Friday 23 August 2019

Jacinda's Library

A Long Time Ago, In A Parallel Universe Far, Far Away: The political journalist scratched his head in confusion. Only then did he notice the name of the building: ‘The Jacinda Ardern Presidential Library and Public Resource Centre’. Making his way inside to the information desk, he asked the librarian for an explanation.

SOME COSMOLOGISTS SAY that ours is but one of an infinite number of universes. It’s a wild thought, because, if they exist, this infinity of parallel universes grants us an infinity of parallel lives. Whatever we can imagine ourselves doing has already been done, is happening right now, or will be done at some point in the future, in one of these alternate worlds. In this universe we may be powerless paupers, but elsewhere – in at least one of these parallel universes – we are kings.

How’s that for a comforting thought the next time you’re feeling down?

The idea that there are other worlds, adjacent to this one, is far from new. In the myths and legends of many cultures we find tales of people who left their homes on hum-drum errands, only to encounter mysterious beings who, in the twinkling of an eye, transported them to places of wonder and enchantment. When they return home, time itself seems to have been stretched and twisted. By their reckoning, their absences can only have lasted a few hours, but in the country they left behind, many years have passed. Loved ones have died, or grown old, and our baffled heroes pass, unrecognised, down streets that did not exist when they set out – only a day before.

All very Einsteinian (or should that be Schrodingerian?) but rest easy, there is a purpose to all this esoteric speculation.

Nowhere is the experience of contingency stronger than in the realm of politics. Politicians and political activists may live in this universe, but their heads and hearts are filled with the multiple worlds that could exist – if only the voters; the proletariat; the national community; were courageous enough to bring them into existence.

This multiplicity of possible worlds is often expressed in the musings of what are called “counterfactual” historians. How often have we heard someone pose the question – “What if?”

What if the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s car had turned down another street in Sarajevo – instead of the one where his assassin, Gavrilo Princip, was eating his lunch?

What if JFK had toured Dallas in a standard – instead of an open-topped – presidential limousine?

What if Roger Douglas had been hit by a Wellington trolley-bus on his way to Parliament in 1983?

Whenever questions like these are posed, we sense the presence of alternate pasts: histories of worlds that might have been – but never were.

So now, arriving at the crux of the matter, I intend to pose a question of my own. A question which, simply by being asked, raises before us that shimmering membrane which separates the world as it is, from the world as it might be. A world that, even now, could break through the web of contingency – but only if the leaders of the Labour-NZ First-Green Government can find the courage to change course.

It has been nearly 40 years since the imaginations of New Zealanders hungry for change have been seized so forcefully by an incoming prime minister and government. The last time the thin membrane separating the parallel worlds of political reality and political aspiration shimmered so brightly was in 1972.

The difference between now and then, however, is that Norman Kirk and the Third Labour Government actually attempted that most dangerous of all political manoeuvres: the merging of “what is” with “what could be”. Kirk made a wonderful start, but like so many other political leaders who have attempted the manoeuvre, it proved too much for him. With his death, the two worlds straightaway began to disentangle themselves. On election night 1975, the once bright membrane shimmered faintly – and went dark.

At this point, I feel duty-bound to explain the enormous difference between attempting to bring into being that which has never before existed – which his immensely difficult – and allowing the ideas and practices of the past to break through into the present.

The relative ease with which this can be accomplished was demonstrated by the prime ministers and governments that followed Kirk’s. Political and economic concepts that many believed dead and buried passed effortlessly from the world of “what was” and into the world of “what is”. Once inside this world, the world of the present, these ghost concepts began to transform it. More rapidly than many believed possible “now” began to look like “then”. Mass unemployment returned. Inequality grew by leaps and bounds. Homelessness became commonplace. The streets filled with beggars. New Zealand soldiers went off to fight in other people’s wars.

The ghosts of the past are easily summoned. The angels of the future require considerably more persuasion.

What then should Jacinda and her government do?

I will answer that question with a story.

It concerns a political journalist who, in fulfilling some hum-drum errand, found himself in the company of a mysterious band of revellers who insisted that he accompany them to a marvellous party.

He awoke the next morning in a deserted mansion shaded by tall macrocarpa trees and enclosed by a tumble-down and ivy-covered wall. Pushing open the rusted front gates, he stumbled into the streets of a city that seemed greatly changed.

What has become of all the cars? He wondered. And why is the Tino Rangatiratanga flag flying above the library?

When he put these questions to a passer-by, the person looked at him strangely.

“That the flag of the Aotearoan Republic, stranger, and has been these last 25 years.”

The journalist scratched his head in confusion. Only then did he notice the name of the building: ‘The Jacinda Ardern Presidential Library and Public Resource Centre’. Making his way inside to the information desk, he asked the librarian for an explanation.

“It’s named after the Prime Minister who ushered-in the Republic back in 2022 – after the uprising.”

“Uprising? What uprising?”

The librarian shook his head in disbelief.

“What uprising? Where have you been for the past quarter-century? When Jacinda and her coalition introduced what was soon being called “The Rollback”, the neoliberals did everything they could to prevent it from happening. When a crazed junior staffer from the Treasury attempted to assassinate the Prime Minister in the Beehive Theatrette, hundreds of thousands turned out to demand the passage of her government’s reforms. The protesters, led by rangatahi, stormed Parliament and proclaimed the Bi-Cultural Republic of Aotearoa. With the neoliberals ousted, and Jacinda elected President, the real changes began. Aotearoa rapidly became a beacon for equality, freedom and ecological wisdom across the whole world.”

“And Simon Bridges?”, asked the journalist, hardly able to believe what he was hearing.

“Bridges! That rogue! Hah! He fled to Australia – still there as far as I know.”

“And Jacinda? Is she still alive?”

“Still alive! Where have you been! Jacinda Ardern is Secretary-General of the United Nations!”

Wide-eyed, the journalist, had only one more question.

“So, who’s running the country now?”

“Why, President Swarbrick, of course. She’s halfway through her second term. In two years’ time, the presidency will pass back to the Tangata Whenua. Most people are picking Pania Newton to succeed Chloe.”

The journalist, thanked the librarian and, plucking a free map of the city from the counter, headed off in what had, only the day before, been the direction of his home.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 23 August 2019.

19 comments:

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"What if JFK had toured Dallas in a standard – instead of an open-topped – presidential limousine?"
Sorry to pick nits here, but no way is that going to happen. Going from place to place in a standard limousine yes, touring and waving to people – no.

I have just been reading the Labour Party report on the future of work for a Massey paper I'm doing this year. It sounds pretty good if a little vague. And it's not rolling anything back. But it does suggest it's trying to find some way of getting justice for workers, in a society that is increasingly unequal, increasingly precarious, and increasingly automated.
An automation now is not only moving into low pay low skilled jobs but set to hollow out the middle class. Because AI can pretty much automate anything as long as it's routine. That is a fair bit of debate about whether this will get rid of jobs or create jobs, but judging by the way the middle class has become hollowed out in the US, they might well be about to experience precariousness themselves. And then we might get some action, although more likely from the extreme right than the extreme left it seems to me. Which brings me to your somewhat enigmatic post Chris – I suspect we won't get a People's Republic so much as a Grosse Deutschland, or an Italia Irredenta. Because we all know that middle-class people don't handle poverty nearly as well as lower class people, and is pretty damn dangerous to frustrate them.
I'm also a little cynical about the report as well. Because I remember Roger Douglas promising us a high skill/high wage economy. Where we added value to staff instead of exporting raw materials. Still waiting for that.
And it seems to me that the strictures from the right about "flexibility" "efficiency" and "what we can afford to pay" have more effect on political parties these days than justice and equity.

Kat said...

Ukulele Ike of Disney fame wrote the background lyrics to thees latest musings of CT's.

"When a star is born
They possess a gift or two
One of them is this
They have the power to make a wish come true
When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires will come to you
If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do
Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of their secret longing
Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true
When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires will come to you
If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do
Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of their secret longing
Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true.............."

Pdogge said...

Love it, brilliant Chris.....

peteswriteplace said...

Imagination Chris, imagination. A lack of intestinal fortitude would stop that scenario. Those with the potential are aging like me, or have already passed on.

Jens Meder said...

But the Republic of Aotearoa, no matter under under what ideological, religious or cultural name or variety -
is on the material - i.e. the economic - level still subject to the laws of physics, which cannot be altered by ideology nor legislation, and these are:
1. Since life cannot exist without energy consumption, there must always be a profit or accumulated reserves available to overcome any deficits in the efforts of energy fuel produced or acquired over the energy consumed on that effort.

2.In other - does that not mean, that not only prosperity, but even basic survival on the individual and social levels depends on profitable capitalism - and that without profitable capitalism there is no survival at the level of life requiring the consumption of energy for its sustainability ?

Geoff Fischer said...

Kia ora Chris
Since you have re-posted this TDB article on Bowalley Road, I trust that you will be content for me to re-post my TDB comment in response:
Normally I would not comment on this sort of speculation, but I have just come home from Ihumaatao where young men and women, mothers and children have been braving the elements, literally walking through the storm for the sake of our country and a future for all our people.
The protectors of Ihumaatao asked Jacinda Ardern to visit the whenua and the kaitiaki. Your land and my land, my people and your people.
Jacinda would not.
So be it. If the mountain will not go to Muhammed, Muhammed must go to the mountain.
The people, rangatahi, kaumatua and young whaea carrying their tamariki in their arms walked twenty kilometres through a sometimes howling gale to Jacinda Ardern’s office all the while singing himene and waiata.
They arrived at a locked door.
Jacinda was not there to greet them.
A gratuitous insult from the head of the colonial government to the bravest, most noble cohort of our people.
Jacinda has used this raruraru to divide the races.
First she said it is for Maori to resolve with Maori, implying that the promotion of justice is no responsibility of the Crown and should be of no interest to Pakeha, and hoping that those Maori who chose to pragmatically collaborate with Fletcher Residential and the Crown would prevail over those who choose freedom and dignity.
Regardless of which view prevails, it is clear that she desires Maori to fight alone.
Then, in an act of shameless and shocking political cynicism the colonial regime recruited a force of newly arrived Indian migrants to stand between our people and their land.
Jacinda now says she will not visit Ihumaatao until Fletchers and the tangata whenua have settled the dispute themselves.
The implication is that she will visit Ihumaatao only when our people have been defeated by the force of British arms.
May God forbid that she lives to triumphantly survey the land at Ihumaatao upon which and for which we died.
But if she does, how will it help her soul? There will be no memorial for her, Chris. She will be forgotten. In an ironic turn of fate, no one will utter her name.
In 1863 the British Crown evicted our people from their land at Ihumaatao, after they refused a government order to swear allegiance to the British queen. The land was seized and we were defeated, but we did not submit, and we will never submit.
For the sake of peace, the Crown could buy the land from Fletchers designate it as a reserve and keep it as a tohu to signify that the Crown will never again seek political submission through the use of force.
For the sake of peace, I offer my entire personal wealth to Fletchers if in that way the land may be protected in perpetuity as a memorial to our struggle for freedom and a place for our mokopuna to play.
But if the Crown and Fletchers do not choose the way of peace, then I will give my life so that our God Ihoa o nga mano may once again hear our blood calling up from the ground.

Kat said...

@Geoff Fischer
You obviously have no clue as to the background input of the PM that has every chance to securing a positive outcome to this issue, for all. Hopefully you live long enough to eat the words you have written here.

pat said...

And the population of this 2050s republic?

sumsuch said...

Sweetly worded column. Given their lack of knowing-what-to-do can't see why you'd not assume they can be persuaded. But generally we must assume adulthood in adults. Childish, appealing to Authority to change its point of view by appeal to reason.

Roger Douglas being squashed in 1983? I think you'd legitimately call that an inconsequential inconsequence. A pivot so wooden peg has never been known. The prior generation of Labour politicians by ten years let us down. Knowledge but not energy. A low point. Medals and more to Brian Easton and W.P. Reeves and my garden centre employer etc. All the social democrats who loved then and love now our best self. Not least yourself.

Geoff Fischer said...

Kat:
If you have knowledge of "the background input of the PM that has every chance to securing a positive outcome to this issue" then please let us also know.
If not, your comment contributes nothing to the discussion.

Anonymous said...

The 1946-49 Labour Government and its scrape in follow on of 1957-1960 were too unfortunately move New Zealand significantly to the left and rather embedded New Zeaaland as some sort of socialist nation, immediately in terms of the expansion of the import iicensing industries by the return of the domainance of Sutch, Lewin and Holloway in 57-60 which established a lot of rather unneccesary industry and unfullfilling employment at low pay in Auckland, Wellington and Nelson and also distorted the transport system to carry it and even more significantly established educational principles which in the long terms, twenty years later resulted in an equalist education system of medicocre quality, syllabus and assessement.
The bext one term Labour Governmnet from 1972-5 was much less sensational and immagined and achieved little but major debt without the exciitng foreign policy social and economic developments of the Whitlam government which like the NZ Lange government went in two radically different directions - to the free market in ecomomic principles but the left in educational, housing and sexual policies. The whitlam govenment far overshadowed the Kirk governments foreign polciy initiatives and Whitlam was eventually desposed by the GG ( Kerrs kerr) after have named three majaor CIA executives in Australian and having obtained thefull list of CIA agents in Australia from MOD and Minstry of Foregin Affairs in Canberra and announcing he would release them gradually due to the election campaign. This was interpreted by both the Australian armed forces and the Nixon administration and all the US intelligence services as dome sort of defection by a major and essential ally to neutrality or worse and inevtiablity led to the GG to do his thing on fairly specfic instruction from second level CIA officials in Washingotn and the Pentagon. Kirks largerly unnoticed foreign policy initiatives were rather overshadowed by this and to the Americans the Kirk/ Bob Harvey cavalcade through the USA was mainly a chance to give the fingers to the Whitlam government, with the USA actually refusing a visa to the Australian deputy PM. While Kirk did send, Fraser Colman to Muroroa on the HMNZS Otago the fact it was accompanied by an Australian Navy tanker was probably more noted in Washington and Paris particularly as FRance was only testubg triggers of low kilotonnage by then and Wellington not bothered to make a naval protest in 1967 and 1968 when the French supported by half their Navy around the test area tested mega weapons of a thousand times the strength- we fortuantely didnt bother seeing the radiation seems to have significantly linked thru the supposedly secure nuclear citidel within Otago and HMS Canterbury or alternatively the full potentiallys sealed off area was not utilised for logn enough the later Leander frightates being designed in areas of nuclear fallowut with the engine room remotely operated for significant periods. Also New Zeaalnd has sold its supposedly wortheless Canberras in 1970 to the Indian Air Force in which was about to unleash its large Canbera force against Pakistan in an all out war that could have gone nuclear in 1971. Kirk and his governments initiatives in this areas were really much more inspired by the diplomats and bureacrats in foreign affairs than Kirks over inner circle and in reality the 1972-75 Labour Government was almost as much dominated by Roger Douglas as Langes 1974-9 government with Douglas progressively gaining control of most signficant areas of government in 1973- 74 Braodcasting, supernatuation, transport and railways ete, etc and in many ways he was the real finance minister even then rather than Tizard. I did my Masters Political thesis in Transpor policy making in this period (Universtiy of Canterbury 80-81- awarded 82) and one of the things that emerged was that Roger was gradually gaining control over everything which in many transport areas meant big spending iniatives were stalemated- nb ree Auckland rapid rail and NZR requipment

Charles E said...

But you forgot the Gulag and then gas chambers that would surely follow this appalling communist revolution nightmare Chris.
And Geoff ( … our people and their land …) what about yours and your 'peoples' colonial ancestors and their other descendants not blessed with a trace of Maori blood? Or were they sub-human and their descendants are now destined for Chris' Gulag or worse?
Those people on that land are imposters now, as far as having any right to it. They are colonisers themselves. They are not simply a few of their ancestors risen from the dead. Your one eyed racially supremist view of the world is ludicrous and incredibly dangerous.
Both of you are seriously deluded about group identity actually being a real thing. It is not, as identity comes from the 'other' so is purely tribally created for dehumanising those you wish to spit on. In the real world there are only individuals, equal in nature, in law and before God. You should have not read Marx. He was wrong, and fatal.
Your pushing of identity politics only emboldens the other side of a poisonous coin you know. It happened before earlier last century and your ilk seems to want it back again.
However, happily the fact does remain that only a tiny bitter resentful minority think like you guys. The vast majority of Kiwis with Maori ancestors have no time for these divisive hate filled ideas and would be fully on side with the huge very stable majority, to preserve our egalitarian democracy.
So by all means continue your fantasies. It's as entertaining and barmy as Trump.
Actually I have one too. Let us, we the South Island, the original land of Maori and now a peaceful, very successful bicultural nation in its own right, sell the North Island to Trump. Problem solved.

Kat said...

@Geoff Fischer
Yes I do have knowledge of the background input of the PM and that it has every chance of securing a positive outcome to the Ihumaatao issue. If you are asking me for the minutiae of my knowledge then best you do some due diligence and open your eyes and ears as to what the PM and her ministers have been saying publicly and in parliament.
In the mean time think twice before throwing mud at the PM.

Geoff Fischer said...

Kia ora Charles
When I wrote "… our people and their land …" I cannot imagine what made you think I was talking about Maori in particular, and not Pakeha and all other people who inhabit this land. Because my meaning was inclusive, and whenever I use those terms you may assume that I am using them inclusively, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.
I suggest that you are the one here who has difficulty in dealing with Ihumaatao as a political, environmental and social rather than racial issue. If you want to play a constructive role please keep race out of the debate.

Brigid said...

@Kat
Is this what you are referring to as the PM's 'background input'?
When asked for details of the Governments involvement in the issue,she said the Government would undermine and destabilise the talks by discussing them publicly.

"I am not going to undermine the discussions that are currently taking place between Kīngitanga and mana whenua," she replied.

"They are seeking a by-Māori-for-Māori solution and I am going to respect that process and allow that to occur."
This land was stolen, appropriated, confiscated, by the NZ Government in 1867. Every NZ citizen since then has benefited from the wealth the government of the day accumulated by stealing this and all other indigenous land. Consider what the PM and this government should do.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"But you forgot the Gulag and then gas chambers that would surely follow this appalling communist revolution nightmare Chris."

As opposed to the actual gas chambers and death camps that would result from an extreme right wing revolution Charles?

"Your pushing of identity politics only emboldens the other side of a poisonous coin you know. It happened before earlier last century and your ilk seems to want it back again."

As opposed to the old white male identity politics that we are stuck with that present? For Christ's sake Charles stop virtue signalling.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"The vast majority of Kiwis with Maori ancestors have no time for these divisive hate filled ideas and would be fully on side with the huge very stable majority, to preserve our egalitarian democracy. "
And you know this how Charles? Just askin', because you often take that your opinions are held by the majority of people for granted.
And if you think New Zealand is egalitarian I have a bridge to sell you.

Kat said...

@ brigid
What the PM and this govt "should" do will most likely be a pragmatic meeting between hearts and minds. What was done was done and nothing is going to bring it back. There is always bloody revolution of course, if impatience gets the better.

Anonymous said...

As much as I like Jacinda, I doubt that she will roll anything back. She simply isnt capabable of anything but managing.

The best female PM's are ruthless, like Golda Meir, Indira Ghandi, and yes, Margaret Thatcher.