Speaker: What Diversity Dividend?
112 Responses
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It seems that the acid test of multiculturalism would probably be the state of relations between the 'voluntary minorities' and the 'involuntary minorities'.
For further enlightenment:
Jyotsna Pattnaik - Learning about the "other": Building a case for intercultural understanding among minority children -
Professor Spoonley is among speakets at this weekend's Rising Dragons, Soaring Bananas International Conference.
I just want to note that this surely deserves a prize for coolest conference name for 2009.
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Great evolution from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Banana" over the years.
Remember Tze Ming writing about the first Banana conference, and Russell about the one after. Note that Russell's link to her speech still works.
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they would be on their own once the set foot in New Zealand. Weren’t most of them highly educated, well experienced and had their own financial resources? Why should the state offer anything to help in their settlement? This meshed well with local business and economic development which was not interested in ‘ethnic programmes’ except possibly as a way of helping impoverished Pacific communities.
Fantastic piece. Thanks so much.
Vancouver's experience is probably like Canada's on the whole. Trudeau brought in multiculturalism by federal directive in the 70s ("Although there are two founding peoples there is no founding culture..." and that mirrored Laurier before him...) Then in 1982, multiculturalism was enshrined in the Charter. Then in the mid-80s a Conservative PM enacted the "Multiculturalism Act".
Now in Canada's large cities it's somewhat amusing to hear people speaking English. Fourth generation Canadians are seen as an amusing relic. Do you eat roasts? Do your parents wear sweaters to dinner and talk about classical music, ha ha ha?
The reality is that in NZ, the hegemony of Anglo Saxon culture refuses to die. The Interfaith dialogue was a fantastic example of that. Also, we never had (much) immigration from Central, Eastern or Southern Europe. We still treat South Africans and Pomps as "one of us".
Most people that run this country (wealthy baby boomers) grew up not knowing anyone from different cultures and didn't travel much when they were young. There is still a serious fear of the unknown. Let's be honest, we NZers didn't travel at all until very recently. There were really no coffee shops or restaurants in this country until the 90s for chrissake. How can you expect the political class to suddenly embrace all these different people?
That MP from Rodney would have had to flee the country in Canada after making jokes about fruit pickers during an election. The current PM didn't even growl him let alone cut him loose. That would have been hanging offence #1 short of having kiddie porn or eating one's young.
The truth is that non-white and non-English speaking immigrants to this country feel no particular sentimental loyalty to NZ. Most of them I speak to, and I speak to many, want to move to Aussie/Canada/USA. On a cynical realpolitik level, they are a somewhat unclaimed cohort of voters.
The magic that Trudeau created was that almost all of the immigrant communities in Canada became loyal to the Liberals.
In reality we suffer from the lamest form of racism: we're kind of embarrassed by their accents and funny foods. At worst, we have Winston. At least Melissa Lee properly slammed Winston in her maiden speech.
It was on that basis that I felt Shearer's election was a failure. Helen got the nod and it was a big deal that it went to a woman. Then it reverted to a physically capable, heterosexual, white, educated and wealthy male. Yipdee fucking shit.
And we struggle to even begin the process of developing an active and inclusive multiculturalism.
Kia ora.
But before economics and politics let's remember what Jean Monnet eventually said "J'aurais du commencer avec la culture."
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It was on that basis that I felt Shearer's election was a failure. Helen got the nod and it was a big deal that it went to a woman. Then it reverted to a physically capable, heterosexual, white, educated and wealthy male. Yipdee fucking shit.
Because, like, Lee should've been elected based on her gender and ethnicity not because of any kind of, oh, competence? Capability as a politician? World view?
You're pretty much claiming that Shearer got elected because he's "a physically capable, heterosexual, white, educated and wealthy male" (wealthy? Really?). Do you not see the irony in this? If Lee had been elected, which I think is where you're angling since she was the only non-white, non-male candidate, you seem to have wanted those attributes to be the basis of her election. Implying that it's perfectly fine to be elected because you're not a WASP male, but if you're a WASP male then you shouldn't be elected simply because you are a WASP male. That's not, I think, how we choose our politicians in this country. Shearer was elected because he really was the only viable option. Norman was a maybe, but a very fringe maybe. Mt Albert's not quite as liberal as all that. Lee was a loose cannon who should never have been let loose on an electorate race. Boscawen was never going to be elected, and everyone knew it. That leaves Shearer. WASP or no, he was the mainstream candidate who didn't fuck up. Dreams of a Greens victory were just that. Dreams. With Lee stumbling around with both feet blown off by her mis-aimed shots, it could have gone no other way. -
Speaking in my capacity as a Chiwi...
In a way, NZ was late to the party on immigration, and for lack of a better analogy, it's effectively had to pressure-cook its way to multiculturalism. We've had to do in just over 20 years what Australia has done in about twice that, and North America even longer. So our most recent arrivals haven't been given time to blend in yet.
It's drawing a long bow to imply that Shearer sleepwalked to victory just because he's a WASP. I theorise that Ms Lee was shoulder-tapped by Mr Key, not so much as a multiculturalist candidate, but rather as a "Model Minority" candidate - there's a world of difference between the two. And racial tensions aren't always a white-vs-ethnic thing - remember Ms Lee's comments on the Waterview tunnel and crime? And the mother of all riots in L.A. was largely a black-vs-yellow-vs-brown affair that put the blowtorch to the Model Minority stereotype.
From my own experiences, the stereotype has turned out to be a heap of stinking bullshit. In America, it has been used as a handy excuse to undermine affirmative action policies, and doesn't seem far removed from the Fortress McMansion mentality. If you want to see a film that utterly deconstructs Model Minoritarianism, Justin Lin's "Better Luck Tomorrow" is a good start.
What I do agree on, is that NZ up till recently was a metropolis locked up in a heavily subsidised & tariffed farmshed.
As an aside, Dunedin has Peter Chin for Mayor, and Sukhi Turner came before him. Meng Foon is Mayor, of all places, Napier.
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Most people that run this country (wealthy baby boomers) grew up not knowing anyone from different cultures and didn't travel much when they were young.
Is that statistically true? My anecdata gives a different impression, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything, of course.
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Meng Foon is Mayor, of all places, Napier.
Meng Foon is Mayor of Gisborne.
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I'll go out a limb and present a different point of view. Our treatment and attitude to migrants reflects a wider diffidence to immigration amongst New Zealanders in general. If, as Brickley Paiste claims,
The truth is that non-white and non-English speaking immigrants to this country feel no particular sentimental loyalty to NZ. Most of them I speak to, and I speak to many, want to move to Aussie/Canada/USA.
then I would suggest the feeling is mutual amongst a large body of New Zealanders who would be happy to see the back of them.
The "drive to multi-culturalism" as it has been put above was yet another 'reform" driven from above with little consultation about the numbers, consequences or wisdom of it all, and the result has been a significant and on on-going form of subtle apartheid. Ask around - every migrant knows Pakeha will always prefer a Pakeha over a migrant, that most jobs are not advertised and instead rely on networks of patronage that they don't have access to and that most New Zealanders know this and actively prefer to keep immigrants locked out of as much of the economy as possible.
Personally I'll be honest and say I became deeply ambivilant about immigration when i realised that our precious social security system, something my parents and grandparents built with the sweat of their brows, would be unlikely to survive the strains of an encounter with mass migration. Put simply, I prefer the certainties of the homogenity and shared values of my culture that gave us the historic social contract that built New Zealand to the dubious advantages of simply importing people to fuel economic growth.
Let's be honest here - the Scandinavian countries whose comprehensive welfare systems and progressive policices we so admire can only afford to do so because they maintain a cultural and ethnic homogenity and they strictly control immigration. When things go wrong, as in Holland where the legacy of empire includes a significant Moslem minority, these countries react by trying to enforce conformity.
If we are to have immigration then it seems to me the lessons of other countries says it is form of cultural genocide for the local population to try and embrace a nebulous and unworkable idea of "diversity." You must insist on assimilation, and structure our policies toward migration on that basis.
I suppose at the end of the day I just ask myself the question - if a country has no shared cultural, racial or social values what sort of country is it? Is it a country worth speaking of at all? Do we really want to becomejust another babelling tower - fractured, fractious, over-crowded and polluted?
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Let's be honest here - the Scandinavian countries whose comprehensive welfare systems and progressive policices we so admire can only afford to do so because they maintain a cultural and ethnic homogenity and they strictly control immigration.
If you're going to "be honest", look up some numbers. Canada has the highest per capita net immigration rate in the world and still manages to be quite admirable. Spain, which has absorbed more than three million immigrants since 2000, is flourishing. Immigration to Norway is at record levels.
And really, even in New Zealand, where a dizzying 23% of the population was born elsewhere, I can't see the social fabric tearing, let alone any "cultural genocide" going on.
One of the things I liked most about the years I lived in London was the diversity of faces and voices (I don't think that's unconnected to Britain's continued cultural vitality). It was actually a relief to return to New Zealand and find our cultural homgenity breaking up.
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The truth is that non-white and non-English speaking immigrants to this country feel no particular sentimental loyalty to NZ. Most of them I speak to, and I speak to many, want to move to Aussie/Canada/USA.
then I would suggest the feeling is mutual amongst a large body of New Zealanders who would be happy to see the back of them.
Really? I don't think the truth is that nonEnglish speaking migrants feel no loyalty to NZ. Most of you know that I am a kindergarten teacher, some of you may even know that I now teach in Mangere, but I have been teaching for 13 years or so, and always in kindergartens that served communities of migrants and refugees, and in fact, were, as we like to say in the biz, mulitculturally diverse. I have taught children of migrants/refugees from India, China, Afghanistan, Somalia, Ethiopia, the Sudan, Kenya, Eritrea, the Pacific Islands, Pakistan, Sri Lanka (both Tamil and otherwise) Iran.....and the list goes on. Most of the kindergartens I have taught in were comprised solely of refugee/migrant families. Now, these families - and there have been hundreds over the years, all felt loyalty to NZ. The only families I ever encountered who migrated to Australia after living here for a couple of years or so, were Sri Lankan families, most of whom were doctors and who could gain entry and better paid employment in Australia after being made citizens of NZ. I give you an anecdote told me by one of our father's - a lovely man from Ethiopia who was a doctor, and then trained as a nurse when he got to NZ. He spoke of what it was like in the refugee camps, and why he picked NZ to come to. He was offered a place for his family in the States - he was considered very valuable, being a doctor and all - but, despite having never heard of us, he chose to come here because we didn't have guns, we were a peaceable sounding place, and he knew he wanted his young family to grow up with all of that. He took a trip to the States just before Sept 11 - being a kindergaten of mostly Muslim families, you can imagine the conversations that were had every day - and said it was the scariest place he had ever been. So he was eternally grateful to be here. I heard different versions of that from many other parents. (BTW, if you live in or near Mt Albert, and you have little kids, look seriously at Owairaka Kindergarten. Fantastic community). People give up a lot to migrate - or to flee from their wartorn countries. But they know what they have found here. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard the police helicopter overhead, and rushed outside to reassure our mums, only to find them ducking or quietly crying as they realise they will never have to fear for their lives again. But it takes a minute each time to readjust themselves.
I can't talk about facts and figures - it does my head in - but I can talk about multiculturalism with some degree of knowledge, and expertise, from a personal standpoint. I like that we have migrants from many countries here. I think it makes us, in the longterm, a better place to be. I'm not talking about different foods and languages necessarily, although they add value. I'm talking instead about what it means to us as a nation of people to be living together with some degree of tolerance and understanding of each other. I'm talking about being able to greet and interact with people from different cultures in a way that makes them feel respected, and valuable as citizens of a place where they have chosen - yes, even in the case of refugees, chosen to be.
Most people that run this country (wealthy baby boomers) grew up not knowing anyone from different cultures and didn't travel much when they were young. There is still a serious fear of the unknown. Let's be honest, we NZers didn't travel at all until very recently. There were really no coffee shops or restaurants in this country until the 90s for chrissake.
I would accept, Brickley, that a lot of people who have run this country in the past would not have grown up knowing of many other cultures. I would dispute, however, that NZers didn't travel until recently. There is a well documented trend of young Kiwis setting off to the other side of the world from at least 50 years ago. Whilst I wouldn't say that we are quite there yet, in terms of being as welcoming to all comers, I would say we are getting there. It takes time to adjust from homogenity (is that a word?) to multicultural plurality. I don't despair at all - in fact, being at the front line as it were, I embrace that this dialogue represents our growing as a nation, and as people. Vive la revolution!
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Canada has the highest per capita net immigration rate in the world and still manages to be quite admirable.
Except of course for that fact that Canada is much of a country at all anymore. it isn't much of anything really, it is more an historic accident that sort of exists because political inertia is easier than falling apart.
I specifically quoted the Scandinavian countries because those are the nations who comprehensive social security structures we most admire. Immigration to Norway might not be causing problems but they have also got stupid amounts of petro-dollars as well. When there is plenty of money to go around no one minds anything to much. We'll have to see how things pan out when money gets tight for our Viking friends.
One of the things I liked most about the years I lived in London was the diversity of faces and voices (I don't think that's unconnected to Britain's continued cultural vitality). It was actually a relief to return to New Zealand and find our cultural homgenity breaking up.
Except that a lot of the English loath the mass immigration, particularly the working class. You often here that they now feel strangers in their own land. I don't think we should repeat the mistakes of the Anglo-Canadians and the English and allow excessive immigration to wrest control of our destiny from ourselves. If you want to know how that is going to feel if we let it happen, just ask a Maori.
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I would dispute, however, that NZers didn't travel until recently.
I am not sure about this, I wonder if anyone has done any real research. I have a suspicion that the "traditional" Kiwi OE is a product of the air travel revolution from the seventies on and relates more to baby boomers than their parents who if they did go ovcerseas it would have been only so they could say a not so friendly hello to the minions of Herr Hitler.
Certainly, when I think of my parents and their extended network of friends I can' think of any of them that travelled internationally purely for recreation in their youth in the 1950s.
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I embrace that this dialogue represents our growing as a nation, and as people.
Yes. Can I recommend "Race You There" for anyone who hasn't read it yet - on Tze Ming's site along with other articles about ethnicity and identity grounded in this country.
Statistics NZ are also doing a review of that, and seeking submissions about part of it now.
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Tom, that's all starting to sound a bit Winston Peters and I'm sure that's not what you want. Can you tell us what immigration arrangements you reckon would work well?
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Oh, Sacha. Thanks for the link to Tze Ming. Brought me to tears - especially the bits about being outside the Chinese Embassy in Welly, and using
qi gong on
him, to open him up and transmute his angry
energy, and mine, into benevolence......, and then
they fell silent as I pushed qi into his chest.
The kid was afraid. He didn’t know that I was
opened up too, trying to establish a channel,
trying to help him.Talk about the unity of love. Hear, hear, Tze Ming.
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Anyone using the term "let's be honest" deserves to have a lamington placed on their head.
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I think we need to have an honest discussion around that issue Sacha.
We've never had an honest discussion around numbers or preferred origin of migrants. I suspect that if you asked most New Zealanders are more than happy with migration from the white Anglosphere. If that is the case, we need to discuss that. Because if that is what the majority want, then so be it.
We've never talked about if we want a melting pot, diversity or all out assimilation. Far to much of the debate is driven by the chattering classes who are largley shielded from the consequences of their actions.
For example, i think it is prudent to discuss how much - if any - Muslim migration we want here BEFORE we have a huge Muslim minority, not after. We need to have a national discussion about what values and assumptions we want to shape out immigration policy. And just because some people might find that debate uncomfortable or distateful doesn't mean we don't need to have it.
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I honestly would like to know how our beloved welfare state,burdened as it is by oldies taking out more than they put in, is going to survive without a lot of nice young immigrants to fill out the tax base.
(We could make all the boomers work until 70, it looks as though we youngers will have to anyway...)
A colleague and I were talking the other night about this. Bugger letting in rich old migrants who make token investments and contribute bugger all. Bring in the young and keen and poor, especially the ones a couple of years out from starting a family.
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Let's be honest here - the Scandinavian countries whose comprehensive welfare systems and progressive policices we so admire can only afford to do so because they maintain a cultural and ethnic homogenity and they strictly control immigration.
Tom, maybe you would like to add some facts to that "honesty". Not all Scandinavian countries are the same, but here are some stats on refugees to Sweden 1980 - 2006.
Link: http://www.migrationsverket.se/pdffiler/statistik/tabe3.pdf
Residence permits 1980-2006 to Convention refugees, De facto refugees, in need of protection and refugees by Humanitarian grounds -
Most people that run this country (wealthy baby boomers) grew up not knowing anyone from different cultures and didn't travel much when they were young. There is still a serious fear of the unknown.
I think you're quite wrong. Brasch and Fairburn et al did, and were shaped by, their OE in the 1930s. Before that, Mansfield left and didn't come back back, but Maori chiefs were doing their OE to Britain 150 years ago.
I suspect the boomers were the first generation for whom travel became a general rite of passage (Tom Scott is said to have coined the term "OE" in the early 70s), but that's not exactly "very recently".
Let's be honest, we NZers didn't travel at all until very recently. There were really no coffee shops or restaurants in this country until the 90s for chrissake.
That was the consequence largely of licensing laws. The virtual ban on restaurants (especially licensed ones) began to ease in the mid-70s, but it wasn't until after the shackles came off in the mid-80s that people started doing weird things like going to cafes for breakfast.
There were certainly cafes (even after after all the 50s espresso machines stopped working because no one could get the parts), but no, modern cafe culture as we know it didn't appear until the early 90s -- actually ahead of most of the world.
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Tom S:
For example, i think it is prudent to discuss how much - if any - Muslim migration we want here BEFORE we have a huge Muslim minority, not after. We need to have a national discussion about what values and assumptions we want to shape out immigration policy. And just because some people might find that debate uncomfortable or distateful doesn't mean we don't need to have it.
That's why we, and nations like Canada, have a points system. The recent immigration furore in Holland is in large part a result of not having one.
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My own experience and anecdata (I like that word) disputes some of the historical assumptions on this thread. Some of my earliest memories are of regular farewelling and greeting relations and other travellers at the Wellington wharves. People did their OE mainly by ship in the 50s and 60s, but they certainly went, and in large numbers. My parents' first overseas trip together was by sea plane from Evans Bay. From the early 1960s my father regularly took tour parties of engineers and their wives (that's how it was then) on extensive air trips through several countries on their way to conferences in exotic parts of the world, such as Russia, Romania.India and Japan. Each trip preceded by his doomed attempts to learn the local language.
Several embassies - many representing Asian countries - sent their children to my 1960s primary school (which was already full of immigrants or children of immigrants- mostly from Europe) who became absorbed into the general school culture and invitations to their birthday parties were sort after for the interesting food and customs - particularly the Thais.
My parents were friends with some of the European Jewish families who had come to NZ before and during the war. And both my parents were taught by the unhappy temporary refugee Karl Popper in his brief time at Canterbury University.
So we were a nation of immigrants and travellers 50 years ago. And the immigrants brought new foods and ideas that became mainstream. As for cafe culture it was very much alive in 1960s and 70s Wgtn, eg the Monde Marie, and Suzy's (who was another immigrant) where I spent many angst ridden teenage hours.
What we didn't have in my world were many Maori kids, and I can't remember any obviously disabled children, although there were many polio and TB survivors with minor physical impairments. So not much diversity obvious there.
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For example, i think it is prudent to discuss how much - if any - Muslim migration we want here BEFORE we have a huge Muslim minority, not after. We need to have a national discussion about what values and assumptions we want to shape out immigration policy. And just because some people might find that debate uncomfortable or distateful doesn't mean we don't need to have it.
Well you can count me as one of those who would find a debate on which immigrants to allow in based on their religion distasteful.
That's why we, and nations like Canada, have a points system.
Thankfully, I don't believe religion has any particular points attached to it wrt NZ immigration. Not sure aboout Canada, but I would be surprised if it did.
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For example, i think it is prudent to discuss how much - if any - Muslim migration we want here BEFORE we have a huge Muslim minority, not after.
Although maybe we should reset the whole thing and let the Maori decide. What the heck, they might have second thoughts about having let in all those Europeans.
Sheesh.
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