If you want to take, you have to give

By SAPNA SAMANT

I am the new immigrant. A qualified doctor with media experience; communicating in near-impeccable English; open to new ways and cultures; ever willing to learn. I am the new immigrant. Less than a year in Auckland; unemployed for more than six months; now with a temporary part-time job and studying at Auckland University.

Can I add my two bits worth to this ongoing controversy?

No, I am not going to write in defence of a little diversity. God knows heaps has been said about how we should be accepting of others and how happy we should be at being exposed to different cultures and peoples. Blah and blah.

It is all baloney. Politically correct hot air. Everyone talks about how wrong racism and discrimination are but do we desist from them? No.

Don't haul Winston Peters over the coals. He is not racist. He is just a windbag who paints these dismal pictures because it helps him to stay in the news. The entire hullabaloo over his utterances somehow takes us away from what we all really need to do - be introspective.

Does each of us practise some sort of bigotry or not? Yes, we do.

Let me begin with the group targeted - the immigrants. We left our homelands behind for better prospects, for a change in lifestyle, for peace.

We come here and duplicate the conditions from home. Indians hang out with Indians, Chinese with their brethren, the Africans with fellow Africans, and the Fiji Indians try hard to belong not to the present but a mythical India.

Fine, we feel comfortable with our types and leaving a country does not mean we give up our culture. One way to keep in touch, to familiarise our New Zealand-born children with it, is to get together.

There are pockets in Auckland in which you will find only Chinese or Indian faces. Isn't that carrying the safety-within-community parochial attitude a bit too far?

I was at a cafe on Queen St with a Chinese friend and we were the odd couple in a sea of Chinese faces. And being seen with a white man in Indian pockets is committing sacrilege.

Imagine then if one associated with a Maori or Pacific Islander. We who hate being called chinks and curry-munchers happily discriminate against the "criminals" and "coconuts".

Suppressed and on the fringes, no wonder Maori feel fearful of immigrants displacing them. They are not being considered as part of the new New Zealand. No one cares to understand their culture, language or social problems.

Of course, for any migrant, survival and settling down are the need of the hour but wearing blinkers causes only more segregation.

I can visualise the immigrants breathing fire as I pen this. She has sold out to the gora (white man). How typical of a post-colonial citizen to come to a developed country and bow to the former masters.

Well, thanks for the laughs, mates, but I have not finished. I was wondering if the Government or most Kiwis understood what I am trying to say. Their English might not be up to the mark.

They are worried about New Zealand being flooded by useless foreigners who will only live off the system. They want to improve the economy, stem the falling birth rates and what not, yet they do not know how to handle the situation.

Simple really. Post-settlement policies should ensure that skilled professionals should have relevant jobs, rather than drive taxis or work in supermarkets.

Why can't doctors be helped to requalify and sent to rural areas on bonds? Why can't teachers be trained and put to use instead of recalling New Zealand teachers from abroad? Most know English. They just need to get the accent right and understand a bit of the culture.

Would that help in integration? Attitude matters. Kiwis should take a long, hard look at themselves, too. They yearn for ye olde homeland instead of feeling privileged to be able to create a new culture.

Here you have Creative New Zealand rejecting a script about the Spice Route because it is not a New Zealand story. What is a New Zealand story? Blokes, beer and balls or (out of political correctness) something Maori?

By the way, much as I would love to know more about the Maori, I see few coming forward and talking to me (and presenting a balanced view) about their culture. Most I have observed on the streets and buses only endorse stereotypes. It does not help their cause.

The Great Apolitical Debate on Immigration is never going to take place. The left, the right and politicians and people's representatives of all hues are going to hijack it. It is up to us - the Indians, Asians, Africans, Europeans, the Pakeha, Maori and Pacific Islanders - to open our hearts and minds.

Culture cannot be encapsulated; it cannot be bound. If we want to take, we have to give, we have to absorb. Integration will not happen overnight. In this small, wide world where all need their space, it is we, the people, who make all the difference.

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Herald feature: Immigration