Art In Armour: Marika Hodgson, Caroline, Moana Maniapoto, Cadzow Cossar and Don McGlashan offer musical resistance to the Trans-Pacific Partnership at the Ika Seafood Bar & Grill on Monday, 5 October 2015.
THERE WAS A PAINFUL IRONY about Monday night’s “Salon” at
Ika Seafood Bar & Grill. As Don McGlashan and Moana Maniapoto were
raising their voices against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) its
negotiators in Atlanta were bringing the deal home. Before the music started,
there was only one topic of conversation: “Will they sign, or will the TPP
negotiations, once again, be stalled – this time for good?”
One of the first people to arrive at the restaurant on
Monday night (5/10/15) was Kim Dotcom and his rather subdued entourage. The big
man deposited himself wearily at a window table and morosely interrogated his
smartphone. His companions, fresh from the rigors of the Dotcom extradition
hearing, looked equally exhausted.
Later in the week, Dotcom would admit in court that if he
had possessed a crystal ball he would have held back the $4.5 million expended
on the doomed campaign of the Internet-Mana alliance. His now severely depleted
financial reserves, he lamented, were hampering his defence.
I observed the little group with a mixture of pity and
incredulity. Pity, for Dotcom’s and his partners’ predicament. All that effort
and expense on behalf of the US Government for … copyright violation!?
Incredulity, that so much money could be spent on a political campaign … to
so little effect!
Still, there was a silver lining to the Internet-Mana
debacle. The Ika Seafood Bar & Grill. Had the Internet Party leader, Laila
Harré, not crashed and burned last September, she would not now be the
proprietor of the restaurant in which I was sitting, and a year of fascinating
political “happenings” within its walls would not have ensued.
Looking around the room, it was clear that word of the
success of these various “Salons” and “Table-Talks” had percolated through the
Auckland progressive community. The lonely Dotcom group was soon joined by Dale
Husband and his crew from E Tangata (the Maori-Pasifika website
sponsored by the Tindall Foundation). Then First Union bosses, Robert Reid and
Maxine Gay, came through the door. Professor of Economics, Tim Hazledine;
Amnesty International’s, Miriam Pierard; broadcaster, Pam Corkery; AUT’s media
expert, Dr Wayne Hope; and the former Human Rights Commissioner, Rosslyn
Noonan, followed them in. The eatery was full-to-bursting.
Which was good news for Jane Kelsey, because this was a $100
per plate affair. The funds raised would defray some of the legal costs of the
judicial review of Trade Minister Tim Groser’s refusal to release official TPP
information, which Jane (and a host of others) have finally secured.
Universally acknowledged as the leader of the Anti-TPP movement, the spirited
law professor ducked and dived through the crowd with her characteristically
bird-like energy.
And then came the music.
Don McGlashan is one of those extraordinary national
treasures about which the nation itself is criminally ignorant. His
professional career spans more than 30 years, during which he has composed some
of this country’s finest songs. There is deep feeling and sharp intelligence in
his music: gentleness allied with formidable strength.
Tonight he has matched at least some of his repertoire to
the vital issues raised by the TPP. Girl Make Your Own Mind Up, written for
McGlashan’s daughter, Pearl, is a father’s plea for his child not to be taken
in by her culture’s dominant myths.
They’ll try to make you believe in The Invisible Hand
The sweet self-interest of successful men
To believe in the chance, however remote
That the rising tide lifts all the boats
The sweet self-interest of successful men
To believe in the chance, however remote
That the rising tide lifts all the boats
Envy of Angels was written for McGlashan’s father, a
civic-minded civil engineer who taught his son that public works had to be
built strong enough
To bear the weight
Of all the people
Who haven’t been born
Widely considered to be one of New Zealand’s most accomplished
indigenous performers, Moana Maniapoto and her “Tribe” of – on the night –
Cadzow Cossar (guitar), Marika Hodgson (bass), and Caroline (backing vocals)
delivered an equally affecting performance.
Maniapoto has the ability to take a song from another
culture and weave through it the essence of her own. In her hands, for example,
the old union ballad, Which Side are You On?, was effortlessly harnessed
to the anti-TPP cause. In this example, and in much of the rest of her set, I
couldn’t help feeling as if the audience was being wound-up tightly in a spell.
Perhaps it was simply the superb musicianship of Cossar and Hodgson, and the
amazing blending of Maniapoto’s and Caroline’s voices, but the sense of power growing
and growing in the room was palpable.
As McGlashan joined Maniapoto and her tribe for one last
song – a work in progress about the Treaty of Waitangi – I couldn’t help
contemplating what a wondrous people New Zealanders are. So much talent exists
in this country – too much of it unused, unwanted and unpaid – that if it was
ever fully mobilised: if Art was to put on armour; then the world would stand
astonished. Seeing those two superb entertainers, Moana and Don, singing about
“our place” – the great meeting-house of Aotearoa – it occurred to me that
nothing could withstand the coming together of progressive Pakeha and
progressive Maori – not even the TPP.
Making my way home down Mt Eden Road, the words of the final
verse of McGlashan’s Girl Make Your Own Mind Up kept coming back to me: a
sort of refrain about all that the evening had represented, and about all the
work that now lies ahead, if this country is to remain “our place”:
They’ll try to make you believe in nothing
That nothing you do will amount to something
That the long, long lives of people like you and me
Never changed a thing, never made history
That nothing you do will amount to something
That the long, long lives of people like you and me
Never changed a thing, never made history
Aotearoa-New Zealand, you will have to make your own mind up
about that.
This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Friday, 9 October 2015.
9 comments:
Something on Radionz recently about Atlanta, Georgia that I'll share. Many of its buildings were made by slave labour by blacks who legally had become free men and women after the overthrowing of laws allowing slavery. But these poor hunted destitute people with no money, no work, no resources, were rounded up and I think the speaker said, worked to death.
Atlanta, a perfect place for dark deeds and shady shenanigans.
Of course our very own PM couldn't even make his mind up about something as important a milestone as the 81 Springbok tour. Was this song written for/about Key?
Hope Kim told his yarn about how Australians are as stupid as Kiwis.
$4.5 million on a "doomed campaign" gosh who got what?. After reading that I must believe that socialist became capitalist and then became socialist again and that a very rich Dot Kim Com has paid for these transformations. $4.5 m million ?. I sincerely believe that some-one has done very well for themselves , I bet it was not the ill-educated ordinary Kiwi. Can you supply us with a break-down on the $4.5. Socialist, sorry capitalist experiment.
To: Anonymous@16:12
The $4.5 million figure is drawn from reports of the extradition proceedings. As to what the money was spent on, you'd need to go to the Electoral Commission and locate the Internet Party's election income and expenditure returns. These are, I believe, matters of public record.
Never having been a member of either the Internet, or the Mana, Party, I know nothing of their finances.
Oh, and I feel the need to warn you, Anonymous. I tolerate snide remarks from those brave enough to use either their real names or a consistent pseudonym. What I will not tolerate, however, are snide remarks from those too gutless to use any name at all.
I accept that you were not a member od the Internet or Mana political parties, however you did support them ,as is your right to do so. For a variety of reasons the rort of democracy by the Internet and Mana perties was seen through and defeated. Kim Dot Com accepted his part in that defeat. To pretend that the whole episode is some sort of a valiant loss is not impressive to me, nor, though I did enjoy the artists, a cause for celebration, it was a celebration of defeat, Jane Kelsey an all. My pseudonym is Jeremy Corban, West Auckland.
Pick another one "Jeremy" - anything coming in under that pseudonym will be deleted immediately.
Thank you,Chris, that nearly moved me to tears
Nearly? Nearly!
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