Editorial: That's the way you do it

Peter Jackson.

Some of the spring had gone from Kelvin Davis' step by late last week, as he neared the end of his seven marathons in seven days, continuing his crusade to end the scourge of sexual violence.

With three marathons under his belt, blisters were well and truly making themselves felt as he and his handful of kindred spirits pounded the streets around Kaitaia on Tuesday, preceded and followed by three laps of the town every day after starting and finishing at Awanui School.

But while some saw his gesture as somewhat meaningless, if well intentioned, he never doubted that he was making a difference, even if it might take some time for that difference to become evident.

As usual social media brought out the trolls. Some of the comments made last week were ridiculous and offensive, while others recognised Mr Davis' commitment but wondered what benefit would accrue from his exertions. The answer, hopefully, will prove to be plenty. We will just have to be patient.

Those who devoted last week to his cause know that nothing will change overnight. Mr Davis himself has always said that he is planting a seed, which, with constant nourishment, will one day begin changing the attitudes that allow sexual violence, and all sorts of other destructive behaviour, to persist.

The keys, as he and his supporters told Kaitaia College students mid-week, were to be passionate, whatever the cause, and to persevere. There is no doubting his passion, and he shows no sign of losing heart.

Mr Davis has been in politics long enough to understand that there is no such thing as an instant fix to anything.

He also surely understands that at the end of the day the answer to much of what ails us does not lie in government policies and programmes.

If we are going to change the attitudes that enable violence to persist, albeit largely behind closed doors, then that change needs to come from within.

We need to make it unacceptable, as well as unlawful.

We need to feed the view that violence in all its forms is intolerable, and that's a decision that we must reach ourselves.

Passion and the long haul are concepts that are well understood by the conservation fraternity.

They too must think at times that they are fighting a losing battle, as some people continue to treat our extraordinary natural environment as a rubbish dump, as we continue to pollute our waterways, forests and beaches, and as we resist efforts to persuade us to take more care of some of the wildlife that shares our part of the world with us. The answer lies largely in the next generation.

There is no better example of that than Ahipara, where deliberate efforts have been made to enthuse the local school children.

Ahipara School has long been making a real contribution to protecting the environment its children will inherit, beginning perhaps with the project aimed at cleaning up a dune area known colloquially as The Bowl. And they have been involved in the establishment and maintenance of a small area of beach reserve that is most significantly home to a tiny population of dotterels.

The war is far from won - some who can't be bothered taking their rubbish to the nearby landfill have simply begun dumping it in dunes a little further along the beach, and there are still some who, through ignorance or bloody-mindedness, endanger the dotterels with their vehicles.

But the worm is turning, slowly but surely, and one day the children who have displayed a much greater regard for their environment than their elders do will be adults, with children of their own. And then the seeds that are being sown now will fulfil their potential.

Even more encouragingly, children throughout the Far North are in the van of a wider recognition of the frailty of the environment that their parents and grandparents might have taken for granted. Conservation has become mainstream, no longer the preserve of the fanatics, and that change in attitudes will become ever more pronounced as time goes by.

Certainly Mr Davis saw evidence last week that his campaign is beginning to capture hearts and minds. He was joined at various points by students from Kaitaia College and Kaitaia Primary School, even some pre-schoolers, and while there was no mass rush to join him as he made his way around town he received enough feedback to offer encouragement that he and his fellow marathoners were being noticed.

And of course similar efforts were made in Auckland and Kaikohe, the latter community perhaps enjoying even more overt displays of public support and participation.

Whether or not he sets out to pound his feet into painful submission again next year remains to be seen, but whatever form it takes, Kelvin Davis plans to raise the issue of sexual violence again, and to repeat the message that the greatest enabler of change is simply speaking out, as victims, as perpetrators or as witnesses to the violence that blights so many lives.

He conceded last week that he was not offering a cure or a silver bullet, but laying the foundation for a change in attitudes. And all credit to him for that. Kelvin Davis is a man who puts his money where his mouth is, and, slow though the going might sometimes seem to be, people are beginning to listen.

Most importantly, the younger generation is watching, and slowly but surely is hopefully resolving that the community they fashion in years to come will be better than the one some people are suffering in today.

It can be done. Many years ago a Scottish surgeon, who worked for a time at Kaitaia Hospital, told this newspaper that the Far North's attitude to drink driving astounded him.

In Scotland those who drove under the influence were treated as social pariahs, he said, to the point where offenders could expect to lose friends, while in New Zealand a conviction seemed to be regarded almost as a badge of honour.

That seems to be changing. The awful toll that drink driving takes on often innocent people is slowly but surely casting those who break that particular law in a seriously negative light.

The same has long been true of those who are publicly accused of sexual violence, of course, the problem there being that so much of it is unseen.

The need is not so much to change attitudes towards the offending itself, but to persuade its victims, and witnesses, to break their silence. And more positively to persuade those who offend to seek the assistance they need to cease doing so.

And while some might question his tactics, if not his sincerity, he is right when he says there is no point in expressing outrage in response to specific instances of violence then going back to sleep, as it were.

As conservation values have become part of many people's daily lives, so too must a determination te expunge violence from our homes.

No form of criminal offending can thrive in a community that will not tolerate it, and that is as true of violence, sexual or otherwise, as it is of drink driving, dealing in drugs or stealing.

Kelvin Davis has set out to achieve a degree of intolerance that can only make this a better place in which to live, and he deserves our support.