Volume 80 | Issue 11

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29 MAY 2017

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Editors — Tuioleloto Laura Toailoa and Tim Manktelow

Contact — editor@salient.org.nz 04 463 6766

Designers — Eun Sun Jeong and Ellyse Randrup

Level 2, Student Union Building Victoria University of Wellington PO Box 600, Wellington

News Editor — Brigid Quirke

Printing — Service Printers 258 Taranaki Street, Wellington

News Reporters — Billy Dancer, Doug Mullins, E A Tombs, Thomas Croskery Feature Writers — Dan Kelly, Josh Brian, Salote Cama, Jasmine Koria

Typefaces — Wedge by Bruce Rotherham, Adobe Caslon Pro by Carol Twombly, Churchward Marianna and Churchward Samoa by Joseph Churchward

Chief Sub-Editor — Georgia Lockie Distributor — Darren Chin Arts Editor — Cameron Gray Section Editors — Annelise Bos (Podcast), Cameron Gray (Games), Finn Holland and Mathew Watkins (Film), Hanahiva Rose (Visual Art), Katie Meadows (Television), Kimberley McIvor (Books), Olly Clifton and Lauren Spring (Music), Sean Harbottle (Theatre) Contributors — Aidan Kelly, Kate Aschoff, Rory Lenihan-Ikin, Bethany Paterson, Jesseallen Te Awhe-Raston, Winter Jones, Jaylee Rolleston, Georgie Steel, Katherine de Silva, Sasha Beattie, Joe Morris, Brooke Wilton, Tom Book, Essa Morris, Kii and Tom, Puck, Aubergine and Celeste Advertising — Grace Gollan grace.gollan@vuwsa.org.nz 04 463 6982

Paper — Sun 90gsm Salient is printed on environmentally sustainable paper, with vegetable ink, and is completely FSC approved.

About Us — Salient staff are employed by, but editorially independent from, the Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA).

Salient is a member of, syndicated, and supported by the Aotearoa Student Press Association (ASPA).

Salient is partially funded by Victoria University students, through the student levy. Opinions expressed are not necessarily representative of those of VUWSA, ASPA, Service Printers, or the editorial staff.

Complaints — Please email editor@ salient.org.nz and if not satisfied with response contact VUWSA. Salient — 29 May, 2017 Volume 80, Issue 11

CONTRIBUTORS & COLOPHON

CONTENTS Editors’ Letter.......................................6 Letters................................................60 Notices.................................................7

Features A Land Long Clouded.......................26 — Dan Kelly

News General News.......................................9 Further concerns with Student Health and Counselling.........12 Tutoring Review Reveals Discrepancies.........................13

Coral reefs: The responsibility of science, or society?..............................34 — Josh Brian

Politics Political Round-Up.............................14 Eye On Exec.......................................14 The Party Line....................................15 Interview Gayaal Iddamalgoda...........................16 Opinion NZ indirectly killing LGBTQ+ youth?

It’s more likely than you think.............19 — Kate Aschoff Columns Presidential Address............................20 VUWSA.............................................20 Te Ara Tauira......................................21 One Ocean..........................................21 Shit Chat............................................22 From within the fallout zone..............23 The Queer Agenda..............................24 Access Denied.....................................24 SWAT..................................................25 Postgrad Informer...............................25

Double Colonisation: West Papua in the Pacific...................40 — Salote Cama Watch this space: Territories, borders, and New Guinea...................44 — Jasmine Koria Arts Visual Art...........................................49 Games................................................50 Television...........................................51 Books..................................................52 Film....................................................54 Podcast...............................................55 Music..................................................56 Food...................................................58 Poem...................................................59 Puzzles................................................62 Horoscope..........................................63

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Editors’ letter

Samoan Language Week officially began yesterday, and on Thursday Samoa commemorates 55 years of independence from New Zealand. New Zealand’s administration of Samoa was, according to the NZHistory website, “an uncomfortable chapter of this country’s history.” It is unclear whose discomfort they are referring to.

One of the casualties in the fight for independence was Mau leader Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III, whose last words, as engraved on his gravestone, are: Samoa filemu pea, ma si o’u toto ne’i ta’uvalea, a ia aoga lo’u ola mo lenei mea (Peace, Samoa. My blood has been spilt for Samoa. I am proud to give it).

For some parts of the Pacific, this battle continues. Salote writes about the ongoing struggle of West Papua and the many layers of colonialism.

Born in Papua New Guinea, Jasmine struggles with the politics of space, and the colonial border that halves her island.

Climate change is another ongoing battle for the Pacific, and Josh Brian writes about his research on the declining population of coral reefs and why this matters not only to scientists, or to the Pacific, but to everyone.

Imagining Decolonising Cities is a collaborative project between Ngāti Toa and VUW, that explores what a decolonised city means and what it could look like.

Their symposium at Takapūwāhia Marae hosted a range of speakers including Patricia Grace and Moana Jackson.

In his piece, Dan reflects on the knowledge shared, the stories told, and the challenging questions raised at the hui. *** This issue inadvertently revolved around the Pacific, and the words of the late Teresia Teaiwa sum up our intention of running everything together: “But there’s also a way that I feel that climate change is colonising the Pacific and people’s imagination of the Pacific… I’m constantly resisting other people’s attempts to reduce the Pacific to one thing — to one issue. Whether it’s climate change or their relaxing holiday in Fiji. I want to disturb all that. For us, it’s never one issue.

We live complicated lives. We’re constantly having to negotiate different challenges. And that’s my job as a Pacific Studies academic. It’s to raise those things.

It’s to remind people of the complexity and not let them try to paint us with a single brush stroke.”

— Tuioleloto Laura Toailoa and Tim Manktelow

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To find out more about these companies/ opportunities (plus many more!), go to: www.victoria.ac.nz/careerhub.

VICTORIA ABROAD — STUDENT EXCHANGE OPPORTUNITIES

Why wait to go overseas after finishing your degree? GO ON EXCHANGE! Study in English, earn Victoria credit, get StudyLink and grants, explore the world!

Find out more on our website: http://victoria.ac.nz/exchange.

Enjoy past students’ experiences and photos on Facebook: https://www.facebook. com/VictoriaAbroadNZ/.

Information Sessions: Every Wednesday at 12.50pm, Level Two, Easterfield Building.

Drop-In Hours: Tuesday and Wednesday, 1.00–3.00pm. Thursday and Friday, 10.30am–12.00pm. Room: EA 232.

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY TAEKWONDO CLUB (WORLD TEAKWONDO FEDERATION)

Interested in Taekwondo? New to Taekwondo? Learned Taekwondo before?

Come along and join us! Great way to keep fit and have fun!

Training times: Wednesday 6.30–8.00pm and Saturday 3.30–5.00pm Dance Room, VUW Recreation Centre What you need: Drink bottle, comfy trousers/shorts, t-shirt.

Contact us: vuwtkd@outlook.com We are affiliated to the Taekwondo Union of NZ (TUNZ)

SALIENT WANTS YOU!

Read this little magazine and want to have a chance to fill its pages? — Get in touch with editor@salient.org.nz. We’re approaching the mid-year break and will be looking to get more people involved — no experience necessary. Just send us a short description of why you’re interested and what you’d like to contribute.

Enjoy the news section and want to write for it (or if you’ve got the scoops)? — Email news@salient.org.nz.

A listing in our notices section is free for all VUW students, VUWSA-affiliated clubs, and not-for-profit organisations. If you would like to post a notice please email editor@salient.org.nz and include NOTICE in the subject line. There is limited space in this section so notices will be prioritised at the discretion of the editors.

NEWS FAIRER FARES UPDATE #263 NEW APP TO LEGITIMISE RENT BIDDING TPP NEGOTIATIONS CONTINUE MSD PRIVACY UPDATE LET GIRLS BE GIRLS LANDSLIDE VICTORY FOR ROUHANI IN IRANIAN ELECTION FACEBOOK FILES FURTHER CONCERNS WITH STUDENT HEALTH AND COUNSELLING TUTORING REVIEW REVEALS DISCREPANCIES

POLITICS POLITICAL ROUND-UP EYE ON EXEC THE PARTY LINE

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News NEWS

Haimona addressed the councillors: “it is hard to experience how great this city is, if you’ve only budgeted for the week of getting to and from university.”

“Many tauira have sacrificed On May 23, students and VUW representatives, as well as Wellington much, and moved away from our City Council (WCC) Mayor Justin maraes and our whanau to be here Lester, spoke in support of fairer fares and gaining a degree,” Kutia reflected. for tertiary students at the Great- “Not only is this an educational issue, er Wellington Regional Council it is an equity issue. In making university more accessible to our tauira (GWRC) Annual Plan hearing.

The oral submissions were backed Māori, we are nurturing people who up by over 1700 written submissions will take is towards a brighter future.”

“Successful bi-culturalism canalso in support of fairer fares, a third of which were from ratepayers, that not occur as a city and as a country if Māori students are not gethad been collected by VUWSA. VUWSA President Rory Leni- ting into the important spaces for han-Ikin stressed to the GWRC that change-making in our society.”

Student and Campus Living Dithe need for fairer fares is about “access” for everyone, no matter where rector Rainsforth Dix spoke on behalf of VUW in support of fairer fares, they live, to tertiary education.

“Throughout the campaign we’ve suggesting it was not just about the heard countless stories from students, university or Wellington City. “We particularly from those outside of have a real opportunity to grow the Wellington, who are paying hundreds greater Wellington region.”

Fairer fares would give “all of our of dollars to get to class.”

He pointed to the 1700 submis- potential students, as well as our cursions, of which the 13 councillors rent students, a real opportunity to had been given physical copies, as participate in tertiary education.”.

— Brigid Quirke evidence of the support for the issue.

However Lower Hutt Councillor Prue Lamason was less sure, suggesting “what a waste of paper.” LeniNEW APP TO LEGITIMISE han-Ikin retorted “not at all, that’s RENT BIDDING democracy in action.”

WCC Mayor Justin Lester said that fairer fares are “about creating a student friendly capital,” and pledged A new app allowing hopeful tenants financial support to help the GWRC to “bid” against each other for rental properties has highlighted a practice implement the policy.

“We are happy to see this as an already prevalent in New Zealand.

Rentberry, a US-based app, is a economic development priority and assign money within our long term “transparent” platform which, according to its website, facilitates plan [...] to make this a reality.”

Kahu Haimona, Tumuaki Wahi- “price negotiation” between landne for Ngā Rangahautira (Māori Law lords and tenants. Landlords direct Students’ Association), and Kahu prospective tenants to apply for a Kutia, Ngāi Tauira (Māori Students’ property using the app, which shows Association) Communications Of- the number of candidates interested ficer, both spoke at the hearing in in the property and the highest “ofsupport fairer fares, and about the fer” currently made.

The arrival of the app has left impact of high transport costs on some feeling uneasy. A VUW posttauira Māori.

FAIRER FARES UPDATE #263

graduate student told Salient that, in their experiences of finding a flat earlier this year, the practice of rent bidding was “quite implicit.” Landlords and agencies often prompted them to offer more at viewings, and one agent “hinted that those who do that are more likely to get the property.”

Labour’s spokesperson for Housing, Phil Twyford, agreed that this practice was “already happening at viewings.” He saw the activity as symptomatic of the “housing crisis,” but was “skeptical” about whether the Government could regulate or ban apps like Rentberry which may encourage the practice.

For Twyford, a “better approach” to preventing escalating rent is to provide more housing to make renting more affordable.

The link between the provision of social housing and the practice of rent bidding has been questioned by the Government. Social Housing Minister, Amy Adams, told Salient that “private market initiatives like [Rentberry] don’t affect the Social Housing register or the operation of the Income-Related Rent Subsidy policy.”

The CEO of Rentberry, Alex Lubinsky, has responded to criticism by pointing out that the app provides a more transparent version of a practice that is already occurring.

He told Radio NZ that ensuring affordable rent is the government’s responsibility.

The postgraduate student Salient spoke to was not convinced that increased transparency justified the consequence of higher rent.

“If bidding happens, and if it is a sneaky thing that landlords do, I guess transparency is important.

But would having an app normalise bidding, and make it a more commonplace way to find a flat? Seems iffy to me.”

VUWSA President Rory Lenihan-Ikin reflected, “unfortunately, the practice of ‘bidding’ for a flat is

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News

not new for students. It is just another way for landlords to take advantage of high demand for rentals in Wellington.” “[The app] will only deter prospective students from studying in Wellington because it will come to be known as a completely unaffordable city for tertiary students.”

If you feel you are being taken advantage of by your landlord, the VUWSA advocacy service can provide support and advice about your rights. Email them at advocate@ vuwsa.org.nz.

— E A Tombs

TPP NEGOTIATIONS CONTINUE Countries who participated in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations have sought a revised agreement following the United States’ decision to withdraw.

A joint statement by the 11 remaining countries, including New Zealand, agreed to a timeframe by which decisions will be made on the future of the agreement.

Trade Minister Todd McClay said that the countries were at different stages in their consideration, “but they are united in the process and want to get to a place where there is something we can agree to collectively.”

In a press release on May 21, McClay confirmed that the TPP agreement, without the US, “represents tariff savings of $222 million each year.”

Japan’s National Graduate Institute of Policy Studies has estimated that the TPP will increase New Zealand’s GDP by 3.4%.

Japan and New Zealand are the only two parties to ratify the TPP, doing so before the US withdrew from negotiations. The extent to which the agreement will be revised to alter the US-centric provisions in

order for the other parties to ratify is unclear.

Prime Minister Bill English has not confirmed whether the Government would need to return to Parliament with a revised agreement.

The Green Party criticised this, with trade spokesperson Barry Coates saying, “the TPPA without the US is potentially a very different beast.”

“It would be dishonest to pretend that Parliament’s previous deliberations over the TPPA are a rubber stamp of approval for a new TPPA-style deal without the United States.”

Officials from the negotiating countries will next meet in Japan in July 2017.

— Brigid Quirke

it was “worth the time to get the high level agreement and policy framework in place before we move into the next stage.”

An independent review of the system, released on May 16, found that it “lacked proper leadership and resourcing,” and that its security risks had not been adequately tested.

Privacy Commissioner John Edwards reflected that the agency had “gone too quickly to implement policy without thinking through the implications — and perhaps the unintended consequences.”

The Government said it aimed to have the new data collection system in place by the end of 2017.”

— Brigid Quirke

MSD PRIVACY UPDATE

LET GIRLS BE GIRLS

A controversial Ministry of Social Development policy, requiring social services to provide clients’ names, birthdates, ethnicities, and the personal details of any dependents in order to receive funding, has been temporarily suspended by the Government.

The announcement on May 24 followed two privacy breaches of the data collection system, and an independent report which criticised the system.

The Minister for Social Development, Anne Tolley, said that the government still wanted the data required under the policy, but recognised the need to “co-design” the system to ensure the data was fit for purpose.

A working group, to be overseen by the Minister responsible for social investment, Amy Adams, will be set up to work with NGOs and statisticians to devise the best way to collect data.

Adams affirmed that the rationale behind the policy had not been abandoned, but acknowledged that

A Tongan advocacy group has launched a campaign to prevent child marriages.

The Talitha Project Tonga launched the Let Girls Be Girls! campaign on May 19. The campaign seeks to lift the legal age of marriage in Tonga to 18 years old. Currently, those aged between 15–17 are able to marry with parental consent.

Vanessa Heleta, the Director of the Talitha Project, told Salient that “allowing children to marry, particularly girls, puts them at risk of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, forced pregnancy, domestic servitude, restrictions of movement and autonomy, and lack of access to education.”

Heleta said that changing the law would allow children to “fully develop themselves intellectually, socially, physically, and spiritually.”

Government response to the project has been positive. Heleta said that the Minister of Justice, Sione Vuna Fa’otusia, was in “full support.”

The CEO of the Ministry of Justice, Susana Faletau, was also said to

11 be “passionate” about the campaign.

Public response is more varied.

Heleta acknowledged that while the majority of the public response has been “very positive,” there has “been resistance from others, but that can be expected.”

Despite mixed opinions, Heleta remains adamant — “this is not just a legal obligation [...] it’s a moral obligation.”

— E A Tombs

LANDSLIDE VICTORY FOR ROUHANI IN IRANIAN ELECTION

News his platform of anti-corruption and desire to repair Iran’s economy independently.

The spokesperson from the Iranian Embassy confirmed that voter turnout from Iranians in Wellington exceeded 50 per cent, and thanked VUW, Massey, and Auckland Universities “for providing us with the venue to open polling stations and giving Iranian students the opportunity to vote.”

— Thomas Croskery

FACEBOOK FILES

CW: The following article includes discussion of child abuse Iranian President Hassan Rouhani Last week the Guardian released a has won a second term in an en- series of internal policy documents dorsement of his moderate approach, detailing how Facebook determines and after a campaign defined by pov- what content is permissible for its erty, unemployment, and the 2015 users to post. nuclear deal.

Dubbed the “Facebook Files”, Rouhani, of the centrist Moder- the documents reveal rules and ation and Development Party, won guidelines for moderators when it 23 million votes, defeating hardline comes to content that may be offenjurist Ebrahim Raisi of the Combat- sive or inappropriate. Broad categoant Clergy Association, who received ries identified in documents include 15.7 million. terrorism, hate-speech, sextortion In his victory speech, Rouhani and revenge porn, child abuse, viosaid “yesterday, you said no to those lence, and cruelty to animals. who wanted us to return to the past.”

Particularly controversial has A spokesperson for the Iranian been Facebook’s approach to content Embassy in Wellington told Salient containing non-sexual child abuse that the election “showed that sta- where internal policy documents bility and security in Iran are deep state “we allow ‘evidence’ of child rooted,” while neighbouring coun- abuse to be shared on the site to altries “are suffering from insecurity low for the child to be identified and and terrorism.” rescued, but we add protections to They added that Rouhani’s shield the audience.” re-election would see the economy Critics point to the fact that augrow and external economic rela- thorities can trace the source of posts tions expand, as well as “further ex- even after they are removed from pansion of Tehran-Wellington ties the site. Claire Lilley, Head of Child in all fields.”

Safety Online at the National SociIran’s urban middle class and ety for the Prevention of Cruelty to youth supported Rouhani and his Children in the UK, told the Guardipolicies of international openness an that “Facebook are not the arbiter and economic reconstruction, while of social norms and expectations.”

Raisi appealed to poor, religious Ira“They shouldn’t get to decide nians and conservative clerics with what’s in the best interests of chil-

dren or the public.”

The head of Global Policy Management for Facebook, Monika Bickert, stated on May 23 that “Our standards change over time.

We are in constant dialogue with experts and local organisations, on everything from child safety to terrorism to human rights.”

“Sometimes this means our policies can seem counterintuitive.”

British Labour MP, and former chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said “these files demonstrate why powerful social media companies, including Facebook, have to be more transparent.”

“They also show why we were right to call on social media companies to urgently review their community guidelines, as too much harmful and dangerous content is getting through.”

— Doug Mullins

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FURTHER CONCERNS WITH STUDENT HEALTH AND COUNSELLING Following two articles published in Salient (Issue 09 and Issue 10) regarding Student Health and Counselling, we received a number of responses from students who were willing to share their experiences of the services.

In 2015, Student Health and Counselling conducted 41,556 consultations, and recorded a total of ten complaints from students. In 2016, 40,944 consultations were held, with a total of 14 complaints from students. The complaints fell into categories of concerns about delay, clinical care, and service.

These numbers suggest widespread student satisfaction with Student Health and Counselling.

A student, who reached out to Salient following the publication of last week’s article, reflected on multiple consultations at Student Health as being “very positive.”

“Staff are wonderful and caring, and I would absolutely recommend the Student Health Service without hesitation.”

Despite a low percentage of official complaints, a number of other students who reached out to Salient reported negative experiences and were unaware of the official complaint mechanisms being available.

One fifth year student had a consultation with a GP in 2015 who “patronisingly” told her she should not be getting a repeat contraceptive prescription.

“After talking to the people around me I realised a few friends had the same experience. Because I wasn’t familiar with the scary university system, I just requested there be a note put on my file to never see that doctor again.”

In 2016, another student “was made to feel extremely uncomfortable when asking for a [contraceptive] pill prescription to the point that [they] cried, and then were hurriedly given one.” The student did not lay a formal complaint.

A third student, who had informed Gerard Hoffman, the Head of Student Counselling, of their experience, described a negative ongoing relationship with Student Health. On three separate occasions between 2015 and 2016 the student was told to “come back tomorrow” when they presented at Student Health’s reception feeling suicidal.

“I felt like a drowning man being told to choose to swim.”

The inadequacy of support contributed to the this student not being accepted into an academic course in 2017, partly because the course coordinator viewed them as a danger to themselves. They reflected, “I can’t help but feel I am being punished for being sick.”

“It took a lot of arguing but I eventually got a long-term counsellor. Things are going okay.

The counsellor is not nearly as good as Evolve’s, but it’s better than nothing — and it’s either this or nothing.”

This student had a relationship with the Evolve counselling services in 2016, but had utilised the maximum six sessions available under this service.

Salient reached out to Student Health and Counselling to give them the opportunity to respond to these experiences, but they were unwilling to discuss individual student experiences with Salient.

“We are concerned to hear about any instances where students have not been satisfied with their experience of our services and welcome any opportunity to hear from them and discuss issues they would like to raise. However, it would not be appropriate for university staff to meet with a Salient reporter to discuss individual students and their experiences with Student Counselling and Student Health.”

A fourth student, reflecting on the experiences of their friend, said: “I don’t think they realised how badly they had been treated until repeating the story back to others and seeing how shocked we were. [...]

They may have not felt as if they were in a position to complain. If they had, it would do nothing to fix the fact that [they] did not want to approach VUW health services ever again, and haven’t thus far.”

VUWSA President Rory Lenihan-Ikin told Salient that VUWSA had not received complaints about Student Health of such a serious nature, but encouraged students who did want to complain to utilise VUWSA’s Advocacy Service to do so.

“The staff [from Student Health] who consult with us throughout the year work to make sure students have the best possible services. However, the student experiences raised in the article are extremely concerning and we will be initiating a discussion with the service to find out more.”

— Brigid Quirke

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TUTORING REVIEW REVEALS DISCREPANCIES A review of tutoring at VUW has revealed issues with the current system and made recommendations for changes.

A working group was formed in October 2016 to undertake the review. Prior to this, no systematic review of tutoring had previously been conducted

by VUW. However, in a 2016 survey conducted by VUWSA, nearly half of the 250-tutor sample group raised concerns about marking loads, time allocation for marking, and remuneration.

Many of the issues raised by the current review appear to be rooted in wide discretion, and crossschool and faculty inconsistencies, with recruitment and practice.

The report revealed a lack of guidelines around the qualifications and experience required for tutoring, and that “variable recruitment practices — from transparent recruitment practices to shoulder tapping — presented further inconsistencies.”

A 100-level tutor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences described their employment process as “arbitrary.”

“There was no interview — you just handed in your application, and if the Head of School liked you, you got the job.”

Alternatively, a 100-level tutor in the Faculty of Law described a more rigorous process of responding to an advertisement, applying for the position with a CV, and an interview with the course coordinator. However they added, “I think the process with selecting head tutor is quite arbitrary at times, and there’s always people who slip through the cracks [...] but overall, it’s a more structured system.”

The data gathered throughout the review process highlighted inconsistencies around workload, recognition, and reward. The report found that core paid training for first time tutors was minimal and insufficient for the role they play in VUW’s teaching and learning context.

The tutor from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences reflected on the disparity between what they were paid and what was required of them in supporting students. “I get paid for 25 hours a week, and do 12–14 hour days every day.”

“Last week I sat down at my desk at 10.00am and I was there till 5.00pm, just answering student emails.

I have 120 students this trimester; if they each send

me one email every week, and it takes 10-15 minutes to reply, [...] it adds up.”

“I don’t have any problem with replying to student emails, it’s more that I wish I got paid for it.”

Conversely, the tutor from the Faculty of Law reflected that while there was a high volume of student contact around the examination period, their experience was very different. “I’ve never felt like we were undervalued, and I think the tutors in the Law Faculty are really well supported.”

The report sets out a range of recommendations, including an invitation for the Vice Provost (Academic and Equity) to work alongside academic groups to develop pan-university guidelines for tutoring.

VUWSA President Rory Lenihan-Ikin said VUWSA looked forward to the outcomes of the report.

“Having been involved in the review, VUWSA was pleased with the report and felt that it illustrated an accurate picture of some of the issues that exist within the tutoring system across the university.

“Tutors are an incredibly important part of the student experience. It is essential that they are well trained, supported, and remunerated, and that this takes place consistently throughout the university.”.

— Brigid Quirke

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POLITICAL ROUND-UP Housing Housing affordability featured heavily in National and Labour’s weekend conferences on May 13–14.

Both parties scrambled to build on policies dealing with the nationwide housing shortage in what is a particularly crucial issue for the upcoming general election in September.

Last year Labour pledged to build 100,000 houses over the course of a decade and ban foreign property investors from buying New Zealand houses in its signature “Kiwibuild” policy. Until recently, National had rubbished these ideas, preferring instead to tinker with the Resource Management Act to increase housing supply.

Sensing that housing affordability is becoming a major concern in the latest opinion polls, National announced this month that it will build 34,000 houses in Auckland to ease the city’s rampant house prices.

The policy is a clear U-turn from National’s previous criticism of government-run building programmes.

Minister for Building and Construction Nick Smith said late last year that the National Government “do[es] not agree that the only way to have houses being built is to have them built by the government.”

National’s announcement followed a gaffe by Associate Social Housing Minister Alfred Ngaro during its weekend conference. Ngaro implied he would cut off funding for new schools being developed by Labour’s Willie Jackson if Jackson continued to criticise the Government on its social housing policies.

“Do not play politics with us,” Ngaro said. “If you get up on the campaign trail and start bagging us, then all the things you are doing are off the table.”

The implication that Ngaro would use his ministerial pow-

POLITICS ers to cut off funding for political purposes was seen as highly unethical. Labour leader Andrew Little said his comments “are very disappointing,” a sentiment shared by Bill English who said “we don’t work like that.”

Ngaro, facing an investigation ordered by the PM into whether his funding decisions for social housing during his tenure were politically biased, eventually said his comments “were a bit naive, poorly worded.”

In an upcoming election that will likely be fought over housing, the Government cannot afford to lose too many political points to the opposition as it did with Ngaro’s speech. Nevertheless, National’s well-timed new building policy will give voters plenty to consider in September.

Trans-Pacific Partnership When Bill English met his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe at a joint conference in Tokyo on May 16, they spoke of the similarities their countries shared such as a commitment to democratic government, and their experiences of major natural disasters in recent years.

But the main similarity that both leaders sought to highlight was that Japan and New Zealand are the only countries that have ratified the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the free trade deal between nearly a dozen nations in the Asia-Pacific region.

The TPP, signed by Trade Minister Todd McClay on February 4 last year, attracted widespread protest in 2016. Critics believed that it gave multinational corporations the ability to sue the government if it reneged on deals arranged during previous administrations.

TPP negotiations were strained this year when US President Donald Trump announced that the US would no longer participate in the agreement, creating unease among Southeast Asian countries

whose ultimate goal was to gain free access to US markets through the Partnership.

In meeting with the Japanese PM, English attempted to reopen the TPP negotiations with countries that had not yet ratified it, and reassure participating nations that the Partnership could still go ahead even without the world’s largest economy.

Shinzo and English knew that it would take more than economic arguments to reassure the hesitant countries, however. During their meeting the leaders reframed the TPP as a strategic partnership, rather than just a free trade deal.

Additionally, the PMs both condemned North Korea’s recent ballistic missile tests, and urged the countries embroiled in the dispute over the South China Sea to settle the matter peacefully. English said in an interview that the TPP has “taken on a bit more relevance as a strategic agreement […] when they’re all feeling a bit threatened and destabilised by what’s going on with North Korea.”

By May 21 the other countries who had not yet ratified the TPP made clear that they would proceed with the Partnership, even without the US. Convincing the remaining countries to ratify the TPP is a foreign policy victory for the National Government, which, facing a general election this year, must highlight its achievements in opening up world markets to New Zealand trade.

— Aidan Kelly

EYE ON EXEC Because we attend all these meetings anyway, and because someone requested, we resuscitated this section. Below are updates deemed relevant from the VUWSA Executive meeting on May

15 22 — minutes are posted on the VUWSA website: http://www.vuwsa.org. nz/2017-executive-meeting-minutes.

President Rory Lenihan-Ikin updated the Executive on VUWSA’s oral submission to the Greater Wellington Regional Council that requests for Fairer Fares to be included in their long-term plan that is decided in October. He also reviewed the Living Wage event on May 10 as a success, recalling the “warm feeling in the Hub.” There were oral reports of several internal committees, all of which Treasurer/Secretary Tom Rackley delivered. The Policy Committee have delegated VUWSA policies to each member to review. The Executive Reporting Committee have reviewed reports. The Student Media Committee is “meeting soon” to address a reform of the Committee itself, an issue discussed earlier that day by the Constitutional Review Committee.

VUWSA have decided that after holding on to lost property items for a certain period of time, items will be sold, and the money donated towards the Executive’s chosen charity: InsideOUT Aotearoa. VUW policy is that lost property comes to VUWSA and staff hand items to the VUWSA reception.

VUWSA voted against allowing political parties to advertise on their channels online and off. They decided it was not worth giving up their reputation and credibility as a non-partisan organisation, which would be at risk without balanced advertisement, something that would be too difficult to manage.

Education Officer Lauren Daroux Greig reported that Te Aro campus had the lowest rate of flu shots, with only 29 students using the service. Low engagement with Te Aro students is a recurring concern.

The meeting went into committee for nearly an hour, which Salient is unable to report on.

Politics

THE PARTY LINE On May 10, following a visit by the founder of the Free West Papua Campaign Benny Wenda, 11 MPs from across the political spectrum signed a declaration from the International Parliamentarians for West Papua calling for an internationally supervised referendum on independence. However, according to a spokesperson from MFAT, “successive New Zealand governments have recognised Papua as a part of Indonesia.” Do you support the International Parliamentarians call for an internationally supervised referendum on independence for West Papua?

CW: Discussion of violence and genocide Vic Labour New Zealand is rightly proud of our independent foreign policy, a part of our heritage that only Labour governments have built. Whether it be the nuclear free policy of the Lange government, or Helen Clark’s refusal to go into Iraq; Labour governments stand up for what is right, both at home and abroad.

West Papua deserves the chance to speak for itself about its identity as an independent nation, just as Timor-Leste did in 1999. The fact that MFAT officials state that Papua is currently recognised as a part of Indonesia is not a legitimate reason to not act — public servants are just that, and in this instance some real political leadership is needed. New Zealand should be unafraid of supporting this cause and should call for an internationally supervised vote on self-determination as set out in the recent petition.

Young Nats — Lower North Island The Young Nats generally do not take official stances on matters of foreign affairs. We believe these issues are non-partisan and should not be po-

liticised. We trust MFAT and the Ministers responsible to make the correct decisions based on the detailed information in front of them.

We’re proud to support successive governments running pragmatic, principled, and independent foreign policy, which is why New Zealand is respected across the globe as a true world leader. This is evident in New Zealand’s election to the UN security council in 2015 and the prominence of past Kiwi politicians in world affairs.

On issues of international relations, the Young Nats choose to not politicise but believe in the system that has made us respected on the world stage.

— Sam Stead Greens at Vic Indonesia’s imperial regime in West Papua is, unquestionably, genocide. It has occurred as cold genocide through structural violence: the process of “Indonesianisation” sustained low-intensity killings and the same assimilation techniques employed in other colonies like Aotearoa. It has also occurred as hot genocide with mass murder, torture, and human rights atrocities such as Operation Clean Sweep where the families of rebels were raped and stabbed and their bodies left to rot.

Further, the West Papuan people are having their lands destroyed by resource extraction.

Inevitably the same countries that could be called upon, principally Australia and the US, have economic interest in the destruction of West Papua, and thus its people.

Greens at Vic firmly hold that the West Papuan people must have self-determination. The act of signing the referendum is a small step towards this goal. Not signing it, however, means being complicit in genocide.

— Hugo Robinson

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• INTERVIEW WITH GAYAAL IDDAMALGODA •

Gayaal Iddamalgoda is a Legal Organiser for First Union and the candidate for the Migrant and Refugee Rights Campaign in Wellington Central. The campaign envisions “a socially just Aotearoa/New Zealand” and pushes for increased rights for migrants and refugees.

We spoke to Gayaal about the aims of his candidacy, migrant worker exploitation, and immigration policy.

Below is shortened transcript, the full transcript can be found at salient.org.nz/ category/interview/. *** You’re representing the Migrant and Refugee Rights Campaign (MARRC) Aotearoa New Zealand in the Wellington Central electorate; essentially, what is the campaign and what are its aims?

The campaign grew out of my political interest in working with refugees.

We started to see there were lots of politically active and politicised refugees coming to settle in Wellington from Syria and we (me and a few others) were really interested in and engaged with the Syrian refugee crisis — one of the biggest humanitarian disasters of human history.

Interview

So the immediate impetus for forming a group around refugee and migrant rights came out of those events. [...]

We have all these refugees who might be seeking asylum in New Zealand, or who are currently seeking asylum in New Zealand; and we have, throughout the country, in pretty much every industry you can imagine, exploited workers who are tied to their employers by very oppressive visa arrangements, and who have an immigration system that’s not very friendly or understanding to their needs. On top of that, we see this trend in mainstream politics of blaming migrants as quite an easy way to, I guess, gain political ground.

So we wanted to draw people, working class people, into thinking about migrants and refugees, and thinking about the things that are said about them, when they’re made out to be a threat to New Zealand jobs and society, and ask, are these correct? We want people to understand that migrants and refugees are overwhelmingly working class and, as workers, everyone in New Zealand has an interest in ensuring that these people are not a marginalised section of the working class.

There’s this whole thing about migrants and refugees driving down wages. People have to understand that migrants and refugees don’t decide how cheaply they get paid, this is decided by employers, and there’s a whole system of immigration law, racist assumptions, visas, and employment law that doesn’t accommodate for these people and allows them to be cheaply used. As working class New Zealanders we have to say, “it doesn’t matter where you come from, if you come here to do work, you get the same rights, and benefits, and protections as any worker.” Then there is no incentive to use migrants as cheap labour, if they’re protected. [...]

Was part of that shaped by your work with First Union?

Yes, a huge part of it was shaped by my work. You begin to see how isolated migrants can be in the work force.

I think that isolation, and the inability to organise with other workers, and join with other workers, and protect themselves, is a massive disadvantage. There are no unions that

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systematically organise migrant and refugee workers — that’s a huge issue. Often times you have workers who are living with their employer, pretty much living in the same building as their employer. Often times, especially in the agricultural sector, buying everything they need off their employer with their income. I was able to have that insight through my work with First Union. I said before, I have taken on individual cases that are referred to me, and I’ve done that for a few years now.

I’m not sure if you’re allowed to discuss specific cases, but what kinds of exploitation goes on?

Without giving names away, I recently dealt with an individual who was employed in the IT industry, so quite a white-collar job. He was living in the same apartment as his employer, didn’t speak English very well, and had not been paid since October — it was in 2016 that I met him, and he hadn’t been paid since October 2015. He was owed something like $17,000 in wages.

The problem was that immigration has a very cut and thrust sort of policy to its dealings with migrants at times, and doesn’t really factor in to the equation the possibility that they’re getting exploited. This person wasn’t getting paid.

He had to go to work for his employer because that’s what his visa required him to do. But he didn’t have any money so he was working in a restaurant illegally — now, what else can he do? That’s one example.

There are quite a few examples in the dairy and agricultural industry. I’ve dealt with a few personally. Families living on farms, and constantly on the brink of being dismissed. If you’re dismissed in New Zealand and you’re a kiwi worker you can raise a personal grievance or you can go to the Employment Relations Authority, but it’s a bit more difficult if you’re migrant worker, because what are you going to do about your visa? You could be kicked out of the country. [...].

Given this first-hand experience, how would you see yourself in relation to the other candidates in the Wellington Central electorate — James Shaw, Nicola Willis, Grant Robertson — who are, perhaps, of the political class? It seems, on these issues, you come from a more genuine position.

What I would like is for them to think about it as well. And for them to explicitly articulate their views on migrant and

Interview

refugee issues, because I think they owe it to their constituents to be open.

I’ve been mulling over Andrew Little’s recent comments to cut migration by “tens of thousands,” as he says. New Zealand is a small country, what does he mean? Why is he saying that? Personally I think it’s abhorrent. It plays into that whole scapegoating of migrants and refugees for all sorts of social problems, like the housing crisis.

The constituents, the voters, the working people in New Zealand, have a right to know why he is saying this, what he means, and for him to be transparent.

Otherwise, migrant bashing becomes a cudgel you can use to oppress, marginalise, and scapegoat a group for actual problems that are caused by the wealthy, by people who are always rich despite what the economy is doing. That’s what I want to do, especially in relation to the other left wing parties. I’m not a party, I guess, I’m just an individual, but that’s what I hope to achieve.

We’ve had a number of interviews with the likes of Grant Robertson and James Shaw, and we asked them about immigration. James Shaw said that the Green Party’s immigration policy is “a humanitarian-oriented

Interview

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immigration policy,” and suggested that National’s immigration policy was flawed because “the settings are clearly wrong. They are heavily oriented at low-skill, cheap labour, rather than more high-end skilled labour that a lot of our industries really need. You can move the settings around a lot, but also need to deal with the peaks and troughs [...] we’ve seen a huge increase in people, especially in Auckland, over a short period of time. [...].

What we were saying is, in the years where it’s low, you relax the settings, encourage more people to come in, and then try and manage the demand down at other peak times. That allows for infrastructure and housing planning that can cope with a reasonably steady level of demand.” He suggests New Zealand needs a more responsive immigration system, where you allow for more migrants to come in when net immigration is low, and slow down migration when net immigration is high. What are your thoughts on such a policy?

I think it’s interesting as we’re talking about working people. I’ve always found it very interesting how, when it comes to capital and people’s money, nobody cares where that comes from. Rich people can take wealth in and out

of the country as they please, e.g. Peter Thiel, who didn’t even step foot in New Zealand. I think that’s the problem. Rich people have all this freedom, but working class people don’t have freedom of movement. I think that’s something we should all be able to have. It’s a fundamental human right.

There’s a lot in [Shaw’s] statement, but there some other elements I would criticise. There’s this whole idea that we don’t have the infrastructure to deal with migrants and refugees. [...] It’s not that we don’t have the resources, it’s simply that we never seem to have the resources for the poor and needy. That affects all of us whether we’re Pākehā, Māori, migrant, or refugee — and that’s the actual problem.

I believe very much in people’s right to seek work, asylum, refuge, wherever they can. I think the real problem, when you look at the Pacific Islander workers who are under the Recognised Seasonal Employer schemes for example, is that there’s this emphasis to deal with “high-skilled workers” more, but these workers, who are supposedly “low-skilled”, are the backbone of our agricultural economy. We owe them more than just to treat them like sacks of potatoes. They come here, they get exploited, and then we pack them back.

We scapegoat them for taking jobs off New Zealanders. It seems the whole premise is perverse from the root.

You mentioned that freedom of movement is hard for the working class as opposed to the wealthy. Do you see these immigration policies as more class discriminatory than based on race?

I do. I think racism plays a part in it. It makes ordinary New Zealanders think they have a stake in these policies.

They think “we’ll all be eating baklava, or chinese food,” or some ridiculous claim. It makes ordinary working class New Zealanders think they’re being protected by these policies — so racism plays an ideological role. But I do think it’s class-based, because if you’re rich enough you can come and go from New Zealand as you please. It doesn’t matter where you’re from; if you’re Arab or Polynesian, whatever.

The final question we always ask is what is your favourite colour?

Red. — Tuioleloto Laura Toailoa and Tim Manktelow

OPINION

Alright. In all seriousness: we’re here, we’re queer, and our youth are dying. It’s a result of a society that thinks we’re done working for our equality when, really, we’ve barely even touched the surface of LGBTQ+ rights in New Zealand. So, what are you going to do about it?

— Kate Aschoff

OPINION

OPINION OPINION OPINION

• Starting with the wait for surgery (only an option for those over 18+). Transgender people who wish to have gender affirming surgery in New Zealand’s public health system have to wait for it. Maybe eight months, right? Up to a year? Not quite.

With the current rate that these surgeries are taking place, the estimated wait is 50+ years. If you choose to go private with this operation, you would be facing fees up to $20,000. A life saving surgery not being publicly funded? But how could this be?

My dear reader, sadly, the answer would be: transphobia in our health sector. Note: You must first be “diagnosed” with Gender Identity Disorder before having any kind of hormone therapy or surgery in NZ. • Recently the Ministry of Education added LGBTQ+ friendly guidelines to teaching sex and sexuality education in secondary schools. But, alas, it is up to the individual teacher if they choose to include this information or not. Our youth are missing the opportunity to learn how to have healthy sex and understand their own identities. In 2016 RNZ reported then Education Minister Hekia Parata saying that the Ministry had given schools guidance about how to make sure students from “diverse” backgrounds felt included, but the government could not and would not tell self-managing schools what to do.

So they’ll include the information that’s needed but just not enforce the teaching of it. Interesting logic.

• Students, aged 14 and 15, from Queen Margaret’s College in Wellington had to involve Community Law before their school would let them set up a LGBTQ+ support group. And once the group was set up, the students were not allowed to advertise for it and only senior students could attend. Similar circumstances have occurred in other religious New Zealand secondary schools. Our youth are being prevented from meeting and making connections with one another… and fair enough; what if they try to overthrow this cisnormative heterosexual society we live in? It’d be madness, am I right?!

• And now for the statistics! It has been found by Rainbow Youth that up to 40% of those who are homeless in New Zealand, under the age of 25, identify as LGBTQ+.

In 2012 Auckland University undertook a survey of 8500 secondary students. They found that one in five transgender students had attempted suicide in the last year, and 40% had self harmed in the last year.

They were five times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers. In 2009 Rainbow Youth reported similar findings for gay/bi students; they were three times more likely to be bullied at school. Gay teens were found to be five times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers. It’s almost as if… homophobia and transphobia… kills?? Gasp.

OPINION

OPINION

I’m assuming the shocking title drew you in, but after reading this, maybe you won’t find it so shocking anymore. Everything is ka pai for the queers in NZ, right? Maybe that requires some more thought… Just because our government isn’t encouraging families to kill off their queer family members doesn’t mean LGBTQ+ people (young or old) in New Zealand are done fighting for our rights, and for our lives. Let’s reopen this conversation — forget what the media tells us about “progressive NZ” and listen up.

OPINION

OPINION

NZ INDIRECTLY KILLING LGBTQ+ YOUTH? IT ’S MORE LIKELY THAN YOU THINK.

OPINION

OPINION

Opinion

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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

— Rory Lenihan-Ikin

VUWSA PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT! You can get free bread from the Kelburn VUWSA office every Friday.

There’s also the VUWSA Community Pantry where you can get a free bundle of food, a fruit and vege market voucher, and sanitary items — no questions asked. It’s simple as! Just fill in the form on the VUWSA website and pick up at our Kelburn office.

There’s a Pipitea Campus Community "Veggie Garden if you’re interested. Join their Facebook group to find out more.

You can get wholesale price organic foods from the VUW Organic Food Co-op every month — find them on Facebook. There’s also the VUW Fruit and Vegetable Co-op where you can get enough supplies for two people for a week for $12, just order online and pick-up at any campus.

You now have more knowledge about the food services at VUW than I did in my first three years of uni. With each year of my studies I discovered a different on-campus food service that I didn’t know about before.

We will put all the information about the on-campus food services in one place so that you can find out what’s available and how to access it — easy peasy. This will be the starting point for our Food Network that will connect students with food services at VUW. VUWSA put out a survey last week to find out if students were aware of these food services.

Many students struggle to afford food from week to week and financial pressure makes it hard to make healthy food choices. VUWSA is here to support students, and this data will help us to improve these services so that every student can eat better and stress less.

— Bethany Paterson ( Wellbeing and Sustainability Officer)

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Columns

TE ARA TAUIRA AROHATIA TE REO... PĀNGARAU

Ko te manu kai miro, nōna te ngahere. Ko te manu kai mātauranga, nōna te ao. Heoi, ko te manu e matatau ana ki te kaute, nōna ngā mea katoa.

I te nuinga o te wā, mā te kitenga noa iho o tēnei kupu e hūiki ai te tangata. Nō reira, he mea takahi te mana o te Pāngarau i runga i te pōhēhē kei te uaua rawa atu tēnei reo, ka mutu kāore hoki ōna take. Tēnā pōhēhē tēnā e hoa mā! I runga i te ngākaunui ki te reo Pāngarau ka miramirahia he aha tātou katoa e whai atu ai i te huarahi o ngā nama. Ahakoa me uaua ka kitea te mīharo o tēnei mea te pāngarau, ko tāku e awhero ai, ko te nui haere o te rahinga e mahi pāngarau ana i tēnei ao.

Nā, anei ōku nei whakaaro: 1. He nui ngā mahi ka taea ina haere koe mā runga i tēnei ara. Hei tauira: he video game maker, he pilot, he sports statitician, he animator, he forensic scientist, he actuarist, arā nui atu ngā kōwhiringa.

2. Tua atu i tērā, me uaua ka kitea te tangata Māori e taea ai te mahi i ngā mahi a te kaikaute.

He nui te mahi kaute i te ao Māori mō te tangata hīkaka.

3. Te hanga a te pūtea mō te kaipāngarau, inarā, ko te Māori e mahi ana mō tōna ake iwi me tōna ake whānau.

4. Ehara i te mea me mātau rawa atu koe, anō nei ko Einstein koe kia taea ai te mahi, e hē! Mā tō hihiri kē koe e eke ai.

5. Āe, he uaua, engari he uaua ngā mea katoa (tae rā anō ki te reo Māori). Heoi anō tā tātou he ū ki te kaupapa, kaua e haere poka noa. Me whai take, kātahi anō ka whai whakaaro.

6. Kia maumahara ake koe ki te wā i a koe i roto i tō karaehe pāngarau, ā, nāu tētahi whārite i whakaoti? Ko taua tau o te mauri, te mākonatanga o ngā hiahia? Koia nei tō ao mō ake tonu atu mēnā ka whai koe i tēnei ara.

Whakaarohia e hoa mā! Ko tēnei te ao hou, te huarahi ki anamata. Ki te kore tātou e whakanui i tēnei reo, ka mate, ka ngaro atu ki te pō. Ākina tō hoa, ākina tō whānau, otirā, ākina ko koe anō!

Mā tō hirikapo koi ka taea ngā mea katoa.

— Nā Jesseallen Te Awhe-Raston

ONE OCEAN REPRESENTATION Two weeks ago, in writing about Dr Teresia Teaiwa, I talked briefly about the issue of Pasifika representation. It got me thinking: How well are we represented in mainstream society? Is our presence known? If not, whose responsibility is it to change the situation?

I went over these questions for a few days, and here’s what I’ve concluded: • We’re not represented as much as we’d like to think. When we are, it feels like a form of compensation. I mean, how many Pasifika people do we see on the city’s billboards?

And when mainstream society does “try”, it doesn’t seem to “fit” us under its umbrella.

Remember why Aaradhna gave away her Tui Award? (That was an amazing example, especially at a time when “just be grateful you got something” is again being preached to minority groups).

• But, our presence is known. We have amazing Pasifika professionals: teachers, doctors, entertainers, athletes, and journalists out there. They are slowly taking up the “watch this space” sections of the public awareness narrative — these chapters that were assumed to be blank until recently.

• It’s our shared responsibility. The more we write, study, travel, sing — whatever we are good at — the louder our voices get. It’s our time to make ourselves known.

I said in the last column that success hardly ever looks like Pasifika people. Now I am convinced that it is up to us to make sure it is. An essential part of our social and cultural decolonisation is realising that we are enough as we are. There’s no set language that a successful person should speak, or a set colour that they should be. I look like success. You look like success.

— Jasmine Koria

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bUt WhAt AbOuT tHe MeN & OTHER SHIT CHAT & Good morning to everyone except the people feeling personally attacked by my “men are trash” chat two weeks ago, and welcome to your bi-weekly intake of petty, aggressive, and unapologetic feminism!

Entering into an open dialogue with people of opposing ideologies is one of many available methodologies one might utilise as a means to engage with the complexities of critical theory and to contest socially constructed inequalities.

It’s just not the methodology for me. Personally, I’m done with arguing the legitimacy of women’s marginalisation. Personally, I favour goading people until they prove my point for me.

Clothing doesn’t have a fucking gender, Robert.

“One thing’s for sure: the RompHim's wild popularity is evidence that the American man’s thirst for comfortable clothing and convenience may never be quenched.” Counterpoint, GQ: the RompHim’s wild popularity is evidence that the American man’s absolute disdain for anything perceived as “feminine” is unparalleled. Produce a line of tiaras and market them For Men™ and within days you’ll see a Buzzfeed listicle titled “Ten Men Wearing Tiaras That You’ll Want To Take Home”, featuring some excessively bearded (but meticulously groomed) Chad in the thumbnail.

Masculinity Is So Damn Fragile So crucial to male self-worth is glorifying machismo and belittling femininity that if I wear a short salmon romper and blast IG with pictures of similarly-clad friends, I’m a ho, but if a guy wears a short salmon romper and markets it as a fucking RompHim, he’s peak pop-fashion. Masculinity and femininity as a rigidly enforced dichotomy is a massive cuck, bruh. Nobody wins. You’re being cucked by your RompHims, Robert. Don’t get me wrong — I’m all for wearing rompers whatever it is you’re packing — but I’m pretty salty at assholes out here calling us sluts and then borrowing our wardrobes. Among other things.

Men Are Trash You are entirely correct, Robert, not all men are awful, but “masculinity” definitely is. Vociferating men as a collective for accommodating toxic masculinity is not tantamount to hating every single individual man on earth — not that I’d blame you if you did. Not being able to differentiate between Men as an oppressive collective and men as individuals seems like more of a You problem than a Me problem at this stage, Robert.

There is obviously something to be said for temperate and moderate epistemological debates pertaining to contemporary gender dynamics; they’re just not for me. I’m angry, I’m tired, and I’m sick of your shit, Robert. I’m sick of listening to men contradict women’s lived experiences, and I’m sick of the expectation that I will do so in a dispassionate and level-headed manner. I’m sick of having to debate the validity of my existence. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a thousand times — men are trash — and if you’re offended by this, Robert, you’re probably part of the problem.

Love you, xoxo — Sasha Beattie

FROM WITHIN

The fact that I — along with any other Commonwealth citizen living in the UK — can vote is news to me; my interest in UK politics was, up until moving here, summed up to some kind of queasy feeling about Blair, Bush, and the start of the wars of our generation (drugs, terror, crime, Iraq and Afghanistan).

I better do some reading; but withstanding some political enlightenment before June 8, I will vote for Jeremy Corbyn in the parliamentary constituency of Islington North, London. There are many reasons why.

I can vote because I just moved to a permanent address from a canal boat. The rabbit hole bureaucracy here makes it very hard to do anything without a permanent address (and the rise in London’s homelessness continues).

Another reason? I won the lottery of birth. It started when the British Crown reluctantly took colonial authority over New Zealand. Then my parents raised me in a socio-economic stratum enabling me to be a university educated ex-pat. Simple, really.

From historic beginnings, any member of a Commonwealth state living in the UK has the right to vote in elections of every variety; from local elections to EU referenda (at least until Brexit) — as long as they have the right to be living in the UK. This right to vote is continually implemented as a means of soft, bilateral power (for those of you in INTP112 *high five*). Essentially, the legacy of the “British Subject” continues.

And it’s nice to be in this global community. However, what does it mean when a country allows nationals with tenuous historical links — maintained largely on a state level — to vote, but not its own prisoners?

Prisoners who likely have an emotional and familial attachment to said country.

Britain, along with New Zealand, holds a blanket ban over prisoners voting. It is a privilege to be about to vote in fair and free elections.

But it’s strange that I have this very important, fundamental right, while it is automatically stripped from those who are incarcerated.

David Cameron was reported in the Guardian to have said it makes him feel “physically sick” to think of prisoners having the right to vote.

Cameron is still suffering from a Victorian hangover in the notion that prisoners should be wholly removed from civic life.

In today’s context of overcrowded prisons and failing reintegration programmes, the opposite of this Victorian notion is true. Incarcerated members of society should feel included within the civic process.

Excluding them from suffrage is excluding them from the thought they can once again be apart of a functioning, free society.

— Joe Morris

THE FALLOUT ZONE

I CAN VOTE AND I LIVE IN JEREMY CORBYN’S CONSTITUENCY…

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THE QUEER AGENDA Those of us on the rainbow spectrum use a lot of terms to describe our gender identities that can be confusing. Nonbinary. Agender. Genderqueer.

Androgyne. Transfeminine. And so on. Today, I’m hoping to shed some light on genderfluidity.

Firstly, it’s necessary to narrow down exactly what we mean by “gender identity.” It’s not: what you like, what you wear, how you present yourself, and definitely not what your body looks like.

Your gender identity is simply the core part of you that says “I am X.” Most of us have a fairly static gender identity, whether or not it matches our sex. A cis woman may feel more “girly” one day, and more tomboyish on another. However, a core part of her would still feel comfortable saying “I am a woman.” Since she doesn’t cross the usually observed male/female boundary, people take little notice of her feelings of “I am” on a given day.

Some people, however, experience more variability than that — their core “I am…” changes more noticeably. How it changes, how fast, and to what extent depends on the person.

One may feel female one day and genderless another. They may cycle day-by-day, quicker, or slower. Some people change the way they act, others may not.

There are many portrayals of genderfluid people as indecisive. I’ve heard more than one cry of “political correctness gone too far” and “that’s so stupid!” It is a new concept for a lot of people, and can be difficult to grasp, but immediately decrying it is hurtful to the many people who feel this way and are just trying to live authentically.

If a friend comes out as genderfluid, the best thing you can do is be supportive! Respect them for being brave enough to live authentically. Ask about their name, their pronouns, and remember that they are the same awesome person you’ve always known!

— Winter Jones

ACCESS DENIED DISABILITY, CLASS, RACE, SEXUALITY, AND GENDER The links between disability, class, race, sexuality, and gender are multifaceted and complex; a huge Venn diagram of complicated and sometimes conflicting issues that are unable to be separated by clear lines.

The research, diagnosis, treatment, and classification of disability and illness has historically been framed within the context of white manhood. This is the same whether a disability or illness is physical, cognitive, or mental — albeit manifesting in different ways.

The classifications of mental illness have been used to target women and people of colour, an attempt to contain oppression by labelling those in oppressed groups who fight against it “mad” and “hysterical.” Homosexuality was listed as a mental illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 1974.

Autism diagnoses continue to be biased against women, with far fewer women diagnosed because the criteria are framed around men’s experiences. Women statistically spend longer waiting in emergency rooms than men, while pain levels are not treated with the same severity.

There is also the link between disability and class — most accessible equipment is incredibly expensive as it isn’t marketable to ablebodied folk, and isn’t able to be mass produced in the same way as an iPhone. In fact, some of the biggest leaps in accessibility in phone technology have been because of it’s usefulness for ablebodied people — Siri, anyone?

Working class people are also statistically more likely to have disabilities and illnesses — many of them treatable — but have to get by without the support they need. People unable to work (much or at all) can get stuck in a vicious poverty cycle where the government punishes them for doing the small amount they can do or accumulating any savings, while barely supporting people to financially get by. Even before the housing crisis this was a real issue.

— Georgie Steel

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Columns

SWAT As students, we are familiar with the term “stress”. It is an unavoidable fact that when you’re balancing sleep, work, and uni — you’re going to be stressed. While there is no solution to stop the amount of stress we encounter, there are ways to decrease your stress levels by taking care of yourself. Your wellbeing should be a priority, not an option, so here are some ways to reduce your stress levels.

You will hear this repeatedly throughout your life, but when you’re stressed it is helpful to exercise. I don’t mean running for hours every day, but rather finding ways to go outside, allowing your body to move, and getting a breath of fresh air. I know that, when you’re stressed, the last thing on your mind is exercise, but your body needs a break. Going for a short walk will increase your endorphins, wake you up, and give you energy without making you over-caffeinated.

You could also go to the Bubble, in the Student Union Building on the Kelburn campus.

They have plenty of activities to help you destress and it’s one of the best places on campus for relaxation. I remember when the SPCA came in during Stress-free Study Week and brought the most gorgeous puppies. If that isn’t the best way to de-stress, then I don’t know what is!

One of the best tips I have received about stress is to prioritise and breathe. While it may seem incredibly simple, when we’re stressed we tend to overlook the basics and focus on what needs to be completed. When you’re stressed, your mind is running at ridiculous speeds, you’re tired from lack of sleep, and you’ve probably had at least two cups of coffee while trying to complete six tasks at once. During these moments, the best thing you can is breathe, re-focus, and prioritise.

Considering we are approaching the final week of the trimester, now is a perfect time to start implementing these ideas!

— Jaylee Rolleston

POSTGRAD INFORMER CONSERVATION & ENVIRONMENT SCIENCE ROADMAP — WHY WE SHOULD CARE We students lead the way with spirited voices on topical environmental and conservation issues, and aspire to conduct innovative research to understand and mitigate human impacts. But to do this effectively, we must be aware of relevant policies, documents, and guidelines which inform us of research priorities and information gaps that require investigation. No matter what discipline you’ve chosen, your research can assist in finding solutions to future environmental and conservation challenges.

One such document recently published by the Ministry for the Environment (MfE), Department of Conservation (DOC), and Sir Peter Gluckman is the Conservation & Environment Science Roadmap. It identifies research needs across all scientific fields, and aims to strengthen collaboration between them, by putting everyone “on the same page” in terms of the big environmental issues we face in New Zealand. The key research priorities are grouped into eight areas: environmental monitoring, climate change, biosecurity, integrated ecosystems, freshwater, coasts and oceans, species and populations, and social and economic factors. Roadmap recognises the importance of science in helping central and local government, private sectors, non-governmental organisations, and individuals make better choices toward a future where our economic, social, and cultural wellbeing is supported by a healthy environment.

On May 29, VUW will host a presentation

by Dr David Wratt (MfE), Dr Ken Hughey (DOC), Sir Peter Gluckman, and Dr Anne Bardsley (UoA) in AM103 1.00–2.00pm. There will be a brief presentation of Roadmap content, how you can use it, and a chance for questions.

I’d very much recommend attending if you want to find out how you can help New Zealand reach a more sustainable future.

— Katherine de Silva

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Features

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IMAGINING DECOLONISED CITIES

PRESENTS A SYMPOSIUM: WHAT IS A DECOLONISED CITY

WRITTEN BY DAN KELLY

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A Land Long Clouded

[Beginning with: The Mind] I had planned to go for only half the symposium, a typical Pākehā response — pop in, see the speakers I wanted to then leave, back to my own life and whatever it was I normally did on Saturdays. I messaged IDC about it on Facebook, and the response was unequivocal: unless I’d been pōwhiri’d onto Takapūwāhia Marae before, it was important I be there at 10.00am. As Moana Jackson was later to note, decolonisation is a long haul. If I was in, I’d better keep up.

Takapūwāhia Marae affiliates to Ngāti Toa Rangatira, and is in Porirua, loosely half an hour from my Dad’s flat in Highbury and the middle class homes that hug the hill. I turned off Titahi Bay Road early by mistake and did a slow lap round to Ngātitoa Street: state houses with kids playing out front, peeling paint, and a pile of broken TVs, slowly giving themselves to the grass.

We huddled on the far side of the street from the marae, the first notes of the karanga drawing us in and on, shoes off, and into the wharenui where te reo reigned and I sat looking at the carvings. The welcomes finished. There was a response then the hongi began, the attendees in a long line, moving slowly forward towards the tangata whenua and the other speakers.

Morning tea was called and I thought about how relaxed it all was, formal but flexible — no one had checked any tickets or crossed names off. I’d only RSVP’d two days before. When we got inside there hadn’t been enough seats but no stress, more were fetched and on it all went.

Back in the wharenui the kōrero switched to English and the MC Taku Parai got up and explained some of his background, his relationship to place: “I was born up the road and… I’ve never left. This is my eternal home.” He described his foray into America, how he’d lasted one day in Las Vegas with his rugby team before bailing, into a cab and on a plane home, the feeling of calm he felt when he saw the harbour from the plane window: “This is where I belong.” Taku spoke to the communal aspects of Te Ao Māori, how the homes in his neighbourhood were “always open, always welcoming,” how the conference was an extension of that, an exploration of what decolonised cities might be, the different ways we might bring them into being: “A return back in some way or form.”

The first speaker was Patricia Grace, esteemed author and affiliate to Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa, and Te Ati Awa, recently successful in her battle with NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to have her family land near Waikanae spared from the motorway development. She explained how the case had played out: how she had only been contacted after all opportunities for consultation had closed, how NZTA had claimed they hadn’t had her phone number, how her mother had been sick and that had occupied her, the answer of “no” one that was exceedingly slow to get through.

Patricia’s husband had explained the land’s significance, how it was part of an old village and that there had been burials on the high part of the dune, that they didn’t want to sell it. Patricia was more blunt: “How many ways are there of saying no?”

NZTA were trying to acquire the land under section 18 of the Public Works Act, for the purpose of the Mackays to Peka Peka Expressway, and when Patricia applied to the Māori Land Court to have its status shifted to Māori reserve — a move that would establish it as inalienable, even by the Crown — NZTA opposed the action.

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Features The matter proceeded to the Environment Court, where Patricia gave evidence of the land’s significance, of which we received a short summary. It had come down to her from Wiremu Te Kakakura Parata, one of New Zealand’s first Māori politicians and a man of some significance around Waikanae. Patricia described the area in the 1850s, sheep stations and fields of wheat, a flour mill — all Māori-owned. In 1884 land had been donated for the railway and some shops established, all part of Wi Parata’s commitment to working together with Pākehā.

I found this strange when going over my notes. In 1877, in the case that bears his name, Wi Parata had challenged the Bishop of Wellington over land gifted for an Anglican Church that had never eventuated, his case famously dismissed by Prendergast CJ who had described Te Tiriti as “a simple nullity.” When Patricia Grace had mentioned it, hairs stood up on my head, but it wasn’t until writing this that I realised the timing: it all happened before he gifted the railway land. As Patricia said, “Tangata whenua in this country have given enough.”

Eventually the Environment Court found in Patricia’s favour, establishing a precedent that points to an increasing understanding of tikanga. The decision acknowledged that wāhi tapu has a broader meaning than just those physical components which can be pointed to: it is about the whole.

While no doubt pleased at her victory, and the precedent it has set, Patricia pointed out the irony of the Crown compensating with one hand while it takes under the Public Works Act with the other. She ended her kōrero with a sly dig at those who would boast before looking too closely: “We can’t have a great city while we have child poverty, while we have unclean water…“ Clearly, there’s a long way to go.

The next speaker was Rangi Kipa, of Taranaki, Te Atiawa Nui Tonu, and Ngāti Maniapoto, a carver, artist, and powerful speaker — as he himself admitted, he envisions his role (and that of the artist more generally) as provocateur, someone who promotes critical discussion.

His kōrero began with an admission of uncertainty: he wasn’t sure where to start. The world faces such big issues — the scale of our problem now such that our very existence is at stake — and yet, if you start there, people just run away.

I was instantly on board. He joked about frustrations, “how stupid humans are,” the deficits written into our language: “in the way we see ourselves and how we interact.” For Rangi, the key is to frame things in the context of relationship.

He talked about the primacy of the environment, the deficits in how we engage with shelter and food, and the need for “collective gardens.” How he had been thinking about what we could do to “save the world,” and how simple things in our own lives are its beginning. He talked about his bro and the seed storage he does, the process of reverting to papakāinga, his thought echoing my own: “we want to live in community again.”

At times he was brutally frank. He talked about the end of the treaty settlement process in Taranaki, and how it presented an opportunity to move beyond the infighting to a common future; how the purchase of land for a papakāinga was a step towards resisting the processes that pull us apart. He didn’t say it, but I knew what he meant. Our world was so individual now.

He talked about the issue of “collective connection” and how there was a

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romanticisation of Māori, one that masked a darker truth: “most of our people are strangers to each other, even though they’re kin.” If we are to move forward, then this is where we have to start, solving these problems is the best inheritance you can leave your kids: “that’s what your job is.”

There was an issue with marae, he said, as no one lives there anymore. Using settlement money to buy the land around them was a step towards collective living and farming. The land was to be bought “for occupation, not ownership” — something that “supersedes identity politics as far as I’m concerned.” I thought of what being Pākehā meant to me, the significance of hearing such kōrero. He talked about the early days of settlement and the assimilation that occurred during them, his vision of a return to this, organised not around race, but values, a common language: relationships.

One of our problems, Rangi said, is that “we don’t have a language that transcends the boundary of our ethnic nouns.” So divided, we struggle to move forwards. He talked about the brightly coloured tiki he had created, his idea being that they might be a way for Pākehā to express their connection to whenua: a new icon, with deep roots but still accessible, not just “for Māori.”

In a kōrero that echoed that of Michael King, he spoke of how Pākehā too are of this place: “we can’t pretend they just popped over”; of the need for a shared language; how both parties will have to come to the table — the difficulty of this acknowledged, for as Rangi noted, Māori have moved so much — but the need for a meeting remains. It was about toa tāua: ours over yours or mine.

MC Taku got up. “Some powerful stuff there,” he said. I thought about emotion and how it was welcome here, invited — stark counter to the clinical, the sterility of other conferences I’d been to.

This was a thread picked up by the next speaker, Lena Henry, of Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi, and Te Rarawa, a lecturer at the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Auckland, who described the differences here, on marae: the wairua present and its “imagining” — the different doors that this opens.

She began with a story about her son, and how one day he had asked: “How come Pākehā don’t respect us?” “What do you mean?” Lena had said, and her son replied, “We have to learn their language, but they don’t have to learn ours.” “Well,” said Lena, “it’s called colonisation — do you want to learn about it?” “No.” Later he had asked, and Lena explained that it was people who thought their ideas were better taking over, his silent acceptance later grown loud, in the kitchen, calling out: “Colonisation — sorry ’bout it!”

Lena specialises in Māori and urban planning and spoke to the relationship between local government and Māori, the European philosophy at the root of our planning system (now with Māori values tacked on), and the need for “a radical unsettlement.” She talked about the need for marae to be residential, and how tangata whenua are sick of being “consulted” (and not listened to). Their goal is that of mana whenua and tino rangatiratanga: being involved as host, having the power to make decisions.

None of these ideas are new, she said. We have lots of ways to decolonise. It’s about mindset and the willingness of those in power to implement it. She discussed her work educating planners about Māori

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Features concepts, giving them a vocabulary, and the shift there had been on Queen Street in Auckland — from exotic planting to natives, led by a Pākehā, beneath the level of policy. Just quietly replacing them as they aged, avoiding the contest. We all have roles to play.

She ended with a whakataukī: Kua tawhiti ke to haerenga mai, kia kore e haere tonu. He tino nui rawa ou mahi, kia kore e mahi nui tonu. You have come too far, not to go further. You have done too much, not to do more.

After lunch it was Moana Jackson’s turn to speak, his approach one of storytelling, short bits from his life, delivered calmly but with messages that were to resonate, each enlightening the next. For those who don’t know him, Moana is Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Rongomaiwahine, and Ngāti Porou, and a highly regarded lawyer and legal academic. It was a privilege to hear him speak.

“Every land has stories within it,” he said, recounting a trip with his koro to their maunga, how he had been taught its myth and the story of its name. As they talked, his koro kept telling him to turn and look at the maunga, and eventually Moana realised what he was teaching him: “Things change… but what is important about change is that the foundations are strong.”

Another story focused on the future, and one of Moana’s mokopuna, raised in te reo and just starting to learn English. She was reading, and asked him, “What’s the future?” Moana explained how he had thought of Patricia Grace’s words from Potiki, how the past and future are just circles in time which we name for our convenience, opting instead for a simpler answer.

“How do we find a future?” his moko asked, and Moana replied, “Perhaps we just walk towards it.” There was a silence, and Moana admitted he wasn’t sure how much had gone in.

The next day he spotted her packing a lunch, and watched as she walked past the window to her bike, their Pākehā neighbour trailing behind, as he was wont to do, a little bit younger and enthralled. “Where are you going?” the boy asked. “I’m going to find a future,” she said. “Can I come?” he asked and she looked at him and said, “Boy, can you keep up?”

Moana expanded: it was about whether everyone could keep up. He talked about how change is an ongoing process, the need to define what “colonisation” is: an away from which to move. Colonisation isn’t just the destruction of language and the taking of land; it’s about changing how people see the world, the “imposition of power” — ways of governing that come from somewhere else.

Treaties, said Moana, are about relationships. Before 1840, he said, the world was built on relationships and whakapapa, and everywhere the land is full of stories of relationships — not partnerships.

As Moana explained, partnership has a specific legal meaning, and referring to Te Tiriti as a partnership, as the government has been, is a redefinition of what it actually means. The problem is that you can have an unequal partnership, a senior and junior partner. But, Moana said, treaties are about “an equality of relationships… different, but equal.” Colonisation had destroyed that equality, and replaced it with a partnership. He suggested we only refer to a treaty relationship: “and we can make this land whatever we want to do with it.”

The key point is that “treaties aren’t settled; they are honoured.” And they are only honoured when the treaty and the relationship it establishes are worked through, and, as Moana explained, that hasn’t happened yet.

He went on to give us some history of his whakapapa’s experience with

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Te Tiriti. Many Kahungunu hāpu didn’t want to sign, but his did, travelling a considerable distance only to be told their female rangatira couldn’t sign — at the time, women were still considered property under English law, and certainly weren’t able to sign treaties — so they went home.

This was an example, he said, of some of the less visible elements of colonisation: the damage that has been done to our perception of self, and the impact it has on our intimate relationships. He alluded to domestic violence and its harm, how things weren’t always this way. In addition to its physical components, colonisation carries mental baggage: patriarchy and its evils, the idea of nature as inanimate — far cry from the relationships that existed before, where people were different, but equal. Moving past this was a slow process, that “of reclaiming our truth, of decolonising what we have been taught.”

To decolonise, he said, we don’t need to speak “truth to power,” because doing so privileges Crown power. Instead we needed to “talk the truth of our power, and in doing that realise the power of our truth.”

In a relationship, everyone needs to work. It starts with simple things: pronouncing reo correctly, educating yourself on the country’s history, and understanding that even as reparations are made, as long as there is an inequality in the balance of power then decolonisation is not done.

The process of decolonisation ends, he continued, with the country being brave and imaginative enough to ask what this relationship means in terms of power and legislative authority, in terms of constitutional authority. Ultimately, it is about autonomy and equality. And a position where Māori have to ask permission is a fundamental inequality.

Moana then turned to his research on Bolivia’s 2009 constitution, and how this had informed his own proposals for Aotearoa. Driven by indigenous voice, the process culminated in the recognition of the rights of Pachamama or the Earth Mother. There as here, her well being is primary: “she is our mother because she is the fount of all relationships.”

Moana explained how when the earth is put first, the process of decision making changes: “No one step is more important than the others — like the tukutuku panels, they’re all interrelated.” However, the Government had rejected his recommendations. He talked about how at times it felt like he was banging his head against a wall, how one of his moko had said, “Koro, why don’t we just walk around the wall?”

His final words were prophetic, 2040 set as the date for a new, decolonised constitution and it up to us, ngā tāngata, to make it happen: “The future we shape is the past we take into it, the future we shape is what we imagine.” While decolonisation is made up of many little steps, it is the final that may be the most difficult: “people don’t easily give up power, but we walk towards it.”

The afternoon wore on; there were more speakers, more ideas and discussion, more cups of tea, and finally a chance to look at the entries into IDC’s competition (I haven’t mentioned it, but VUW’s Architecture School is a key convenor of IDC — look them up: idcities.co.nz). I’m already far in excess of the word limit — Salient too operates within a colonial framework. And yet, from the old, the new. There is no easy place to break. You have to make a stand, and go from there. What do you do?

Donna-Marie Patterson donna.patterson@xtra.co.nz

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T H A E L R R E E S E P F OS N: S IT HB

IE L IR ET SY

P O O N F S IS CB I I E L N C E, O R S O C

C O C C R O OA R RL A A L LR C E O R RE R E E F E E S F F : S S : : T T H H T T T E H E H H A E E E RL R E R E R RSR E S E EP E S P S S O O E P P PN F O N O OS S N S N NI : S I S S B B I I I I B I B B L L I I I I L I L L T T I I I Y T Y T T Y Y Y O O OF F O O F F F S S C S C S SI C I C CE E I I I N E N E E C N C N NE, E, C C C E, E, O O R O R O R R S S

C O C O R R A A L L R R E E E E F F S S : :

S O C I E

O C I E T Y ?

Features C O R A L

C C O O R R A A L L

R CE OE R F A S L:

R E E E F F S S : :

R E

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E

C O R A L

T T H H E E

C O R A L

R R R E E E S S S R P P P E O O O E N N R N F S S E S S I E I E I : B B F F B I SI S I T L : L L : H I I I E TT T T T Y HY Y H R E E E O O O S R F R F F P E O SE S S S N C S C P C P S I I O O I I E E N N E B N N T S S N I C C I IC L E, B E, B I I I T O L L O Y R R I T O O S SC S Y F O OI O CE C O C I T I F I E E Y E T Y ?

WRITTEN BY JOSH BRIAN

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Josh Brian

Coral reefs: The responsibility of science, or society?

On December 26, 2004, a massive earthquake and cycle of tsunamis now known as the Sumatra-Andaman event devastated much of Southeast Asia. Coastal communities, especially in western Indonesia, were inundated with walls of water up to 19 metres high that penetrated over two kilometres inland. The death toll was (conservatively) estimated at 230,000.

West of the epicentre, and in the direct path of the radiating tsunamis, lies the small island nation of the Maldives. Despite sitting barely a few metres above sea level, they escaped nearly unscathed. Damage was limited to a few outlying islands; the death toll was considerably less than nearby Sri Lanka, and just one third that of Somalia, which was over 3000km further away from the tsunami’s source. How could this low-lying set of islands escape major damage, when surrounding mainland populations were nearly annihilated?

The answer is coral reefs. To many, they are nothing more than an abstract marine beauty, devoid of function or practicality. But the numerous surge channels and rugged nature of corals buffer storms and large waves, protecting the land beyond. The Maldives, with their complete surrounding coral reef system, thus sustained much less damage than countries with more degraded reefs, like Indonesia and Thailand.

For people who respond to more financial persuasion, corals reefs were estimated (in 1998) to be worth $375 billion annually.1 They support tourism and encourage economic development in numerous countries, and are a crucial protein sources for millions of people (one third of commercial fisheries in Indonesia are conducted on coral reefs). In terms of value per hectare, coral reefs are the most important ecosystem on the planet.

But corals are dying. *** Corals are recognised for their brilliant, variable colours and complex threedimensional structure. However, this state is becoming increasingly atypical.

Beginning in 2014, a massive bleaching event extended across the Pacific and Indian oceans, stimulated by an El Niño (basically a hot round weather ball).

The El Niño hit its peak in 2015, decimating corals of the Great Barrier Reef where up to 90% of corals bleached. Significantly, this event also extended to the Indian Ocean, which had previously escaped massive bleaching.

The reefs of the Maldives, that had saved so many lives a decade earlier, suffered bleaching described by the surveying scientists as “haunting.” When corals bleach, their colours disappear and they become a ghastly white. It also makes them more susceptible to strong waves and other stressors, and this weakness leads to frequent breakages. The result of this is what is known as coral rubble: a haphazard assortment of off-white coral bits laid across the bottom, a far cry from the gorgeous assemblages they can be.

1. Costanza, R., d'Arge, R., De Groot, R., Farber, S., Grasso, M., Hannon, B & Raskin, R. G. (1998). The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital. Ecological economics, 25(1), 3-16.

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Acropora (Unidentified Species). April, 2017. Atauro Island (top), Acropora millepora. April, 2017. Atauro Island (below)

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Josh Brian

Coral reefs: The responsibility of science, orFeatures society?

Inside the cells of coral live small algae called symbionts, photosynthesising and providing up to 95% of the nutrients that corals require to survive. In extreme temperatures, this association breaks down and the symbionts are expelled: this is the mechanism behind bleaching and the reason for the appalling colour loss.

Deprived of their major nutrient source, the corals will soon die.

El Niños, like the ones that caused the mass bleaching, are natural weather events, but in recent years they have become increasingly severe thanks to climate change. Some people (read: ignorant fools) object to the severity with which scientists treat this issue. They say that the world goes through temperature cycles, that it has been this hot before and corals adapted. All of this is true. So why can’t they again?

The issue is pace. The rapidity with which average sea surface temperature is increasing leaves evolution no time to work. More favourable versions of heatrelated genes in both corals and symbionts would need to develop (for example through mutation), and then be able to proliferate through coral communities.

Additionally, while there are different species of symbiont, corals often host only one specific type — they can’t just pick up random new symbionts, however beneficial they may be. Dealing with all these variables has been manageable for corals in the past, in the 10,000 year thermal cycles of the natural world. But the 50% increase of CO2 in the atmosphere in the last 100 years, and the associated temperature rise, means that evolutionary change is made redundant.

However, evolution can be fast-tracked. Hybridisation (sex and subsequent offspring between two different species) is a rapid way to make new genetic combinations, potentially allowing for the production of more thermally resistant coral types. This could also help corals take up better symbiont types — if half the genes come from a symbiont they would normally associate with, they may be more inclined to accept it.

And so in April I found myself travelling to Atauro Island, to explore the potential for symbiont hybridisation on the coral reefs there. Atauro Island is part of Timor-Leste, a small, recently independent country just north of Australia. This locale was chosen for two reasons. Firstly, some previous evidence of symbiont hybridisation has been found, but it was from Lord Howe Island — an atypical, low-latitude reef. Timor-Leste sits in the heart of the coral triangle, and so evidence from there is more widely applicable to other reefs. Secondly, Conservation International has recently named Atauro Island the most diverse reef fish community in the world, and the reefs there appear to be in pretty good nick (they have avoided much of the devastating bleaching that has occurred elsewhere).

It will be useful to assess the diversity of symbiont communities there, and see if there is anything special going on. Actually, there’s a third reason too — who wouldn’t want to go do fieldwork in a tropical country?

*** Atauro Island lies roughly 30 kilometres north of Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste.

Flying into Dili, I got a great view of where I would spent the next fortnight, and was struck by its emptiness. There are a few scattered villages on the east and west coasts, a mountainous centre, and that’s about it. At that distance, I could see no evidence of infrastructure at all, which gave me a clue as to why their reefs are so high-quality. The reefs are visible from the air — rippling patches of pale blue-green encircling the island, with an occasional flash of reflected colour, even from a kilometre away. Anybody who has flown over a reef will know this

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Features description hardly does justice to their aerial appearance. Crossing over the Banda Sea from Dili, the effect of the reefs was immediate — the choppy water abruptly became placid and glasslike as we neared Atauro Island, the reefs beneath the boat buffering and absorbing the waves.

I really didn’t know what to expect. Timor-Leste has had a turbulent recent history, fighting for independence from Portugal and Indonesia until 2002, and then more internal conflict until 2006. As such, the international scientific community has been largely excluded from the ecosystem until very recently. So in my preparation for the trip I found that literature on what may be out there was largely lacking.

I have had the privilege of snorkelling coral reefs in Rarotonga, Indonesia, and Australia, but the Atauro Island reefs were the best I’d seen by far. A couple of the sites we visited were the first I’d experienced where a coral reef was just all reef.

There were no empty sandy patches, no coral rubble, just meadows of hard and soft coral as far as you could see. Also amazing was the diversity. Most reefs around the world have a few dominant species which appear again and again (normally of the genus Acropora). Here, every coral you saw was a new one.

This suited us well — we wanted to sample as much diversity as we could.

One of us would go down and sample a small bit of the coral with a trusty pair of pliers, gently snapping off an end of a branch. For the rounded brain corals, a chisel was also used to chip away a small part of the base. The other person would take a photo so the coral could be identified later. These photos were taken up close (within 20cm) as many corals can only be identified through tiny variations in their skeletons.

This sampling method has caused a sticking point among many of my friends — surely I shouldn’t be taking small bits of coral if I am trying to save them? But the bits we were taking were tiny and ecologically insignificant — an M&M size or smaller, from colonies bigger than most people. And anyway, that’s an entirely useless point of view. It’s like saying you shouldn’t send up weather balloons to monitor global patterns because that will add a tiny amount of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. Attitudes like that will get you nowhere.

After a full day sampling, we would add our coral bits to a DNA buffer — a liquid that keeps DNA stable, preserving samples until they can be processed properly. Following our week on Atauro Island, we travelled back to Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste. Shaun’s wife is a diplomat, so we stayed in a diplomatic house for the next week. I spent the majority of the time in the spare bathroom.

No, I didn’t have some hilarious stomach bug — Shaun had set up a pretty thorough DNA lab in there. I extracted DNA from all our coral samples (600 of them), and brought the DNA back to New Zealand. Back here, I will do a whole lot of laboratory stuff, and hopefully be able to provide some useful comments on symbiont diversity, hybridisation, and how corals can best be helped.

***

After visiting Indonesia and now Timor-Leste, I feel a little cynical about my sort of research. Increasingly I feel it’s like choosing to study a surgery textbook when someone is bleeding out in front of you. Climate change will harm coral, sure.

But I have witnessed so many immediate impacts that are happening right now.

Litter physically abrades coral, and blocks light which stops the symbionts from photosynthesising. In Indonesia, I did a brief study of plastic on a reef near Jakarta — along one 50m transect, I counted 28 bits of plastic floating in the water.

Josh Brian

Coral reefs: The responsibility of science, orFeatures society?

That was not per any unit area, that was just direct line of sight along 50m. At one point, a full-size discarded mattress, which had been carried by the current from Jakarta, slowly sank before my eyes and nestled among the coral. I will never forget that sight. Even on Atauro Island, with its tiny population, many of the beaches around the villages were covered in trash.

In order to compensate for lowered fisheries takes thanks to previous overfishing, increasingly destructive fishing practices are utilised. Bomb fishing is common, where “fishermen” simply throw dynamite over the side, killing swathes of fish which can easily be collected. The scars left on coral are abysmal to behold.

Even tourism, so important in developing economies, can be harmful.

Inexperienced snorkelers kick the reef and can knock off whole branches, something I witnessed even in Australia where tourist education is a high priority.

As part of our sampling, we employed a Timorese man called Ricky, who helped us manage our gear and communicate with local chiefs. He was lovely and chatty. He told us about the history of Atauro Island, about his wife and children, about local customs. He told us how both his parents were tortured by the Indonesian authorities, and how he was born in an Indonesian prison. There are more pressing issues for some, than the degradation of coral reefs.

*** However, the overarching threat of climate change lingers over coral reefs.

Despite their social issues, nations are acting in recognition of this fact. Last year, a forum was held in Lautoka, Fiji, to galvanise local action on climate change and to highlight to the international community that they will not give up their coral reefs without a fight. Programs of a similar theme are underway all around the Pacific. Samoa worked with Conservation International to produce a radio show that aired nationwide about the importance of the reefs and the threats they face. In Rarotonga, there has been a recent reintroduction of Ra’ui — traditional locally managed areas. These programs combine the knowledge of international scientists with locals, to bridge the gaps between science and society.

Our research in Timor-Leste was featured on the New Zealand Embassy Facebook page to communicate both the beauty of what we found and the danger that climate change poses. These programs are a start, but consistent collaborative action is required to ameliorate the greatest threat reefs have ever faced.

At this point, I would like to offer something substantive. Something constructive that you or I can do to help. But I can’t. There is no easy fix, no simple action that can be taken to save reefs. Without a global response to climate change, there will be no reefs left to save. All I can do is try to raise awareness through my channels of the myriad issues that face corals. All I can do is highlight that social issues are as prevalent as scientific ones, and often these need to be addressed first. All I can do is try help corals adapt to climate change, and hope there are still enough reefs alive for it to count.

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Features

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WRITTEN BY SALOTE CAMA Any real understanding of ourselves and our existing cultures calls for an attempt to understand colonialism and what it did and is still doing to us. — Albert Wendt, Towards A New Oceania, 1978

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Salote Cama

Double Colonisation: West Papua in theFeatures Pacific

West Papua occupies the western half of the New Guinea island and is home to two Indonesian provinces — Papua and West Papua. New Guinea, as a whole, is home to 800 living languages, making it the one of the most linguistically diverse places in the world. There is evidence to show human occupation in the island since 40,000 BCE, and the island remained characterised by small pockets of settlements until the arrival of European settlers in the early 19th century.

The United Nations Declaration on Non-Self-Governing States was created after World War II as a process to move former colonies to self-determination.

In the Pacific, one of the first colonies that was slated for independence was West Papua, known then as Dutch New Guinea. Instead, due to rising suspicions of the spread of Soviet influence in Asia, the New York Agreement of 1962 between the Netherlands and Indonesia transferred administration of Dutch New Guinea to Indonesia, putting the self-determination of the people of West Papua (the former Dutch New Guinea) off, for, what seems like, indefinitely. The people, the lands, the independence of West Papua, bartered off in Cold War politics 14,500 km away.

As part of the agreement, the people of Papua were to be given an Act of Free Choice at the end of seven years of Indonesian rule. The Act was determined to be administered by the Indonesian government, without UN supervision, and became an exercise in which the Indonesian government handpicked 1,025 people to vote on whether they would accept Indonesian citizenship or be self-governing, in front of heavily armed military personnel. The ironically titled Act of Free Choice has since come under fire by former United Nations personnel and many academics, activists, and human rights leaders — including the anti-apartheid icon Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

So 65 years on, what has happened? It depends who you ask. The Indonesian government insists nothing is wrong. The pamphlets handed out by Indonesian Embassy staff at a protest on May 11 highlight the developments the Indonesian government has made in the provinces of West Papua and Papua — education, investment into infrastructure, and even the appointment of Dr Yohana Yembise, a West Papuan woman, as the Minister of Women Empowerment. The pamphlets are glossy and well put together. It sounds all well and good.

But after listening to Benny Wenda, a leader of the Free West Papua movement, describe being five or six years old and being forced to witness soldiers sexually assault his aunt and beat up his mother, those slickly produced pamphlets don’t feel so glossy. When Wenda tells us that the number of people killed by the regime since 1964 is estimated to be about 500,000 — or approximately the population of the Wellington region — those pamphlets seem fucking garish.

The Indonesian government like to draw attention to goal posts and infrastructure brought into West Papua, but with significant details withheld. In 1982 on the southwest coast of the Papua region, the Asmat tribe’s forest was to be used for logging purposes. The Asmat people were forced into labour, at the threat of arrests by government officials. Access to the sago plant — a staple in the Asmat diet — was severely threatened. There have been many other documented cases of relocation, forced labour (often without compensation), and environmental damage. So the claims of development and infrastructure is all well and good, but at what cost?

2017’s World Press Freedom Day’s flagship event was held in Jakarta on

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Features May 4. The day before, Indonesian police attacked West Papuan photographer Yance Wenda who was on assignment covering a protest for a free and fair referendum for West Papua. Reporters Sans Frontières have long since urged the Indonesian government to drop the intimidation tactics and the ban on foreign journalists documenting abuses in West Papua.

In 2016 the governments of the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga, Nauru, the Marshall Islands, and Tuvalu raised their concerns regarding West Papua at the United Nations General Assembly. But, if we’re being honest here, the relative power and influence that countries in the Pacific hold in the international sphere is not exactly huge. Vanuatu has supported the admission of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua into the Melanesian Spearhead Group, a regional inter-governmental institution. However, Indonesia is an associated member, and when the two biggest players in the group are Papua New Guinea and Fiji — who receive financial diplomacy from Indonesia — it’s not as promising as it could be.

Aid to the Pacific generally comes from four countries: Australia, New Zealand, China, and the United States. All four countries have significant diplomatic, military, or trading ties with Indonesia, so governments in the Pacific are not going to go out of their way to aggravate anyone, and with Indonesia seeking more influence, they are even more wary.

Money buys influence, and that’s the case in the Pacific. Money speaks; gold speaks; copper speaks. The forced relocation of indigenous tribes in West Papua made way for the biggest gold mine and third biggest copper mine in the world — which, together as one structure, cover about half a million acres. It looks like a massive pit and can be easily seen from space. According to a report

by MiningWatch Canada, the mine dumps 200,000 tonnes of waste into the rivers each day of operation, and this waste is often contaminated with cyanide.

These mines, with their profits funneled back to Jakarta and the United States, have also left massive environmental damage which I’m sure can be spun into some development jargon in some glossy pamphlet.

One of the many ongoing effects of colonialism is the marked shift toward the norms of imperial powers, including the entrenchment of patriarchy. That’s not to say that all Pacific cultures were egalitarian utopias before, but when colonial administration set up outposts, they were all staffed, and led, by men. As of March 2016 there were 559 MPs across the Pacific Island countries, not including Australia and New Zealand — 39 were female. If this is the makeup of legislative power in the Pacific, there is a severe lack of representation and balance across the board.

There is a very specific horror that women in situations like this face.

There is a very specific horror that people who do not fit neatly into the cis-hetero box face. In the literature of postcolonial feminism there is a concept called “double colonisation,” and this refers to the colonisation from imperialism and the other colonisation from the effects of patriarchy. For the women of West Papua, this is very targeted in the form of reproductive and sexual violence.1 1. I’m very tentative using the terms reproduction and sexual because the prevention of women from having agency in matters of their reproduction is not only concerned with reproduction — just as sexual violence is not only about sex. They are both acts of dominance.

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Salote Cama

Double Colonisation: West Papua in the Pacific

And all of this is not to say that there is not a targeted violence that men face in West Papua, of course there is — but if, as Pasifika activists, as Pasifika, all the narratives we hear and are exposed to are of the experiences of one part of the population, we are actively only recognising one narrative and dismiss this alternate framing that perhaps pushes the discourse along.

We need to educate ourselves on the other narratives that we are not seeing, we need to learn from people like Frederika Korain who is a West Papuan human rights lawyer working at very grassroots levels. She works with outreach and getting healthcare out to women in the rural areas. The wounds of colonialism, of neo-colonialism, are still fresh, still raw, still being inflicted throughout the Pacific, and history has shown us that the threads of injustice are all weaved together and it is now, before we forget about it, before we can procrastinate it away, when we start thinking about the intersectional issues at hand. In the iconic essay “Our Sea of Islands”, Epeli Hau’ofa issued a challenge to find a new viewpoint, ignoring the status quo of smallness and remoteness, and to build interconnectivity and mutual support. It’s time our sea of islands be intersectional.

Organesi Papua Merdeka, or the Free West Papua Movement, leads the network of advocacy groups that seek to find a path to self-determination for the indigenous peoples of West Papua. They advocate for recognition of West Papua as a state independent from international and regional institutions, both governmental and non-governmental. In New Zealand there are 11 parliamentarians from across the political spectrum who have signed a pledge to call for a supervised, free, and fair referendum. The New Zealand government sees the issue as a domestic one, willfully ignoring it. The Australian government facilitates significant military ties with Indonesia, essentially condoning it. But the calls for freedom are getting louder.

Here in New Zealand there have been demonstrations by several groups.

Oceania Interrupted’s interventions have included a silent march through the Wellington Pasifika Festival wearing over their mouths — indicating the silenced voices — the Morning Star, the flag of West Papua. In an example of artform as activism, Tere Harrison directed a short film, Run It Straight, about the importance of talking about West Papua with the people and communities closest to us. Peace Movement Aotearoa organises the raising of the Morning Star on the steps of the Beehive on December 1 every year, to protest the fact that raising the Morning Star in West Papua carries a 15-year prison sentence. As a personal plug — Youngsolwara Pōneke is a group of students here at VUW who work to raise awareness on the issue. You can find all the aforementioned groups on Facebook with a quick search.

It may seem small but, as Benny Wenda says, any talk about the issues of West Papua is a step forward. Asking the tough questions and holding people accountable is a step in the right direction. Using our places of privilege to amplify and listen to voices coming out of West Papua is a step in the right direction.

Talking about it to families, friends, church groups, and bringing it up with MPs, are all steps. Many, many steps are needed, but they can be taken.

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WATCH THIS SPACE: TERRITORIES, BORDERS, AND NEW GUINEA

WRITTEN BY JASMINE KORIA

Features

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Jasmine Koria

Watch this space: Territories, borders, and New Guinea

“The first thing we demand of a wall is that it shall stand up. If it stands up, it is a good wall, and the question of what purpose it serves is separable from that. And yet even the best wall in the world deserves to be pulled down if it surrounds a concentration camp.”— George Orwell I was born on a divided landmass. Papua New Guinea and West Papua are two halves of the largest island in the South Pacific. For a long time, New Guinea was home to several thousand tribes who, despite their linguistic and cultural differences, were aware that they existed within one area. The large extended family units, the fundamental building blocks of most Pacific societies, were scattered across the island. They would come together when there was a death, a marriage, or, quite commonly, an inter-tribal war. Today still, Melanesian societies tend to be really close-knit. Any and all familial connections are acknowledged. People don’t say “friend” or “cousin” when describing those close to them — it’s always “my father” for male relatives who are older, “my uncle” for an older male family friend, “my mother” for an aunt, and “my aunty” when referring to a female family friend who is around the same age as their parents. This was life in New Guinea.

Then we were colonised.

Trade was one of the main drivers of colonialism. For trade to work, the world had to be made to seem smaller, and everything had to be more accessible.

Since the 1500s, one of the best ways to achieve this has been to politically — and, eventually, economically — divide the less affluent but resource-rich areas of the planet into territories. The Pacific was snipped into halves and quarters in order to facilitate the expansion of various empires. Trade routes and trading stations were constructed into the empty spaces — or rather, emptied spaces.

The gaps left behind by colonialism are not limited to the division of islands and archipelagos. Dialects, dances, songs, celebrations, oral histories, and numerous other important pieces of indigenous knowledge were removed to allow for the building of the “New World.” Thanks (actually, no thanks) to this, the story of the postcolonial Pacific has been about dismantling the territories and filling in as many of the gaps created as we can. This is true for many Pacific Islanders… except West Papuans. They still haven’t reclaimed their spaces: their villages, provinces, and, for many, their homes.

It is the notion of territory that sets out who lives here, and who should live there. Here and there are manipulations of space. They are the umbrellas under which fall other tools that we use to manage the habitable parts of the natural world. These tools include concepts like us, them, we, you, and my.

“Across the border” isn’t a new phrase to me. I grew up knowing that we are here, and there is a fence over there. I knew there were people behind the fence, and that was all. My ignorance went hand-in-hand with my government’s position with our neighbours. The relations between Papua New Guinea and West Papua are complex. One reason for this is the fact that Indonesia has been, and continues to be, a major trading partner of the independent half of New Guinea, putting its economic weight into numerous development and investment projects that have facilitated economic and infrastructural expansion.

Indonesia is pretty well equipped in terms of its military. The border is heavily guarded, and the West Papuan people are surveilled day and night. I never really heard “let’s be grateful” or “let’s stay safe” when I was growing up, though.

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Features Our safety never felt threatened and I never heard anything about the odious conditions that such a thin, almost undefined border freed us from and subjected them to. Some people in Papua New Guinea live right where the bordering fence is and can look across to West Papua — they are quite literally neighbors — and yet I grew up just not knowing. A lot of colonially divided Pacific nations are separated by the Pacific Ocean (e.g. Samoa and American Samoa), so it’s understandable when people don’t know what’s happening on the other islands.

But for us, West Papua was right there, and I didn’t know. “I didn’t know” is obviously a useless excuse. It’s like saying “there was a fight on the street directly outside my flat, but I didn’t see it because it was right there in front of me” — it makes no sense!

When I first came to university, people would come up to me and ask me two questions. Firstly, “what’s the actual difference between Papua New Guinea and West Papua?” Then, there’d always be the follow-up question of, “so how’s the situation in your place?” At first, I always felt the need to highlight the difference, and to make it clear that my place was Papua New Guinea. The place they were asking me about was not my place. The problem was, the more I explained, the more questions I was asked. Eventually, those questions made me re-think my answers. After about a year here at VUW, I realised that these questions became my own.

How is the situation in what, without that lame excuse for a border, could easily be just the other half of my place? It’s easy to say, “It’s not my place, not my problem.” But in a world without territories — without the need to create them — would I, would we, still feel this way?

The territories that we can see and touch for ourselves are marked by walls, gates, partitions, and, sometimes, people standing guard. But territories aren’t always physical. People also tend to create mental and social separation, that needs to be filled with information about the oppression and torture that goes on beyond borders. The gap between them and us is one that will take much more concern, conversation, and action to fill. Because it’s not a concrete tangible distance, many people (myself included) on the other side of these borders fail to recognise it as a legitimate problem. “We’re just talking. What will our concern do?” The thing is, our belief in the power of these spaces of separation actually adds power to those who control the physical territory. People made these spaces. While the struggle to close the concrete gaps continues, anyone who is interested in aiding the cause can contribute to closing those in the abstract.

Recent years have seen an increase in border crossings. This is why I’ve come to think that territory and power over space is finite. People deconstruct barriers when they move across them. I’ve always believed that the very act of moving across and over any border is important if we want to decrease its power. I mean, if a wall doesn’t stop people from moving, it’s just a useless slab of concrete, right?

That’s why famous partitions like the Iron Curtain were eventually smashed (on live TV, too!).

When people leave their home countries, they have to fit themselves into a new territory. Those who are already live there get to decide how it functions.

They also control how much of it foreigners are allowed to take up. Space is usually allocated on either a “first come, first serve” basis, or a “might equals right” basis.

West Papuan refugees do not meet the first criterion in Papua New Guinea.

On their part of the island, they don’t meet the second one and are denied the first.

I’ve always felt like this means that spatial arrangements need to be re-thought,

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Jasmine Koria

Watch this space: Territories, borders, and New Guinea

or at least amended, to accommodate these people. In the 2010s Papua New Guinea allocated land to West Papuan refugees, and in April this year, several West Papuans who had been living in Papua New Guinea for more than four decades were finally granted citizenship. The “Free West Papua” Movement is extremely big in Papua New Guinea these days, too.

At the International Small Islands Conference in 2012, Dr Evangelia Papoutsaki (Unitec, New Zealand) and Patrick Matbob (Divine World University, Papua New Guinea) gave a presentation (which you can find online), New Guinea: A divided island. Papua New Guinea’s relationship with West Papua that attempted to answer some of these questions. Something that stood out for me was one of their headings on West Papuan refugees in Papua New Guinea. It read: “My brother, my enemy.” This didn’t make me think of any big political or philosophical ideas.

I just thought about the many arguments I’ve had with my brother. I hardly see him, now that I live here (Wellington) and he lives there (Apia). But the distance that I want when he’s annoying me, and the geographical space between us, doesn’t make him not my brother. I can go ten or twenty years, my whole life even, without seeing him, and he’ll still be my brother. And what kind of sister would I be if trouble came his way and I just stood there and went, “geee, that’s sad,” or “he’s too far away to be my problem.”

But these are just my answers to my questions. I don’t want to say that they should be anyone else’s. We all have our own opinions and interpretations of the problems in West Papua.

Space is in flux. The gap between West Papua and the outside world is still big. However, as we’ve seen with the marches and rallies that many VUW students have supported, we are slowly transforming our side of the border. The movement has created a space of its own — a space for expression, debate, questions, and progress — to counter the Indonesian possession of “territory”. It is a “One Ocean” type of space that expands as regional and global efforts go through the trial and error processes that are common to all independence movements.

I remember Associate Professor Dr Teresia Teaiwa saying that the Pacific Ocean is the largest geographical entity in the world. It’s the biggest on earth, and we, Pacific Islanders, Oceania, are all in the same space. Take the names away, and there is literally one body of water connecting every landmass on our planet.

As stewards of the spaces we have, it is our responsibility to work towards better spaces, and to ensure there is room for those who don’t have space. Human ambition made the world small enough for trade ships to sail unimpeded from coast to coast. Is it too far-fetched to think that the same ambition can someday make the world big enough again?

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ARTS

Visual Art

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SHE IS JUST A POEM The newspapers locate us. “Struggles of farming and living without water”; “Moana Directors say thank you Samoa”; “Samoa’s $131m project approved”; “Win a Toyota Hilux!” Small, filtered glimpses of a place like our own but different; where ads for holidays in “White Sand Polynesia” still get printed even though we’re already there. Some places exist only in photographs, or, maybe — the sand is always whiter on the other side.

We are in Samoa. Turn around and face the ocean.

Look at how blue it is. How the horizon is not a line but a gradient. How the sky and sea never look better than when they become one. Think of the peace that comes with having at once everything and nothing to look at. Behind us, the sand; the bush; the shade. A few empty fale. A dream.

Europeans first placed foot on this soil in 1787. They came ashore on the north coast of Tutuila in what is now American Samoa. 12 members of the landing party and 39 Samoans were killed. What did each see in the Other — light hitting tense arm; a glint in the eye; the arch of a furrowed brow; blood spilt on the sand to be washed away as the tide rises? Does a threat look like what you know, or what you don’t?

Yuki Kihara’s Coconuts That Grew From Concrete, on display at Artspace until July 1, explores how one’s Other can be shaped into another’s Own. The wall, on the left as you enter, is covered with a large poster: paradise. In the centre of the room is a standalone structure, covered in newspaper pages: a land with wants, needs, desires. And hanging — one in a gilded frame, others unframed canvas — around us, are beautiful Frankensteins: women stitched together from early 20th century tableaux photographs of Samoan subjects by Pākehā photographers, destined to be postcards, and painted portraits by European Old Masters.

The Burton Brothers are among the photographers whose images are used. They kept a diary of their time in the Pacific, which was published as The Camera in the Coral Islands.

They wrote of a Samoan woman they photographed: “Here, for instance, is a girl dressed but little according to civilised ideas, very much of her form, her bosom, her shapely limbs being freely revealed. She is just a poem, and no thought of impropriety suggests itself for a moment…”

In Kihara’s Odialisque (After Boucher), a Samoan woman lies on her side, head propped up by one arm, the other covering her breasts. Her hair is tightly curled. Her face is round.

Her eyes slant toward the camera. A flax skirt and woven mat reinforce the Otherness that would define how she was read when turned to postcard. Kihara has transposed her, cropping the photograph so that she is cut off at the waist, onto Boucher’s The Odialesque: a woman reclined on a huge bed of pillows and velvets with her naked back to the viewer.

The two images fit seamlessly: the figure’s legs extending easily from ‘ie tōga to bedspread.

Where does fantasy end? The paintings are reproductions, their pixels visible if you look up close. The wallpaper has fractures down its seams. Paradise has its fault lines, where tensions heighten to the point of collapse. Its end point is its source. To follow the lines, from pale leg to flax skirt, or brown stomach to white hip, looking with new eyes is to look for the connections in difference: to shape someone’s nothing is left Other into your Own and be made complicit in the act. she one the post card — Hanahiva Rose

(come if you dare to these mysterious islands) frozen in glossy post-card form she is adorned with dreams ready for you / to fantasise romanticise over gorgeous big brown eyes gorging thighs

1. Selina Tusitala Marsh. “Statued (stat you?) Traditions.” Wasafiri 25 (1997): 52-54.

has Frozen to death.1

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Television

TELEVISION Mommy Dead and Dearest

On Monday, June 15, 2015, at 7.32am, a Facebook account belonging to Dee Dee Blancharde and her daughter Gypsy posted an update that seemed extremely out of character: “That Bitch is dead!” On checking the family’s Springfield, Missouri home with no response, neighbours called the police who found Dee Dee’s body inside, stabbed to death. There was no sign of Gypsy, who was paralysed from the waist down and required a wheelchair, and she was presumed missing. She was found safe the next day in Wisconsin, staying with the family of a man she had met online. She didn’t have her wheelchair.

Upon arrest it was discovered that Gypsy could walk just fine, and that ever since she could remember her mother had told her she could not use her legs and was not allowed to. In fact, the entirety of her medical history, from breathing difficulties to cancer, had been fabricated and forced upon her — over 20 years of extreme abuse — and she saw no opportunity for freedom other than to murder her own mother.

Mommy Dead and Dearest is an amazing documentary from director Erin Lee Carr, sure to feature on every true crime recommendations list for the next ten years. It is equal parts sad, frustrating, and unbelievable. With full access to Gypsy’s medical and court records, Dee Dee’s family members, Gypsy’s father, and interviews with Gypsy herself from prison, the film lays out a story thick with twists and complex layers.

For her entire life, Gypsy Rose Blancharde was her mother’s prisoner. She was force-fed, excessively medicated, and never alone. Among the list of ailments Dee Dee claimed Gypsy to have had were: leukemia, muscular dystrophy, asthma, epilepsy, and limited mental capacity due to brain damage. Her mother shaved her head, claiming the “chemotherapy would make [her] hair fall out anyway.” Many of the medications Gypsy was prescribed induced the symptoms she was claimed to have. Seizure medication caused her teeth to fall out. Dee Dee convinced doctors

to approve numerous surgeries, inserting feeding tubes and removing Gypsy’s salivary glands. It can only be assumed that the combination of Dee Dee’s doctor shopping to collect the perfect records, Gypsy’s outward appearance, and the massive support group the two had acquired online, portrayed a situation that seemed too extraordinary for doctors to doubt. Gypsy did not know the year she was born; while assumed to be in her late teens, it was discovered she was in her mid twenties.

Dee Dee used her daughter’s sickness for attention, sympathy from strangers, and simple monetary gain; through Gypsy, she received thousands in donations, free trips to events and theme parks, and praise for the perceived unconditional devotion she had for her child.

As for Dee Dee’s family, there was little love; her step-mother alleges Dee Dee once tried to poison her food, while her father jokes about throwing her ashes in a toilet. Dee Dee’s nephew says he always expected his aunt to piss someone off and get herself killed, as if that’s not a big deal. Not once did they suspect Gypsy wasn’t really sick. The only person who has anything nice to say about Dee Dee is Gypsy, in handcuffs.

Throughout the documentary the legitimacy of Gypsy’s current statements are called into question, but personally I never found myself doubting her. She has no reason to lie anymore.

Ironically, prison is the freest Gypsy has ever been; she can walk, engage with others, she has access to an education, her system is clear of drugs, and her feeding tube has been removed.

When asked which version of her life she prefers, Gypsy replies affirmative to being incarcerated with no hesitation. It’s shocking how normal Gypsy could have been had she ever been exposed to anything resembling “normal” in her life, and it’s that normal life she hopes to attain when she is eligible for parole in 2024, just before her 33rd birthday.

— Katie Meadows

51

Games

GAMES World to the West Developer: Rain Games Publisher: SOEDESCO Platform: PS4, Xbox One, PC (Windows), Wii U Review copy supplied by publisher.

There’s nothing worse than wasted potential.

You’ve probably seen at least one film where you’ve immensely enjoyed the first two thirds, only to see everything fall apart at the end, turning a potential favourite into just another average piece of trash. Sadly, it can happen to games as well, and it especially sucks when it happens to a charming little indie game.

World to the West has a lot going for it.

A spiritual successor to the 2D platformer Teslagrad, you play as four unique characters in a top-down action adventure, reminiscent of several Legend of Zelda games, including A Link to the Past. The story, inspired by European adventure comics, sees the characters come together from different lands to explore the world, fulfil a prophecy, and defeat an evil businessman. It’s nothing especially groundbreaking, but there are some funny moments, especially in the first two acts. Finishing the story will get you around seven to nine hours of total playtime.

The gameplay emphasis is very much on puzzle-solving, using each character’s abilities to navigate the map. Lumina can use lightning powers to dash across gaps and activate switches; Knaus can dig underneath soft ground, crawl through small spaces, and use dynamite; Miss Teri uses her scarf as a grappling hook and for hypnotising animals; and Lord Clonington is a brawler who can break down barriers with his strength. Although the puzzles aren’t highly difficult, they still feel rewarding to solve.

The world can perhaps be best described as “semi-open”: while you are free to explore much of the world, the main paths needed to complete puzzles are heavily telegraphed, while certain sections require you to unlock new abilities.

There is some combat which is fairly basic, but it can be avoided in most circumstances.

However, you don’t control all four characters at once, at least not initially, and this is pretty much where things fall apart.

Throughout the world are totem poles, which

act as checkpoints where you can fast travel to other parts of the map. A character can only use a totem pole that they have discovered themselves, so getting each character to a certain point means navigating an area as each character.

This isn’t much of a problem in the early stages of the game, when all of the characters are split up and have their own quests to complete, but once they’ve all met and the map opens up, it becomes an exercise in tedium. See what I mean by wasted potential?

Much of the game’s charm comes from its visual design, with a distinct cartoon-like aesthetic and cute character models. While there isn’t much texture to it, perhaps hamstrung by budget limitations, it does give the atmosphere a whimsical feel; I would have no problems whatsoever with giving this game to a young child. Unfortunately, said budget limitations have also resulted in a distinct lack of polish, with a number of glitches and poor translation (Rain Games being a Norwegian studio) being present during my playthrough. The PS4 version I played also appears to have had a visual downgrade, with certain visual elements present in the PC version being missing.

I really wanted to like World to the West, but its flaws are numerous and glaring enough that what began as a fun little romp through a fantasy world slowly turned into just another average indie game. If the navigation was more streamlined and the niggling issues were sorted I would be much more comfortable recommending this game, but at the moment it’s a tough sell.

And that sucks.

— Cameron Gray

Books

52

The Vegetarian — Han Kang Not feeling bleak enough? Need a good distraction that’s darker than the final weeks of semester? Give The Vegetarian a try! It’s okay kids, before you go shouting out “BUT WHAT ABOUT BACON THOUGH,” please know that I’m not here to convert anyone to a meatfree diet. That being said, once you’re done with this one... you may kind of feel like it.

Winner of the Man Booker International Prize, Han Kang’s The Vegetarian uses the passive, quiet, and dutiful wife Yeong-hye as a vessel to ask questions surrounding life and death, pain, sex, and the taboo of mental illness.

Told through three perspectives of those close in Yeong-hye’s life, the three-part novel is blunt and beautiful; subtle and scary.

Kang’s prose is simple, seamlessly flowing through the pages. You will find yourself oblivious to the world. The short 183 page novel won’t drain you, but enhance the creation of an impactful aftermath.

Perhaps Yeong-hye is a soul burdened by the modern condition: trapped and isolated throughout her life, always obedient to patriarchal obligations and constantly meeting others’ expectations — of course this can make one grow weary. The Vegetarian tells of her pain in a surreal and spiritual way. Her almost mystical quest for an organic transformation is strange, yet not too distant to relate to; an escape from everything, and yet a true survey of the human psyche.

It is important to warn that the The Vegetarian may trigger some people. Some content throughout can be heavy and hard.

Despite this, it is also seriously important in literature to bring to light scenarios that are very rarely mentioned, especially in novels, or at least those that are presented in a way that’s heavily flossy and untrue. But don’t let this dissuade you. The Vegetarian is a beautiful, harrowing, and insightful experience.

— Brooke Wilton

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius — Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers is self-aware. But not as selfaware as I am, writing this review and acknowledging that I’m attempting to recreate Eggers’ self-aware literary style, which is aware not only that his book is fiction, but that he is aware how he is trying to make the reader aware that his book is fiction, and I am aware of all of this, making me the most aware and therefore the winner.

The author of this review wishes also to acknowledge that the entirety of this review is not necessary to read. Only the very last paragraph will be of any practical use in a reader’s ongoing existence. The preceding paragraphs will merely be blatantly egoistic and indulgent exercises in post-modern literary craft. They will additionally be somewhat sad, or joyful. The author is undecided in an annoying sort of way.

My parents are both still alive. But they could have died at any moment throughout my childhood. That they didn’t was an act of perverse sabotage to remove the possibility of my, or my siblings’, lives being at all “chosen,” “special,” or “tragically glamourous.”

I am furious. I have spent the last two decades trying to scramble bits and pieces of glamour and unique purpose out of a mundane, stable existence. It is only slightly working.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is not that. But it is perfectly good enough.

It is a memoir of sorts, detailing in a swirl of edited facts and renamed heroes the confusing life of Dave Eggers himself. His parents did die, sadly. He wrote this book as a scourge upon his own skin, aiming for total catharsis.

His writerly gift makes this bearable to read.

As a note of interest, he also wrote The Circle, which has Emma Watson in it.

— Kimberley McIvor

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Books

A review of American Gods in lieu of its television adaptation In recent years Neil Gaiman has become a pocket of the internet’s nerd crush of choice, thanks to the success of books (and their adaptations) like Coraline, the enduring relevance of his fantastic Sandman series, and his relationship to fellow internet crush Amanda Palmer. Like any cultural icon that draws a rabid and loud fan base on the internet, a backlash happens with questions inevitably circulate about whether their fame and fandom is really justified. Having now read a chunk of the Sandman series, and polishing off American Gods, this reviewer is more than happy to jump on the Gaiman bandwagon and loudly sing his praises.

I mention this because the version of American Gods I read (the 10th anniversary edition with a cool new throwback cover) makes the claim that it is a “Bestselling Underground Novel.” Apart from the apparent oxymoron of this statement, it is informative to the changes the internet has fostered in the way we consume culture. Cult books, films, and music were cult for the very fact that few people were able to access the material and those that could, struggled to connect with other fans. The internet has largely obliterated these obstacles, providing mainstream success and acknowledgement to the likes of Gaiman, and yet somehow the idea of “cult” maintains as a synonym for “good” or “classic”. Even in an era when most of us are able to access an inexhaustible (and free) trove of culture through our computers, we still desire to find that piece of culture that the mainstream has neglected. In this environment I suppose the oxymoron of “Bestselling Underground Novel” will just have to suffice.

That wasn’t just a ramble either. Rather, cultural change of this type is a prominent theme of American Gods, which pits our old and less rational belief systems against our new, more rational, and technologically based ones, in the middle of which is the main character and reader-proxy Shadow. Shadow is the prototypical

“everyman” and our entry into the America Gaiman creates. Shadow is key to the novel’s success as the narrative takes us on a journey across this America while encountering various gods and characters from various mythologies along the way. In a text as reference heavy as American Gods, it would be easy for the narrative to slip into unintelligibility or come across as superior — as if the author were flaunting their superior knowledge. But Gaiman is able to make the novel feel inclusive, and this is where I give him the most credit. Not only does Shadow help the reader navigate the novel’s dense references, Gaiman manages to make him feel wholly human, providing American Gods with an emotional centre around which the author’s more eccentric themes and desires can revolve.

The success of the television adaptation will rest heavily on Ricky Whittle, the man tasked with portraying Shadow and his ability to avoid being swallowed by the more showy characters and actors around him.

— Tom Book

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FILM FILM

X PE SOCIAL E

FILMS RIMENT DIE WELLE (THE WAVE) (2008)

Set in a German high school, students in a class on autocracy unknowingly become a case in point for how easy it is for a group powered by toxic ideologies to take over the ruling class.

“Could a dictatorship possibly take charge of Germany again?” The question garnered a number of “nos” from students. In an effort to prove a point, the teacher steadily creates a dictatorship type arrangement with him as a leader. Labeled as a volunteer experiment for the betterment of the class, students must stand to speak as it “improves circulation and increases concentration,” and a class uniform is established to “reduce mental effort” spent deciding what to wear and “decreas[e] disparity between student’s incomes.” Over the week, the student body becomes more empowered and dedicated to the cause, developing its own salute and name — The Wave. Students who do not associate with The Wave become social outcasts and in turn revolt against it.

Films like this are wonderful because they open your eyes to how you could be influenced by your surroundings. Are we really above succumbing to negative ideology through institutionalisation and media spoon-feeding today? I don’t think so. We celebrate consumption when living standards of 49 of the world’s least developed countries are lower today than 30 years ago. Labeling others who vote differently to you as “deplorable” and shutting down organised dialogue at universities — that’s anti-democratic and oppressive.

Films like this highlight how society is constructed and regulated by rules formed until their grip becomes autonomous, but also how elements of group identity can be severely destructive to our society.

— Mathew Watkins

THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT (2015)

Based on the infamously unethical psychological experiment conducted in the 1970s, this film serves as a chilling reminder of how ordinary people can act extraordinarily under extreme circumstances. When 24 male college students are set up in an isolated mock prison system, it becomes evident almost immediately that the students assigned the role of guards are taking things too far, and the “prisoners” begin to become seriously concerned for their welfare.

The film is expertly written and takes an in depth look at how a prison-like institution can elevate a person’s ego with power, as well as dehumanise a person by stripping away their individuality. The “guards” are given sunglasses to hide their emotions and give them more authority. The “prisoners” are referred to as numbers and forced to wear rough cut dresses and stockings over their hair. The criticism then falls upon the “government” (the professors) who continue to do nothing to keep such authority figures in check.

Like a modern day Lord Of The Flies, we are reminded that without a moral system in place, or without a system at all, people tend to regress to a more primal hierarchy wherein the more powerful rise to dominance and maintain it through sheer strength. A minority of weaker people may or may not realise they are, collectively, stronger.

It comes as high praise to the film that I’ve spent most of the time discussing its subject matter that I’ve barely mentioned any other aspect of the film.

— Finn Holland

Film

For the podcast Death, Sex, and Money, distributed by the reputable WYNC Studios (also responsible for 2 Dope Queens and Crybabies) the premise is simple: “Things we think about a lot, and need to talk about more.” Host Anna Sale invites her guests to openly and frankly discuss the “taboo” topics that have challenged them, and the great thing about this show is that it’s challenging for the listener too, subverting our expectations about the human experience.

Host Sale is a superb interviewer and her warmth, wit, and compassion prompts her guests to be totally honest. The interviewees are, more often than not, ordinary people with extraordinary stories, which is a refreshing change from the podcasting world’s love of long-form celebrity interviews.

However, sometimes the guests are famous, with Sale interviewing the likes of Brooke Shields, Alec Baldwin, and Anna Chlumsky.

The memorable part of this podcast is that it focuses on the personal experience of the “taboo” topic, not the topic itself. Instead of a general exploration of gender transition, or undocumented immigration, Death, Sex, and Money delves into genuine and specific moments in a person’s life: what is it like to transition while working as a prison guard? What is it like to return to an empty home because your parents have been deported?

Death, Sex, and Money frames vulnerability as strength. Take guest Rashema Melson, for example. In 2015, Sale interviewed Melson after she shot to fame as the “Homeless Valedictorian”.

Despite growing up in a homeless shelter, Melson was dux of her high school and had been awarded a full scholarship to the prestigious Georgetown University. Yet by 2017, when Sale checked back in, Melson had left Georgetown and was getting divorced after a brief marriage. Melson’s challenges were depicted as a core part of life: getting a little lost, and figuring it out.

Tune in to Death, Sex, and Money for inspiring, funny, heart-breaking, and humane interviews about people doing the best they can.

Episode to start with: “Orange Is The New Black’s Diane Guerrero on Debt and Deportation”.

— Annelise Bos

GIG GUIDE

PODCAST Death, Sex, and Money

55 55 55 Thursday: Jed Parsons + Hans Pucket — There is no doubt that this night is gonna be full of eccentric pop bangers, with the mighty Hans Pucket coming in hot off of a wild Auckland tour last week. Be at the Third Eye at 7.30pm or be someone who probably has a perfectly fulfilling night at home. Friday: Julia Deans solo set — If heartfelt and intimate serenading is what’s been missing in your life, then Julia Deans has the goods. She’ll be playing at the aptly named Poquito, from 8.00pm.

Saturday: Double NZ’s Refugee Quota Benefit Concert — This is a mad lineup making a positive contribution to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of our time, so you’d be a darn fool not to put your party pants on for this one! We’ve got a slice of exquisitely improper poetry from Wellington’s reigning empress Hera Lindsay Bird, some delightfully bizarre and quite possibly unsettling tunes from Orchestra of Spheres and The All-Seeing Hand, and some chill ass stoner rock from So Laid Back Country China. Get yourself to Meow at 8.00pm or risk social censure.

55

Interview:

S: What is it like working as a woman in the Japanese music industry? Do you ever feel patronised? I once had a man that was convinced that because I was a woman, I was fundamentally unable to plug a lead into an amp — have you experienced anything like this?

A: My experience about love affairs and my delusions. Kyoto slang is familiar to me and what I usually use for lyrics. Wording is so interesting.

S: In terms of lyrics, what experiences and ideas do you draw upon? It seems like you use a lot of local Kyoto slang; is that quite close to your own identities?

A: Misplaced violence for you <3 Y: Due to Accorinrin.

H: I think our performance is felt close to us. For example, waves of sounds, hot air of ours.

S: If you had to condense it into a couple of sentences, how would you describe the experience of your live show? I’ve heard that it’s incredible!

A: Jun Togawa, Hikasyu, songs of the Showa generation in Japan, and indie music in Kansai.

Y: I feel I have been influenced by Japanese music. I love Yura Yura Teikoku and Oshiripenpenz.

H: There are no bands that have influenced me especially, but I like indie bands in Japan, garage rock, and new wave.

S: What bands have influenced the sound that you try to create?

Accorinrin: People in Austin welcomed us so much, and I was so happy that so many people came to our first show! Everyone was friendly, and imitated my dance straight away.

Yoyoyoshie: I felt we were welcomed more than in Japan. It was so fun!

Hiro-chan: I feel people in Austin welcomed us! I was also happy for the audience to talk to us, they were so friendly.

Salient: I understand you have recently come back from SXSW. How was that experience? Was it daunting coming into it from something of an outsider’s perspective, or did you find it a welcoming environment?

Otoboke Beaver are a no-holds-barred, wild punk band made up of four women from Kyoto, Japan. They work full-time at standard, respectable jobs during the week, and spend their weekends on jaunts around Japan throwing walls of screaming sound at their audiences.

Their lyrics are entirely in Japanese, and they have recently made waves at South by Southwest and on tour through the UK with Korean surf-rock band Say Sue Me. Salient got the opportunity to talk to them just after they returned from Austin, and got the lowdown on their live show, womanhood in the Japanese music industry, and their favourite bands.

56 Music

You can find Otoboke Beaver’s new EP Love is Short at otobokebeaver.bandcamp.com.

— Lauren Spring

A: I want more holidays, as we all work as full time workers.

Y: I want more holidays. I heard that it is easy to take long holidays in the UK. There are many hot springs in Japan, so we like to go to them when we do Japanese tours.

H: I think it’s interesting and good that Japanese words have many meanings and feelings in same words.

P: I think that Japan is centred around J-pop culture ultimately. We have often said “our music is for overseas.”

So our music is enjoyed by outsiders.

S: Does being Japanese create any difficulties for you in terms of making your music and touring?

Conversely, what do you think are the great things about making music and living in Japan?

A: To tell the truth, I am buried in our own songwriting.

Y: The band named Have a Nice Day! and its fans are interesting and insane. And now I’m interested in British rock bands like Blur. So cute!

H: BLONDnewHALF and NEMU (both are bands in Kansai).

P: JJJ (hip-hop) and Skirt from Japan. Shobaleader One, Clap! Clap!, White Lung, Bonobo, and Slowkiss.

Slowkiss became friends with us at SXSW.

S: What are the bands/artists that you’re most excited about at the moment?

A: The fact that our music is out all over the world.

Y: Having gigs in the US. Reactions from the audience were so interesting.

H: Gigs overseas. And it is always funny watching Yoyoyoshie stage dive into the audience.

S: What are some of the fun experiences you have had while being a part of this band?

Y: We sing songs about men and women in love affairs.

H: Hmm. Not the rebellion but the claims that there are such women like us.

P: Maybe so. I think there is a trend that women must be cute, like idol culture and announcers in Japan. I don’t know what is bad, but we express ourselves freely. Because there are demands of cute men, I think it is okay there are supplies of cool women.

S: Would you say that your music is part of a rebellion against the roles of womanhood set out in Japanese culture?

Y: Nothing else. Now everybody has the opportunity to play active parts, and I don’t think women fear because they are women.

Pop: It is true that there are many men who work in music industries and women have parts of being inferior in power, but I have never felt this especially. I have women friends who work as sound techs. I wonder why they thought you couldn’t plug a lead into an amp. Everybody can do that.

57 Music

58

Food

FOOD Burger Liquor Burger Liquor is a favourite for many Wellington students. The prices are not too crazy, but crazy enough to keep your Double Brown-drinking, cuffed plain black beanie-wearing, Warehouse shoe-rocking neighbours away. You can easily go there with your mates, have a burger, share some fries, and have a beer for around $25 each.

The outside of the building looks really basic, and you will actually miss it if you don't actively look up for the neon sign. The decor is like a regular burger joint, with an “exotic” bar and a dark red mood light encompassing the diner.

Early hip-hop and beats from the ’90s is the music of choice for this establishment, and it could not fit better with the decor. Thomas and I, now Level 2 food critics after our review of Shed 5, were ready to spend our saved money at this burger palace.

The Bernie Mac stands as a rival to Burger Fuel’s BBQ Roadster. While the Roadster is a take on Burger King’s Rodeo Burger, the Bernie Mac challenges McDonald’s only good burger — the Big Mac. Beating the Big Mac in all categories, this juicy monstrosity, which stained my elbows and ran me the risk of embarrassment in front of the waitress that didn’t even like me, was a very solid burger. While it was very tasty, it wasn’t god-like, and it didn’t make me want to vomit onto my Reeboks, so it leaves me in a very awkward position as a food critic who doesn’t know how to critique food, only knowing how to make sub-par jokes in a magazine no one reads.

I could pretend that it made every hair on my body stand up, shot my nipples through my shirt, and would push me to sell half my belongings to buy more, but I’m not going to. It wasn’t really that good. The buns at Burger Liquor are pretty average though; Brioche buns are an art form, needing to finely run the line between soft and hard enough to not fall apart, but these fall ungraciously into the not-soft-enough pond of disappointing bread. Overall a solid 8/10.

The Double Standard is a standard burger with double the patties. Trust us, this burger was standard. Pickles, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, and two patties are slammed in between this sizeable bun. It's not exciting. There's no wow, the taste is exactly what you would expect. It's good, but not great; just what they were aiming for.

We attempted to put different types of hot sauces on the burger, but I could not for the life of me spice up this burger. If you go to an Indian restaurant and order butter chicken, Coke Zero and plain naan, or perhaps get sweet and sour pork before opening the menu at any restaurant that resembles oriental culture, this burger is for you. It's bland, but it's good. 6.5/10.

The fat smoked paprika fries are extremely delicious. (See, look at that sentence — as food critics we have as much grace as a moose trying to use a Fidget Spinner). They’re blanched in beef fat, adding large amounts of flavour that is just not possible when cooking with vegetable oil. I maintain that the biggest mistake of the latter half of the 20th century was the switch many mainstream restaurants made from beef tallow to vegetable oil. That is the period in which flavour died for white people. We had fat and now we have nothing. We ruin burgers like we ruined dabbing. Why people are so scared of deep frying in lard I will never understand.

You aren’t supposed to eat it for every meal.

If you ate lard every day, I can guarantee you that you would still have a mobility scooter and cankles when you switched to frying in vegetable oil.

— Kii and Tom You can catch Kii and Tom on SalientFM (88.3) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 6.00–8.00pm.

Find them on Facebook: “Kii and Tom”.

Poem

59

not Dev

eyes all opened hit the sun tentative your pitch was wobbly like your lower lip I couldn’t fix the movement got seasick inside your sadness so you left the house for sausage meat and I stayed put glued PVA to the bed a pillow cased strewn duvet damp in sheet deck chair folded fatigue playing with the pen knife cardboard boxes cut to threads filling my hand with ink and pants with come back to me like scrambled eggs cold in the sink or a toaster broken on the bench saliva stains

I’m holding my eyes shut until I’m sure I’ll open them to you holding the groceries still pissed off with me but with me still I had a wet dream about someone who looked like you

— Essa Morris

60

If you don’t want to write for us — write to us! Salient welcomes, encourages, and thrives on public debate. Send us your honest feedback, be it praise or polemics.

LETTERS

SUBJECT: WE LOOK FORWARD TO THE INTERVIEW!

SUBJECT: WELCOME, NON-ARTS STUDENT!

Hi Nina, Just wanted to say thank you for your piece on The Body Laid Bare in Salient [Issue 07] — really thoughtful and interesting.

I’m the comms person at the gallery and I just wanted to let you know that, in regards to your last sentence in the piece, I’ve got one of the Guerrilla Girls talking to Kim Hill on Radio NZ in early June [exact time TBC], so you can find out exactly what they think about the exhibition then — have a listen out for it!

Kind regards, — Olivia

Hi Laura and Tim, I am a PhD student in Computer Engineering at VUW and as such I have to come to realise that the general consensus is that us computer geeks do not care much for the beautiful world of arts and literature.

SUBJECT: OUR NEWS TITLES ARE (OFTEN) INTENTIONALLY A BIT RIDICULOUS...

Not wanting to be abused or intimidated is not “privilege.” It’s a basic human right.

The vast majority of window-washers behave in a respectful/friendly manner, but there are instances where motorists are made to feel unsafe. I walk past a group of windows-washers at the corner of Willis/Karo Drive every day and they are always friendly and polite. However, there are periods when different groups take over this spot and they can act in varying ways. Whilst the Punx were always chatty and friendly, there is another group whom I've seen wash a window without the driver’s consent and then when not paid, act out in a violent manner. To suggest that this very real fear of being attacked is somehow “privilege” is incorrect and divisive. I commend these window washers for getting off their backsides and doing something, even if it is for beer money. But please don’t relegate the very real concerns of your fellow citizens to that of “privilege” or class.

Drivers come from all sections of society, not just the rich. Whilst I am definitely not in favour of Jami-Lee Ross’ Bill, I can understand those concerns (although National’s worries maybe more about kerbing the “black economy” and lost tax revenue).

— Arthur Stoat

However, I am writing to say that I absolutely love the Salient magazine and I look forward to each edition filled with important discussions, and creative writing and art!

I used to write quite a bit in the days gone by, and then, I fell out of touch. Recently however, I felt very strongly about a news item I saw and I ended up writing a piece of poetry about it.

Keep up the great work guys!

Cheers!

When my Mother was a young girl, In the 1970s, In a small island called Sri Lanka, Known as the “Pearl of the Indian Ocean,” She had to wait for hours in the long long queue, To buy, a precious loaf of bread…………………

And today, in 2017, Almost a half a century after, In the so-called “modern world” I saw on Al Jazeera, How people in Venezuela are suffering the same……………

The newsline screamed, “70% of people have lost 8kg in weight, Due to recession.”

A man speaking into the camera, With sad, sad eyes said, “We walk around like Zombies, So hungry, we want to eat each other.”

A pregnant lady with a young child, Opened her fridge, smiled into camera, “We have one pineapple” The reporter asked again, “Is that all you have?”

She smiled, “Yes………………………………….”

In 50 years, the world has “progressed,” To become crueler, selfish and heartless In the first world when problems are, “Oh! I forgot my phone when I went to take a dump What do I read now?”

And in Latin America, people wage war for bread!

— Miniruwani (Miru)

LETTERS

61

SUBJECT: THANK YOU SANDRA FOR WRITING US THIS LETTER >>>

SUBJECT: A RESPONSE TO A RESPONSE

The article in Salient, May 22, “Students belittled when seeking sexual health services”, does not fairly represent the quality of the service that Student Health, Mauri Ora, provides. VUW takes its commitment to students very seriously, especially when it comes to concerns for their health and wellbeing.

While you posit that the article “does not fairly represent the quality of the service that Student Health provides,” I respectfully disagree. To suggest this, undermines the legitimacy of the experiences of those who reached out to Salient about issues with the service.

The story described two incidents in which students alleged clinicians had made comments that they regarded as belittling. Neither of these incidents was raised by the Salient reporter with Student Health management during the half hour interview.

Regarding the one incident that was raised during the interview, the reporter was clearly told that such behaviour was not consistent with the professional approach provided by the GPs at Student Health.

Student Health provides an essential service for students and we are constantly looking for ways to ensure the student voice contributes to shaping these services. We want to hear from students how we could improve our communication with them — on issues that are both good or not so good — as part of our ongoing quality improvement. Feedback can be provided by email to Student-Health@vuw.ac.nz.

As students, Mauri Ora is your health service at VUW — and we want you to be actively involved in its ongoing development.

— Dr Sandra Bennett Clinical Lead Medical Student Health

In the interview I had with Sandra Bennett and Rawinia Mariner on May 5, I discussed the anecdote referred to in the article, and my intention to conduct further interviews with students. I included Student Health’s response to this anecdote in the article, which made clear that this behaviour was not condoned by Student Health Management.

Through further interviews, more negative experiences came to light. I, like you, was shocked and saddened to hear of these experiences. I did inform our sources of the complaints mechanisms available, although, as a number of the incidents happened in previous years, many did not feel it would be helpful for them to pursue further complaints at this stage. I also referred them to VUWSA’s advocacy service.

My intention was never to undermine the good work that you do — rather, to draw attention to issues which can help make Student Health and Counselling better. As you suggested in our interview, “complaints are really valuable” — I hope that this experience can be taken on board as a constructive one, through which Student Health and Counselling services can be improved and better managed to meet students needs.

— Brigid Quirke

Letters must be received before 5pm on Tuesday for publication the following week. They must be 200 words or less. Pseudonyms are fine but all letters must include your real name, address, and telephone number — these will not be printed. Letters will not be corrected for spelling or grammar. However the Editors reserve the right to edit, abridge, or decline any letter without explanation.

Email: editor@salient.org.nz with “Letter to the Editor” in the subject line.

Post: Salient c/- Victoria University of Wellington Hand-delivered: Salient office, Level 3, Student Union Building (behind the Hunter Lounge).

62

CROSSWORD: ‘GIRLS'

ACROSS

Puzzles

1. Ran away from home, maybe* (6,3,6) 9. It’s now called ‘narcissistic personality disorder’ (it's also a Muse song)* (11) 11. Outlaw (3) 12. Gradually become something else, like a Pokemon (6) 13. Game studio that made ‘Skyrim’ and ‘Fallout 4’* (8) 18. Start of some Californian city names (3) 20. Particle discovered by James Chadwick in 1932 (7) 21. Common word for tea that came from Cantonese pronunciations (3) 23. Part of the brain associated with memory and emotion* (8) 26. Marlon Brando shouts it in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ (6) 28. Something to chew on (3) 29. 1868 novel whose characters can be found at the start of the answers to the four starred clues (6,5) 31. Author of 29-Across (6,3,6)

SUDOKU

Sudoku difficulty: Hard

DOWN

TARGET

LAST WEEK'S SOLUTION

Make as many words of three letters or more as you can. Each word must contain the letter in the central square.

Target goals: Good: 9 words Great: 12 words Impressive: 15 words

1. People competing in decathlons, 40% of the time (7) 2. Like some painful nails (7) 3. Made more energetic (9) 4. Magazine that made Hitler their ‘Person of the Year’ twice (4) 5. “Ich bin ___ Berliner” (Kennedy quote) (3) 6. Actor/director Lupino, or activist B. Wells (3) 7. Dice, or dices (5) 8. Start of some Californian city names (5) 10. Mental stat in D&D, for short (3) 14. Actor Miller who’s playing The Flash in the DC Universe (4) 15. Fluffy thing next to a basin (4,5) 16. Homer’s shout (3) 17. Ship’s bottom (4) 19. It comes between ‘ready’ and ‘fire’ (3) 21. Capital of Sri Lanka (7) 22. Versus (7) 23. Christmas tree topper, sometimes (5) 24. Zhang ___, director of ‘Hero’ and ‘House of Flying Daggers’ (5) 25. Mahershala ___, first Muslim actor to win an Oscar (3) 27. Spotify button (4) 29. Start of some Californian city names (3) 30. Male cat or turkey (3)

63

HOROSCOPE

Horoscope

Buckle up astrological children, it’s Gemini Season! Gemini is the first air element of the zodiac, so prepare for some crazy energy. Under the influence of a Gemini planetary cycle, we’ll all be inclined to spend time with friends and focus on changing the world one idea at a time. Or something.

— Aubergine and Celeste

Gemini: May 21–Jun 20 Heyoooo it’s your birthday season Gemini! Your ruler Mercury is in Taurus until June 6, so get ready to deal with some feels. Now is a great time to clear out some of your emotional baggage to make room for all things new and creative!!

Cancer: Jun 21–Jul 22 My dear Crab, now that the Sun has moved into Gemini it’s never been a better time to reassess your boundaries — don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone, or *ahem* your shell!

Leo: Jul 23–Aug 22 Leo, I have one word for you and that is SYNERGY. Get socialising and you could meet some cool new people with shared #goals.

Virgo: Aug 23–Sep 22 The hustle continues for you sweet Virgo, with the Sun now in Gemini and your tenth house of success. The planets are telling me to tell you to get out and do YOU on the weekend girl, find an adventure!

Libra: Sep 23–Oct 22 As a fellow Air sign Libra, Gemini season is a gr8 time for you! Express yo’self ! Go exploring!

Cultivate mystery and excitement, whatever that means.

Scorpio: Oct 23–Nov 21 It’s all about Mercury right now, and with this flirty planet in Taurus ‘til June 6 you are charming af !

Business partnerships and creative collaborations also get a ~bump~ for the coming few weeks.

Sagittarius: Nov 22–Dec 21

What in collaboration!? The Gemini Twins are here to tell you that two heads are better than one! The urge to merge will be strong for the next few weeks Sagi baby, why not get back on Tinder?

Capricorn: Dec 22–Jan 19 Gemini season is also healthy living season for you, Sea-Goat. Try to incorporate the social vibes of this season with some wholesome activities, like yoga, or just not drinking too much at Ivy this weekend.

Aquarius: Jan 20–Feb 18

Lucky you Aquarius, the sun is in your fifth house of romance, celebration, and creative expression! Can you feel the love tonight? If not you will be feeling it by the end of the week my friend. (If you don’t I am sorry).

Pisces: Feb 19–Mar 20

The sun in Gemini means socialising galore!

Remember to take time for yourself though gentle Pisces, as the sun is in your domestic fourth house until June 21. Let the party come to you!

Aries: Mar 21–Apr 19

Wahoo, Gemini governs your third house of cooperation and communication and you could double your impact rn! Now is the time to be your most flirty self, as Venus will be in Aries until June 6.

Taurus: Apr 20–May 20 Read Marie Kondo’s book about being tidy because after a hedonistic birthday season, you wouldn’t mind adopting a more minimalistic approach again. Why not use this time to ~curate your life~.