Tapu Misa: Many of the elevated don't deserve gong

I'm glad Colin Meads doesn't want anyone calling him "Sir Colin", because I wasn't intending to. No disrespect to the mighty Pinetree but this is, I've decided, an honorific-free column.

No sirs, dames, right honourables or imperial highnesses here, unless I'm feeling especially reverential, which doesn't happen often.

In my younger days I was inclined to excessive respectfulness, no doubt the result of my Pacific upbringing, but an old editor knocked that out of me. He didn't like his publication being polluted by titles of any kind, so once the introductions were made, it was first names only for everyone.

Maybe it was the Irish in him rebelling against any association with English royalty. In any case, it was a matter of tone: first names were friendlier, he reckoned. They broke down class and cultural barriers and made the subject more approachable to readers.

I have nothing against public recognition of good and noble deeds. I'm all for tall poppies. Public service above and beyond the call of career, monetary reward and free air travel ought to be recognised and celebrated by a grateful nation - if for no other reason than that it's so rare these days.

I'm just not convinced that everyone who gets entitled is all that deserving of our respect and admiration.

I myself have been part of an effort to get a gong for someone I thought eminently worthy, someone I thought had shown that rare dedication and selfless duty of service to others.

But despite a pile of glowing testimonials, the bid was unsuccessful. Since then, I've watched others far less deserving get the nod. The only consolation is that our nominee would in all likelihood have turned down the honour.

Like academic Ranginui Walker, who kept his honour staunchly indigenous, I'm inclined to think that the honours system was cheapened and degraded when it bestowed knighthoods on profiteering businessmen who showed their commitment to New Zealand by making a pile of loot and then skipping the country.

Too many seemed to get tapped for services to ego and their bottom line. Among the 72 people who chose to be knighted and damed last Friday are people I respected, and a few I didn't. The titles make no difference to that, though I can't say I understand the attraction.

It does look good on the CV, of course. And it can be tremendously impressive in parts of the world where people are impressed by that kind of thing. But I'm bemused. I'm not sure why, for example, you'd want a title on top of your Olympic gold medal.

The medal says world-beater, par excellence. The knighthood harks back to another time and place. It seems out of place in 21st century New Zealand.

But then I'm of the view that it's only a matter of time till we grow up and become a proper republic.

Titles, like monarchies, depend on acceptance by the wider population. They require buy-in from everyone. We all have to agree that the emperor is wearing clothes, or the fantasy is dispelled.

That's why Brian Tamaki's appropriation of "Bishop" isn't taken seriously outside the Destiny Church.

And why that lover of grand titles, the abominable Idi Amin - who in his heyday called himself His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal, Doctor, Dada, VC, DSO, MC and Conqueror of the British Empire, among other things - was always just the "Butcher of Uganda" to most people.

Call yourself what you like, it's what everyone else calls you that matters.

I was born in a country in love with chiefly titles. My father has a couple of matai titles, and I would have one too if I'd been willing to fork out the thousands of dollars required to feed and gift an entire village for several days, while they conferred the title in traditional ceremonial fashion.

The title would be long and important and unpronounceable to others but it would look good on my CV. It would have history and place and mana.

But outside Samoa and my extended family it would be largely symbolic.

Chiefs are a dime a dozen these days. It's become de rigueur for many Samoans to acquire a matai title and then flaunt it in New Zealand, though some titles are recent constructs and others are divided up between several holders.

Without the responsibilities of leadership, and divorced from the cultural framework that give them meaning, the value of chiefly titles are being diluted and cheapened.

But in Samoa, at least, they have some use; good matai lead and serve their families and communities.

Which is more than can be said for the Tongan royals. Tongans don't ask much of their King, George Tupou V - but perhaps it's time they did.

The King left for a holiday in Scotland last week even after learning of the sinking of a ferry that killed at least 90 of his subjects.

In a country of 120,000 people, the tragedy touched every Tongan - except the King, apparently.

Monarchs don't have much practical use in today's world. Grand gestures are all that's left for them, such as staying in London during the bombing in World War II, as the British royal family did, or famously riding in the rain in an open carriage during Queen Elizabeth II's 1953 coronation, as the King's grandmother Queen Salote did.

George V seems unaware that his exalted position in Tonga exists only by his people's permission. The least he could do was to stay there when disaster struck.