassed or ashamed – to be called white was a mark of appreciation and approval.
That our identity was tied to whiteness, explains - for me - the continuity of our negative and exclusionary reactions and responses to Chinese, Indians and other non-white people in New Zealand. Our national identity has not changed – our definition of ‘we’ has not really shifted from the ‘we’ - meaning white people - that we created between 1890 and 1907. Our national identity as a model society where Māori and Pākehā are equal, and a place where there are no race problems, also remains. Part of our national identity is to believe that race problems are a problem of other countries, not ours. The myth that New Zealand is a country with the ‘best race relations in the world’, however, tends to blind us to the fact that there are issues of race and whiteness that we need to deal with here. But if our national identity – our ‘imagined community’ - was based on the idea of an exclusive racially pure White New Zealand, then it is just as possible to re-imagine it in another way, a way that is not based on the definition of a New Zealander being solely, and exclusively, white.
Alison Wong: poems
Alison Wong is a 3rd generation Chinese New Zealander. She was the 2002 Robert Burns Fellow at Otago University. Her first collection of poetry, Cup, was published by Steele Roberts in 2006, and one of her poems was selected for Best New Zealand Poems 2006. She lives in Titahi Bay, where she is finishing off a novel.
These poems are from cup, Alison Wong (Steele Roberts, 2006, http://www.steeleroberts.co.nz/)
Playground ©
In the playground, a girl calls to her
brother, Look out for the Chinese boy.
I look at my son. He can say bum, fart
and all kinds of body parts—all in Chinese.
He has dark blonde hair.
I am Chinese, he says proudly.
When I’m an adult, I will eat my vegetables.
I will be a woman.
~
He rides a rocking hamburger
alongside his two best girlfriends.
This is where they discuss
the meaning of life and happiness.
Vagina, one says. Piss, he says, laughing.
Later coming down the stairs, the other
sister smiles. Piss you off, she says.
That night his father asks,
You know what vagina means,
don’t you? Yes, he says, smiling,
I love Sasha and Courtney.
Round Hill ©
Leslie leads the way through miro, supplejack and mamaku.
Everywhere the crush of leaves underfoot,
the sound and smell of water. Fantails
spread white and black feathers
and peep peep in the hush
of muted greens and browns. We walk
beside stone walls that line the banks
and water races,
past sluices, dams and mine shafts
where once five hundred Chinese miners
lived and worked. Leslie lifts a tin drum lid
from one fork of a race to the other. This
is how we divert
water. We watch it rush
over the bank,
pass old camp sites with their broken
brandy bottles and celadon bowls,
stones arranged like a memorial
or a grave.
Possums lie close to the path, stripped
back to pale flesh. This one reminds me
of the dogs hanging in the markets of Canton
their jaws wide open.
You can come around here quietly now, Leslie says,
his small 83-year-old body moving lightly.
One hundred pounds ©
For Wong Wei Jung, Wellington 1914
There is no photograph of the father
of the father of my father
only one taken
from the ancestral home by a man
not related. I imagine him
(inside a cardboard
box, lost in the tenements of
modern Canton)
shot
in pure black
and white, and perhaps aged
the colour of old blood,
and wonder
did he have hair
that swung across his back
in the style of Manchurian
subjection, or was it cut
short and covered by
a trilby? Ah, there
is nothing to see, only brazen black
letters on aged white paper:
a notice of Murder
from the Minister of Justice
the reward as great
as the poll tax.
These poems are from cup, Alison Wong (Steele Roberts, 2006, http://www.steeleroberts.co.nz/)
Playground ©
In the playground, a girl calls to her
brother, Look out for the Chinese boy.
I look at my son. He can say bum, fart
and all kinds of body parts—all in Chinese.
He has dark blonde hair.
I am Chinese, he says proudly.
When I’m an adult, I will eat my vegetables.
I will be a woman.
~
He rides a rocking hamburger
alongside his two best girlfriends.
This is where they discuss
the meaning of life and happiness.
Vagina, one says. Piss, he says, laughing.
Later coming down the stairs, the other
sister smiles. Piss you off, she says.
That night his father asks,
You know what vagina means,
don’t you? Yes, he says, smiling,
I love Sasha and Courtney.
Round Hill ©
Leslie leads the way through miro, supplejack and mamaku.
Everywhere the crush of leaves underfoot,
the sound and smell of water. Fantails
spread white and black feathers
and peep peep in the hush
of muted greens and browns. We walk
beside stone walls that line the banks
and water races,
past sluices, dams and mine shafts
where once five hundred Chinese miners
lived and worked. Leslie lifts a tin drum lid
from one fork of a race to the other. This
is how we divert
water. We watch it rush
over the bank,
pass old camp sites with their broken
brandy bottles and celadon bowls,
stones arranged like a memorial
or a grave.
Possums lie close to the path, stripped
back to pale flesh. This one reminds me
of the dogs hanging in the markets of Canton
their jaws wide open.
You can come around here quietly now, Leslie says,
his small 83-year-old body moving lightly.
One hundred pounds ©
For Wong Wei Jung, Wellington 1914
There is no photograph of the father
of the father of my father
only one taken
from the ancestral home by a man
not related. I imagine him
(inside a cardboard
box, lost in the tenements of
modern Canton)
shot
in pure black
and white, and perhaps aged
the colour of old blood,
and wonder
did he have hair
that swung across his back
in the style of Manchurian
subjection, or was it cut
short and covered by
a trilby? Ah, there
is nothing to see, only brazen black
letters on aged white paper:
a notice of Murder
from the Minister of Justice
the reward as great
as the poll tax.
Racism, angst, culture, experience - Wong Liu Shueng
Recently I did a presentation at the Chinese Youth Leadership course, and someone asked me ‘You are so forthright, I’m not sure I can be like that”. My reply was that ‘I was not born like this.’ When I recall this pathway, I see that this is the way I have developed within the context of the New Zealand environment, and my own realisation of the impact of personal experiences of racism and identity deprivation.
I grew up in Carterton, one of those mono-cultural centres of the world. Chinese was something others told me. For me it was like the unspoken surround sound of my life, I assumed that if Chinese meant living a life, then everyone was Chinese. As a youngster I could not imagine how any other person could live in any other way. I remember commenting that one of my classmates was off to the beach for 6 weeks Summer holidays, and pondered on what would someone do at the beach for so long. I mean, I could never stay away that long, after all who would stack the boxes, who would open the newspaper to wrap up the vegetables, who would stack the fruit, and most important, who would serve the customers?
However, after repeated episodes of being ‘hounded down’ and pelted with stones while returning from school, I also figured that this kind of behaviour was about my being Chinese. My parent’s solution, shared by so many at that time was to ignore such acts telling me to chant ‘sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me’. A 6 years old, I realised that this was a load of nonsense. Instead, the seeds of activism were sown. I would ponder about why would someone target me because I was Chinese, and what would be needed to stop such action. It has been my life’s work.
During my university education, I came across a course about racism. It was to be the most relevant paper I ever did at University. I was to write an essay about the treatment of Chinese in USA, and for the first time I had to get an extension. I simply could not write it. Reading about the treatment of racism on the Chinese was a kind of emotional torture within me. I read and was outraged. I felt compassion for the Chinese. I could not believe that people could treat others in this way. It was not that it was not around me in New Zealand, but it was not written down. I could not mull it over in my mind. Now I suddenly understood some of the dynamics around racism. Until then I thought it was something that was related just to me, that it was something I had done wrong, that I needed to be ‘nicer’ or I really suppose ‘whiter’. This part of my education has had a lasting effect for me.
The next light that was turned on in my head when I travelled. In China, besides learning about the history of my own people, I also saw that racism was not necessarily a colour issue but definitely a power issue. Up until that time, I thought racism was a White issue but after my China experience I saw that all people have the capacity to be racists. Everyone has prejudices and some of those prejudices are around race.
Being a person with multiple work experiences, at the time I was teaching English as a Second Language and decided that this is not where I wanted to place my end focus. It was all very well helping new migrants to live and settle in New Zealand, but unless something was targeted to the institutions I was not so sure anything would change. And I desperately wanted to seek change in some way. That motivated me to start my business offering training and development to a whole range of organisations. There is something about working in this field. You simply get beyond being shocked. The forms of prejudice, the way it is perceived, the way individuals react to words like consultation, negotiation, difference, new migrants, refugees and customer services to those people shows that prejudice is learnt early, often never examined or re-examined. What more it is often confused with a travel experience that consists of a shrouded package tour where people do not in fact mix with anyone else than those NZers whom they left the shores with, or OE in places that speak English. These experiences are fine and wonderful, but they do not necessarily make people look at their own prejudices. Why? Because prejudices are triggered in such a variety of ways. I remember a participants of one of my seminars telling me the number of Asian countries he had visited on holiday yet here in New Zealand, what puzzled him was his clear discomfort of his Chinese neighbours, the growing Chineseness of the neighbourhood and the loss of the sameness of what his neighbourhood had meant to him. Prejudice for him was an issue of distance. The same is often experienced when a new culturally different potential partner is introduced to a family. Parents tell me of their ‘cultural shock’ and what I know is in the tool kit of skills to get on with life, the tools kit needed to identify, work with, to understand what racism is, and what can be done about it is lacking. It is clear that the very real struggle involved in managing prejudices seem such a rocky path. I am not sure why this is so, but I have over time developed a couple of ideas. Firstly, there is a real sense that Kiwis should know everything, and I am not sure where the ‘should’ comes from. But the end result is that to ask shows some kind of failing. Maybe this stems from the isolation of a country that had to be self sufficient, and had to take on Number 8 wire like it or not. But the hang over, seems very unforgiving. To ask seems to be equated with being an ‘idiot’ where as I personally consider someone asking for clarification is an indicator of interest. The other pattern is one of guilt. Guilt of making a mistake, guilt of the history made in New Zealand by our ancestors, guilt of former treatment, and of negotiations and resolution in present day for the misdemeanours of the past. It could be the Christian model of ethics, but I know that as long as people feel guilty, they are unable to move on. Guilt has some kind of glue that makes us live in yesterday.
Over the decades, I have seen society change, and racism continue. Now it tends to be less covert which actually means that it is harder to identify. So my time spent working at the Race Relations Office and the Human Rights Commission allowed me time to understand the legal requirements. New Zealand must have a robust complaints system. However, I personally would like it see more exposure. Most complaints are resolved through mediation and while this is both a tool for reconciliation and education it usually includes as part of the process to grant the perpetrators confidentiality thereby hiding from public view. Society needs to know who is doing what and what is not acceptable. These are society’s standards of behaviour and I think that we would all benefit for greater clarity in this area.
This brings me back to my perspective on racism, and I have five points to make.
The first of these is about labels. It is my experience that labelling people as racists is the very same behaviour that I have felt offended by, when others have labelled me as Chink, slit eyes, ching chong chinaman or Banana. Individuals do not like to be targeted with negative labels. And, I always have a sense of little hope if someone is labelled. It is as if human being find it hard to wriggle out of labels, even positive ones. And negative labels stick, for generations, and I sense that this is where the damage is done. To have to hold a negative stereotype is your community forever reason, but not of your own making seems to be like sour milk. It hangs around for long long time. To give you an example, this has been the very reason why the use of the word Bananas has been used for the Going Bananas Conference series. It is the role of the Chinese Community to turn a negative into a positive. No one else is going to do this, as the Black found in making Black is beautiful. Victims of labelling have to do it for themselves.
Secondly, I do not stand for any racist jokes. Here I target the joke not the person. I know there are people who believe that the business of putting down one ethnic group against another is somehow prejudice-free. That a joke is a joke, and that my sensitivity about this shows that I lack some kind of humour. Far too serious, they would say. And they are right; I take this kind of put down seriously. Which leads me to define the difference between what a stand up comedian does like Raybon Kan, and recently in a show called ‘Allah made me funny’. Here the comedians show an internal way of communication. They show the relationship between parents and children, or internal expectations and the relationship between themselves within the environment of the other. As a Pākehā said to me when walking out of one of Raybon’s show – ‘It great, he shows us our prejudices’. I agree, everyone’s prejudices.
And perhaps I need to make a little clearer the difference between the behaviour and the person. I believe that people are not up for targeting, regardless of what they have done. I believe it become the beginning is self fulfilling prophesies. There are gangs in New Zealand who delight in behaving against society because that is their identity. But I do believe that telling them to stop behaviour offers a lot more hope. Behaviour can be changed and believe that people are likely to change on their own realisation. Our job is to assist in the realisation, not the person. They have to do this themselves.
Thirdly, within our own community there are strong feelings of racism against others. Racism is so often used as a comparative tool to say that ‘our race’ is better than ‘your race’. This is in my mind simple not true. For an example, Chinese who have for generations in New Zealand taken on the mantel of being a model minority have been eluding both themselves and the society they were living in. We as Chinese have our own ratbags. There are Chinese in prison who has clearly broken the law. There are Chinese non-achievers at school. There are Chinese on the dole, and in our mental health systems. Pride of one own ethnic group is not to be at the expense of others. Pride in Chineseness is not to make us superior, but is about our identity. It is not just to horrify our parents, that we pick up the good and the bad from our families. Identity is so much more encompassing and internal in our lived reality. It is like the unique flavouring that forms the backdrop of what we achieve or fail. It is what can bring us together to form a collectively and special voice. And as we define our identity more clearly, our voice will get stronger.
Fourthly, as an Intercultural facilitator offering courses in this area, another consideration for me is about the teachable moment. These must be formed within a course to facilitate any change at all. It is important that people are able to look at their own diversity, and they acknowledge their own experience of prejudice, both as perpetrators and victims. Since no one is prejudice-free, there is no end of experiences to reflect upon them. And good teaching no matter where and when is best when the learners are relaxed. I think that it our job to constantly teach people. I used to think this could be learnt through osmosis, but I now believe this is not so. Take mixed marriages for example. Most people I know end up acquiescence to a dominant culture rather than being encouraged to maintain their own cultural roots. The example of the Pākehā learning the language, getting to be comfortable in the other person’s country is not nearly so prevalent. So we all have a job to do out there, to be actively involved in this educational process
And before I sum up, can I say that I am heartened when I hear that the Soccer Association in New Zealand is at least making an attempt to stamp out racial abuse on the field. And I am genuinely pleased when a broadcaster is made to apologise for his remarks, and I certainly hope that the public of New Zealand will react in economic purchasing power when public figures blunder their way through their own prejudices. A no tolerance policy in public places has to be set, so we can all go about our lives with some kind of psychological safety.
And lastly, I would like to sum up about multiple perspectives. I do not have the expectation that others will take on this perspective laid out to you today. The journey I have made is unique to me. I am sure if I had been brought up with a wider Chinese community around me, and that a small gang of Chinese boys rubbed tiger balm into the eyes of the boys who threw the stones at me, my perspective would be different. And I often think if I was not the only Chinese student in my class ever, regardless of school, or the only Chinese person on the staff of all my working life until recently in OEA, I would be thinking differently. And then, if my parents did not work so hard to be accepted by the mainstream at their own personal cost and frustration, my journey measured in inches would have ended up at a different place.
In this day and age, where bloggers blog, where the internet shares so many ideas, where the exposure is so much greater, I believe that racism in its many forms need to be at the very least are pointed out, that perpetrators are made aware of the impact of their words. I recall getting on a bus in America and someone down the bus must have said something to a Black man. His response was to say in a very loud and fir voice ‘Hey man, that’s a racists remark, do you understand that?” The atmosphere on the bus changed, the man apologised. I am waiting to hear that in New Zealand. We all have to be the warriors of this war.
But most of all I also hope that each individual accepts their own responsibility to manage their own prejudices. For they pop up at unexpected times, often when face to face with new ethnic groups. It is something that needs constant internal work, and I trust your interest here might indicate your own willingness within your own self. It is without a doubt rewarding work, because the end result is an appreciation of the world that is enlarged rather than defined by fear.
Thank you
Wong Liu Shueng
Wong Liu Shueng can be contacted through Wongls@Interculturalworks.co.nz
I grew up in Carterton, one of those mono-cultural centres of the world. Chinese was something others told me. For me it was like the unspoken surround sound of my life, I assumed that if Chinese meant living a life, then everyone was Chinese. As a youngster I could not imagine how any other person could live in any other way. I remember commenting that one of my classmates was off to the beach for 6 weeks Summer holidays, and pondered on what would someone do at the beach for so long. I mean, I could never stay away that long, after all who would stack the boxes, who would open the newspaper to wrap up the vegetables, who would stack the fruit, and most important, who would serve the customers?
However, after repeated episodes of being ‘hounded down’ and pelted with stones while returning from school, I also figured that this kind of behaviour was about my being Chinese. My parent’s solution, shared by so many at that time was to ignore such acts telling me to chant ‘sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me’. A 6 years old, I realised that this was a load of nonsense. Instead, the seeds of activism were sown. I would ponder about why would someone target me because I was Chinese, and what would be needed to stop such action. It has been my life’s work.
During my university education, I came across a course about racism. It was to be the most relevant paper I ever did at University. I was to write an essay about the treatment of Chinese in USA, and for the first time I had to get an extension. I simply could not write it. Reading about the treatment of racism on the Chinese was a kind of emotional torture within me. I read and was outraged. I felt compassion for the Chinese. I could not believe that people could treat others in this way. It was not that it was not around me in New Zealand, but it was not written down. I could not mull it over in my mind. Now I suddenly understood some of the dynamics around racism. Until then I thought it was something that was related just to me, that it was something I had done wrong, that I needed to be ‘nicer’ or I really suppose ‘whiter’. This part of my education has had a lasting effect for me.
The next light that was turned on in my head when I travelled. In China, besides learning about the history of my own people, I also saw that racism was not necessarily a colour issue but definitely a power issue. Up until that time, I thought racism was a White issue but after my China experience I saw that all people have the capacity to be racists. Everyone has prejudices and some of those prejudices are around race.
Being a person with multiple work experiences, at the time I was teaching English as a Second Language and decided that this is not where I wanted to place my end focus. It was all very well helping new migrants to live and settle in New Zealand, but unless something was targeted to the institutions I was not so sure anything would change. And I desperately wanted to seek change in some way. That motivated me to start my business offering training and development to a whole range of organisations. There is something about working in this field. You simply get beyond being shocked. The forms of prejudice, the way it is perceived, the way individuals react to words like consultation, negotiation, difference, new migrants, refugees and customer services to those people shows that prejudice is learnt early, often never examined or re-examined. What more it is often confused with a travel experience that consists of a shrouded package tour where people do not in fact mix with anyone else than those NZers whom they left the shores with, or OE in places that speak English. These experiences are fine and wonderful, but they do not necessarily make people look at their own prejudices. Why? Because prejudices are triggered in such a variety of ways. I remember a participants of one of my seminars telling me the number of Asian countries he had visited on holiday yet here in New Zealand, what puzzled him was his clear discomfort of his Chinese neighbours, the growing Chineseness of the neighbourhood and the loss of the sameness of what his neighbourhood had meant to him. Prejudice for him was an issue of distance. The same is often experienced when a new culturally different potential partner is introduced to a family. Parents tell me of their ‘cultural shock’ and what I know is in the tool kit of skills to get on with life, the tools kit needed to identify, work with, to understand what racism is, and what can be done about it is lacking. It is clear that the very real struggle involved in managing prejudices seem such a rocky path. I am not sure why this is so, but I have over time developed a couple of ideas. Firstly, there is a real sense that Kiwis should know everything, and I am not sure where the ‘should’ comes from. But the end result is that to ask shows some kind of failing. Maybe this stems from the isolation of a country that had to be self sufficient, and had to take on Number 8 wire like it or not. But the hang over, seems very unforgiving. To ask seems to be equated with being an ‘idiot’ where as I personally consider someone asking for clarification is an indicator of interest. The other pattern is one of guilt. Guilt of making a mistake, guilt of the history made in New Zealand by our ancestors, guilt of former treatment, and of negotiations and resolution in present day for the misdemeanours of the past. It could be the Christian model of ethics, but I know that as long as people feel guilty, they are unable to move on. Guilt has some kind of glue that makes us live in yesterday.
Over the decades, I have seen society change, and racism continue. Now it tends to be less covert which actually means that it is harder to identify. So my time spent working at the Race Relations Office and the Human Rights Commission allowed me time to understand the legal requirements. New Zealand must have a robust complaints system. However, I personally would like it see more exposure. Most complaints are resolved through mediation and while this is both a tool for reconciliation and education it usually includes as part of the process to grant the perpetrators confidentiality thereby hiding from public view. Society needs to know who is doing what and what is not acceptable. These are society’s standards of behaviour and I think that we would all benefit for greater clarity in this area.
This brings me back to my perspective on racism, and I have five points to make.
The first of these is about labels. It is my experience that labelling people as racists is the very same behaviour that I have felt offended by, when others have labelled me as Chink, slit eyes, ching chong chinaman or Banana. Individuals do not like to be targeted with negative labels. And, I always have a sense of little hope if someone is labelled. It is as if human being find it hard to wriggle out of labels, even positive ones. And negative labels stick, for generations, and I sense that this is where the damage is done. To have to hold a negative stereotype is your community forever reason, but not of your own making seems to be like sour milk. It hangs around for long long time. To give you an example, this has been the very reason why the use of the word Bananas has been used for the Going Bananas Conference series. It is the role of the Chinese Community to turn a negative into a positive. No one else is going to do this, as the Black found in making Black is beautiful. Victims of labelling have to do it for themselves.
Secondly, I do not stand for any racist jokes. Here I target the joke not the person. I know there are people who believe that the business of putting down one ethnic group against another is somehow prejudice-free. That a joke is a joke, and that my sensitivity about this shows that I lack some kind of humour. Far too serious, they would say. And they are right; I take this kind of put down seriously. Which leads me to define the difference between what a stand up comedian does like Raybon Kan, and recently in a show called ‘Allah made me funny’. Here the comedians show an internal way of communication. They show the relationship between parents and children, or internal expectations and the relationship between themselves within the environment of the other. As a Pākehā said to me when walking out of one of Raybon’s show – ‘It great, he shows us our prejudices’. I agree, everyone’s prejudices.
And perhaps I need to make a little clearer the difference between the behaviour and the person. I believe that people are not up for targeting, regardless of what they have done. I believe it become the beginning is self fulfilling prophesies. There are gangs in New Zealand who delight in behaving against society because that is their identity. But I do believe that telling them to stop behaviour offers a lot more hope. Behaviour can be changed and believe that people are likely to change on their own realisation. Our job is to assist in the realisation, not the person. They have to do this themselves.
Thirdly, within our own community there are strong feelings of racism against others. Racism is so often used as a comparative tool to say that ‘our race’ is better than ‘your race’. This is in my mind simple not true. For an example, Chinese who have for generations in New Zealand taken on the mantel of being a model minority have been eluding both themselves and the society they were living in. We as Chinese have our own ratbags. There are Chinese in prison who has clearly broken the law. There are Chinese non-achievers at school. There are Chinese on the dole, and in our mental health systems. Pride of one own ethnic group is not to be at the expense of others. Pride in Chineseness is not to make us superior, but is about our identity. It is not just to horrify our parents, that we pick up the good and the bad from our families. Identity is so much more encompassing and internal in our lived reality. It is like the unique flavouring that forms the backdrop of what we achieve or fail. It is what can bring us together to form a collectively and special voice. And as we define our identity more clearly, our voice will get stronger.
Fourthly, as an Intercultural facilitator offering courses in this area, another consideration for me is about the teachable moment. These must be formed within a course to facilitate any change at all. It is important that people are able to look at their own diversity, and they acknowledge their own experience of prejudice, both as perpetrators and victims. Since no one is prejudice-free, there is no end of experiences to reflect upon them. And good teaching no matter where and when is best when the learners are relaxed. I think that it our job to constantly teach people. I used to think this could be learnt through osmosis, but I now believe this is not so. Take mixed marriages for example. Most people I know end up acquiescence to a dominant culture rather than being encouraged to maintain their own cultural roots. The example of the Pākehā learning the language, getting to be comfortable in the other person’s country is not nearly so prevalent. So we all have a job to do out there, to be actively involved in this educational process
And before I sum up, can I say that I am heartened when I hear that the Soccer Association in New Zealand is at least making an attempt to stamp out racial abuse on the field. And I am genuinely pleased when a broadcaster is made to apologise for his remarks, and I certainly hope that the public of New Zealand will react in economic purchasing power when public figures blunder their way through their own prejudices. A no tolerance policy in public places has to be set, so we can all go about our lives with some kind of psychological safety.
And lastly, I would like to sum up about multiple perspectives. I do not have the expectation that others will take on this perspective laid out to you today. The journey I have made is unique to me. I am sure if I had been brought up with a wider Chinese community around me, and that a small gang of Chinese boys rubbed tiger balm into the eyes of the boys who threw the stones at me, my perspective would be different. And I often think if I was not the only Chinese student in my class ever, regardless of school, or the only Chinese person on the staff of all my working life until recently in OEA, I would be thinking differently. And then, if my parents did not work so hard to be accepted by the mainstream at their own personal cost and frustration, my journey measured in inches would have ended up at a different place.
In this day and age, where bloggers blog, where the internet shares so many ideas, where the exposure is so much greater, I believe that racism in its many forms need to be at the very least are pointed out, that perpetrators are made aware of the impact of their words. I recall getting on a bus in America and someone down the bus must have said something to a Black man. His response was to say in a very loud and fir voice ‘Hey man, that’s a racists remark, do you understand that?” The atmosphere on the bus changed, the man apologised. I am waiting to hear that in New Zealand. We all have to be the warriors of this war.
But most of all I also hope that each individual accepts their own responsibility to manage their own prejudices. For they pop up at unexpected times, often when face to face with new ethnic groups. It is something that needs constant internal work, and I trust your interest here might indicate your own willingness within your own self. It is without a doubt rewarding work, because the end result is an appreciation of the world that is enlarged rather than defined by fear.
Thank you
Wong Liu Shueng
Wong Liu Shueng can be contacted through Wongls@Interculturalworks.co.nz
About this site
Kia ora e hoa ma,
Thanks SO much for coming to our conference and making the event so successful. We got heaps of really nice feedback and it sounds like there's lots of alliances and activities that have come out of the networking parts of the weekend. So it's all good!!
We finally got our act together and set up this blog site for Sweet conference attendees and friends. We're loading:
Thanks SO much for coming to our conference and making the event so successful. We got heaps of really nice feedback and it sounds like there's lots of alliances and activities that have come out of the networking parts of the weekend. So it's all good!!
We finally got our act together and set up this blog site for Sweet conference attendees and friends. We're loading:
- conference papers
- other reports people have done
- interesting stuff
- gossip / news
- ideas / thoughts / burning questions for other attendees to comment on.
So if you have:
- gossip / news - click the "post a comment" link at the end of this "Latest news" post
- a report relating to the conference, other interesting stuff, or ideas / writings / burning questions send it to us at sweet.as.conf@gmail.com (we're trying to close down our riseup account because it runs a bit slow). We'll post them in separate posts so people can comment directly on just the thing you've sent.
Access
At the moment, only people who have registered for the conference have access to this site. But you can refer a friend and we'll add them to the list. Send an e-mail to us at sweet.as.conf@gmail.com
We just didn't want our discussions to be bogged down with loads of random comments. And we wanted to keep it a safe forum.
Next conference and time out
We're thinking of having another event around July 2009. But at some point soon we're going to need some time out. We'll let you know when we're not going to be answering e-mails. If this site take off, we'll try and get someone to babysit it while we're away.
That's it from us - but don't forget to keep checking the site for new stuff and comments. We're kind of loading stuff as it comes in so hopefully there'll be new stuff on here for a while.
Arohanui
The organisers
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