[Trigger warning: the photos of Alyan Kurdi’s body and Laith Majid with his children are in this blog]
This is not a blog about Alyan Kurdi.
But it is a blog about who we allow to speak to us about Alyan Kurdi.
The public outpouring of grief and the demand for change in the pathetic refugee intake here in Aotearoa New Zealand was the subject of commentary in all of our major newspapers and channels over the past five days.
Some of those commentators have done an outstanding job of expressing our pain and our hopelessness in text. This is not a blog about those commentators, though I want to express my thanks to Heather du Plessis-Allan, Duncan Garner, Andrea Vance and actionstation.org.nz in particular for their considered responses.
This is a blog about the monsters that reside amongst us. The monsters that we consistently allow on our screens and in our newspapers to make us less than we are: less compassionate; less human; less whole. The monsters who have a seat at the table because we have placed objectivity and rationalism on God’s throne.
With Cameron Slater a joke now – the physical manifestation of Judith Collin’s soul of darkness – it has been up to Matthew Hooton and Claire Robinson to take the role of shock troops for the dead eyed heartlessness of people who claim they have mandate to speak for us, first of whom is John Key. On New Zealand Q and A, long tirades by Hooton and Robinson are best exemplified by two quotes:
The temerity of Hooton and Robinson to talk about the death of Alyan Kurdi and the grief of his father as political leverage. The temerity of Hooton and Robinson to talk about the death of over 2,000 refugees on their way to Europe, the abuse and rape of refugees, and the disturbing images of trains of refugees being unloaded at camps in Hungary as practically difficult to resolve. The commentary of Hooton and Robinson is monstrous. Yet we allow them to speak to and for us time and again.
If we spend enough time listening to monsters, we become monsters ourselves.
John Key and his government’s inaction is not a considered response to a difficult situation. It is a window into the shriveled, hateful spirit that rules our Cabinet. Key has spoken with exactly the same level of interest on the refugee crisis in Europe as he has on the flag and on the health and safety legislation. He has shown some emotion and passion this week: when he was at the announcement of the All Black World Cup squad. Effusive, interested, reflective: about a fucking rugby team.
If we spend enough time bowing to monsters, we become monsters ourselves.
So here are those images again. Remember why you responded this week. Remember what you felt. Remember why you have offered a bed in your house if a refugee could somehow find a way here. It was because this boy reminds me of my son, and this father is overwhelmed with a grief for his childrens’ future that no person deserves.
Our response to the suffering didn’t start with the body of Alyan Kurdi. People of conscience have been arguing to raise our refugee quota for years. I first heard the arguments for it over a decade ago. Aotearoa New Zealand is an island, not a fortress. What happens to refugees in the Middle East, in Europe, in Australia will impact on us. We live with a glut of space and resources that we need to make available to our brothers and sisters in need.
But Key’s government and supporters want to hoard that resource for themselves. They want to “protect our way of life.” They are living a lie; our way of live is unsustainable because it is unattainable on a finite planet. You’d need multiple planets for everyone to live like we do. We cannot have this way of life and save our soul. We need to give of ourselves for those in suffering, or I assure you that in the end, their suffering will lead to others coming to take it for themselves.
If we spend enough time allowing monsters to scare others off, we become monsters ourselves.
This is the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. Aotearoa New Zealand opened its doors then to the refugees of Europe and changed the face of a nation for the better. We need to do the same today, certainly for the desperate needs of the people flooding into Europe, but also to affirm our own humanity. There are a number of things we can do (all the links are in this article): sign this petition and other petitions; donate; become a member of a grassroots group; volunteer; and buy specific items.
This is not a blog about Alyan Kurdi.
This is a blog about the soul of our country. If we have enthroned rationalism and objectivity, where has the greater part of our humanity gone? In his outstanding and significant short story, Nietzsche’s erstwhile madman proclaimed that we have killed God. This week we found His body, we found our humanity washed up on a beach in Europe.
Graham Bidois Cameron is of Ngāti Ranginui, Te Arawa and Ngāti Hinerangi descent. He has worked and volunteered in community development for 15 years, and lives in Tauranga Moana. He is completing his Masters of Theology with Otago University.
Kia ora Graham.
Over the last several months, since the election in fact, much has been written about ‘what New Zealanders have become’, often based on the idea that this is proven because the National party was returned to power by voters in spite of the corrupt behaviour that had been unearthed about them.
In the complete absence of any proof, prominent bloggers refuse to consider electoral fraud as a possibility,almost laughable in the light of all the other fraud the government has been found to be involved in.
‘New Zealanders have all become selfish, etc, etc …’ I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now. At last, in the international civilian response (note that, CIVILIAN, ordinary people ) we have firm evidence of how people really feel, what they would do if they could, and what many of them are already succeeding in doing either in the absence of or in spite of their governments.
I have waited for days for a blogging pundit to tell us that the carefully spun idea of how apathetic we have all become was a set of lies all along. That our mistake has instead been for years to expect our government to behave like one, to govern for all of us which is what state machinery is supposedly for, instead of governing for the rich monsters who have bought them out.
Government by community is the way forward. The bilious utterances by Hooton and other 1% mouthpieces will not be in vain if it causes us to realise that we ourselves are the real government and that for a time the cockroaches in power may continue to swarm around us as we clean them out and get on with the real work and responsibility of being our own government, at local community level.
Child poverty any one? Bashing poor beneficiaries while the rich ones benefit as never before from a market that was never free nor intended to be, handed to them via TPP, lying banksters and other means?
The refugees overseas are a warning to us of what we will become, what we are being turned into in our own country though a systematic programme covered (these days ever more thinly) with systematic lies. They are not our enemies – there would be plenty to go round if the 1% had not amassed so much of it.
When obscene wealth is seen as exactly that, something not to be flaunted or admired but deplored and despised, we will be well on the way to waking up.
“In the complete absence of any proof, prominent bloggers refuse to consider electoral fraud as a possibility,almost laughable in the light of all the other fraud the government has been found to be involved in.” George, can you explain the mechanism/s by which electoral fraud would have been committed? As someone who spent election day and night as a scrutineer at a polling booth, and can vouch for the accuracy of the vote counts returned for that particular booth, I’m interested to know how and where the fraud occurred.
Totally agree with
‘New Zealanders have all become selfish, etc, etc …’ I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now.
It is a discourse to try to disempower the good Kiwi people out there of which there are many.
“He has shown some emotion and passion this week: when he was at the announcement of the All Black World Cup squad. Effusive, interested, reflective: about a fucking rugby team.”
Key is a brand, nothing more nothing less. Sadly some like a brand. Let us hope this brand dies down quickly.
These peopple do not share the values of true New Zealanders. Shame shame shame on them!!
As a father of a 4.5 yr old the picture of Alyan Kurdi tore my heartstrings. And to hear that Fucking Alcoholic Drunk making almost fun of it makes me want to hunt this particular drunk down and give him some fatherly advice.
1 Stop Drinking.
2 Keep away from any media, as you are making a fool of your self.
3 Remember your 10 steps.
As for Claire Robinson Just another RWNJ spewing hate all over the TV. This is not a good look. Remember what goes around, always comes back to kick you in the Arse.
Hooten should stop judging others by his own standards. Just because he would leverage a situation like this for political advantage (or more accurately he would get someone else to do it for him so thy got the flack) doesn’t mean to say everyone else would.
Mathew are you listening? The rest of us aren’t like you.
I was pretty shocked when I heard Hooten on Q&A accuse the Greens and Labour of leveraging the death of a child. How far away from humanity has he travelled?
He’s right though, they are. Because the public doesn’t much care about 100,000 dead Syrians until they get the right photo of just one.
This recent response has shown how shallow so many people are.
Labour and the Greens were calling for an emergency intake of Syrian refugees before that photo was released. In fact, what you really saw was the media sitting up and taking notice once there was a pic that they couldn’t ignore.
Should we really be calling Hooten a monster though just for stating the truth, even if its an admittedly narrow part of it?
He IS a monster. A sociopathic uninformed well connected out of touch mongrel! Got it?
Yes and on top of that he is a fascist hyena
See Getting On above.
Labour and the Greens were calling for an emergency intake of Syrian refugees before that photo was released.
Correct. In fact they have been calling for an increase in the numbers of refugees we take on an annual basis for a long time!
Nope I think is has shown that the MSM do not cover news anymore. It is all about today’s selection from Granddaddy H.
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It is supremely easy to point a finger at a human disaster occurring thousands of kilometres away and smugly accuse the victims of “choosing” to put themselves in danger.
To my knowledge, no sane person would ever willingly put their family in peril unless it was forced on them by the most desperate circumstances.
I hope Hooton and Robinson one day are put in such a circumstance and then they will find out the truth.
I’m happy to have someone learning English while they stay at my house. In fact I’m trying to find out more to try and make it happen.
As for the politics of it all. The hooten and whalefat and the key and crew are making a fucking joke of our country. We need to take it back, jail anyone in politics that is doing illegal. And I mean real jail time. Sheepgate. Ten years jail for all involved. Dirty politics. Ten years jail for ALL involved.
We need to stop these people running roughshod over us. Make them realize they are OUR employees and as such either do the job or your out. Do illegal and you do jail.
The only times I ever disagree with you I when I read liberal and poorly informed ideas which quickly brand any reservations about Islam as ‘Islamphobic’. Hirsi Ali is my heroine, with a death threat on her for speaking out against Islam and its treatment of women. It is not a phobia if it is a rational fear. Accept refugees certainly, but keep our eyes open. Spend time in the middle East like I did and then tell me the hijab is a ‘woman’s choice’. Google Hirsi Ali.
Bravo, Maggie
Bravo twice.
@ Maggie . You’re an idiot . Worse still, you say you lived in the Middle East. ( By the way, get to Palestine did you? )
You say you lived in the Middle East ( And can no doubt prove that ) yet you came home as dumb as when you went there.
You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about and that’s proven by the idiotic statements made by the other, self affirming idiots you attract. If there’s one thing worse than spreading extreme fundamentalism it’s spreading extreme stupidity. Now, go off and learn about Middle East politics so as you don’t have to make room for your other foot in your mouth. Xxx Love you.
Oh dear instead of responding rationally you resort to name calling. You have lost the argument.
Spend time in the middle East like I did and then tell me the hijab is a ‘woman’s choice’.
The hijab is not your choice Maggie.
Rodney Hide being interviewed on Radio live today claimed that we are being played. The fact that Alyan Kurdi’s father was returning to Syria to bury him was proof, according to Hide, that everything was fine there.
Yeah, everything in Syria is hunky-dory. The last four years have not been a bloody civil war at all. No millions of refugees. No chemical warfare. No barrel bombs. Just our imaginations…
Incredible.
@ Pat O’Dea
Jesus man. I wouldn’t go around telling people you actually listen to rodney hide . Oh my God, how embarrassing ?
I used to be proud of being a New Zealander abroad. It used to engender a degree of pride and respect. Now, I don’t mention the fact – it’s become a fucking embarrassment among people with half a brain cell – NZ – just like all the other amoral, greedy, worthless “western” countries!
I have no problems mentioning it, but I just point out that I don’t agree with a lot that the NZ government is doing. Not going ask anyone to be thankful we got the lesser evil aka John Key rather than Tony Abbott. But I agree with you, in the sense I have given up on NZ politics, and don’t have enthusiasm for any NZ politicians. I don’t believe NZ has a future. Behind closed doors the 1% is laughing at New Zealand, as a colonial outpost full of sheeple that they can cream for profits with impunity.
Rodney assumes everyone else has his own moral standards. Fortunately we don’t.
The latest claims are that Alyan’s father was returning to Syria to attend a family funeral. The reality is that every day brings new and varying revelations about this young boy, and it is becoming increasingly obvious his death is being tragically ‘pimped’ by advocates of a more liberal approach to refugee entry into NZ.
Hooten knows everything is political.
The worst thing about Hooten isn’t the person, it’s that Radio NZ give him a voice.
There’ll always be Hootens, just like there’ll always be genital warts. No need to spread ’em on purpose tho
Yes I am convinced we should increase our refugee intake and fully support Mr Peters’ solution.
Hooten and Key are two peas from the same pod.
Key is only interested in the All Blacks and his stupid flag!!!
Winston appears to be the only politican with some common sense, this Key is a twit whose key obsessions are the Flag and the friggen All Blacks who are bunch of overpaid jerks.
Depends on your version of ‘common sense’.
Just 2 years ago Winston’s party was pushing for NZ to build detention centres for refugees: http://nzfirst.org.nz/speech/immigration-amendment-bill-third-reading
I’m no fan of Winston and NZ First. My friends dislike what he stands for too.
It is not only persons like Hooton and Robinson we should be worried about, I have come across so much indifference, cynicism and hardheartedness among many here in Auckland over recent years, and for the rest mostly shallowness and evasiveness, I have given up much hope for this society as a whole.
When a voting majority votes in this kind of government that we have, three times, based on “performance” that only benefits the home owners whose values go up due to shortage of supply, due to local and overseas buying and speculating, and when they vote in such a lot delivering nothing but an earthquake rebuild and brief dairy commodity export boom for “growth, then I despair.
Where is the “moral majority” that stands up for anything these days, against injustice even within their own society? Where is the vocal crowd that stands up for human rights, and that takes a stand for the rights of the persecuted internationally, where are those marching in the street against war and terror, against selling this country and its values out? I see and hear almost nobody, apart from a known minority that cares.
This is a country and society that should in their majority hang their heads in shame, I reckon.
NZ has been asset stripped by the Tories, now we are selling off what is left to Bolger’s Asian brothers. Bolger was the one that started the Asian immigration stating we were part of Asia, I haven’t seen much benefit to the average Kiwi or Maori for that matter.
All I have witnessed is the rich getting richer and real estate going through the roof, so much for young New Zealanders buying a house.
Is rampant Asian immigration really good for NZ?
National’s borrowing is now at $105 Billion and English still has not produced a surplus.
Solution more Asset Sales ie State Houses to finance the interest on National’s debt while he sells off State Assets at discount prices to his Tory colleagues.
This should be a blog on the failure of media to address all aspects of a story. Your first line “who we allow to speak” astounds me. There’s the trouble, right there.
You ask ” Is Matthew Hooton a monster? ”
I believe; Yes, yes he is .
Hooton is a manipulator, a propagandist, a gamer – in respectable parlance, he’s a PR and political consultant.
Hooton sees a game board on which there are pieces, scores, collateral and there are strategies and tactics.
A story, an image, a soundbite, a graph, a meme, a conversation, an editorial, a blog post, a comment, men, the FTSE, women, GDP, children, dog whistles, explosions, demonstrations, riots, milk-solids prices, bird flu, nanotechnology are simply artifacts that impinge on the game. Each has a value, an influence, and especially utility if applied well.
Compassion is not a useful attribute, it interferes with clarity and focus.
He has shown remarkable consistency over the years and I expect that he serves his customers well.
@graham..
could you tell me why you felt the need to again publish an image that is already seared into our consciousness..?
..how in any way is that publication integral to the story you are telling..i.e..about hooton..?
..i railed at tvnz for showing the image way past its’ use-bye date..a serious ‘ew!’..for a gratuitous use of that tragic-outcome..
..to my mind you stand in that same dock..
..and i ask again..’why?’..
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