Another world is on her way...

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. 



The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. 

Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. 

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

 – Arundhati Roy

Census.

Just finished filling it out, and its made me really angry for lots of reasons. Lets go through it by question and pick out some of the problems, shall we?

Question 3. Are you male or female? – This has had a huge campaign around it so don’t need to go into detail. But in brief – gender binary doesn’t exist, so lets stop pretending it does.

Solution: tick both boxes, as promoted by the two ticks campaign. Demand more options for next year – at the very minimum, an “other” box with a space to write in.

Question 11: Which ethnic group do you belong to? – The first option is NZ European, followed by Māori, Samoan, Chinese, Indian, etc.

This really astounded me. It is incredibly racist that NZ European is a category, while NZ Māori, NZ Chinese, etc are not. As if people of European descent somehow have a greater claim to NZer-ness. What about the Chinese people whose ancestors have been here since the 1860s? And of course the Māori people, tangata whenua of this land, who were here several hundred years before anyone else?!

I also think it would be helpful to distinguish between ethnicity and nationality, as these are completely different. My ethnicity is Pākehā (some would say European); my nationality is NZer. Many people of other ethnicities are also NZers. Others aren’t. This census does not distinguish between a person of Chinse descent whose family arrived in 1860 (and identifies as a NZer); and a Chinese person who came to live in NZ last year (and does not) – yet it does distinguish between a Pākeha who arrived in 1860 and a Dutch person who came last year.

I can’t see any explanation for this other than very deeply entrenched institutionalised racism.

Solution: I crossed out NZ European and wrote Pākehā. It’s the least I could do – doubt it will help much. It would be cool to get a campaign happening around this for next time, as it is a very serious issue that strikes at the heart of racism and colonisation in NZ.

Question 18: What is your religion? No option for atheist, which is not the same thing as “no religion”.

Solution: Not sure whether its better to pick “no religion” or “other” and write atheist. I suspect that the latter will be recorded as being a religion, adding to the total number of religious people, so unlikely to be helpful.

Question 19: Who do you live with? – More gender binary.

Question 23: Marital/civil union status. They only care about marriages and civil unions, not any other type of relationship, whether you have a girlfriend/boyfriend/lover/partner/etc/or several. Also don’t care how many times you have been married.

Question 25: If you are female, how many babies have you given birth to? Gender binary and stereotyping again. What if you are male but you used to be female, and have given birth? Why does it assume females have a stronger connection to babies than males do?

Questions 32-41: work.

So many problems here. Partly because I just started uni, and it asks me about the work I did last week, and the work I do “usually”, assuming it’s the same (question 40). It also assumes that my paid employment is the most important thing in my life – not my studies, or my unpaid internship.

By asking about the job I worked most hours in, it is ignoring the fact that I did 10 hours in one caregiving job, and about 12 hours collectively in 3 separate cleaning jobs. In fact lots of low-paid workers are have 2 or 3 jobs, doing the same or different things, and by only asking about one, lots of work people do will be completely invisible.

Question 41 only cares about how I got to my paid employment. Not to my unpaid internship, or to uni, or to the bank, or home again. I ticked “did not go to work” and “bicycle” – but really, if they wanted to know about transport, they could have phrased this heaps better.

Question 45: If unemployed, if a paid job had been available, would you have started last week? – Well, maybe it would depend on what the job was. Why the assumption that all unemployed people will either leap at the chance of whatever shitty job WINZ throws at them, or be lazy dole bludgers?

Ok, rant over. I know lots of people are feeling the same, so probably preaching to the converted anyway. Bring on the next census with a new government, and see if it asks us slightly more useful questions, which allow people to express who they actually are.

Ethical phones?

An oxymoron for sure. Ethical phone don’t exist, and probably never will hopefully one day will.

It is fairly common knowledge that the materials used in phones and laptops come from the DRC, and are fuelling a war which has killed 5 million people.

Then they are assembled in China, where the workers are underpaid and in shitty conditions.

Every time we buy technology we have blood on our hands. It is amazing therefore, that given the rise in other fairtrade products, the ethical phone does not yet exist.

Anyway, the reason why I am writing about all of this is that I have just bought an iPhone. Gasp! I know, I’m just another apple sell-out, joining the ranks of the pretentious and the snobby, with their shiny macbook pros and iphones, and all the elitism that comes with it.

But I’m not going to talk about the iPhone vs Android debate, apple vs Microsoft or whatever. As far as I know, they are all as unethical as each other, and as far as lives are being destroyed, I don’t believe slim margins of ethical-ness would make a difference anyway.

I chose to get an iPhone because my old phone was dying, and I needed a new one. Sure, I could have got another cheap nokia, but I wanted an iPhone and all the features that came with it, so that I can fuel my FB addiction, surf the internet at will, and take photos. Yes I could have got an Android for a lower price, but I happen to like apple’s products, they work well and are user friendly, and I don’t see anything wrong with that preference.

My interest is more in whether it can be considered more ethical to buy second hand than new. I got a second-hand iPhone in part because it was slightly cheaper, but also because intuitively, it felt somehow less harmful. That’s what all my friends said, and, somehow it just seems to make sense, right? Buying second hand, you’re not fuelling the demand that leads to all the shitty things associated with new phones.

But then I thought about it, and realised that maybe, if perfectly good phones are selling for good prices on trademe (like, only 200 bucks or so less than they cost new), doesn’t that just encourage people to keep buying new ones when they come out, thereby increasing consumer demand and all the harm that comes with it?

I was talking to a friend about it, and she suggested that actually, most of those people would probably buy a new one anyway, and if they didn’t sell their old one, they’d just chuck it away, which would be worse because then it wouldn’t be in use for as long so would be more wasteful.

I’m not sure how convinced I am of this. I think if there was less demand, they’d just sell it for a lower price. Maybe if the price was lower, they’d be less tempted to buy a new phone every two years, as it would be less economically viable. But then there’d be more people buying new phones anyway, cos the people who weren’t buying second hand ones would be buying new ones instead.

The point is, I’m yet to convince myself that buying a second hand phone is actually more ethical. Maybe its slightly the lesser of two evils, but I’m not so sure.

And then I realised, that maybe I should just accept that buying an iPhone was a purely selfish, consumerist decision, made by me, but also by the marketing gurus at Apple, and by our egocentric capitalist society. Maybe I should just accept that there is no way of making it an ethical choice, and that to convince myself otherwise would be self-indulgent delusion.

So I have stopped trying to justify to myself something inherently unethical. Instead, every time I use my phone, I will be reminded of the 5 million people dead, and 300,000 women who have been raped in a pointless war that exists only to fuel our greedy consumption (and our colonial attitudes). I will be reminded of the countless nameless and faceless Chinese workers, forced into factories by a world economy which commodifies so many people to fuel the interests of a few.

I accept this is a situation that I can’t do much about by changing my consumer behaviour. But I can be inspired to stand up, to fight against this cruel global system, and to seek a global economy which treats all humans with dignity, respect and compassion. To be reminded of that on a daily basis every time I check facebook or txt a friend is probably a good thing.

Te Tiriti – yet again. Yes, this is important.

This post was going to be called “racism and privilege at law school”. But since it ended up going in this direction, I have renamed it. I would still like to write about racism and privilege more generally at some point – keep your eyes out, it’ll happen one day.

I wrote 90% of this post over a month ago, and then got busy and completely forgot about it. Here it is! With some very minor alterations. And yes before you ask, this blog was never intended to be entirely about racial issues, and it is not going to be either. It’s just my thing at the moment. The next post may be on veganism. If you’re lucky. So if you don’t like it, too bad, suck it up, deal with it, don’t read it. If you do, go for it. As always, feedback is appreciated.

Oh and sorry its so long. Conciseness is not my forte. My apologies! But it will be worth it if you make it to the end, promise.

Ok, here we go. Firstly, the two events that sparked this.

In my crimes lecture some months ago now, a guy sitting in front of me spent almost the entire class looking at racist memes on facebook. I’m not going to go into any detail; suffice to say they were incredibly offensive. A whole page dedicated to them. And he was laughing. I spent the whole lecture completely unable to concentrate. By the end of it my stomach was churning and my body shaking. I even cried on the way home. I just couldn’t understand how someone could find such overt racism so funny.

Then, on the second to last day of class, a guy in public law began his contribution to the class discussion by giving a mihi. Except it wasn’t a mihi, it was (apparently) a karakia which he’d learnt when he was a kid. And had no idea what it meant, or when it would be appropriate. It was pretty obvious that he was taking the piss. Even more so when the class burst into laughter and applause. I was about to start clapping too, just cos everyone else was and I didn’t think – until I suddenly clicked what had happened and how offensive it was. I sincerely hope that most of the class was just following the crowd, and did not actually condone the behaviour.

I have already addressed ideas of collective responsibility and historical injustice. These in themselves are very powerful reasons to stand up to racism. We as Pakeha must take responsibility. This is not a “Māori issue”. But its also about a basic level of respect which surely we must all have for other humans, regardless of race, class, gender, whatever. Regardless of injustice, oppression, privilege and everything else, surely we as human beings have some degree of respect for others. Surely we all have some gut feeling that its wrong to appropriate other languages and cultures to take the piss. Right? Apparently not.

So, I emailed the lecturer expressing my outrage, and got a rather unsatisfying response. He said that, in accordance with the views of his Māori colleagues, he had addressed the issue with the student directly; and it was inappropriate and unnecessary to raise it in class. I still think he missed the point slightly, that it wasn’t about the individual student (however shocking this behaviour may have been); it was about the culture of tolerating, accepting and perpetuating racist behaviour, whether consciously or not; which I find incredibly problematic. And I did emphasise that in my email.

I felt incredibly vulnerable having stuck my neck out like this, and immediately after, all I could think was “what the hell am I talking about, who am I to be challenging racism when I know nothing about this issue. Surely these “Māori colleagues”, whoever they are, understand the situation much better than I do. My reaction was ignorant and emotional, and my suggestion to raise it to the whole class was completely inappropriate and I just shouldn’t have said anything. Aaaargh.”

I have been mulling this over for the last two weeks [edit: now more like two months], almost non-stop. Paralysed by indecisiveness, lack of confidence and fear, I kept feeling the need to do something, but had no idea what would be the appropriate action to take. I had an absolutely incredible conversation yesterday [about 6 weeks ago now], with two Pakeha women who I have a lot of respect for, and who really clarified several important things.

One: this is not a “Māori issue”. One of the options I had been thinking about was talking to one of the Māori lecturers (who I really admire) to try to understand why this “low-key approach” of only talking to the individual was more appropriate. I realise now that this would have been a terrible idea. Te Tiriti is a partnership between two races. Racism is not the problem of those who are oppressed. It is a problem that belongs to those who are racist. It is incredibly unfair to keep pushing the burden onto those who are oppressed to constantly fight their own battles. We need to fight alongside them, to uphold our side of the bargain; and to not always rely on them to do it for us.

Two: this is not about this particular lecturer, or even the particular class. I already knew it was not about the student. But I had been far more frustrated at the lecturer than was fair. It is not about blame. I still think he possibly could have handled the situation better, and now I know that my email to him was justified, but this is not the point. The problem is far more deeply ingrained than that; it is about how Te Tiriti is approached in general; how racism is dealt with in general; and how we as Pakeha need to learn to acknowledge and understand our privilege. These are all very difficult issues, and it was maybe naïve of me to expect this lecturer to respond favourable to my request. But something needs to happen at a much more fundamental level.

Three: Te Tiriti, as a whole, is also not a “Māori issue”. I thought I knew this, but I realised that I didn’t understand it as well as I should. I found myself talking about the Treaty module as a whole and how crappy it was; but reiterated what I have said to several people: that this lecturer has never taught it before, was doing his best, and that the usual Māori lecturer is probably much better. They were shocked. Why should a Māori lecturer have to teach the Treaty? Why should a Pakeha not be held to the same standard, in terms of understanding the issues and being able to teach it well? In fact, it should be taught by a Pakeha, for the reasons above: the obligations to uphold Te Tiriti do not rest with Māori alone.

Four: not in this particular conversation, but on the same day, Catherine Delahunty was talking about how the principles of the Treaty are just a bunch of crap invented by lawyers. I was amused, slightly shocked, and kinda surprised. Having just spent 4 weeks in public law learning about how great the principles are because they reconcile the differences between the texts, I was really surprised that she would so quickly dismiss them. It was only on reflection, and talking to a friend of mine, that I realised why this was. Once again, I was shocked at my own failure to see the obvious.

It is worth recalling that neither the Treaty, nor Te Tiriti, has any legal force. The principles do, in some, limited situations. They are: partnership and reciprocity, active protection, and redress. These are breached constantly by the Government, although the courts do their best to uphold them when they can. Of course, Māori would be much better off if these principles were taken seriously by their Treaty partner. But after being told how fantastic the principles were, I had completely missed the elephant in the room: nowhere in the principles is there any mention of te tino rangatirantaga – or Māori sovereignty, which is guaranteed by article 2 of Te Tiriti.

This is highly problematic, deliberate, and not surprising at all.  Despite the judiciary sometimes being alightly awesome, and upholding the Treaty a hell of a lot better than the government does, it still works within a colonial framework, so it recognises, and refuses to challenge, Parliamentary supremacy. The principles, the Waitangi Tribunal, and the Treaty court cases have actually had the effect of squeezing the full force of Māori resistance into a narrow colonial paradigm, giving them no real power at all.

I don’t know how to resolve this. I think it is a huge problem, and needs addressing, urgently. Moana Jackson, who is brilliant, distinguishes between constitutional reform (tinkering round the edges) and constitutional transformation. Obviously transformation is what we need; whether most Pakeha are ready for that is highly unlikely, given then levels of racism and lack of understanding referred to above.

Anyway, I digress. Well, not really, this is all interrelated, of course. The Treaty’s place in the legal system obviously informs how it is taught at law school, which in turn informs the issues of racism and privilege that inspired this post. As someone else said to me the other day, it’s an outrage, really, that the Treaty is a four week section of the public law course; rather than being an integral, underlying theme of the entire course. This is a clear reflection, I think, of how it is seen by most of society: a side issue, which must be addressed in a tokenistic fashion in order to be “PC”; something of historical interest, sure, but not something which should be a living, breathing part of our constitutional framework which informs everything we do.

I don’t know how to conclude this. I don’t have the answers. I don’t know what I’m going to do about this issue. The easy option, obviously, is to ignore it. But like most things which are easily ignored, the unfortunate reality is that this will not make it go away. The course is over, but like I said, the focus is not on the individual. It has been suggested to me that I talk to the course co-coordinator, to try to improve things for next year’s class. Maybe I will, but I have no idea what I would say.  Any thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated.

In the meantime, I will continue to mull.