Michele A’Court
‘People who live on islands should visit other islands.’’ I’m stuffed if I can remember which New Zealand writer said it but it might have been Bill Pearson. In 1952, Pearson published an essay called ‘‘Fretful Sleepers’’, in part describing what a tricky country New Zealand was for people who didn’t entirely fit in. Pearson, who was gay – illegal here until 1986 – died 16 years ago, so we can’t know what he’d say about NZ First’s Respecting NZ Values Bill, but his sense that we’re not always open to difference still rings true.
‘‘There are people coming in here to be New Zealanders but they are not really New Zealanders at all,’’ is how NZ First party member Roger Melville put it, as though his own ancestors arrived here as fully formed Kiwis fresh off the waka. I’ll take a punt and say that they didn’t fully respect gender equality, all sexual preferences and religious rights on the day they got here. His nana might even have been in the Temperance Movement if she arrived when Kate Sheppard was doing her thing.
It feels odd to me that we are a nation peopled by immigrants, some of whom are becoming decidedly less welcoming to new immigrants. It’s almost like they don’t remember where they came from or why they travelled here.
Whoever originally said the line about ‘‘visiting other islands’’, I think of it often – when I’m planning a trip, or when the wheels go up at the beginning of a flight, or when I’m sitting in an entirely unfamiliar place where I don’t know the language or the rules.
I’ve reflected on it in Oporto, Port Moresby and Anaheim, and felt a little of it in Hokitika, too. Aware that someone could say: ‘‘You’re not from around here, are you?’’ and the thing you’d need to consider is not your answer, but the degree of warmth with which the question was being asked.
Asked warmly, that’s the beginning of an exchange. Asked coldly, and neither of you will be taking away anything useful.
My A’Court ancestors have been moving around the world, one country to another, since at least the 17th century, and there’s still enough of the ‘‘explorer’’ in my DNA to make me curious about how other people live.
I’m also old enough to remember what New Zealand was like before new immigrants brought wine and coffee from Europe, and spicy food from Asia and the Americas, and be bloody chuffed that they did.
So I am delighted when people from other islands come to this one and bring new flavours – both literal and metaphorical – and give us the chance to ask: ‘‘You’re not from around here, are you?’’ with curiosity and warmth.