OPINION:
The theme tune to our summer of 1988 was Melting Pot. I was 17, on my first road trip with my school friends to the Coromandel in the Datsun 120y. Annie Crummer and the rest of When the Cats Away stuck into my heart with their powerful vocals and the message that we can all be the same.
It may have been the Rheineck stubbies I had consumed, or my naive worldview which centred around the rolling surf of Waihi, but I totally bought into the chorus:
What we need is a great big melting pot
Big enough to take
The world and all it's got
And keep it stirring for a hundred years or more
And turn out coffee-coloured people by the score
If we were all the same, then there would be no prejudice, no racism, no gender inequality, and (to steal from John Lennon) no religion too.
Of course, with my narrow, privileged world view, I assumed the song meant everyone would live like I did. I wasn't racist, sexist or prejudiced, why couldn't everyone be like me? It has taken me 30 years, lots of travel, many mistakes, and a huge amount of listening to admit that I was, and still are, those things I hated. My world view has expanded to be more understanding, more empathetic but it still only reflects my limited experiences and makes me entirely unsuitable to judge another person's contribution to this planet, but I still try.
My melting pot theology was expressed by the firm belief that "we are all one people, we should all be treated equally". On the surface this is absolutely still true and a basic human right. When you scratch a little deeper, what I was really saying was "we should all be like me".
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Advertise with NZME.Imagine how unimaginative, unfulfilled and underwhelming the world would be if it was only inhabited by 7 billion clones of me, or anyone else for that matter. Even the great specimens of homo sapiens that have walked the earth before me, Cleopatra, Jesus, Gandhi, Aretha Franklin, Sir Ed or Freddie Mercury included, would still create a boring world with little innovation.
Rather than be a boring old soup created in the melting pot that those amazing wāhine toa sung about in 1988, let's be a crisp healthy salad filled with freshness, taste, colours, textures and drizzled with a crisp tangy dressing that links us all together.
Let us embrace and celebrate our differences rather than assimilate them. The Indian head wobble, the Japanese bow, the Latin kisses on the cheeks and, in our context here at the bottom of the world, the hongi, a symbol of the taonga of our motu.
Let's understand that we are not all born equal and while we do want to live in a world where everyone is, it is going to have to take a sacrifice from those who are "more" equal towards those who are "less" equal.
As an unofficial anthem, I now prefer Dave Dobbyn's masterpiece Welcome Home as he sings about new New Zealanders of different ethnicities.
Tonight I am feeling for you
Under the state of a strange land
You have sacrificed much to be here
There but for grace as I offer my hand
Welcome home, I bid you welcome, I bid you welcome
Welcome home from the bottom of my heart
Change is the only constant.
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Advertise with NZME.• Dave Mollard is a Palmerston North community worker and social commentator.
