KEY POINTS:
Last weekend, Herald on Sunday rugby writer Gregor Paul, on tour with the All Blacks, wrote a strong piece bemoaning New Zealanders' lack of identity and how All Black followers lack 'emotional depth'. Paul Lewis gives a Kiwi right of reply.
>>Gregor Paul: "New Zealanders have no real sense of identity"
Gregor was half right. New Zealanders produce nowhere near as much emotion, national pride and cultural outpourings as the crowds of Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France and even England.
But lack emotional depth? I think not. Lack of expression, perhaps.
A native Scot, Gregor eloquently encapsulated the sheer, ebullient joy of being part of a surge of northern nationalism; fans bound by a common history - "Bannockburn, Culloden, Adam Smith, Graham Alexander Bell, Ian Fleming, glens, lochs, tartan, the doomed World Cup of 1978, Local Hero, Simple Minds..."
But are we really this: "They [Northern Hemispherites], unlike New Zealanders, can leave the stadium feeling proud of who they are and where they are from when they lose..."?
Or: "It is the followers of the All Blacks who lack emotional depth and the inability to see a test as more than just 80 minutes of rugby. That's what leaves the rest of the world feeling New Zealanders can't find their soul when it comes to rugby."
Here's the thing - the Irish, Welsh and Scots have a common element in their national development: the English. The centuries they have taken over self-protection, self-awareness, self-development and almost every other self-word applicable have been awash with English oppression and/or resistance to the insidious penetration of English culture. It is that which has seen the three Celtic nations and the French - that splendid island of Gallic isolation - jealously preserve their language, identity and culture.
And look at the time taken to develop that - Bannockburn was in 1314, for Pete's sake. We didn't even sign the Treaty of Waitangi until 1840 - 500-odd years after Bannockburn.
New Zealand is a young society, still feeling its way, still attached to the deep-seated, Presbyterian, self-effacing work ethic our colonial masters instilled and, believe it or not, still subject to the 'cultural cringe' that Scots, Welsh and Irish wouldn't understand, so long ago did they leave it behind.
Even our near neighbours the Australians have shucked their cultural cringe and replaced it with that defiant, sometimes over-the-top, Aussie-ness. They approach sport with the Olde Enemy like it is Culloden or Agincourt or Bannockburn.
It is important too - even obsessional - for Australians to win. But, to reinforce the point Gregor Paul made, they have also grown a sense of the occasion and that hardline, steel-spined commitment to their country at sport; win or lose. They are - Ricky Stuart's recent utterances aside - better losers than us generally; more attuned to taking the hurt and working on the mistakes and turning them into virtues; and then winning.
New Zealand tends to take the hurt more deeply; we tend to wrap ourselves around it and then lash out. We still have our cultural cringe. It's classic young country syndrome. We are not even sure of our own identity - another point Gregor made well.
We have a national anthem which sounds like a few embarrassed mourners at a funeral singing a hymn they can't remember, alongside whom a man is slowly strangling a rooster. At least it does in English. Let's just do the Maori version which sounds more nationalistic and mellifluous - only, to our shame, most of us do not know the Maori words, myself included (a New Year's resolution approaches).
There's a lack of identity, of cultural pride, right there. We don't have a Bannockburn or Culloden to link our national identity and wellbeing to. We have the New Zealand Wars - but they weren't much taught in schools and were generally hushed up by the same Brits who colonised us and imposed their cultural stuffiness. Or there's World War I and II - fought in support of those same Brits.
New Zealanders do lack something when it comes to expressing their nationalism and, yes, as a young country, much of it is bound up in the All Blacks' performances.
But obsession not passion? Lack of emotional depth? Not proud of who we are and where we are from? Bollocks.
New Zealanders don't need the Northern Hemisphere to worry about our rugby souls; nor can I imagine any Kiwi leaving a ground when the All Blacks lose with self-knowledge and self-belief punctured. That is a convenient generalisation of the same kind as all Scots are dour; all Welshmen sing; and all Irish are feckless drunks.
But it takes time to develop the kind of national psyche being discussed. Kiwi author Gordon McLauchlan's searing look at the emotional numbness and smugness of Kiwis, The Passionless People, bit down hard on the essential blandness of our society and ambitions. Thirty-two years on and some of McLauchlan's observations are still relevant.
But a lot has changed too. There has been progress in national self-determination and identity. The 1981 Springbok tour; nuclear ships; amazing advances in arts and entertainment and many other fields; in our New Zealand-ness. That a young country is still looking for its identity is a matter of course, not of embarrassment.
Whatever it is we should be or are supposed to be, we should not be little carbon copies of the British or Europeans. After all, it isn't all glory-glory. We have all seen the pictures - British football supporters looking bereft; in shock and in tears; like their world has crumbled - and for many in a vital defeat, it has.
That, more than anything witnessed on these shores, screams of a little life in a big country; of people with so little to attach their soul to that they hang the whole thing on Manchester United's hook or some such.
New Zealand has changed much from the land that produced jut-jawed, slope-browed behemoths who came out of the bush carrying a sheep in each hand to repel the British rugby invaders. Rugby has to compete for attention in a much-changing world and, internationally and in New Zealand, it has done a tremendous job of losing its own fans in recent years.
Some who don't know New Zealanders well mistake the knowledge of the game here as obsession. Touring teams over the years - as recently as the 2005 Lions - have exclaimed at the analytical knowledge of everyone from the waitress to the bus driver.
That they can all discuss the merits of the breakdown or the finer points of scrummaging astonishes many visiting teams. Kiwis are relentless analysts of the sport and of the All Blacks.
Anyone analysing something cannot be passionate. After six years of rugby writing, I found it difficult to enjoy the game as a fan. My mind would click to lineout wins; turnovers; line breaks. It wasn't until 2004 that I recaptured the art of being a fan; standing on the terraces at Eden Park with a mate, beer in hand, hooting and hollering as England lock Simon Shaw was sent off for a piffling offence.
I count it a mark of great favour that I have been at internationals twice when the Kiwi crowd started cheering the opposition - because the All Blacks were playing crap and the opposition (France both times) were sublime. I like the knowledge and the fairness inherent in that; it is a sign of maturity of a sort.
No passion? Tell it to the Frenchman at the Parc des Princes I yelled at back in the '80s in my passable French that he should watch the rugby and not me - after he passed comment that I was being too loud in support of the All Blacks and after he made a throat-cutting gesture. Tell it to the legions of New Zealanders who journey overseas and who shout themselves hoarse with the All Blacks.
Gregor was half right. We have yet to assemble a recognisable national identity at such sporting carnivals. Maybe by the time of our children's children's children, that will have changed. It isn't an overnight matter.
I heard a radio host recently criticise the number of people at a big rugby match who paid scant attention to the game. Maybe we need more of that; more of a sense of occasion and how to hold a party.
And how to welcome guests. Too often in this country, we see visitors like the Lions fans and shower them with insults instead of banter. We haven't yet perfected the art of separating All Black performance from sense of occasion - a sign of a young country and sometimes naive and culturally-cringed citizens.
But don't tell us we don't have passion. Let the northerners win the singing and let them throng into giant stadiums to watch second-rate fare - and being beaten. We'll continue to want the All Blacks to win, with style and passion and, yes, maybe a touch of obsession. Like it or not, it is still one of the main ways we can shed that cultural cringe and grow as a nation. We just need to get better at it.
