JAY KUTEN: Meaningful end to H quarrel

22/09/2013 - San Francisco (USA CA) - 34th America's Cup - Race Day 12 - ORACLE Team USA vs Emirates Team New Zealand NZH 13Jun14 - San Francisco has been ruled out of hosting the 2017 America's C

A FEW seasons ago, I abstained from the "H" debate on the ground of my relative newbie-ness and a dearth of personal passion expressed as "I got no dog in the fight".

Times change. I've been here a while longer, absorbing the flavours of this place, and I begin to find some advantaged perspective in my lack of history in it. "What's in a name?" and the Great William answers: "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Some names turn out to be eminently changeable. Especially where money is involved.

The New York Philharmonic Hall was named Avery Fisher in honour of the audio entrepreneur and music lover who gave US$10 million in 1973. In 2014, the Philharmonic Board removed the name and is auctioning naming rights, part of their plan to raise US$500 million - the only opposition, Avery Fisher's heirs, got back US$15 million.

More locally, those incredibly beautiful racing yachts, once named Team New Zealand for the people who bought the red socks, are now part of Emirates Team New Zealand, named for the source of some of the millions they cost. The boats still float and sail with the new weighted symbol - though, apparently, not as swiftly.

My own name seems often to be too big a challenge. It gets spelled with a "C" or a "Q", gets pronounced in several unrecognised and distorted ways. After decades of mistakes - probably the effect of translating from the spoken word - I'm reconciled. I've come to expect that I'm content with this sign of my lineage even when others mangle it.

The local spelling of our city's name and the controversy generated is something else. It's not about naming rights that can be bought or sold; it's about meaning and identity.

Whanganui means " big bay" or "big harbour" in the Maori language. Without the "H" the word has no meaning. Whanganui is a word in the Maori language; Wanganui is a word ... but without a language.

That there exists passion about the spelling of the city's name is a reflection of the ethnic and social divide that has existed here for a long time.

The appeal to populism which the former mayor and former district council entertained has not led to any useful resolution. Those referenda, by which 11,000 out of the total of 31,000 eligible voters expressed their opposition to the name Whanganui, reflected only the flaws in a seemingly democratic process, illustrating the unfortunate opportunity for democracy to become a tyranny of the majority, even when it's only a majority of those 53 per cent who bothered to vote.

All that effort produced was a deepening of the divisions among us. Judging from comments I've read, at the time of the referenda and now, there's been a good deal of heat generated and very little light.

On politically-charged issues, when people stop listening to each other and talk past each other, the entire democratic experiment is ill-served. But that's just the moment for leadership by our mayor and the district council.

It's when the councillors need to grab the opportunity to act in conscience and to restore to us all - not just the minority - the meaning of this place.

Councillors need to take a deep breath, revisit the issue and take the responsibility for which we elected them. Councillors, concerned with the opinions of constituents, need to appeal to the better angels of our nature.

This city needs to be called Whanganui because that is what's right. Once we can accept the spelling, we'll all wake up the next day and realise that while the skies haven't fallen, we're all just a little bigger and a little better for it.

Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.