Gosh – New Zealand is an island nation! You don’t say.
I was encouraged to buy a copy of the Listener this week due to the cover headline “NZ I Love it. I just wouldn’t want my children to grow up there.” I thought it was an odd headline because I know we are far from the only migrants who think that bringing up kids in New Zealand is a bloody great idea.
Well, it seems this article is an interview with an American “commentator” called George Friedman – who basically went on an Anti-New Zealand rampage because we don’t kowtow to the States. And we will apparently pay for that and regret it – us being a two-bit fart at the bottom of the world and them being – well – America.
As a piece of gung-ho my-gun-is-bigger-than-your-gun writing – its not bad – but it shows a marked lack of appreciation for the fact that New Zealand is not actually going to hell in a handbag right now – and that as an Island in the middle of nowhere we actually seem to be quite protected.
So – what is this guys real beef??? Well – if you can stomach the article long enough (and believe me it is a nauseating experience) you find that the Think Tank (already you know we are in trouble) that this guys runs did very well for George Bush and to quote a rebuttal from Victoria university Terence O’Brien “it helped fuel the bonfires of fear and anxiety so tenaciously stoked by Kick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz et al.”
So this “interview” is his way of trying to put New Zealand in its place for not supporting them in the Iraq War, and worse – goes on to extol the paragon of virtue that is Australia because they did. What it boils down to is that America apparently controls all the seas in the world (I think the UK Navy might beg to differ, and there are some Somali pirates who could rubbish the claim too – and that’s ignoring the fact that the US navy are in fact not allowed to dock in New Zealand), and when said Somali pirates threaten our shipping – the US navy wont help us, because we are a two bit agricultural society and we will all die from starvation because we wont be able to get food.
Of course he forgets all of a sudden that we are a two bit AGRICULTURAL country. Duh!
Australia on the other hand – because it did as it was told and fought a war – will get aid. Not that America is doing anything to help the Aussies with their rather serious drought – but who cares??? Never let the truth get in the way a good bullying session eh? The US Navy will swoop in and protect their shipping lines. And give them a free trade deal. Luck sods!
At the end of the day (bearing in mind that I’m not a clever “Think Tank”) the one thing that I think this guy just doesn’t get in his rush to insist that the US rules the world, is that an awful lot of people do come to New Zealand BECAUSE it is a small island nation at the bottom of the world. We didn’t go to war with Iraq, and we haven’t had a load of terrorist attacks. We don’t have posters all over the place as they do in the UK and Australia telling us to dob in our neighbours for suspicious behaviour and telling us to be scared. We don’t do what the US tells us to do just because it is them telling us to do it, and we don’t let their ships dock here because they are Nuclear and we are a Nuclear free zone.
I think that is something to be immensely proud of.
And as for all the benefits we would get if we just bowed down and did as we were told??? Well Mr Friedman seems to forget that a lot people in New Zealand are Brits, and have seen first hand the “benefits” (or not) of the Special Relationship Britain is supposed to have with the US. I seem to recall that not long after UK troops helped invade Iraq that the UK was banned from exporting steel to the US. Very friendly!
I hope that New Zealand continues to refuse to be bullied by the US and make its own way. It’s what makes this place so special. Daring to be different is not a bad thing – and it is something the New Zealand is bloody good at.
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Related posts:
- South Island – it’s another country apparently.
- Do you need to move to New Zealand to get a new life?
- Why do so many Kiwis leave for Australia?
Comments
3 Comments on Gosh – New Zealand is an island nation! You don’t say.
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Hubby on
Mon, 8th Jun 2009 11:15 pm
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Hubby on
Mon, 8th Jun 2009 11:18 pm
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Hubby on
Thu, 25th Jun 2009 3:13 pm
I think the article is a rather poor attempt to say “you should be friends with us. Because we help our friends, and we’ll duff you up if you aren’t” – which is nothing to do with friendship. American foreign policy is always going to do what is in Americas best interests, bugger anyone else.
Any country that thinks otherwise, special relatinship or FTA, is deluding itself.
As an attempt to throw some crap at the safest country in the world to live in, from the 83rd safest country, it’s an interesting piece of obfuscation.
More on the “global peace index” in a later blog
It’s just occuring to me the humour of the US Navy arriving to help Australia with it’s drought.. They wont be able to sail up the Murray-Darling rivers, on account of them being a trickle of a creek by the time the Americans think it worth helping out their ‘best buds down south’.
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