Change — sometimes it is an improvement
NEW Zealand is not the same. One of the things we often hear some older New Zealanders lament is just how much has changed and how New Zealand is just not the same as it was. Having gratefully reached my 60th birthday I can look back and agree. In many ways, New Zealand is a different country from the one I grew up in and thank God it is.
Growing up in Mosgiel with few Maori families wasn’t nearly as oppressive as some of the communities my North Island relatives grew up in, where the racism was entrenched and regularly expressed. The Presbyterian ethos of egalitarianism was deeply ingrained in Mosgiel, where it wasn’t so much that everyone was equal, but that everyone was ‘‘the same’’. This can be problematic for people who in a number of ways are not ‘‘the same’’. It must have been really tough at times for those from the rainbow community, the Chinese, Pasifika and other minorities.
If you were Maori, you were regularly told that the Pakeha people were in charge because they had won the Maori Wars, mispronunciation of Maori place names was standard, and for many of us, including my siblings, Maori names were swapped for nicknames or they were called by their Pakeha middle names. My Maori name stuck, I suppose because I was the eldest and after me my parents gave up trying to educate others.
Maori were there, but in many ways invisible. In fact, Maori were so invisible that the only time I can remember seeing the word ‘‘Maori’’ in public was at the TAB when the Otaki Maori Racing Club had one of its race meetings. My mother used to work at the Mosgiel TAB and so every time I would meet her to walk her home, I would first take a walk around the room with all the list of races and horses looking for those words, Otaki Maori.
We were obviously Maori and we blended in to the life of the town, getting involved in the community and sports. We did some things differently from our Pakeha neighbours, many I can identify now were based on concepts of tapu and noa, from how my father disposed of hair and nail clippings, to things like only using a bath towel once before it is washed, to never wearing shoes inside. The shoe thing was quite a contention with some of the parents of my friends who insisted I keep my shoes on (my wife who is Pakeha suggests it was because it meant that, by taking my shoes off, I was seen as making myself at home). I got around this for a while by always wearing gumboots everywhere, as I knew noone wore boots inside.
While Mosgiel was mostly egalitarian, Dunedin was far less so, and so any blatant racism I faced was when we went to ‘‘town’’. It was there you could get called names or told to go back to the pa. We were conditioned by New Zealand society to keep our mouths shut, to not set our sights too high, to resist taking the lead on anything and to not let our difference make anyone else feel uncomfortable.
At the age of 21, I moved to South Auckland into a different world, where it was easier to be Maori because there was more of us. However, the prejudice was greater, where we couldn’t get a flat unless my wife turned up without me and where my wife struggled to get a hair appointment with her
Maori last name until she turned up in person.
We moved back to Dunedin in 1994, where we noticed that the changes that were taking place in the rest of New Zealand were taking place here too. Every decade we see change and progress, a growing acceptance of Maori language and culture and growing realisation from Pakeha that Maori too have much to contribute.
Yes, New Zealand has changed, but those things that define the national character — such as a firm belief in justice, a commitment to fairness, a sense of honour and caring for our neighbours — are as strong as ever. I would argue that many of the changes we have made have made us even more ‘‘New Zealand’’. For it has been justice, fairness, honour and caring for one another that have created those changes that have made us more tolerant, more accepting of difference and more willing to remove the barriers that hold back our compatriots. While we have many challenges at the moment, as long as we maintain these characteristics, New Zealand will continue to change and my prediction is for the better.