Merry Christmas to our readers
When it comes to cross-border travel, Santa sleighs it. With the world in thrall this year to a new protectionist nationalism – we’ve seen it in Trump’s Fortress America stance, the UK’s Brexit vote and are now bracing for Frexit populism in the upcoming French election – Santa is set to brazenly continue with his undocumented border arrivals. We at the Listener are on standby to report any illegal alien issues as he reaches the US. And we will, of course, follow up on any Elf and Safety breaches here in New Zealand.
But after that we, like most of the country, will be taking a Christmas break. Before we go, I want to thank you, dear readers, for your stimulating feedback and support. It has been an extraordinary year for news – more than once we have worked through the night to get out editions on topics ranging from Brexit and the US election to the Kaikoura earthquake and John Key’s shock resignation.
Along the way, Listener writers have had an excellent year, winning a host of awards including the top journalism prize at the Canon Media Awards and top journalism and columnist awards at the Magazine Publishers Association awards. What makes us especially proud in this “posttruth” year is that our awards cover everything from politics and sport to health and business writing.
At the same time, our online reach and magazine readership have grown – as have our opportunities to engage with you. Often it’s the small things that really touch us. After a one-line mention of my great-grandmother in an Anzac Day piece, a reader quietly went to the trouble of unearthing a photograph. That image of Sarah now sits on my desk and reminds me, in this year of turmoil over global migration, how lucky most of us are as New Zealanders that someone in our past took the risks that now enable us to live in a stable, liberal democracy.
My family’s journey to New Zealand included an escape from a massacre and cannibalism, while the Sarah of the photo arrived in mid-19th-century Auckland with her 17-year-old twin sister, only to be orphaned within a day. Alone, the girls had to decide whether to stay or go. Sarah stayed. She fell in love with a handsome young French Polish émigré fleeing persecution in Europe – yet, sadly, her young husband was to die just a few years later of tuberculosis, just after their baby daughter died around Christmas. I am lucky beyond belief that of their two young fatherless sons, one survived to eventually have his own child. The other was to be shot in the head in the last week of World War I.
New Zealand has sacrificed more than its share at times in the global fight to protect freedom and democracy and it continues to stand up and be counted. This New Year marks the anniversary of the remarkable gift of £10 million sterling that the Fraser Government made in early 1947 “in recognition of the magnificent and unprecedented effort of the United Kingdom and her people in maintaining freedom …” For that, New Zealand donated the equivalent of $1 billion in today’s money.
The freedom to celebrate Christmas – this truly international festival with roots in the Middle East, Turkey, Europe, Victorian England and the US – is precious and wonderful. And it is in the hope of peace in 2017 that we at the Listener wish you all a joyous and loving Christmas and the very best of holidays.