And The Forecast Is ...
What will the world look like in a year from now? Sarah Daniell asked great ‘thinkers’ from around the world — film-makers, authors, scientists, academics and musicians — to speak of their hopes and the folly — or otherwise — of making predictions.
And the forecast for next year is ... DAVID MITCHELL
“There are two kinds of forecasters,” wrote economist and diplomat J.K. Galbraith, “those who don’t know and those who don’t know they don’t know.” I aspire to be the former type, so I need to tinker with my assignment and change “What will the world look like one year from now?” to “What do you hope the world will look like one year from now?” It is too true that no kinder, fairer, saner world was ever ushered into being by hope-power alone but it is also true that no kinder, fairer, saner world ever came about without it being wanted by a critical mass of people. In this spirit, then …
One year from now, I hope we remember who got us through the lockdown. Doctors, nurses, paramedics and police, yes. Also, hospital ancillary staff, cleaners, supermarket staff, warehouse workers, drivers, couriers, postal workers, refuse workers and, not forgetting the farmers who grow our food and the (usually) immigrant pickers who pick it. I hope the idea that these people should be paid, valued and protected properly is never again some whack-job Marxist pipe-dream.
I hope we are still keeping a friendly eye out for our neighbours. I hope we don’t revert to being indifferent to thousands of fellow citizens sleeping in doorways or under flyovers, just because they are no longer possible vectors for a killer virus.
One year from now, I hope that advocates for government being cut “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub” (thank you Grover Norquist, US lobbyist) have reconsidered the desirability of an impotent state. I hope that more voters understand that impotent states revert to plutocracies in democratic rags; and that unless you’re one of plutocrats, or a rival nation, plutocracy is bad for your health.
At the other end of the spectrum, I hope that regimes seeking to use Covid-19 as an excuse to discard civil rights are being checked.
I hope more people recognise that reality is complex; that knowledge requires effort; that conspiracy theories are the junk food of the mind — salty, sugary and addictive, but lacking any nutritional value. I hope that more of us note that if prayer was effective in averting epidemics, epidemics would not exist. I hope that more of us recognise that the loudest attackers of the “fake media” are shysters seeking to kill trust in any media not supportive of the shyster’s interests or beliefs. I hope we continue to value expertise, and not belittle it or vilify it.
This should go without saying, but I hope there will be no scapegoating of Chinese people, overt or covert. Beijing’s initial handling of Covid-19 was poor, but a population of 1.4 billion cannot sanely be blamed for its government’s shortcomings, especially when none of those 1.4 billion is permitted to vote. I hope we’ll remember that many governments took early refuge in denial. Let us not forget the daily S***-show Royale presented by the Very Stable Genius at the head of the free world.
One year from now, I hope that our economies are adjusting to the financial shock of Covid-19. I hope we can once again browse in shops, meet in cafes, go to the cinema, take holidays and enjoy a few of the good things in life, while redefining what a “good thing” is. I hope that we tailor our consumption to what we truly need, not what we are told we need or persuade ourselves we need. I hope the idea of living sustainably is never again mocked as “green s***” but valued as common sense. I hope we nourish the tentative gains made by the natural world during the lockdown. I hope we think of clean air as a human right. I hope we live long enough to consider the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 both as the beginning of an end and the beginning of a beginning.
David Mitchell is a multiple-award-winning author, who has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Utopia Avenue (Hachette, $38) will be available on July 14.
Small steps, big targets DR OCEAN MERCIER
He iti mokoroa, ka hinga puriri Although the caterpillar is small, it can fell the ironwood tree
This is my favourite whakatauki (proverb) to show students an example of how matauranga, Maori knowledge and science are embedded together in these little pearls of wisdom. Here, we are introduced to mokoroa, the name for the larva or caterpillar before it metamorphosises into the puriri moth. Another species from Tane’s domain is specifically named — puriri. Settlers called this tree “iron wood”: its heavy, hard wood was used to great effect in pa palisades and railway sleepers. The whakatauki alludes to puriri wood’s density. Maori materials physics, anyone? It also alludes to the ecological relationship between mokoroa and puriri. Whakatauki provide astute observations of the natural world, and they also have a social message for us humans.
One interpretation of this whakatauki is that you don’t have to be great, to achieve great things. There are many Mauis, Davids and Gretas who have tackled seemingly insurmountable obstacles in spite of humble origins. Small things can have big impacts, and small, co-ordinated steps toward big targets, such as elimination, eradication, net-zero emissions or 1.5C warming, can achieve their ends. But it’s not just the targets that need to be there, it’s clear and agreed strategies. Lately in Aotearoa we’ve seen effective leadership and good communication encourage us to trust that radically changing our own behaviours will “save lives”. Can we do the same for protecting Papatuanuku?
Besides Covid-19’s global impacts, we’ve got other urgent crises and big mountains to scale — planetary health, social injustice, green jobs, attention to maximum wages as well as living
wages, emotional, mental and spiritual resilience, the list goes on. The palpable pandemic-induced will to do things differently, in 2021 I hope will translate into co-ordinated plans and fresh actions that empower individuals to feel like what they do makes a difference.
Like many whakatauki, “e hinga puriri” has multiple interpretations. The message of “we can do anything” that is there, sits alongside one of “we can wreck anything”. We might feel relatively insignificant as individuals but we have a huge collective impact on our environment. We draw voraciously on an Earth with finite resources. Our numbers and our patterns of consumption are putting the whole puriri tree at risk of complete collapse.
We have power, either way, as individuals. We can either bring about catastrophic changes through selfish individual actions, or we can make small and co-ordinated steps towards ambitious, positive targets that together amount to a metaphorical bringing-down of Goliath. A year from now, I hope that we’ve captured what’s been good about lockdown. I expect to fly less, to be more active locally, to travel more consciously and wisely, cook more, and take action to reduce the other wasteful impacts of human life. In lockdown, my husband and I started using te reo Maori while solving our crosswords. In 2021 it will be normal to hear te reo in our home. In 2021 our home will continue to be a place of exchanging ideas, learning from each other and working together.
How can each of us respond as individuals and smaller communities such as households and whanau? My wish-list is of small, coordinated convictions and actions but they add up to a bigger whole. Actions that are informed by science and matauranga, governed by Tiriti principles, will help us move, even if only with baby steps, together into a healthy future.
Dr Ocean Mercier is a senior lecturer at Te Kawa a Maui, where she teaches Te Putaiao Maori/maori science and cultural mapping.
Thoughts from an itinerant musician during lockdown DELANEY DAVIDSON
I am most comfortable on the road. Even if I am at home I pack the suitcase and leave it behind the door. Ready to go.
I am a zealous believer in the small, intimate concert. Being able to eyeball each person in the room. Getting up close and reaching out to connect. I recently toured Japan and was amazed to see the small concert being something celebrated in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. Venue capacities set at eight people, and people enjoying evenings of connection and participation, coming to stay for the whole evening.
I played some small events in tiny bars where space is a premium. Venues with one man selling tickets, doing the sound, operating the lights with a marionette set-up, and serving drinks. People gathering to make a night together, not just there for the consumption till they drift off to the next distraction.
In Kyoto I went to a Buto performance in a small room with a seven-person audience smeared round the walls, the performer coming down out of the rafters to dance in the middle of the room. It was the final nail for me. I was converted. The power of the show was a huge feature of the event. I left the small theatre with my head on fire. I had always preferred small events both as an audience member and as a performer, but this gave a whole new validation to my gut feeling.
Back in New Zealand I organised a small towns tour of the South Island, eager to explore this new angle. Twizel, Oamaru, Wanaka, Ophir, Stewart Island, Peel Forest, Invercargill, Port Chalmers.
This tour was a casualty of the lockdown. So was my exhibition in Dunedin and my tour of the United States. Getting back to how things were is a big question mark in the future.
I tried out my first online show and found I really enjoyed it. People could buy a ticket at Under the Radar, tune into delaney-davidson on Instagram and see me performing old songs, a handful of new ones and even a story for the more adventurous viewers.
I found myself at the end of it, standing in my lounge room all dressed up, feeling post-show elation and staring at my couch. I ended up sitting on that couch until 4am, trying to comprehend what this meant for me as a touring performer.
With only my phone and a little set-up time, I could simultaneously broadcast a show to viewers in their houses in evening New Zealand and the breakfast crowd of Denmark and Germany. It still had the intimacy I liked, performing alone in my living room — and it was the most geographically stretched show I have ever done.
What do we take out of these ashes? Nurturing the embers to keep the flame alive takes the most attention and care; once the fire is roaring we can leave it to warm us through.
Delaney Davidson is a New Zealand musician who has been named as a finalist with Barry Saunders, in the Recorded Music NZ Te Kaipuoro Tuawhenua Toa Best Country Music Artist Country awards. For info on his next show, Saturday, May 30, see: undertheradar.co.nz/ticket/12173/ Delaney-davidson-live-online.utr
Light a candle GUILLERMO ARRIAGA
There is a Chinese proverb that says: “Don’t blame darkness, instead, light a candle.” The question now: are we going to be able to light candles after this pandemic?
Beyond the severe damages to the health of millions of people and the death of thousands, this virus bared the gigantic failures of the economies of dozens of countries, among them mine, Mexico.
In many nations we had been divided in two: the ones who have the privilege of locking down and the ones who, due to their basic economic needs, can’t. It is shameful.
The trickle-down economy, that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher tried to convince the world was going to be the remedy to all our problems, only created greater voids between social classes.
It is funny how the first nations that recently oppose globalisation are England and the United States. In the 80s I heard time and again from pompous British and American economists that the integration of international economies would save the world from poverty, from inequality, from hunger.
Just a few years before Mr Corona appeared in the form of a killer virus, globalisation began showing its cracks. Brexit became the poster boy of this sinking boat.
The privatisation of health services, the “thinning” of the “deep state”, the savings, the defence of corporations, showed the limitations of the world economy.
Slavery is now disguised as cheap labour. Desperation and frustration became fertile soil for drug addiction and alcoholism. Third World countries fuelled the substances and provided the business killings necessary to keep this merry-goround working.
In countries like mine, the lockdown created more chaos. The cartels, used to trucking loads of money coming from the gabacho, suddenly saw their profits plummeting. Murders, kidnappings, extortion, on the rise. Yes, we have been exposed by the virus.
After a year, things will come back to normal and, believe it or not, this is an optimistic view. We are not coming out of our houses to see a world destroyed by a war, with crumbled buildings and handicapped people and widows and orphans and blood and destruction.
We are coming out to a world still standing. We will slowly shake hands again, hug again, drink and eat at restaurants, enjoy a film. The economy will run smoothly again, with angry workers all over the world watching fewer and fewer people getting rich, workers who would vote for the extreme right, thinking the enemy are the migrants who escape from nations that had been predated by an insane world economy.