Poet, performer, writer, and teacher Tusiata Avia MNZM has won numerous awards, including a 2023 Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement, and performed around the world.
What do I wish for New Zealand in 2024?
For a start
we’d all stand up, outside Starbucks and Maccas and Burger King and Pizza Hut and Dominoes
and all those other companies
we’d rain down on them like bombs out of the sky
we’d shred them like shrapnel that shears the little limbs off the babies in Gaza.
And then
we’d wrap ourselves in Te Tiriti
we’d tattoo ourselves with the word our government is taking away.
Principles.
we’d all walk around with
principles on our faces
principles on our chests
principles on our backs
principles on our arms
principles on our legs
all 5 million of us, so that word could not be taken away.
And then
we’d all write poems about racism
we’d write songs or jokes or graffiti or comic strips or shopping lists about racism
and someone would make them into earrings or hoodies or bike helmets or umbrellas
we’d wear those words for everyone to read
and we’d get in trouble for telling the truth about racism
all 5 million of us.
And then
our government could release 5 million press releases
and 5 million Official Information Acts
on 5 million people
for making art.
This is the final in the Listener online’s Hearts and Minds series in which we asked prominent NZers about their aspirations for the country in 2024.