Today I received a copy of Great New Zealand Argument: Ideas about ourselves, which was surprisingly quick. Presumably it was distributed from within the UK somewhere. Edited by Russell Brown, it’ a good looking book; the cover appears as if it might be a picture of Russell and his kid walking down a country road. Well chosen fonts, a good layout and obviously meticulous editing make it easy on the eye too. I only wish I’d been able to get a hardback version as this is a book I’d like to last.
Set to questions such as, “What is special about the character of New Zealand, both the place and its people? How have we changed and what kind of place do we want to become? What are our great national questions?” Great New Zealand Argument is described as bringing “together essays and speeches spanning nearly 70 years, by some of New Zealand’s best writers and opinion leaders. Their work is by turns thoughtful, visionary, provocative and amusing. Much of it is either previously unpublished or long out of print.”
I received it at work and as soon as lunch time arrived I delved into Russell’s intro, which, like much of his writing, manages to hit the sweet spot.
This year, on Public Address, the weblog site where the Great New Zealand Argument project began, I invited our many expatriate readers to comment on the latest round of the “brain drain” debate that has recurred through our national history. The replies came flooding back. They talked about wages, student loads and education. But overwhelmingly, they spoke of the land, sea and sky. It was this that would bring them back — and this that defined them.
One response Russell received was this gem from someone named Darren, who was commenting on his arrival back in NZ after five years in Oz:
On the morning that I returned, I remember driving back from the airport in my brother’s Falcon ute. There was a small patch of moss on the inside corner of the windscreen. There were ferns growing out of the cracks on his driveway. The local indian dairy was selling taro. I don’t think unique is a stong enough word.
It reminded of a time when a friend of mine, Anna Pierard, pulled out a book of New Zealand landscapes and poetry while I was at her place somewhere in Camden, London. I’m a little ashamed to admit that I started crying! Having spent a couple of years or so in the concrete jungle that is London it hadn’t occured to me how powerfully rooted we can be in those islands we call Aotearoa New Zealand.
Russell’s intro includes many quotes from outsiders, including this pearler from French intellectual Andre Siegfried in his 1904 book Democracy in New Zealand:
The colonials, moreover, are generally men of mingled strength and simplicity. Their strength makes them unconcious of obstacles, and they attack the most delicate questions much as one opens a path through a forest with an axe. Their outlook, not too carefully reasoned, and no doubt scornful of scientific thought, makes them incapable of self distrust. Like almost all men of action they have a contempt for theories: yet they are often captured by the first theory that turns up, if it is demonstrated to them with an appearance of logic sufficient to impose upon them. In most cases they do not seem to see difficulties, and they propose simple solutions for the most complex problems with astonishing audacity. At heart they are probably convinced that politics are not as complicated as they have been made out to be, and that a little courage and decision are all that is required to accomplish reforms of which Europe is so afraid.
On the bus ride home I managed to devour most of David Lange’s 1985 speech, Nuclear Weapons are Morally Indefensible. It is an extraordinary speech. I don’t recall ever coming across the words, which were first said on the day of my 9th birthday. I do, however, recall how much Lange was liked for having the balls to join New Zealanders calling for a Nuclear-free New Zealand in the face of U.S. opposition, with such voracity and intelligence.
Russell Brown’s first book gets a thumbs up from me. If someone doesn’t give you this book then go out and find a copy. If you’re not in NZ, you can purchase a copy from this online store. Well done Russell, I’ll leave you the last word:
I hope that this collection will make for a better debate and that it is but the first of its kind. I hope many people will read it and talk about it and that perhaps, in three decades’ time, someone will pluck it down from a high, dusty shelf and find it useful. And not just because in thirty or fifty years we will be grappling with many of the same issues, but because — you would hope — we will still have plenty to talk about.