Shattered Symbol

Symbol Of A City: As the Cathedral fares, so fares Christchurch itself.

IF QUEEN ELIZABETH, inspired by her financial advisers, decided to demolish St Paul’s Cathedral, England would be horrified. No one would care that, as Head of the Anglican Church and Tenant-in-Chief of all England, such ecclesiastical property was hers to use as she pleased. St Paul’s Cathedral, they would say, does not belong to the House of Windsor, it belongs to the people of England. Some would go further, insisting that such a beautiful artefact of the past belongs to all humanity.

And if the Queen persisted? If the protests of her subjects (not to mention those of her eldest son!) and appeals from lovers of neo-classical architecture all around the world were insufficient to make the Queen abandon her plans? Well then, I suspect the British Parliament would intervene on their behalf. If St Paul’s could defy Hitler’s bombers, I’m pretty sure it could defy Her Majesty.

There are some buildings whose power and dignity simply scorn the ravages of man and nature. Which is why, even if Hitler’s bombers had found their target, and the mighty dome of Sir Christopher Wren’s masterpiece no longer towered over the streets of England’s capital, I strongly suspect that Londoners, like the citizens of Dresden, would have rebuilt their beloved cathedral stone by stone – no matter how long it took, no matter how much it cost.

What does that say about us? Why aren’t more New Zealanders willing to join with the 5,000 Cantabrians who marched on Saturday to save Christchurch Cathedral from the wrecker’s ball? Why isn’t the Opposition calling for the Government step in and “nationalise” this New Zealand icon? What is wrong with Prime Minister Key and his cabinet that they have not already – unbidden – promised Christchurch, and the country, that no matter how long it takes, no matter how much it costs, their beloved cathedral will be rebuilt?

Is it simply because the men who somehow ended up in charge of rebuilding Christchurch have turned out to be too oafishly “pragmatic” to even consider the restoration of the city’s historic precincts? Is it because they share Henry Ford’s conviction that “history is bunk”? Believing  that no right-thinking person could, for a single second, entertain the expensive fiction that the preservation of a precious civic icon – like the cathedral – was anybody’s business but it’s owners?

Or, should we look elsewhere for answers? Does the fault lie not in our political stars – but in ourselves?

The men and women who, in the second half of the Nineteenth Century, erected New Zealand’s greatest buildings, were persons of extraordinary confidence and vision. They were part of what New Zealand historian, Professor James Belich, calls “the settler revolution and the rise of the Anglo-World”. In just a few decades, from Chicago, Illinois to Melbourne, Victoria, their cultural and commercial certainty had summoned forth huge cities, replete with stunning architectural tributes to all the ages of Western Civilisation – from the Roman Republic to Byzantium; from Gothic spires to Baroque rotundas. Citizens who walked on streets that were barely as old as they were, looked up at buildings that might have stood for centuries. These towering manifestoes in stone declared proudly to posterity that their makers, the children of empire, had come to stay.

Is that what now eats away at the decision-making of the New Zealand Anglican Church? In its new, bi-cultural, guise does it recoil in dismay from the thought of pouring both its reputation and its treasure into such an unequivocally imperial statement? Is that why the cathedral’s temporary replacement (cardboard being a so much humbler building material than stone) looks so much like a wharenui? Is the Bishop, mindful of her own homeland’s problematic relationship with the indigenous, unwilling to rush back in where white marble angels were once so unafraid to tread?

This discomfort with history is not, I suspect, limited to the Anglican Church. The spirit of globalisation also has scant patience with the past. Reading the historical record as an unending sequence of economic errors, it will as easily press “Delete” on imperial preferences, protectionist tariffs and five-year plans, as the architectural follies in which they were conceived. Glass and steel, not slate and stone, are the signature materials of neoliberalism’s brave new world. If the past features at all, it is only as pastiche.

On that terrible February day, when I switched on the television to scenes of blood and horror, it was the sight of the ruined cathedral that unlocked my emotional floodgates. There, in a heap of rubble, lay the symbol of the city.

The decision not to rebuild Christchurch’s iconic cathedral makes a profound statement about the entire city’s future. Those shattered stones are more than fallen masonry, they represent everything else that the earthquakes destroyed.

As the Cathedral fares, so fares Christchurch itself.

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday 29 May 2012.

From Bad To Worse - And Beyond

Pontius Brownlee: The Press's Al Nisbet's trenchant view of Christchurch Recovery Minister, Gerry Brownlee's, lofty denial of the city's acute rental crisis epitomises the growing sense of disconnection between the Government, its bureaucratic Czars, and the people of Christchurch.

IF POLITICS is mostly about perception, then, looking at Christchurch, this Government’s in big trouble. Because, perception-wise, this Government’s handling of the rebuilding of New Zealand’s second city hasn’t just gone from Bad to Worse; Worse is sending Gerry Brownlee post-cards.

The “reality” of the situation may be very different from people’s perceptions – it usually is. But the very fact that Cantabrians are having immense difficulty translating the reality of their everyday lives into anything remotely resembling the Government’s spin is a problem in itself. If disaster management isn’t grounded in telling disaster victims the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, then it isn’t management – it’s mismanagement.

And that’s the problem this Government’s faces: an awful lot of people living in Christchurch appear to have stopped believing that they’re being told even a fraction of the whole truth. And, once truth walks out the door, can trust be far behind? Is it possible to rebuild a great city without truth or trust? Is the Government conducting an experiment?

What are these bad perceptions? What is Worse describing to Gerry Brownlee on those post-cards?

The worst perception: the one from which so many other bad perceptions flow; is that the politicians were either never in charge, or, at some early stage, lost control of the rebuild. That somewhere; shielded from the media, invisible to the public; are the individuals and institutions who are really calling the shots on Christchurch’s future.

If you were to ask Cantabrians who these people/institutions were, most would give you a simple, three word, answer: The Insurance Companies.

Two-thirds of the cost of the Christchurch rebuild is expected to come from the insurance and reinsurance industry. That’s what the Government has said, publicly and repeatedly. They’re certainly not keen to extend their responsibilities very far beyond those associated with the EQC. The reconstruction of Christchurch is intended to be a market-driven affair. State intervention – beyond what’s already been signalled – is not on the Government’s agenda.

Big mistake.

By letting the big insurance companies know that the pace and scope of the Christchurch rebuild are in their hands, the Government has effectively walked away from the table – or that, at least, is the perception.

It’s why everything is seen to be moving with such glacial slowness. The insurers and reinsurers naturally want to minimise their exposure. They know if they wait, the pressure on the reconstruction agencies will grow, and, before long, concessions will start to flow. In this context, what possible incentive could the insurance industry have for speeding things up? The longer it delays, the more concessions flow its way. The more concessions that flow its way, the more money it saves.

It’s hardly rocket science.

But, it is grossly unfair. Because the money saved by the insurance industry is money that would otherwise have gone into the pockets of Cantabrians. It’s the money they would have used to move on, to strike down new roots in new parts of Christchurch, to get the builders actually building.

Without that money, rebuilding becomes impossible. And so they are forced to seek temporary accommodation – along with everybody else. Tradespeople and their families, moving en masse to Christchurch to rebuild devastated homes and infrastructure, are forced to compete with thousands of Cantabrians who cannot live in their red-stickered homes, yet lack the resources to rebuild them. Add to this, the demands of university students, and the normal flow of young people from family nest to independent living, and suddenly, you’ve got a major rental housing crisis.

Except that you don’t – at least, not according to the Minister for Earthquake Recovery, Gerry Brownlee. The Mayor, Bob Parker, disagrees, but his objections count for very little these days. The Christchurch City Council – the only democratically elected representative body still operating in the city – is about to lose all say over the future shape of its CBD. In place of an elected Mayor and councillors, Cantabrians will see responsibility for re-constituting Christchurch’s shattered heart handed over to an appointed Czar.

“Yes, let’s give a big, warm, Canterbury welcome to the man who gave Auckland its ‘super-city’. Ladies and Gentlemen – Mr Maaarrrrk Ford!”

It’s hard to imagine an appointment more likely to strengthen the perception that the last people to be asked anything, told anything, or given anything, are the people of Christchurch themselves. Their Government has relinquished its responsibilities to foreign financial giants. Their regional and city councils have already been, or are about to be, politically emasculated. And their day-to-day-lives have been reduced to mere administrative Lego in the hands of over-paid, over-powered, unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.

At least, such are Cantabrians’ perceptions.

If the reality is something different, then, respectfully, Mr Brownlee, Mr Parker, Mr Sutton and Mr Ford: tell the people of Christchurch what it is.

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 17 April 2012.