By KATE BELGRAVE
Things were amusing down on Hokio Beach last week when 30 or so grinning local Maori managed to stop construction workers from crossing their land and laying Telecom cables.
Weather-wise, the day was revolting. It was pouring with rain, the wind was working its way all the way up, and it felt like it was only about 12 deg C, even in the eye of the southerly. But the rest of the scene was inspiring.
Nobody, perhaps, could believe they had managed to see off a major corporation like Telecom (the guys who were supposed to start digging the trench for the cable apparently decided not to cross the protest line).
"We just had to hold them off until the tide came up," one young member of the Muaupoko said with a smile as he returned from the beach. "It didn't seem very likely that that digger would float."
Out in the four-wheel-drive of John Paki, spokesman for the descendants of the land's original owners, the patois was equally dry.
"We're not necessarily opposed to Telecom laying a cable on that land," another lad observed, rolling his eyes to the skies. "We just want them to ask before they drive through."
He was, he said, interested in helping Telecom look to its manners.
Mr Paki was musing about another of his concerns - the pollution of Lake Horowhenua. "You should go and see it. What we've got round there is 1000 acres of pooh."
Outside, in the rain, cars full of locals congratulating each other and Mr Paki on the peaceful protest and the triumph against Telecom had pulled into the drive.
All kinds of people were in that yard - young and old, Maori and Pakeha, locals and people from up the line.
I enjoyed the experience. Which sounds patronising, but there we are. It is edifying to spend time with people who are genuinely passionate about an issue, even if you have to ship to the likes of Levin to do it.
You probably do have to ship to the likes of Levin for this sort of action today. Passions for such protest seem to run stronger in smaller towns than bigger cities. People in smaller towns seem still to believe that the little guy has a better-than-even chance of winning if he takes on a big corporation and hangs in there. In places like Auckland and Wellington, the phrase "collective action" tends to have people dying of laughter or boredom.
There is something refreshing (no doubt it's the novelty factor) about people who genuinely believe that collective activity is a legitimate, and often amusing, way to pass one's valuable time.
All cynics should put in a compulsory, fortnight-long stint in small-town New Zealand. Parts of it (well, big parts of it) are a nightmare of tedium, monotony and inbreeding, but some of it is kind of original.
I'm glad I had a poke around.
And now, to change the topic entirely, I want to ask if Christians, God bless them all, will ever give up trying to convince everyone that creation theory is a feasible alternative to Darwinism.
A number of people have screamed up to me recently to ask me if I've heard of intelligent design theory - a theory that supposedly proves that the complex aspects of evolution could only have been the work of a cosmic designer.
(There was an article about this so-called IDT in Salon magazine. I guess that's how people - dear God-botherers and all - were alerted to it. Yea the net).
Why is it still so important, in this day and age, to factor a cosmic element into the evolution argument?
There is absolutely no evidence to support the IDT argument and, indeed, the school of creation, so why do such arguments still get a look-in?
<i>Dialogue:</i> Protesting still alive and well
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