Well, I'll soon talk about those pesky Treaty issues, but first of all wasn't the Sevens a laugh? Some of the craziest critters you've ever seen, and just about everywhere. Having been out of the country for a few years all the hype kind of caught be by surprise, but I cottoned pretty quickly that it was all a bit of fun.
The drunks congregating on the footpath outside my flat at 2am to argue were a little tedious on the second night, but you get that. There's nothing quite like the line that goes,
A: "yooooaar fucked mate"
B: "naaaah, yoooar fucked"
A: "naaaah, yoooou ah"
B: "naah, you can git fucked"
A: "where the fuck ah you goin'?"
B: [from a distance] "naaaah, git fucked".
Genius.
Anyhow. Seeing one particularly good bunch of costumes while I was out running errands on Saturday (no ticket) I had to congratulate them.
Me: "Great gear! You goin' the Sevens?"
Them: "No. We're Goths"
Me: "Oh... I'm sorry."
Them: "Don't worry man, we don't even like Rugby."
Me: "That's not what I meant."
As the formerly proud owner of about eight Cure albums I can say with great sincerity that Goth music is kind of Punk for mummy's boys. Or at least it was when it was cool. In the Eighties.
FYI, I also own an album by the only Goth Supergroup, The Glove.
And why do I feel like I just outed myself?
So, the Treaty. I think what I brought away from the two seminar series is a reinforcement of what I already thought.
Now that's usually a bad thing reserved for times when you're supposed to be learning and expanding your mind. In this case though it's because what we were told by all four speakers reinforced my perception that the Treaty remains an important document for today's New Zealand.
There's this idea floating around about the Treaty becoming irrelevant to modern New Zealand. To my mind this overlooks the important point that we need a workable framework to understand how Māori society and culture can relate to New Zealand without separatism setting in. The Treaty offers this in a concrete form.
Look, forget about all the crap debate surrounding 'the principles'. That is a legal sideshow for a limited audience. The real guts of the Treaty, as my 15 years reading and writing about it reveals to me, is the idea that New Zealand can be a place where Māori look after things Māori, and the government not only protects that right, but ensures Māori are also New Zealanders.
For some reason there's a perception out there in civil society, the public space where we debate and discuss ideas away from meddling, power-hungry political types, that being Māori and being a New Zealander are two very different things.
My experience has taught me that absolutely nothing is further from the truth. Sure there are New Zealanders, both Māori and mainstream, who would like that to be the case. To my mind though this thinking is really just refusing to acknowledge that Māori society is an integral part of New Zealand, one that not only belongs to be part of New Zealand identity, but is the one thing that distinguishes us as New Zealanders.
The trick is that unless you're willing to accept that Māori society is both part of New Zealand and yet also separate it from it, you're looking at a situation in which Māori become dissolved in the great weight of overseas ideas and people. That is to me what the Treaty can offer, it presents a picture of a place in which the mainstream is ringfenced, in order to give Māori society enough breathing room to just continue to be.
This idea isn't controversial, it isn't janus-faced. It just says, "all you mainstream people, just back the fuck up and mind your own business", and "all you Māori, there's your space, do something good with it".
Ah well. Maybe when I'm in charge someone will listen.
On a final note, you may have noticed my quiet on the 'cartoon issue'. An issue more exploited by both sides of an argument I can't remember seeing for a long time. You have madmen on one side making something out of nothing, only to have the other side being surprised when their irreverence isn't understood by some of the worlds most reverent.
Madness.
I do have a note on this bullshit 'free speech' angle though. Guys, answer me this question. Why is it that although New Zealand is 'open and tolerant' many prominent, conservative political figures don't make a big deal about their sexuality?
Do you perhaps think perhaps we all know that some issues are best not hashed out in the media, for fear of what the public do with their prejudices?