Perhaps my vision of New Zealand was old fashioned, fond and nostalgic. A place where people could live in harmony and never mind the " differences " - we simply sought the sameness.
I grew up in a multicultural New Zealand. A small country town where white kids mingled with Maori, Chinese, Hindu and Moslem. We mucked in and made friends and were never taught about our differences. We were just kids being kids.
I had friends who left, aged 9, to go back to India or elsewhere to get married and I never really thought about it. It just happened, and I went back to school the next day and missed the friend that would no longer be part of my life. No different to the kid who moved to another town, really.
Life has become very complicated these days.
Do we call it "woke " or being aware? Back in the 1960's , life was simple. I never knew about what marriage meant, back then, as a kid. To me it was a rather wonderful and exciting thing whereby the Bride got loads of bracelets and a pretty sari... children, today, are much more aware of what Marriage really means.
In 2019, children know about Religious differences, cultural differences and racial differences. They know that it is unacceptabe that some of my friends slept on potato sacks and I slept in a comfy bed.
But do they know that life has not changed in New Zealand?
It has always been a multi cultural country. It is only recently that the differences have become more important than the sameness.
" Shame, bro, shame " , as was said in 7 Periods with Mr Gormsby.
This is not about gun legislation. It is not about cultural intolerance. It is not about immigration.
It is about the destruction of New Zealand; the destruction of our ability to speak freely; the right to question, seek answers and to defend ourselves with words or with weapons.
A few idiotic maniacs ( as was the case at Port Arthur) will change New Zealand Law and Society forever.
And, at the end of the day, isn't that the problem? The lunatics are taking over the asylum.
The bang of the drums and the wail of the voice and the stomp of the feet that pad down to the defeat of all we said and all we did in the name of our God and Choice and the love and the loss of Our Country..
And so it is.
The Hills Hoist swings and the sheets hung like hammocks are gone to the God of the tumble dryer.
No children will enjoy the delight of the snuggle into the cradle of the sheet pegged on to the line;
When life was so simple and life was a giggle and we all sent a message that was kind.
And the noise of the neighbour’s kids playing backyard cricket, on the lawn back beyond the joined fence have become a quite tragically, almost so magically .. silent and lost to lament.
And the joy and the smell of a summers afternoon.is silenced by computers and phones
because young men and young women are too frightened to swoon
at a butterfly flying over the moon.
Now we all worry about the offense, not the fence, or the words that we say just in case we might pay for the sin for having spoken our mind. We live in a time when words and opinions can see us doing “ some time….”.
In the Big House.
Oh, how I wish we could still give a kiss or a hug or a smile, a gesture of love, being kind – without the accusal or defiant refusal – all gone. To a long ago time.
I lament the loss and the freedom to say what I feel as opinion is now banned. Unless it is, of course, part of the “ course “ of what teachers and the media have planned.
My mind is now censored and so are my words to ensure that I do the “ right “ thing. And all of my passion is quite simply, out of fashion in favour of words with no sting.
Hush my mouth.
But no one can silence the rage that fires up in my head. The day that I parrot with no passion or clarit
You think I am better off dead.
The bang of the drums and the wail of the voice and the stomp of the feet that pad down to the defeat of all we said and all we did in the name of our God and Choice and the love and the loss of Our Country..
And so it is.
