NZ urged to drop its shackles

By SIMON COLLINS

Historian James Belich wants New Zealand to throw off a "mean streak" in its character and become a republic.

Professor Belich of Auckland University told 450 of the country's leaders at a Knowledge Wave Trust forum yesterday that New Zealand's "propensity to spasms of narrow-mindedness" and its "tall poppy syndrome" stemmed from its colonial mentality.

He said the country needed a delayed "21st birthday party" by becoming a republic - perhaps in 2007, the centenary of the year in which it was promoted from a "colony" to a "dominion".

Especially during the first two-thirds of the last century, he said, New Zealand had looked to Britain culturally as well as economically.

This had helped New Zealanders to peak achievements, he said.

Ernest Rutherford won the Nobel Prize after just 68 years of European settlement. Expatriate "Kiwi mafias" ran the Royal Air Force and Oxford University Press.

But colonialism also produced a "Kiwi curse - I mean our collective mean streak, our propensity to spasms of narrow-mindedness, the tall poppy syndrome, negative egalitarianism and voluntary totalitarianism".

The Kiwi expression "too clever by half" was linked to the colonial put-down: "If you are so damned good, why are you not in London?"

New Zealanders were reluctant to celebrate achievement, and in fact sometimes celebrated the mediocre because they did not want to judge true success or failure.

"Negative egalitarianism" showed in the tendency to knock Auckland.

"What if New Zealand's future needs a world-class city, a homegrown Kiwi-sized London?

What if it can only be Auckland?" Dr Belich asked.

"What if the Big Four cities becoming the Big One is a hard fact of history?

"Anyway, it probably won't matter much because Auckland's future is hobbled by its artificial division into four cities."

He said public debate in this country descended too often to exchanging abusive slogans.

"On immigration, you let in everyone or you let in no one. You are a 'PC nut' or a 'racist'."

This was "dead debate" in which no one had an open mind.

He scoffed at the arguments against a republic.

It would "damage our relationship with Britain", NZ lawyers did not trust NZ judges, and "one of our fellow New Zealanders would have to become president".

Maori were said to trust "a bunch of aged English Law Lords replete with deep knowledge of Taha Maori.

"Such reasoning is shot through with the Kiwi curse," Dr Belich said.

Australian High Court Judge Michael Kirby told the conference that Australia and New Zealand should develop closer constitutional ties along the lines of the countries of the European Union.

He said closer economic relations (CER) had been a great success, but economics was not everything.

The people of the two countries needed to recognise their "spiritual" ties.

When he flew across the Tasman on Tuesday night, the Qantas pilot announced that he had some "sad news": Team New Zealand's loss in its third race against Alinghi. There was a "sigh of grief" throughout the aircraft.

"As between each other, we are like siblings. We have the fiercest rivalry."

Herald Special Report - February 18, 2003:
Knowledge Wave 2003 - the leadership forum

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