Public Address - Club Politique (Home)

Metics Twelve | Apr 05, 2006 21:59

Once upon a time you didn't have to think about things we're calling metics because any alien in your country was expected to get their act together and assimilate as soon as possible. The fact that this was all too often all but impossible tended to be overlooked by proponents of this model though.

The basis of the model was the presence of what we've called the 'majority nation', the 'normal' group within a country. The idea was that if you had more than one identity group within a given territory all you had to do was 'social engineer' this thing called 'a nation'. In time this nation thing would become the main point of identification and all this ethnic conflict and hullabaloo would fade away.

Nice idea... didn't work.

Today when public voices speak about the idea of 'one nation' or 'one people' it's this idea they're referring to. And why didn't it work? Mostly because history caught up with the imagined future the of Enlightenment philosophers who created the concept.

Back in the day population movements were relatively slow, and when you had a given territory you could control the people and ethnicities living within it. But as the centuries advanced life and commerce just became so damn fast that attempts to clearly distinguish between ethnicities started to prove fruitless.

Not that this stopped the really really keen from putting this 'spiffing idea' into practice though. Over time we've had terms like 'the civilising mission', 'assimilation', and 'integration' applied to the perceived need to homogenise populations. Even today's liberal intelligensia can be accused of a similar kind of dogmatism in relation to liberal ideas like 'human rights'.

I know that last bit is controversial, but what I'm trying to get at is the way in which it's easy to assume that your way of doing things, and your group's perceptions of the world are the only 'true' way to interpret life. Any philosophical liberal who applies his theory too rigorously is guilty, in my humble opinion, of a weak variety of the excesses that plagued indigenous people and non-European nations during the height of the Age of Colonialism.

It's at this point that we return to Metics Eleven. Once colonial majority nations (like the one's that make up the British Commonwealth) woke up to the fact that their efforts to engineer homogenous populations were failing, new methods to accommodate diverse populations had to be devised. And in a big kudos to the other side of the ditch, the most successful example of this accommodation in the modern world was Australia.

As late as the 1970s Australia had something like 40% of their total population born outside of the country. And something like 70% had at least one parent who had been born overseas. For many commentators of the time these statistics were a time bomb waiting to happen. But nothing bad happened. There were a few riots by disaffected migrants left in bush camps till work could be found, but there was no great or unusual upheaval.

So that leaves us asking, 'why?'

The answer is pretty simple really. The majority nation, in this case the dinky-di, meat pie and a beer, formerly British Ocker, decided that something had to be done about the issue and introduced this radical new idea called 'multiculturalism'.

In a nutshell the old assimilation ideas simply were not working. There was a growing body of literature demonstrating very clearly that migrants were suffering discrimination, poor outcomes in health and education, social isolation (especially among migrant women), and rising rates of crime. A new approach was needed.

These people, or metics, were Australian citizens (or permanent residents who had yet to receive the rubber stamp and a passport) but simply weren't 'real' Australians. Efforts had been made to try to turn them into authentic Aussies, but even the second generation was all too often experiencing the same hardships as their parents.

What multiculturalism did was fundamentally alter the way the majority looked at and treated the group. The desired outcome remained the same, the conversion of metics into proper citizens, but the methods changed to suit the minority. In effect the old assimilation model was turned on its head, and questions were no longer asked about how best to force migrants to become more Australian, and instead the focus shifted to how best to use the migrants introduced cultures and languages to encourage them to better engage with the majority.

And it was the engagement that was the key that actively prevented things from getting out of control. By making an appropriate amount of room in the 'British Australian way of doing things' for a few different viewpoints and methods, migrants of a variety of colours and backgrounds were rapidly assimilated without resistance.

Of course, this engagement profoundly affected the flavour of the Australian nation because it is a two-way street, but that's for another day.

PS And the other note from today still applies.

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Please Note: | Apr 05, 2006 11:53

For those of you with an interest in 'the new media' there's an interesting seminar on tomorrow night at Archives New Zealand. Here's a link.

Apparently it's four bloggers who work in the public sector talking, and none of them are David Farrar! The reason for that should be obvious.

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Talking Crazy Talk | Mar 29, 2006 18:20

Well I'd be lying if I said that a bunch of skinny white guys doing the haka at the drop of the hat wasn't a good thing. In the grand scheme of things mainstream New Zealanders becoming more Polynesian is a very good outcome. Sure there's a chance they have no freaking idea what that particular haka actually means, but just the fact that they choose to express their nationality in something more seven syllables, three of which are 'oi', gives us the edge.

And there was a lot of passion in 'The Haka'. Which seems to be what haka are all about, based on my limited knowledge.

What I do wish though is that teams went the whole hog, and actually performed their own haka. It's really not difficult. Just go and spend some a bit of cash on a choreographer. Then instead of Ka Mate, Ka Mate, which has become something of a national anthem, you can have a suitable haka that will scare the piss out of your opponents. You know, something for that athletic toughness.

Anyhow, enough sour grapes. I mention all this because after years of trying unsuccessfully to find some rumoured classes in Melbourne I attended my first te reo course here in Wellington. Did you know that Urewera can be translated "hot cock"? Me neither. I'll admit to being a little shocked. I was however familiar with tutaekuri, "dog crap". The things you learn when translating place names…

The upshot is that after years of berating people about not being sufficiently bicultural (or paying lip service to Māori culture) I'm putting some time into making sure I'm not a hypocrite. I'll see if I can't actually work a little reo into Club Politique, once I learn more than "Ko Che tōku ingoa".

But this doesn't mean that people don't still require a little berating. So, as a public service I think I've come up with a little idea that is going to make everyone's life a lot easier.

You know how sometimes people do or say things that you simply can't believe? They say ridiculous things, or volunteer to give up a couple of hours of their life to do nothing useful. And all you want to do to these people is hit them on the head. Not like a punch or a wallop, nothing that would actually hurt them. More like the slap on the back of the head that guy on the Moro ad gives the other guy when he doesn't want to go swimming with those two hotties. Like the slap you want to give that guy on the BP coffee ad, were he chucks the friendly Russian girl out of the car to go have 'a coffee' all by himself.

Thing is, hitting people can be misconstrued. Willy-nilly hitting of people on the head is likely to not go down too well at the office for example. Unless… and this is the clincher… unless you have some sanctioned medium to administer this hitting. Something that everybody knows is legit. In a situation like that you need a something, something like a little stick, you can give that munter a wee tap to the back of the head, and he'll know what the go is.

Obviously it can't be a hardwood or too big, or too small, and has to be well-recognised as a friendly reminder that "you're talking crazy". And for this administering of common sense I'm thinking of selling a handy item we can all recognise. After all, there are plenty of times when you need to Keep A Stick Handy. Yup. KASH is the answer you're looking for there fella. KASH for everyone.

Your mate says, "I'd like to write a PhD!", the stick, and maybe twice, just for good measure.

Someone suggests they might like to hang out with or join the Exclusive Brethren, give them the stick, and quickly. A friend recently had a run-in with a Brethren involving a near-sexual harassment. So maybe a little more stick for those dodgy bastards as well.

Someone suggests they might buy tickets to go see Russell Crowe's new band play, get the stick out.

Some athlete decides to haka at the drop of a hat. Show them the stick, and point them to someplace to learn a unique one.

Someone suggests our sporting types need a little more mongrel in them? The stick.

Could be a winner I think. But I could just be asking for a tap myself.

PS. While I think of it, the promised restaurant reviews are coming. In fact I'm just nipping out to a favourite, Basin Noodles on Adelaide Road. So hang tight.

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