What do you stand for?
What do you stand for? That's what we've been asked by this government in the flag debate but I can't help but think it's a rhetorical question to which they don't want a real answer. What they're looking for is contrived unity and what Noam Chomsky termed 'manufactured consent'.
Helping to fabricate consent, Santa's helpers like Mike Hosking continue to tell the nation what to think as a replacement for real journalism - where we all get to be big boys and girls and decide things for ourselves.
A work colleague berated me for my threat to destroy my voting paper saying that by doing so I would be disrespecting the whole feminist pantheon who fought to allow me a democratic right to participate. If this were truly democratic, and not a facsimile of the real thing she might have a point.
A democratic referendum would have asked whether or not we wanted to change the flag before asking which one we prefer. This derriere about face way of doing things makes perfect sense in creating buy in and leaning on public opinion and no sense at all if you want a genuine answer. It's the kind of corralling you'd expect from a big corporate pretending to co:construct a new logo with its employees.
The push from the PM and every National MP wearing their scouts' honour silver fern badges for every press release or interview begins to be wearying and worrying. Someone ought to pull them all aside (Hosking included) and say; 'Basta already. We get it. Tone it down a notch.' What is being created is a brand name for Team NZ but few are asking who is in that team or what we want to project to the world.
Why are we even having this conversation about what piece of material best represents us when we have failed to have the conversation about why we continue to fawn over foreign monarchs and why this government has decided to bring back knighthoods. Where was the referendum on that?
Whether or not a flag change is relevant in a pre-treaty settlement situation has not even been asked - it seems we have forgotten to ask who we are or want to be and what that means in terms of forming a proper constitution.
This appears to be a rebranding exercise with no real discussion on what we're selling. Is national identity more than just a conglomerate of corporations? If the answer is 'no' I'd be happy with the silver fern. It's a great logo for butter and sport stars. Fonterra's spokesman; Miles Hurrell's reaction to the Sunday programme on cruelty to bobby calves on some farms was insightful. " NZ, NZ Inc has an opportunity here to get together and resolve this".
National unity equals corporate cohesion; are they the same thing? The current flag debate is a lot more than what represents NZ Inc. There are fundamental questions that need to precede that discussion that we have yet to have. Do we have to be the same to be united? Who are we - NZ Inc? NZ? Aotearoa? And what does that even mean?