Give Us A Break

I woke up this morning in a really good mood. Not sure why, I just did. It probably helped that it was Friday morning, and I consider Friday the weekend, so naturally I was happy to have arrived at the best part of the week. I forced my eyes open, and as usual reached for my phone to check notifications and have a quick scroll through Facebook. Just the usual. But about two seconds into my scrolling I came across a New Zealand Herald article shared by both the herald page and a Facebook friend of mine (who I have a lot of respect for). It was titled “Why Michael Moore wants nothing to do with NZ” (click here to read it if you haven’t already – you should do this before you keep reading my post). Normally I would have flicked right on past it, but because this friend had shared it I thought it must be worthwhile reading. I was wrong.

For anyone not interested in reading the article (fair call) I’ll break it down – this NZ Herald contributor (Karl Puschmann) is reviewing Michael Moore’s movie about how he goes to Europe to look at some of their best policies and find out what the US can learn from other nations. Puschmann talks about a few of Moore’s discoveries and then goes on to essentially slag off NZ’s policies and have a bit of a sulk because he doesn’t think Moore would ever want to “invade” NZ in that sense.

This was Puschmann’s opinion, and he is very entitled to it, just like I’m entitled to mine right now. Before I continue I just want to point out a couple of things. Firstly, I’m not typically the sort of person that responds to things like this (so I clearly have too much spare time at the moment). If I have an opinion on something I’ll most likely just discuss it with friends and/or family and be done with it. Except for this one time I had one too many glasses of wine and commented on a particular media outlet’s Facebook post that was sharing an article I didn’t agree with. My friends have never let me forget it. Secondly, this article (and movie) is based on politics – something that I will happily admit is not my strength, and in fact I know very little about (probably something I should work on). I’m no expert and I’m not claiming to be, just for the record. And quite frankly, I get sick of hearing so much about it.

So ever since I read this article sometime before 7am, I’ve been seething. How dare this journalist essentially say that NZ has nothing to offer? He lists a few great things some European countries have, including free university education, five months maternity pay, and compulsory bonuses every Christmas. Then he lists some positives we have/had before going on to say that we had a slice of paradise (note the past tense), listing some of the more negative issues in the country and saying it’s "a never-ending misery”. If NZ is being described as miserable, then how does one describe Syria? In a world where there are literally millions of refugees risking their lives in the hope of entering a better, safer country, risking all they have, can he really say our country has “turned to shit”?

The truth is, this article is actually just the tip of the iceberg for me. I’ve noticed an increasing level of negative media coverage towards NZ provided by our own media. Actually, I don’t think I’ve seen any overseas publications speak negatively about NZ, except for maybe a few articles around Rugby World Cup time. Our own people are writing articles or sharing thoughts about how much they dislike their home country. Personally, I think everyone needs to listen to Six60’s “Don’t Forget Your Roots”, take a good look in the mirror and remind themselves of the bigger picture. You may be thinking, “well what right does she have to have an opinion like this, she’s not even living in NZ”. And I can’t deny that. But I didn’t leave NZ because I didn’t like the place and I don’t intend on being away forever. In fact, I think getting away from home and to the other side of the world has made me appreciate our slice of paradise (yes, paradise) in the bottom corner of the world that much more. And, just so you know, I’ve been doing my bit for tourism NZ since I’ve been overseas. This mostly consists of telling people who say they’ve always wanted to visit Australia to bypass our Aussie neighbours and head to the land of the long white cloud, because everything in Australia wants to kill you and nothing in NZ does.

After reading the article by Puschmann, and learning how wonderful these policies are in countries like Finland, Iceland, Italy, Slovenia and Germany (to be fair, they are excellent policies, although I’m sure natives of even these countries have the odd complaint), I decided to do a little research. What I discovered is that while we may not provide three course lunches to every school kid like France supposedly does, NZ is the eighth happiest country in the world (beaten by only two of the aforementioned European countries) and the fourth safest country (beaten only by Iceland). Now I don’t know about you (or Mr. Puschmann) but those statistics make me pretty proud to say I come from NZ.

I’m not saying that our country is perfect – of course we have our issues, some of which are more upsetting than others, and we certainly shouldn’t brush them under the carpet or turn a blind eye. But the point I am trying to make here is that all too often we only hear about these negative aspects. What if we celebrated the positives of our small yet mighty nation a little more often? Would it be so bad to have more media coverage of your everyday NZers doing good in the community, or celebrate the things that make us one of the more forward thinking nations on the planet? Perhaps it might inspire a bit of change, in turn combatting some of the more serious issues. Remember that time we were the first country in the world to have women occupy all of the highest offices (Sovereign, Prime Minister, Governor-General, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Chief of Justice)? Has everyone forgotten that we were the first in Oceania, fourth in the Southern Hemisphere and fifteenth country in the world to legalise marriage equality? I know house prices in Auckland suck, and there’s definitely too many people not living under a roof currently, but we have this thing called Kiwi Ingenuity, so maybe a few more of us need to use it?

Kiwis are typically known as humble, modest people, but in my sixteen months in the Northern Hemisphere I’ve never heard anyone call us negative, or have a bad word to say about us actually. So why do we do it to ourselves?

I think, to be fair, generally these days the media (including social media) has a negative undertone to it. I’m a fierce optimist (except for during the occasional hangover), and so I struggle to deal with the pessimism I see online and in the news on a daily basis. I’m not naïve enough to think that the world is all rainbows and unicorns, but I guess I have enough faith in humanity to believe that (without ignoring the pain, suffering and hurt many of our own race and the rest of the animal kingdom face) we could introduce a little more positivity and enthusiasm into this world.

With that, I have decided that there are two options for all of those people who are whinging about whatever their current chosen issue or gripe is with NZ: you can leave, and move to another country that you believe is “better” where you’ll either be glad you left, or realise what you took for granted; or you can get up, pull on your red-bands or steel toes, roll your sleeves up and try and help to solve one of these problems instead of spending your spare time complaining about it. By saying this, I’ve kind of thrown myself to the wolves a bit here, so because my issue is Kiwis being far too negative towards our country, I’m planning to write a post in the coming week detailing all the wonderful things about my beloved country and what it has to offer. It won’t result in anyone being able to buy a house in Auckland for less than $1 million and it certainly won’t magic up some lunch for those poor kids that I read about going without, but perhaps it will remind us why we love this country and inspire us to continue to improve.

I think I’m about done, so I’m going to finish here and go and figure out how I can watch the All Blacks play Wales tomorrow morning.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." - Martin Luther King Jr.

That’s all for now,

Jordyn x