Friday, April 29, 2011

Why is my tv off?

While many of us get on with our routinely cooking tasks, two people will get married. Getting married at half past seven would seem a bit weird here, but thats not the only weird thing going on... The world has succumbed to madness, a third of it, or 2billion people, will be watching two people get married. One could ask how the hell they will all fit into the abbey, well the majority have been given plenty of room in personal couches and enough wine to forget the fact that those getting married are people they've never met nor will do. I have to confess I find it quite tacky. If someone payed for my upbringing, education and salary, I would have the courtesy to invite them to my wedding. Well actually the vast majority of those who care are spending there own money on wine in their own couches- it is a shame they weren't invited. Those who have have had the luck to live the same easy life.
I wasn't invited either I'm not going to lie. I've invested lots in the royal family- mostly unknowingly. It seems I owe them something. My right to live under laws and all that. I think I'm paying them because they are so kind they decided to give me some personal freedoms once. They have the right to do that you see, they aren't your ordinary people- they are special. They are our representatives. I've never met them nor can I ever pick up the phone to talk to them. Every now and then though, when they take a walk they are kind enough to say hello. Not to me but to some mad people who decided to live on the streets for a couple of days just to see what the experience is like. It is hard is all I can tell them. Not that I have. It is good to see people be compassionate though- it is good to see people put themselves in the shoes of the homeless who have to sleep on the floors everyday.
If you don't care too much about this person getting married, you may be arrested for wanting to have some fun- a loud party in central London on a Friday. Whilst most Fridays thsi would be perfectly fine, we must remember it is still daylight and British are all too traditional to be caught drinking before 4.
Too traditional too to get rid of an old piece of furniture that doesn't allow one to open the door fully. This massive object is a nuisance. It is expensive to keep in the room- it costs me too much to keep clean. It doesn't allow me to use my room as I wish and it has been here for bloody 1500 years. Everytime I raise my nose I catch a whiff of it that makes me cough. The thick musty smell looms over my room as I am sitting in this bed. Its dark shape holds so many cracks it can only have a hundred thousand diseases harbouring within it. I look at the computer screen wondering why I still have such a piece of furniture. There is the old there, blocking my door with a thick layer of dust I cannot possibly clean by myself and there is this computer- not too new but it whirrs and whizzes. If only I could use the new to get rid of the old by myself...
If I had a tv, it would probably be behind the big object anyhow so what's the point?

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Anzac: Why do we celebrate death?

Tomorrow we will be again seeing flags raised across New Zealand, bands piping at 7 am and crowds gathering around every cenotaph in the country. This is a commemoration of war, but is war worth remembering? Well of course we are not remembering war, but who we have lost in it. We remember the stupidity of war, we remember that killing people we don't know is irrational when they have done nothing to us. Because they haven't personally, nor has their country. We remember all those who died for somebody else's war, the war of an empire our great-grandfathers may have never seen first hand.
This wasn't the war of our fathers nor our grandfathers, they are now our great-grandfathers, people so distant we can hardly imagine them. They didn't listen to the radio and half of New Zealand was still rural. All their information, all their sense of nationalism was very different to ours. They read newspapers that reported the information a week late and who were they but an amalgamation of Brits and Irish fighting for their livelihoods in a quite unknown climate? They still saw Maori as savages and some even hoped they would go extinct, like a beast...
So why do we remember those we do not know?
I guess I cannot really speak. I come from a nation, Catalonia, that celebrates the defeat to Spain and its empire on September 11th 1714. When the Spanish finished sieging my hometown Lleida in 1708, less than 2000 people were reported still alive. Hitherto Lleida had been an important agricultural centre, the most important city of a trade-route between Catalonia and Aragon and from there Spain, and was the seat of one of Europe's oldest universities, our contributions to the field of medecine are innumerable, in part because Jews and Muslims participated in scholarly life. Spain though destroyed the city and killed the wounded in the hospital of St Mary. All universities in Catalonia were torn down, in Lleida the Queen's castle, where she lived for 200 years was destroyed as well as all the other noble buildings. We went from 300 noble palaces to none, overnight. Saying that the city was destroyed is an understatement, it did not recover until the early 20th century. Spain prohibited the use of the Catalan language too and imposed military rule, further breaking up the territory, half of which had recently been given to France.
Yet we celebrate the loss. We are insistent and we survive, the language is blooming, 10th most important on the internet according to Google, culture re-rooting and we are looking at starting our own path once more. The two previous times we did led to the loss in 1714 and the loss in the civil war in 1939. Looking at 1714 shows the unity of the Catalan people and our tenacity, we never gave up. It is a source of pride.

New Zealand and Anzac could be something similar, in a sense it did unite the country in grief. 95 years since the first service and we still cry. New Zealand though wasn't fighting for itself, it was fighting for an empire that took lots from its colonies but seldom gave back. Moreover, Gallipoli is an example of racism:
My great-grandfather almost fought there. His regiment had been selected to train for it, in Tanganyika and in Gaza. Both of these were a failure, the army was left to jump off boats and sink- the navy did not want to get any closer. It was a failure in logistics repeated in Gallipoli and a success for the Turkish who in some areas were well outnumbered. My great-grandfather though was not allowed to fight because he was in the East Indian regiment. Churchill decided Gallipoli would be for the French and the British to recapture, Europe would be in safe hands once again as the oldest nations tied the continent back together. Because the Indians were not European, they were not allowed to attack, even though they had been preparing for it for the last year.
Anzac is a day of unity, almost every Kiwi has someone who fought in the Great War. New Zealand is a small country yet it committed itself more than anyone else. Gallipoli entitles the kiwi to a sense of pride much like Catalonia's, even though we may be small, we matter. We tread twice as hard to make ourselves heard. This sense of pride can be seen in every town and atop mountains and tomorrow New Zealanders will remember the dead there, but are we celebrating New Zealand or celebrating a bygone empire.

Why don't we celebrate the day New Zealand was discovered? Because it could be offensive to Maori. Why don't we celebrate the day Maori and Pakeha put down their arms after the Maori Wars? Because we slaughtered so many in order to take away their land.
New Zealand's problem is that it has to celebrate a day it truly united and it hasn't got one. Even in WWI many Maori iwi refused to participate. Maori did not see why they should be fighting for an empire that had abandoned them.

I bought a white poppy to show my stance on war: it kills. It doesn't mean I refuse to remember, it means I will not forget war's price. 2271 Kiwis died in Gallipoli, why are we still fighting then? Shouldn't Anzac day symbolise the day we put down arms and war remind us of what we should never do again?

Monday, April 18, 2011

Iwi fights Brazilian oil.

This is the second issue that has been hidden enough: Te Whanau a Apanui in the East Coast are protesting against the inspection of oil on their shore by the Brazilian oil-company Petrobras. Down in Dunedin on Wednesday, there was a protest 'celebrating' the first Birthday of the BP oil-spill in the Gulf of Mexico. We can probably all still remember the images of the platform on fire, the pipe gushing out this brown gulch and the beaches slowly getting covered in black. We can probably still remember the animals filthy with oil too. We do not want this to happen here too do we? This is what the iwi is protesting. At least someone is!
Just off Otago another oil company is inspecting oil too, with the permission to build two wells. The one off Dunedin closer than the deepwater horizon platform was from the US coast.

The Government claims that opening up the oil market in New Zealand- allegedly on one of the biggest oil fields in the world- will be beneficial for the economy. They are not taking into account the millions we will be losing in tourism, or the livelihoods of so many who depend on fishing. These fishers will instead have to work long shifts far from home around carcinogenics on minimum wage. This isn't improving the economy for the many, but for the few. The government has shares invested but we will be the ones doing the voluntary cleanups when the rig explodes. Petrobras, just for your information, is amongst the most unsafe companies in the business and even though New Zealand is earthquake prone and the waters rougher and deeper, they will not be using any new and advanced technology. A disaster seems likely and we are the ones paying for it. I personally don't want to see my taxes go to the death of a dozen yound men and women who have no chance of a better job and I certainly do not want to go out onto the beaches that I can see from my window to clean up a mess I did not want and did not create.

Te Whanau a Apanui isn't too big an iwi, but Greenpeace is backing them and the protesters are facing fines that hit the five digit mark, or jail. For peacefully opposing something they disagree with. 600 people protested up north, around 20 here but we need more. Petrobras is already fearing a public backlash, what are we waiting for? This isn't only protecting the environment, it is for Maori rights and to the benefit of us all.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Take note of what goes on or you'll forget.

We are all forgetful, many of us can hardly remember what we ate for breakfast let alone what was on the news yesterday. That was just yesterday's news, today is today isn't it? Well we can't just move on. What happens today is a direct consequence of what took place yesterday. It affects us greatly, yet we don't really know the world we live in. It is said that with so much information at such small snippets, we only get a superficial scratching of what goes on. It doesn't help that each website is a labyrinth in which to get entertained on the wrong path. How often do you turn on the computer to look something up and realizing 20 minutes later as you're shutting it down that you've forgotten to check what you wanted? I know I'm not the only one out there.
The internet is no less entertainment than Coronation street, in a sense it is our personal street; it is no more information than the BBC wants to give us-  unless we actually go out and look for it. And then, will it be there or deleted from our collective memories altogether?

Did you know that the Government has granted itself wartime-like powers in Canterbury? The parliament has given support to the governments actions in Canterbury, controlling what goes on for the next five years! The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority has been given the power "to get information from any source, to requisition and build on land and to carry out demolitions. It can also take over local authorities if they are not working effectively on recovery work". Yep, it can decide that local councils are powerless and insignificant, take them over and this way take over democratically elected institutions. Excellent! So, no food, no roads and no-one to complain to! It has hardly made a scene in the media. And any it did has been forgotten all too quickly.
It seems Labour and National are just two shades of gray. The fact that we aren't told tells us a lot about New Zealand media. They aren't watchdogs of the public interest  but the lapdogs of a private interest.

This is a part 1 of three, next Oil-protests by iwi and then ACTA.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4890566/All-power-to-Cera-as-bill-passes

http://www.indymedia.org.nz/article/79531/action-against-oil-drilling-intensifies

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/4882838/Law-to-fight-internet-piracy-passed

Not to worry I will write it out.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

The Industry.

I was walking down to uni yesterday when I heard some hits and knocks that disturbed me. I looked over the bushes and I could see one of those cattle-lorries, heavily pushing on the brakes for the lights. The knocks no doubt came from within. No cries though. I looked up at the top of the lorry, I didn't know what it was at first, they were the ears of a cow poking out, its eyes staring at me too.
Cows are meant to move, yes, but by themselves. Instead we transport them crammed, in an uncomfortable truck with a hard cold surface slowly filling with excrements. They cannot move unless they are thrown about by the pull of the brakes, which topple them onto the floor, likely breaking a limb. Before we eat our mince pies tonight, think about it. We are eating a beast exploited, when we cannot allow that to man. A beast malnourished, eating fillers it gains no nutrition from. It is a beast broken, sad, cold and dying even before its dead. The bangs I heard walking down the street are not something we'd wish onto man, yet we are all beasts. A man exploited; malnourished; broken, sad, cold and dying is one worthy of a better life. Not a slash in the throat. We would not want to have our lungs filled up with our own blood and choke while thinking of the pain we have in our legs, broken on a journey we were forced to do, spreading with hypothermia.
Pause before you bite into that pie, I will.