The hīkoi throughout Aotearoa was a defining moment of New Zealand history. Photo / Mike Scott
The hīkoi throughout Aotearoa was a defining moment of New Zealand history. Photo / Mike Scott
Opinion by Anaru Eketone
Anaru Eketone is an associate professor in social and community work at the University of Otago and a columnist for the Otago Daily Times
THREE KEY FACTS
Right-handed individuals inherently have a privilege which often goes unnoticed by them.
This can be compared to societal privilege, particularly for Pākehā, and the challenges faced by Māori.
Despite improvements, significant inequalities persist in health, education, employment, welfare and housing.
My brothers are the privileged ones in ways they don’t understand. Our respective privilege and disadvantage is life-long.
A huge majority of the population has a privilege so dominant and all-encompassing that most don’t even realise they are privileged, but see it as the way the world should be.
Yet again my disadvantage came to the fore in 2022 when I had six large trees cut down. Once felled, it was my job to cut them, chop them, chip them and do something useful with the timber. The problem is I am left-handed, and yet every piece of machinery I operated was built specifically for right-handed people with their comfort, strength and safety in mind.
Chainsaws are built to be started with the right hand with the chain pointed away, rather than the awkward angle that results when a left-handed person starts it. The starter cord for the chipper was on the right-hand side, as was the lawnmower, weed-eater and hedge-cutter.
Why are power tools designed for right-handed people?
The drop-saw is right-handed, the electric plane threw the shavings down my front rather than away from me, and when trying wood-turning, all the machines rotated the wrong way.
A tutor tried to twist my body to the correct stance, but ended up almost pushing me over because my stance is unnatural. Then there’s the usual complaints – scissors are ergonomically made for right-handed people, tape measures are upside-down, pencil sharpeners and guitars are the wrong way around. Thank goodness for ambidextrous computer mice.
While these may be considered minor inconveniences, I would like to know the ratio of left-handed chainsaw accidents, as the instructions for my chainsaw state it is unsafe to operate it in a left-handed manner.
However, the purpose of my drawing attention to this is not to right the world (or left the world), but to point out that someone can live their whole life and be totally blind to the fact their life is one of privilege – that society and the world has been constructed by people like them, for people like them. My brothers are privileged, but would object to being considered so.
I would like to compare this to the application of equality.
The Statue of Liberty was gifted to the US by France.
America has the Statue of Liberty because of its love of freedom and, according to American political scientist Leslie Lipton, if New Zealand built a statue, it would be the “Statue of Equality”.
In 20th-century New Zealand, we would often hear of New Zealand’s dream of the “egalitarian society”, where all people are equal and therefore have equal rights and opportunities. Where all deserve a “fair go”, where “Jack is as good as his master”, where everyone has opportunity only limited by their hard work and abilities.
Therefore, apart from bad luck with illness and disability, the belief is that inequality comes from poor choices or a lack of discipline and so is usually the responsibility of the individual, rather than something built into society’s structure.
When politicians use the terms “equality” or “equal rights”, or “equality before the law”, it elicits different responses from different people.
For some, it is almost patriotic in nature and invokes the pride of being a New Zealander. However, there are others in this country that hear this and reply, “Yeah right, when has that ever happened?” Many of us don’t believe those politicians because it is something some of us are yet to experience.
Equality has been for Pākehā first and foremost, where the existence and purpose of the New Zealand government was “of the settlers, by the settlers, for the settlers” (apologies to Abraham Lincoln).
Āpirana Ngata asked what the price of citizenship was Māori. Photo / Alexander Turnbull Library, MNZ27461/2F
Inclusion of Māori has been applied begrudgingly at times. It is why Āpirana Ngata described the sacrifice offered by the Māori Battalion as the “price of citizenship” – not that it was needed for us to become citizens, but that the sacrifice was required for Pākehā New Zealand to start seeing Māori as potential equals.
There is considerable inequality that is a residue of a society that privileges some and disadvantages others in ways that Pākehā society often does not see.
The laws, language, culture and values of the state and its institutions are privileged in a way that seems natural, only because the society is run by them, primarily for them.
Having said that, decade upon decade, as a society we are certainly improving. But it grates for politicians to talk about equality and equal human rights when at the same time, they and their ilk have ensured they maintain their advantage and have been content for generations to allow huge inequality to exist in our access to health, education, employment, welfare and housing.
We all believe in equality. Whether we believe we have experienced it or not is another matter.
