One of the great things about
living in New Zealand is that hardly anything ever happens until something
major does. Like an earthquake or volcano. That happens every five years or so.
In the meantime, I can sit back and enjoy the temperate climate and stunning
views and not have to worry that I’m living in a Brexit nightmare or under the yolk
of the great overlord Trump.
This is not to say that New Zealand
doesn’t have its problems. Poverty is endemic within the Maori community and
the country suffers from the sort of income inequality that would make Margaret
Thatcher blush. But you rarely read stories about this in the paper. The public
want to read about things that are unusual and unfortunately these issues don’t
pass that test.
Summer is a particularly quiet
time in the media here, when the serious journalists are all at the beach and
the interns they’ve left behind struggle to fill the paper. Luckily for them a
family of tourists stepped into the breach this year and their antics as the
travelled through the country made regular front page news.
The story started around new year
when a popular beach in the northern suburbs of Auckland was left covered in
litter by a large family of outsiders. This would not be uncommon on a beach in
Dublin on the August bank holiday or along the white sands of Ibiza. But New
Zealand has different expectations of its tourists. They believe that people
come here for the scenery, the clean air and the chance to see a hobbit. Chip
packets on a beach don’t fit this narrative and a few of the middle-class
locals thought it prudent to voice their objections to the tourists while
cleverly recording their interaction on a mobile phone.
The tourists responded with some
industrial language and sent their youngest (an eight-year-old) forward to
threaten to beat the brains out of the local. That was enough to make the headlines
on the six a clock news. Who doesn’t like a young fella in an oversized hat
shouting abuse after all?
By the following day the papers
were full of follow up stories. Unpaid meals, sunglasses pilfered from petrol
stations and motel rooms trashed. In these early reports, the family were
described as “Irish Travellers”. That is the polite modern term in Ireland and
the UK for gypsies. But not many Kiwis are familiar with this linguistic
compromise. So, they reached the logical conclusion that “Irish Traveller” was
the same as “Tourist from Ireland”.
After a couple of days, the
Police started harassing them in much the same way as the Irish and British
police do. They were arrested for walking through a Burger king drive-in and
condemned for leaving used towels on the bathroom floor of a motel they rented.
This led to some curious
questions at work. Kiwis are used to seeing Irish people drunk on St Patrick’s
Day but they don’t particularly associate us with litter and being badly
dressed. I tried to explain the socio-economic conditions in which Travellers
in Ireland live and their fractious relationship with the settled community.
That if you spent ten minutes in the shoes of a Traveller, you would very
quickly lose any respect for the social conventions of normal society.
My explanation fell on deaf ears.
New Zealand has its own underclass, stoned on meth and living in tumble down
houses with angry dogs and cars up on bricks. But these people don’t leave
rubbish on the beach and generally keep themselves to themselves. Or should I
say the nice middle class people of New Zealand know how to avoid them.
Then the Irish Honoury Consul
General in Auckland stepped into the fray. She clearly had access to inside
information and sent out a pompous press release saying that the family weren’t
Irish at all. They lived in Britain and were travelling on British passports.
With this single sentence, the Irish community in New Zealand breathed a sigh
of relief and washed their hands of the issue. The New Zealand media got the
message and started calling them “Unruly British Tourists” because there is
nothing the Kiwis like better than bashing the Poms.
But another line in the Consul
General’s press release caught my eye. She pointed out that “Irish Travellers”
is an ethnic group and not a nationality and this had nothing to do with
Ireland. This is consistent with how mainstream Ireland treats Travellers.
There are outsiders, not like us and generally a nuisance.
This is hypocritical of course.
It’s not so long since a Traveller carried the Irish flag at the Olympics and
won us boxing golds. We all jumped on that bandwagon. And we are picky about
which people of Irish decent that we allow into the national tent. If you are
good at Football, it doesn’t matter how Irish you feel, we’ll give you a green
jersey. Likewise, if you live in Ireland and do something noble like win a
Nobel Prize, then we’ll happily put you on our Great Irish Writers posters and
name pubs after you. But if you were a nasty 19th Century landlord,
then you are a dirty Brit. Oscar Wilde is an Irish hero, Captain Boycott is a
British rogue, even though they both come from the same Anglo background.
This is not unusual. Every
country clings to those that bring it pride while disassociating themselves
from the dullards. The Dutch love their artists and footballers, but they
disassociate themselves from Afrikaners in South Africa, even though they speak
Dutch and have Dutch names.
Ireland talks fondly about its
diaspora, how the President keeps a light in his window to welcome emigrants’
home. That doesn’t work if you are a Traveller. Once they have driven their
caravan onto the Holyhead ferry, Ireland can wash its hands of them. Most Irish
people disown Travellers when they live in Ireland; they are not going to claim
them as Irish when they live abroad.
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