Why we suck : The failure of NZ National Identity - Part One

H'okay, the four people that regularly read this blog will notice that the style of this post is radically different from most of the stuff I write. There are a lot of polysyllabic adjectives, and a dearth of LOLs. This doesn't mean that I've embarked on a mid-blog crisis and am desperate for respectability - I abandoned that quest around the time I started babbling about the morality of eating kittens. On the contrary, I've actually cheated in writing this blog post, and tried to update an essay I wrote last year on the state of nationalism in New Zealand. I was going to save it for Waitangi Day, but it seems kinda topical at the moment - not only is it one year to the day since the death of Sir Edmund Hillary, the finest beekeeper ever to grace a banknote, but I also had a really really really really long chat with a couple of Americans about national identity in the US and NZ, and I wanted to hear other peoples opinions on the topic generally. So...I apologise for the length, and some of the longwinded wank that it is a signature of the AlexAcademicEssay, but I've tried to make it more suitable for blog form AND split it into 2 parts to make it easier - the first part on AngloSaxon Identity and the 2nd on the conflict between this and Maoridom. As usual, I'd love to hear what you think, even if what you think involves the words 'talentless' and 'hack' in the same sentence.

Alex

New Zealand nationalism is a construct built upon defective foundations . (Apparently in an academic essay, just writing ‘New Zealander’s, on balance, suck’ would not have been kosher. ) Loyalty to the NZ state exists, of course, but the creation of a stronger sense of nationalism (like the salute-the-flag OnenationunderGodism of the US of A) is undermined by two significant barriers. Firstly, New Zealand’s short history. New Zealanders remain divided on the whether their country is an antipodean offshoot of Britain, or a vibrant South Pacific nation assertively flaunting its Anglo-Oceanic identity. Viewing New Zealand from the perspective of a civic nationalist, the conclusion is a people suffering fundamental disagreement over symbolism; the flag is seen by many as an unloved relic of an increasingly irrelevant past and many of the national symbols and stories have two inherently contradictory meanings. But even if we adopt the lens of an ethnic or a cultural nationalist we see that New Zealand is limited by a cultural cringe and an implicit rejection by the New Zealand people of the moral worth of their own brand of nationalism. Secondly , and more controversial (and the stuff that you will have to wait for my NEXT post to read) has been the development of a populist ‘Kiwi’ nationalism, which fails to recognise legitimate Maori claims to self-determination, or even attempt to understand the Maori conception of national identity. While New Zealand’s national image overseas projects a racially harmonious New Zealand, it is a fiction. The few rituals and customs that are associated with Maori have been carefully cultivated to give a different meaning in a wider New Zealand context than their meaning in Maori culture. In addition, race relations issues have in recent years provided a major test for New Zealand, as the descendants of colonisers are unable to reconcile their idea of ‘being Kiwi’ with Maori claims.

So what exactly is this concept of nationalism that I plan to bang on about ad nausem throughout this series of posts. I’ll start, as any aspiring civic nationalist would with Benedict Anderson’s famous definition of a nation as an ‘imagined political community that is inherently limited or sovereign.’ OBVIOUSLY, New Zealand falls within this definition. New Zealanders do feel innately connected (that’s the imagined part) to others who associate in some way with the geographical spread of islands that constitute New Zealand (limited), and legitimize a national government that purports to exercise, in their name, sovereign jurisdiction over this territorial space (sovereign!). New Zealanders feel a duty towards other (perceived) New Zealanders and seek a nation which upholds individual rights and a distinct New Zealand understanding of the good life.

But Anderson’s definition is pretty damn broad, a bit like defining a cat as ‘an animal with four legs AND a tail). Eric Hobsbawm , who not only has one of the best last names EVER ,does a little better, defining it as a series of ‘invented traditions – a set of practices, normally governed by tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual and symbolic nature, seeking to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past’. This idea of nationalism is more pragmatic; suggesting that a nation is defined by its national stories, myths and tradition. But it is when we consider this framework of nationalism that New Zealand’s brand of nationalism appears weak in its expression.

To consider how New Zealand nationalism is expressed is to consider a history of fundamental social changes, and an ever-shifting set of national priorities, values and ambitions. ‘New Zealand’, as it is commonly viewed in international discourse and in the national imagination began its history as a colonial outpost of Britain. It has evolved from a nation which relied almost exclusively on Mother Britain to meet its economic and security needs to a nation that considers itself a ‘confident and diverse Pacific nation’ (Helen Clark’s words not mine!) which is not afraid to disagree with its allies on major international issues (like we didn’t go to Iraq, and our anti-nuclear stance sunk any chance of America inviting us over for a game of battle ships). Culturally, New Zealand is moving away from its traditional agricultural-based societies with foundations in small rural townships to a more urbanized population which emphasizes New Zealand’s innovation in the international marketplace. There appears to be a new found cosmopolitanism, the consensus of a ‘meat-and-three-veg ‘diet and an entertainment trifecta of rugby, racing and beer have been replaced by a salad bowl of differing values and cultural practices, underpinned with greater emphasis on the significant culturaluniqueness of the Maori. Even the political culture of New Zealand has undergone major upheaval, the ‘cradle to the grave’ welfare state carefully cultivated by successive Labour and National governments since the 1930s were rent asunder by the economic restructuring of the 1984 Labour Government; where the deregulation of the private sector emphasised the values of competition, diversity and individualism over the more traditional values of consensus, conformity and collectivism.

I do not wish to make a value judgement on whether these changes to the New Zealand sense of self will have negative or positive impacts on the country. Indeed, the reader is free to vehemently disagree with the imagery I have used to describe the modern New Zealand nation (in fact, pleeeeeeease tell me if you vehemently disagree, blog comments are to me what Speights is to Jesse Ryder). What I am attempting to show is the difficulties faced in attempting to define what ‘being a New Zealander’ means. Furthermore, despite the dramatic shifts in New Zealanders’ sense of New Zealand, it has not been accompanied by a recasting of the national myths, and the emblems and symbols that traditionally defined the nation are appearing increasingly irrelevant and increasingly inadequate.

New Zealanders, like citizens of any other nation, are raised on stories that legitimize certain value systems and conventions of behaviour as being values that embody the nation. These include the sacrifices made by young soldiers at Gallipoli, being the first nation to give women the vote, and great All Black rugby matches against old Northern Hemisphere rivals. The greatest of these stories, is that of New Zealand beekeeper, Sir Edmund Hillary, being the first man to reach the summit of Mount Everest. At various instances in New Zealand history, this story has been used to perpetuate the myth of the tough, versatile ‘Kiwi bloke’ or to underlie the humanitarian nature of ordinary New Zealanders (with regards to Hillary’s later work in Nepal). However the most noticeable contradiction is that while in 1953, the ascent was held up as an example of New Zealand’s continued fealty to Empire, and a coronation gift to the new Queen of England, it is now viewed as the defining moment where New Zealanders realised the bonds to Mother England could be broken, and that the nation of New Zealand was strong enough to stand alone.

This malleability of New Zealand ‘tradition’ underlies a key problem in expressing New Zealand nationalism. While New Zealand society has undergone a complete overhaul, its short history leads to a dilemma, a need to link to the past, but also a need for the legitimizing foundations of the nation to reflect the current ideals of ‘New Zealand’. The situation that has arisen in New Zealand as a result of the contradictions that plague their myths is that it is plausible for two equally patriotic citizens to reach starkly different conclusions on what it means to be a member of the New Zealand community. This leads to serious issues when considering the symbols that underpin civic nationalism.

Hobsbawm states that the National Flag is one of the core symbols which proclaim the identity and sovereignty of a nation.. In the United States, the flag is held both in literature and in civic life as a sacred article, expressing ‘the beliefs that Americans share, belief in law and peace and the freedom which sustains the human spirit’. (Justice Kennedy’s words, not mine!) To some, to look at the flag is to grasp the soul of a nation and its peoples. (Fuck, what part of my brain did that flowery bile spew from? The medulla oblongwanker?) However, while the New Zealand flag remain deep significance for returned soldiers who fought under its banner, for a growing number of New Zealanders the flag evokes dispassionate deference at best, open scorn at worst. The flags likeness to Australian is a butt of jokes for comedians and a serious debate rages over whether the flag should retain the Union Jack, and a reminder of New Zealand’s former colony status. More and more New Zealanders are choosing to associate with an alternative flag of a silver fern on a black background.

The idea that in a post-colonial settler society, one of the most incontestable manifestations of nationhood can become a battleground over the nation’s future direction is not limited to New Zealand. Canada replaced its Union Jack-adorned ‘Red Ensign’ flag with its well-known Maple Leaf design in 1965, but it came as the result of a long and protracted debate. In 2008, this symbol is the most compelling expression of Canadian identity. While this is perhaps not an argument for a new national flag, it suggests that New Zealand must foster the debate of what it would like the symbol it projects to the world to represent. (The only reason I even bothered to write this is because I like to show off the fact I once won a six-week trip to Canada, and now enjoy pretending I’m an expert on that godforsaken place...)

The essay so far has discussed New Zealand nationalism through the lens of a civic nationalist, as it appears the most intellectually satisfying explanation for the existence of national rituals and traditions. But if the conclusion we reach through looking at New Zealand as an ‘imagined political community’ is that New Zealand suffers a severe lack of imagination and direction, the conclusion reached when analysing New Zealand from an ethnic nationalist perspective offers even more fodder for the pessimist. And although I know you’re ALL superexcited to see just how much more pessimistic I can get, I’m very concerned about my gross flaunting of an acceptable word count...so you’ll have to wait for my next post.