28 October 2005
So we're proud Kiwis and we want the world to know it, according to a new survey which, for some strange reason, wanted to know how we feel about being called "Kiwi". How are we supposed to feel? Pleased? Embarrassed? Indifferent? There's this flightless bird, see, verging on extinction, which only comes out at night. And why is the said bird verging on extinction? Because of us, that's why. Yet we are pleased, it seems, to appropriate it for use as some kind of public-relations gimmick which makes us feel more secure when we live overseas, most particularly in Australia. It's as if we are so insecure, our identity crisis so severe, that we have to latch on to the poor old kiwi for desperate reassurance, writes the Manawatu Standard in an editorial.
Needless to say that's not quite how some others see it. Kiwi, they say, is a byword for the things we value, like egalitarianism, a fair go for everyone and inclusiveness. Notions such as the widening gap between rich and poor and the debate over biculturalism are not, then, to be taken seriously. Furthermore, the survey shows only a minority of us preferring to be called a Kiwi in the more alien overseas cultures in which we live, such as the United States and Japan, which is a pity because it would surely be an interesting exercise to explain to your average Japanese what a kiwi is.
Now that we have done our best to wipe out the kiwi it seems the least we can do is to try to bring it back from the brink, however. Every loss of a species on the planet diminishes us, so if we have the knowledge and wherewithal to do something about it, we have a moral duty to do so. But we go too far in attaching mythical national characteristics to the name, for the kiwi is surely burdened enough as it struggles to survive in the hostile man-made environment we have shaped for it, without dragging around a whole heap of extra baggage.
Lest we sound churlish, however, let us say that the kiwi is a point of difference on which we might reasonably capitalise. It is found nowhere else, so when the great day dawns that we cut the last of the apron strings with the Home Country, the kiwi will come into its own for it is, to use that much overworked word, unique. It could, for example, be an integral part of our new flag which we will need when we become truly independent. Not a brand, not even an icon, just a much-loved bird that's all ours.
Manawatu Standard
(c) 2005 Fairfax New Zealand Limited