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Blythswood Flats on the corner of Willis and Aro Streets is an impressive old block of 30 flats, Each flat has two or three tenants in it, making a total of about 60 people in the block. And all of them have just received notice to leave by September 24.
While some of the tenants are young and have only been in the block for a short while, others are elderly and have been living there for up to 30 years. They have paid their rent on time and have made improvements like repainting, repapering and laying new carpets. They don't intend to take their eviction lying down, and last Saturday held a planning meeting at the flats. It was attended by half the tenants and several members of the Wellington Tenants Protection Association.
Blysthwood flats are on the extreme edge of the Island Bay electorate so MP Gerald O'Brien turned up too. He immediately showed his sympathy for the tenants and his confidence: "It will be a fight but I think we will achieve something in the long run. We've got to convince the government of the urgency of the matter. He also got to the root of the trouble in quick time: "I'm going to start a ferment within my party because this is a perfect case of people being manipulated by speculators. And I'm going to look into getting laws changed so it doesn't happen again."
The speculators are at it again, all right. The property was formerly owned by the Druids Grand Lodge. Apparently they are a so-called 'friendly society' so selling it to Waitangi Trading Co. for $360,000 seems a bit out of character. The new owners intend to boot the present tenants out, slap a bit of paint over the cracks in the building, and hock the flats off at about $26,000 each. Nett profit? — a cool two hundred thousand or so.
Amanda Russell of the TPA said at the meeting that the older people should have the right to stay in the flats for as long as they like. "They can't easily adjust to a new environment and shouldn't be expected to." The tenants themselves echoed this. Their flats are handy to buses, taxis, and shops. Making a shift, particularly in Wellington would be considerably inconvenient if not impossible.
Not that the flats are perfect by any means. They are made of concrete, and cracks in the roof have let water in, with disastrous consequences for some ceilings. The Druids have been far from perfect landlords. For four years they have promised repairs and have not done them. One tenant said that once the Druids' lawyer, Mr Blake-Palmer, rang her to say that he had a cheque to pay for repairs to her ceiling. But months later the work has yet to be done and flaking paint and rot still drops into her food.
Another tenant has cooked all his meals out of an electric frypan for six months because his gas stove has never been repaired, despite repeated requests, elderly couple spent a considerable amount carpeting and painting their flat, but the whole effect was marred by a mildewed ceiling black with rot.
These, however, are the exceptions, and almost all tenants want to hang on to their flats. They have formed a committee to get advice on their rights and to disseminate it. And they are working out tactics for when the crunch comes. Support is coming in from many quarters, including some unions.
In the light of Labour's plansto crack down on speculators it was a bit incongruous to see a member of the government helping to organise tenants against speculators. But his sentiments were not misplaced "Let's make this issue one about which we can bring about a crisis," said Gerald O'Brien. "I would like to see the situation where housing was taken out of the area of private investment." This was greeted by a round of applause from the meeting.
Just before going to press the major shareholder of the aptly named Waitangi Trading Company, Mr J. R. Hastings was contacted on the telephone. Asked whether his company had bought the Blyths wood property for $360,000, he said "I don't know whether I should talk to you, you can get in touch with the company solicitor." But he did admit that the price was in that order.
When asked about the fate of the tenants, he referred the question back with "you know the legal position and thats all there is to it." He mentioned that a few of the tenants who were in the flat before
Mr Hastings said he could not say what the company's plans for the building were. It was too early to estimate how much the done up own-your-own' flats would sell for. But he did say that the company intended to spend a 'six-figure sum' on renovations. "The present services are obsolete," said Mr Hastings. Pity the present tenants don't agree.
Letters to the Editor should be given to one of the editors, left in the box outside the office or posted to Box 1347.
It was interesting to see the reviews of the book 'Prisoner' and to reflect on the NZ penal system as compared to the Chinese which was so excellently described by Cheryl Dimond in her article "From the Courts to the People". Perhaps the most amazing point made in the article about the legal system in China was that it is understood just as well and in the same terms by a professor and by a worker.
Perhaps I might set down a few observations to complement the article.
In China the crime rate is dropping all the time, as is the number of unsolved crimes. And of course the low ratio of police to population has already been mentioned in Salient.
Arrests are usually made on the basis of certainty of proof, not on the basis of suspicion. All arrests must be witnessed by an independent party. Relations must be notified as soon as you are arrested. How different all these things are in New Zealand!
As far as I am aware, jail is usually given only to murderers and rapists. Often they don't go to jail. Of course, spying and treason results in jail.
The Chinese system is based on a series of many communes. The person that commits the crime goes in front of the commune elders who discuss his problem with him and show him alternatives (i.e. positive actions) to the crime.
Often a person will be told to go and read a certain book on an individual's role in society Having done this, he returns and is questioned on it. If his understanding of the book is not satisfactory then he must read it again until he realises what is expected of him.
Another example of People's Courts was given by Cheryl Buchanan, a member of the first Aboriginal delegation to China. "Everything is so different. While we were there a young guy ran into an old man with his bicycle and broke his leg. He was tried right there in the street by the people who saw what happened. His punishment was to look after the old man until he was better, cook and clean for him....Putting people in jail doesn't help anything. The crime rate in China is very low. Almost no crimes of violence, and the majority of crimes are settled out of court." Jails — they can't really be called jails. They're more like boarding houses.
A Chinese 'jail' has no walls, barred windows or guards. The 'prisoners' often work during the day to return at night. At weekends many inmates go home. Families can live with inmates if they wish. If a 'prisoner' escapes it is up to the family to return him and 'no questions asked' applies.
Compare that to the New Zealand system of mouldy cells, separating families and armed guards.
The main point of China's system is that strong heritage consciousness is present in families and each person has a high amount of self discipline. Those things are very rare in New Zealand and this would be where we would fail by having the same type of penal system.
But surely we could pinch a scale from the flaming 'Red Dragon' and change it to run along similar lines. Or isn't that possible?
Verity Jones is insulting, arrogant and patronising in the extreme if she is attempting to tell me that, to quote her "social and political inequality" exists in Malaysia. Who doesn't know that? The easiest enterprise to enjoy is to criticise and sit back with a sigh — "see, I am right, your country is rot!"
Suggestions please ! Since Verity professes to understand Malaysian society having read Salient No. 19, may I pose for her and you too, Mr Editor (Peter Franks) the following two major problems facing Malaysia. (Peter, you too are guilty of this crime of sheer criticism because of your gloat over the Eastern Cultural Concert.)
I should be agreed on all sides that such a special provision is only a temporary device. The problem now is when we should agitate for the deletion of this provision. By what standards are we to use to test the ability of the indigenous races to tend for themselves? (For the sake of analysis, perhaps you may be able to draw some analogies from the Maori situation in NZ.) Quite a few of the non-indigenous races in Malaysia are growing resentful over this provision. It may have been the sole cause of the bloody race riots in
It is enough initially to give you these two problems. I hope to hear from you soon. But for God's sake, please don't suggest a revolution because you won't know what it entails.
By the way, Verity, is it not slightly unfair to criticise the Malaysian Students Assoc. for showing the good side of Malaysia in a cultural exhibition? After all, I would hardly expect you to show the bad side (if any) of New Zealand when you came to my country.
I wish to take this opportunity to express my gratitude and heartiest congratulations to the Otago Chinese Language Club for putting up this excellent Eastern Cultural Concert. Their performance is definitely up to professional standard if not better. I am deeply moved and highly respect the effort put in by the members concerned. Being students themselves, they are not intimidated by the bourgeoise educational system, but courageously sacrifice and devote their time to put up this highly educative concert for the benefit of other fellow students from Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah.
One of my flatmates said that too much stress is placed on the sorrow and life of the working people. He went on to say that a concert should be staged solely for entertainment. However, I find myself to agree more with the aim set by the Otago Language Club, that is to reflect reality, the life and work of the majority of the people in these regions, so that fellow overseas students and the NZ people will have a better understanding of our motherlands. To show fishermen, rubber tappers, padifarmers, etc to be full of happiness and joy when they could hardly eke out a living for themselves and their families in this discriminating society would be far from reality and very misleading to those who are not acquainted to the real facts of the Malayan, Sarawak and Sabah societies.
Finally, I will confidently conclude that the Eastern Cultural Concert is a great success in all aspects, The performance itself is first class: the message is healthy and realistic; each and every audience whether a Malayan or Kiwi or Maori or Fijian, etc had acquired a better understanding of the people of Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak after the performance. Thus, I sincerely hope more of this sort of cultural concert will be put up in the near future.
Its about time some sanity was brought back into the content of Salient. Lets give the proletariat something to live on now while waiting for the revolution to descend upon them. With the next bursary payment this week how about a few quiet bets on the race horses. Let your money work for you and enjoy it at the same time.
For those of you who are not avid punters let me give you the inside word on likely winners in the next few weeks:
For a small but sure dividend Furys Order is a must. Charger is bound to improve on his first up Tauherenikau effort. Master Morgan (no relation to Syd) a prominent three year old last season must be near winning after running good races at Riccarton. Ragham is assured of winning on the second day at Wanganui. Diamond Pal a promising hack from down South must go close to his hat-trick in the seventh race at Asburton this Tuesday. The outsider that will pay a fortune before long is Zerox a speedy class 3, 8 year old trotter now trained at Addington. He has a great deal of trouble getting away but when he does, must run into the money.
For the last $100 of the bursary how about a few Australian Loloma shares. With rumours rife that they are ripe for a takeover and at 72 cents they are a bargain.
On the local scene NZ Steel must in their half yearly result report a profit after several years of losses.
Good punting, will be back with more tips next week.
Hurrah for that whirling wanker A. Rimbaud (whoever the fuck he/she/it is). At last the causes of the notorious campus apathy have been exposed. I have personally known about these centres of apathy for years but as a commerce student I have been too apathetic to publicise it or do anything about it. But now...we have fearless Rimbaud to the rescue! All commerce, law and Asian students are to be driven out! At least I think that's what is about to happen. You see Rimbaud (dear soul) is not apathetic, he/she/it is a "creative, aroused, bubbling" person who is going to do something about the problem. Already, the apathetic massers are quivering in fear of the "bubbling" hordes led by the mighty Rimbaud. Where are you Rimbaud? When do you launch your campaign to heave us out of this noble ivory tower? I suggest that you are about to do fuck-nothing (as usual). You will sit on your own apathetic arse and grizzle and bitch all day about the commerce, law and Asian fuckwits, yet do nothing to remedy the situation. Come on, you pious fucking hypocrite, come and get us...... we're waiting.
"Wake up Whitey" they cried, but Whitey wouldn't wake up. He kept on dreaming his "We are one people" dream. That oppressed a people. So one day they stole his "we are one people" dream and split it down the middle with an axe. And because there were now two peoples in whiteys world, and all the power belonged to those who spoke both the brown and white language, whitey was left — culturally disadvantaged. And would you believe it, they had to put whitey in a special class with a special programme for the culturally deprived. And every time whitey said, "but we are one people" a great big stick would hit him on the head and say "there's some who's ya can't change what's in their heads, ya gotta change the shape of their heads" and that was Tama.
Will whitey make it? Read on next week with "Whitey wake up".
Bridge Lodge, Otaki, September 7—9. Transport arranged. Non-students $10, students $9 for full weekend. Reduced costs if staying only part of weekend. Register Studass before September 5.
Might I first express my appreciation for the flattering remarks directed at the Overseas Student Officer by your correspondent A. Rimbaud in Salient (Aug 29). I am informed that the letter was directed at me and the 'Asian Students' apparently as a means of providing some kind of response by way of correspondence in the Salient. No doubt, Rimbaud sees himself as performing an usefull role in this regard, in provoking 'Asian Students' out of their present state of 'apathy'.
Among other thing Rimbaud's xenophobia extends to believeing that some 200 to 300 odd Asian students, by their very presence, inhibit 5000 odd other from achieving 'a truly stimulating creative, aroused, bubbling campus', and 'clearly act as an anchor to all attempts of the University to make progress in any direction.'I am not quite sure of the logic (if any) inherent in Rimbaund's assertions, but I have been assured that such a capacity for logical thinking does in fact exist the dirt-clogged sewers of Rimbaud's feeble mind.
To spout mane jokes now and again is, I imagine, quite all right, but to make such pucrile jokes constantly about any one subject, is to suggest no 'liberation' but rather, a form of subconscious enslavement seeking vainly to prove itself as freedom on a conscious level.
Rimbaud's sentiments reveal quite clearly certain facets of the syndrome of ethnocentrism. Thus, for eg he typifies an universal aspect of the syndrome in his tendency to blame a particular group (outgroup) for the troubles and deprivations of in group members, Again, one finds evidence of a very naive 'phenomenal absolutism' the tendency here being to assume that the world is exactly as one sees it, and that all other persons (groups or cultures) really perceive it in the same way but behave the way they do of a perverse wickedness or incompetence.
These sorts of assumptions and the tendency to syllogise inevitably leading to placing students from different cultures and environments into inclusive categories such as 'foreign' or 'overseas' or 'Asians' are quite commonplace. As a result, very little effort is ever made to understand, and consequently much of the expectations behind all orientations and induction is the belief that there can be no communication until these groups conform, become 'I ike us'.
The symptoms of such prejudice (as Rimbaund expresses) at this University are hard to discern. One inevitably finds oneself looking not for scars in one's own body, but for an attitude determining the behaviour of one's fellow students. At best, there is, after the suspicion, an unprovable certainty that there are numbers of people at the University who do assume white superiority and its corollary. Over against this and acting as a kind of foil to it, is another certainlty — the presence of those who do not share these views. All this leads to a mood which is mainly despair, but one can only think of the few and clings to the hope.
Jean-Paul Sartre in 'The Reprieve'expresses quite aptly, the kind of feelings that may be evoked; "It isn't good for a man to live on other man's territory, it is very hard to hear; he is grudged the bread he eats. And their suspicion — that supremely......suspicion of us! When I get back to .....this is the vision I shall have of (NZ?): a long dank staricase, a bell, a door half-opened — 'What do you want?' — and then shut again.....What I find hardest to bear is to be a charge on others. Especially when they make you feel it so cruelly."
Finally, I suspect, one will find underneath the facade of concern for the 'amount of apathy on campus', in glorious; living colour; the full-some phantasmagoria of base rot that permeates the very core of Rimbaud's puny mind.
With regard to letter "Give us a fair go mate" (Salient No. 20) we feel that Hugh Duncan Buchanan is Not a product of New Zealand's crapped out education system, yet in fact, he is a product of his self-denied hypocritical pseudo-chrisitian attitude.
A true Christian does not feel suppressed implying that H.D.B.'s attitude is due to his own inability to face the world in a mature manner.
Through months of preparation, by sacrificing precious time for study, the workers of Eastern Cultural Concert have successfully presented to the audiences a clear picture of the livelihood in Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah, where the rich are becoming richer, and the poor poorer. The great gap between the rich and the poor is the result of exploitation by local and foreign capitalists and unjust governments.
The MSA's Malaysian Cultural Show, on the other hand, merely displayed a false picture of the Malaysian livelihood mainly enjoyed by the rich. For example, the palace dances of the Malay and Chinese aim only to entertain the rich government officials and business men during some formal functions which the ordinary some formal functions which the ordinary and poor rubber tappers, mining workers have no chance to attend. Some of the items on display such as rubber shoes are the products of factories (eg Bata and Dunlop Co.) owned by principally foreign capitalists. In fact the presence of few pairs of shoes signifies nothing but foreign exploitation. The two films that were supplied by the Malaysian High Commission were worse still. One of which displays a major tourist attraction in the beautiful Penang island: the spinnning of a sexy belly dancer in a night club (what a disgrace to Malaysian culture!) The MSA'S cultural show not only fails to present to the New Zealand people a true face of Malaysia but also reminds us that the present executive members of MSA are nothing but the running dogs of the Malaysian High Commission. These executive members of MSA will be ashamed if they still remember their committed stand — to remain totally independent from the High Commission in their last year's election manifesto.
The overwhelming and heart felt reponse' from the audiences (both Malaysian students and New Zealand friends) during the Eastern Cultural Concert at the Memorial Theatre shows that the concert actually reflects the social reality of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah. The opening group singing song — Bersatu' is a Malay song which appeals to the people of our motherland — Malay, Chinese and Indian and others — to unite and fight for a prosperous future. 'The Anguish of Life' and the 'Pineapple Harvest Time' show how the Malay fishermen of the cast-coast and the pineapple farmers of Johore are being exploited by the rich Chinese and Malay middle men and the pineapple processing factories (one of which is owned by stale capital), respectively. The three short plays. 'We want to live', 'Books! Books! Books!' and 'The Rich and the Pour' were all entertaining and ed ucation. In short, I and most of the audience would agree that the performance is highly successful and of a high professional standard, although it was only a first attempt. The workers of the Eastern Cultural Concert should be warmly commended and encouraged for their enthusiasm in promoting this interesting, realism education and entertaining concert in New Zea land. Perhaps the New Zealand friends may find it useful to put out a performance of a similar nature to reflect the reality of New Zealand society.
Lost anyone think that the Council did something worthy of praise or remotely based on principles in deciding to sell shares in New Zealand Insurance and South British Insurance. Let me correct them.
Most Council members sitting around that table just wanted to get rid of a contentious matter.
The headline should have been "University Council sells out Apartheid". Most members couldn't have cared less about the obscenity of racism.
While attending the Gay Liberation Front dance in the union cafeteria on Sept. I, I was interested to see a well-known Auckland fashion model Judith Baragwanath among the merry makers. I was even more interested to see about half-an-hour later the same young lady and her two escorts (male) creating a stir at the entrance to the function. They had decided that the function was not to their liking and in a most boorish fashion we re demanding the return of the price of their tickets. One of the escorts was maintaining that he was a member of the police force and generally threatening the two young ladies who were selling the tickets. When the trio heard that a photographer was on his way down to take a picture of these celebrities on our campus they left in quite a hurry.
While one does naturally, expect arrogance and unpleasantness from the so-called "Jet Set" it was quite an enlightement to see such a dis play by these bourgeoise opportunists on our own campus.
I'm 'insidiously apathetic' to ' A Rimbaud's pathetic, juvenile, racist and unwarranted attack on Asian students. I have never read anything so absurd as his statement that we a small minority of the total student population can be blamed for the apathy (to what ??) at this university. May I ask how this ignorant person arrived at his/her incredible conclusion?? 'Rimbaud's letter merely confirms my theory that racist minds think along incredibly stupid lines.
The suggestion that apathy among Asians and the majority of white students may be cured by sending the former home needs no other — answer than to tell 'Rimbaud' to crawl back into the hole be came out of. The Indians have a phrase for it' Madrae Chug'. Also be can stuff unboiled potatoes one by one up his hairy arse.
I challenge A. Rimbaud to produce one iota of proof to substantiate his (I will assume A. Rimbaud is male for the sake of convenience) absurd prejudiced allegation that Asian students "act as an anchor to all attempts of the university to make progress in any direction". To attribute even part of the apathetic atmosphere- which pervades out campus to the insidious apathy of Asian students in the commerce and law faculties is as unenlightened as it is incorrect.
From a purely numerical point of view, to allege that a minority group of less than 500 can instil such a stifling, paralytic impotence into a 6,000-strong student body is totally beyond my conception. In addition, if Rimbaud had bothered to investigate the situation at all to lend any vestige of credibility to his misguided allegations, he would have found few Asians in the Law Faculty and in fact, would only be able to point to the commerce faculty as having any sizable Asian representation.
Any knowledge of Asian student activity would reveal a distinct lack of apathy and quite a vital concern and awareness in social and political matters. The MSA election, for instance have generated within the Asian community more interest and participation than our recent exec elections with position being keenly contested by there principal parties and about 30 candidates. Sporting and cultural activities abound and recent proposals for the sale of Asian food on campus point to vital partecipatory concern one which I doubt wether A. Rimbaud of any of his fuck-witted cronies could possible be endowed with.
Of course I may have misunderstood the type of apathy Asian students are being accure of. If A. Rimbaud is referring to Asian non-participation in such grandiose social events as ski-club piss-ups. I would suggest the reason lies not in disinterest or indifference (either would probably be indicative of apathy) but from an essential feeling within the Asian community of isolationism and non-belonging obviously generated by such prejudiced bigoted views so clearly exemplified by his imitable self.
With regard to non-participation in campus politics, I must say, first of all that to my great surprise I have vet to see A. Rimbaud's name up for presidential candidate, just as he, no doubt is taken aback by the absence of Asian candidates. Rimbaud is obviously unaware of the restrictions imposed on overseas students they do, in fact have to sign a document which expressly states that they will not participate in political affairs. If they do as IIT Lee did, they soon feel the fool of our fascist government.
I suggest that A. Rimbaud has become so observed with racial paranoia he was taken to frenzied abuse of a seemingly quite, but far from apathetic, minority on this campus. In so doing so he has merely created a scapegoat for the real cause of apathy — our twisted capitalist society and its advocates (Rimbaud?) who place selfish materialistic concerns and values over and above any essential apparaisal of political, social or racial injustices or inequalities.
To conclude, I demand A. Rimbaud descend from his momocultural pedestal and issue an immediate retraction of his disgustingly ethnocenric, racist views and extend a formal apology to all Asian students.
Michael Thomas Murphy appeared in court recently on four charges of wilful damage and one of disorderly conduct. He was alleged to have thrown a paint bomb during the July 4 demonstration outside the American Independence Day Ball.
About 100 demonstrators were standing outside the Majestic Cabaret when a paint bomb hit one policeman's cap and splattered another's uniform and the clothes of two guests entering the ball.
Constable Mervin Theobald, a plain clothes detective, said that he moved about freely at the rear of the demonstrators. He said he saw Murphy pull an object out of his right pocket and lob it at the police and guests. He immediately approached Murphy and after a minor struggle put him into the police van.
Evidence was given by defence witnesses that Theobald had to push past people to reach Murphy, that the detective could not have had an unobstructed view, and that there was a hole so large in Murphy's greatcoat pocket that he could not have carried anything in it.
Theobald admitted that he had noticed the defendant in his dress prior to the arrest because he had earlier suspected that he was responsible for throwing fireworks. The description given was "long-haired and wearing a greatcoat." But one defence witness had counted eight people wearing army greatcoats in the crowd. Even Theobald admitted that there had been several.
Evidence was also given that paint bombs, fire crackers and other objects were being thrown constantly but it was impossible to ascertain where each was coming from.
The magistrate however ignored defence evidence in this case saying it was generally not reliable enough to refute or throw doubt on what Theobald said.
The magistrate obviously had more sympathy for the type of people who went to American Independence Day Balls. He said he was satisfied that the defendant threw the paint bomb and that it was conduct which would affront decent thinking people (calculated to annoy and insult.) He felt the reaction of one of the guests, Mrs Box, who burst in to tears after she found small splatters of paint on her dress showed this to be true.
He also held that all the damage was wilful because Murphy must have known that others would be affected. In conclusion he mouthed at Murphy: "If you have genuine causes you do nothing to advance them by this conduct."
Murphy was ordered to pay restitution for all clothing damaged ($151.21), fined $100 and $5 costs on the disorderly behaviour charge, and $25 and $5 costs on each of the four charges of wilful damage.
A senior lecturer has become the new Dean of the Faculty of Law after a keenly contested election.
Mr John Thomas, a forthright and in some ways radical personality, has clearly pulled off a coup. His election to the prestigious position of Dean will mean a change in the orientation of the faculty. It will almost certainly lose many of its traditions in favour of a more liberal outlook.
Many professors and senior staff had realised this, and their attempts to preserve the status que made the issue of the Deanship alarmingly sensitive.
Thomas obviously intended to stand irrespective of any opposition, a fact that alone caused some consternation. In the past the need for an election confrontation had been avoided by resolving in a "gentlemanly" manner who would best be suited to the position.
One professor, who would have been an obvious candidate, was not prepared to run the gauntlet and withdrew his nomination.' The way looked clear for Mr Thomas to become Dean but just two days before the closing date for nominations, the name of Dr G.W. Palmer mysteriously came forward as an opposition candidate. What seemed so surprising about this was that Palmer is currently in Australia and has been since May. Despite this a number of people lobbied keenly for him. Another strange thing happened later when one of Dr Palmer's nominators — an American lecturer — did not even bother to turn up to vote. Palmers stand can be seen as a last ditch bit to preserve the status quo and to avoid the appointment of Thomas as Dean It created a tense situation in the law faculty brought about some rather questionable politicking, particularly from the student reps on faculty. Instead of going to the people for direction they regarded the situation as a chance to play power politics. They would'not accept a directive from the students until this was forced on them by a special committee meeting of the Law Faculty Students' Association.
The background to Thomas' election is as significant as the election itself, for the new Dean will be working in an unco-operative climate. Some senior staff whose sheer technical expertise has gained them great respect will not want to co-operate with Mr Thomas, Already is seems likely that the current Dean who could have carried on until the end of October will resign his Deanship.
For students, the election will have several effects. Firstly the conventions of the faculty will now not be sacred cows.
Secondly the affair showed that professors arc not demi-gods whose tudgetneni can never be in question. This election was political, it involved a choice between two important styles, and students have the right to know why and how a particular orientation is going to be persued. This after all will affect the outlook of most of the student 'products'.
Lastly, it will illustrate that politics cannot be totally avoided. To confine oneself to the strict University carriculum is disasterous. When decisions have to be made on wider issues, the ability to act effectively is essential.
A trend has recently arisen among sporting administrators to lie about involvement with apartheid sport and South Africa. The trick is to fob off accusations while keeping their real plans and activities secret until it is too late for any campaign to do anything about it.
A recent case was the New Zealand Women's Hockey lour to Europe. There were strong denials by officials that the team would at any stage of their tour be anywhere near South Africa. That was before the side left New Zealand Once they were well away from here, however, the plans were changed and South African games were on.
A similar situation arose with the appearance of a full page advertisement extolling the virtues of the South British Insurance Company in the recent Winter Tournament handbook. Ian Staples, tournament controller and recently failed candidate for the Canterbury Student's Presidency claimed after distribution of the handbook, that it was impossible to have any control over the advertising that appeared in the handbook. He said that the publishing of it had been farmed out to an organisation called REM Publications who were to include whatever they liked. REM thus were gaining advertising revenue while in return the Tournament was provided with a handbook and with $100 from REM.
Thus despite current intensive campaigns by NZUSA against the activities and interest interests of South British and New Zealand Insurance Companies in South Africa an ad for the former appeared in a student handbook. Incidentally there were 92 other pages of ads in a total of about 130 pages. Estimates put the advertising revenue for REM at up to $7000.
A solution to the problem suggested by Stephen Chan would have been to remove the South British Advertisement from the book but such was not the intention of Mr Staples. No action had been taken in the five weeks before tournament even though he had been advised that Victoria certainly did not want such advertising. Contacted from NZUSA August Council, in Dunedin three days before the tournament was due to begin by VUWSA officer Don Carson, Staples replied that the offending ad was not in. Staples may not have known but nevertheless the ad did appear and the handbook was quickly distributed before the Universities Sports Union Meeting.
The effect of this was that the only action that could be taken was a resolution that future handbooks be produced by the universities themselves. Fait accomplish for South British and Staples.
Few students, least of all the candidates themselves, can have been pleased at the lack of participation in the recent election. Disappointing as this may have been, it cannot be treated as a surprise. For although Victoria remains the most active campus in the country, (which may be hard to believe) involvement in extra curricular activities in general has been markedly down for most of the year. As the demands of the classroom, internal assessment and the credit system have increased, so has the amount of time spent on activities outside the classroom decreased.
Effectively, most students have been forced into making a choice between keeping up in the academic race and dropping out of other activities, or abandoning the academic race in order to participate more fully in other affairs.
Which alternative the University administration prefers students to choose is hardly in doubt. For example, in
One other "benefit" is that antagonisms between students are accentuated — inside the classroom where even greater competitiveness prevails, am! outside the classroom where those who play a full part in social or political affairs are clearly marked off from those who, because of other demands, remain uninterested. Each necessarily holds a different set of priorities; there are fewer opportunities for them to meet in debate and dogmatism or just silent hostility creeps in.
In essence then, the credit system and internal assessment have proved a very effective means of student control, of divide and rule. Which is not to say that students, don't have other problems. Rather the point is that the work output now demanded makes it more difficult to cope with other things, things that one normally finds easy to handle.
Moreover, in the light of staff complaints about the standard of work falling off and student feeling that work is not so much to be gone into as got out of the road, it seems difficult to argue that all the extra work produces a better intellectual product. What it does produce is a system of control whereby the student, forced to work hard, works him/herself ever more firmly into a state of subordination to the University as an institution.
This situation, however, is already producing its own response. The initiative taken by students in the English and Economics Departments to improve their conditions of work point the way to other students. Coupled with a current proposal for a welfare management committee with a student majority (of which I shall write more next week) and SRC motions calling for a staff/student committee with a more direct ability to consult with departments to alter courses and workloads, these efforts amount to a willingness to push back — which is a good trend.
The first major test of the Labour Government's line on demonstrations, the Harewood/Weedons protest, was in the distant past of last March yet it was only a short while ago that the last court case was settled. The story of the massive police action and subsequently the innumerable prosecutions have been covered in previous Salients. The Labour Government's alliance with US imperialism and the police's use of various unusual laws has been made clear. By July 11, 21 people of the 23 arrested had been tried on charges ranging from obstructing constables and roadways to wilful damage and unlawful assembly. The police had begun to get the legal precedents necessary to uphold Labour's Law and Order stance. Here Murray Horton looks at the last there cases and draws some conclusions about the state of social democracy.
On July 11 Tony Currie appeared in the Christchurch Magistrates Court on a charge of wilful trespass. He'd been the first person arrested at Harewood airport, being picked up in the carpark-after distributing leaflets and attempting to do guerilla theatre inside the airport. Star witness at his case was Maurice Hayes. Christchurch Town Clerk—he quoted Christchurch City by-law no. 55 (Airport) passed in
Owen Wilkes, main spokesman for the Committee Against Foreign Military Activities in NZ and driving force behind the whole campaign against the US military presence in NZ, became the 24th defendent when he was summoned, in May, on a charge of encouraging disorder. The case was heard on July 24 and centred on a speech made by Wilkes through a mega-phone on Memorial Avenue on the Saturday afternoon (Wilkes is appealing to the Supreme Court and as his appeal centres on just exactly what he said, any discussion on that is sub judice and cannot be reported.) Chief inspector Burrows said he had previously discussed the demonstration with Wilkes but deliberately didn't tell him that roadblocks would be set up. Wilkes said he felt the police had breached their faith. Mr Evans SM reserved his decision until August 13. He took the opportunity to make a high sounding speech advocating peaceful change in "this favoured land"; described Wilkes as "intelligent, energetic, an influential figure and acknowledged leader"... who genuinely wanted the demonstration to be peaceful, but accepted police evidence that Wilkes was a dupe of those who advocated violence and that his speech had encouraged disorder. He said Wilkes misjudged his duty, over-stepped the bounds of lawful protest, although he hadn't meant to do so as he found himself in a situation which to some extent took him by surprise and which was not wholly of his making. Wilkes was convicted, given a two year suspended sentence and ordered to pay $45 costs.
The last case, that of Mike Murphy of Wellington, was heard on August 15/16. Murphy was arrested at Harewood on the Saturday afternoon and charged with obstructing a constable, possession of a restricted poison — a plastic squeeze bottle of chloropicrin — and possession of an offensive weapon i.e. the chloropicrin. (Just after the demonstration Tait had claimed the substance was strong enough to incapacitate 300 men). A DSIR analyst said chloropicrin, also known as "vomiting gas", was one of the three main gases used in World War I, and gave various figures to prove the lethal properties of the 100% pure chloropicrin found on Murphy. Murphy said it had been given to him by a an unknown man at the demonstration; he didn't know what it was, nor did he attempt to use it. He had a lifelong fear of dogs and intended to use it only it attacked by police dogs (the use of police dogs at the
Various witnesses, including "Cock" editor, Chris Wheeler, said the same man had offered the stuff to them that day and confirmed that Murphy had a fear of dogs. Mr Brown SM rejected the defence case saying police dogs were a legitimate part of the police force, therefore Murphy had no reasonable excuse for having the stuff. He was convicted on all three charges and remanded on $300 self bail for a probation officers report and sentence. On August 23 — after some gratuitous comment from Mr Brown about how Murphy's work with "Affairs" magazine and the Mt Victoria Peoples Union would be better left to the "experts" — he was fined $100 on the offensive weapons charge, $50 on the obstruction charge (plus $10 costs) and given one years probation on all three charges. The fines had to be paid immediately, in default 90 days prison. They were paid and Murphy went home that day.
Two themes were dominant throughout all the cases — police, Crown and magistrates stressed the State had been caught with its pants down at Mt John and therefore the security measures at Harewood/Weedons were justified to prevent a repitition of this. Secondly, the heavy emphasis put on the the inflammatory role of a Christchurch underground magazine "Ferret 2" published in February. Other pieces of "inflammatory" writing were cited by the police — leaflets and posters for instance. Mr Evans SM noted that the police were worried about the Auckland demonstrators who were coming. But "Ferret" was the bogeyman. When Pete Dalziel said his reason for being at Harewood was to take photos and to sell them to "Ferret" among others. Crown Prosecutor Bill Williamson questioned him at some length as to who published "Ferret" — wasn't it Resistance bookshop he asked. Mr Evans, in his decision in the Wilkes case, saw fit to give a literary critique of it, describing articles on the Pagliara case and the Labour Government as "vituperative". (Neither had anything to do with the case at hand or the general context).
Reference was made to an article by Wilkes on the US military in Christchurch as being reasonable in tone. But it was an article entitled "The Mad Bombers Handbook" which worried them most — Mr Evans said only the most naive would take it seriously but he was worried about the introduction which said "We do believe in violence against property eg military installations". Chief Inspector Burrows constantly cited it as a prime reason for the security measures he took, particularly in the Wilkes case.
The results of the State's measures were pitiful — Murphy's chloropicrin, a "home-made" bomb (ie srnokebomb) found at Harewood on the Saturday night and the laughable array of deadly weapons produced at the Weedons case (reported in Salient 16). Some property was damaged, a few policemen were slightly injured by crackers and stones, an equal number of policemen got dysentery from their weekend at Weedons. The State reaction was massive and ominous — Labour Government, Labour City Council, police. RNZAF, technology,
On Monday September 10, the English Department will answer any and all enquiries about its policies, intentions, motives, ideals, disappointments, frustrations, problems and anxieties. Professor McKenzie and Ian Jamieson will represent the department. Ateo taking part will be Gordon Campbell and John Allum. You are Invited. Union Hall, September 10 between 12.30 and 2.30pm.
Over the last few months there have been various murmurings of discontent coming from the Economics Department. Students at more advanced stage have been complaining about the amount of work that is sandwiched into limited credit courses, There have also been complaints about the excessively high failure rate for Econ 201.
At a meeting on Tuesday of last week of staff and students, and an earlier discussion at the end of last term between a delegation of students and the chair man of the department. Professor Sloan, these problems were raised, and a fair degree of change was achieved. A new exam has been arranged for those who failed Econ 201, and a reduction of workloads and extension of deadlines has been arranged for Econ 301, the compulsory 300-series paper.
But this is far from all of what students in the department want. There is a feeling that terms requirements are useless under the system of continuous assessment which is currently operated. Students suspect that staff have been mechanically prescribing textbooks, regardless of the cost — although the department may now try to remedy this Moreover, there seems to be no certainty that the situation will not be allowed to worsen once again; and to this end, students are pressing for some permanent channels of liaison between themselves and the staff.
Another source of disagreement, perhaps among a smaller proportion of students is over the gradual indoctrination of students in capitalist thinking. Some staff members pretend to have academic objectivity, yet they can consistently support capitalist ideology. When students begin to study Economics, they start with Samuelson, e.g. "A parable on the rationing role of efficient pricing. There were in Flanders two kingdoms. In Zig, good King Jean commandeered the food brought to the city in time of famine, paying the peasants a just (but generous fee) and rationing supplies in fair shares for all. As the famine persisted, the dying citizens blessed the dying King.
In nearby Zog, at a time of plenty each of a dozen merchants stealthily built (and stocked with cheap grain) a warehouse of food. When famine came, they sold the food at double the usual price, stripping people even of their watches and jewels. Some ( but by no means all) of the jewels they then gave to less-hard-hit peasants to coax out still more food; and as the news spread, peasants came with food from as far away as Zig. The longer the famine, the higher the price Zogites paid for food, until finally the market rationed them to a minimal diet. By the time the famine ended the whole city was in debt to the merchants but alive; and each merchant was resentful that competition from his colleagues had kept him from increasing his fortune twentyfold, rather than only fourfold."
This one quotation from Samuelson's "Economics: An Introductory Analysis" demonstrates the basis of the Economics I course at this university. It also has implications for the whole of the teaching of Economics. The whole line of approach constitutes an apology for the capitalist free enterprise system. As is stated elsewhere in this famous book: "All economic life is a blend of competitive and monopoly elements. Imperfect competition is the prevailing mode, not perfect competition. This is a fact, not a moral condemnation."
The issue in economics is how much power to give to monopoly capitalism.
In the manner in which students are generally encouraged to study economics, monopoly capitalism is one of the things which is taken as given. Monopoly is an imperfection — but are students asked to defeat the injustices and inequalitites that it imposes upon them? Of course not. What orthodox economics advocates is a return to a state of perfect competition. Therefore we must reduce tariffs and have freer international trade. The impossibility and unworkability of perfect competition is irrelevant, as is the fact that any free enterprise economic system automatically tends to concentration, or monopoly. But Samuelson views socialism as some neo-fascist "totalitarian dictatorship of production" — anyone who goes along with this view should read some of the recent Salient articles on China.
This attitude is exemplified in an essay topic that was set for the Microeconomics part of Economics II last year. There was a quotation from Schumpeler, a writer known for his admiration for the role of capitalism in economic development, and particularly the role of monopoly. Students were asked to comment on it, and to assist them, they were referred to a series of readings glorifying capitalism. The quotation from Schumpeter referred to his distaste for perfect competition, and students were expected to denigrate perfect competition and to worship monopoly capitalism instead, to admire the role of monopoly in forcing lower wages for workers, in charging higher prices for products, and other abuses. The association between the concentration of economic power and the concentration of political power was to be ignored. Socialism, as the alternative to both the mythical perfect competition, and the very real monopoly capitalism, is not considered.
Some economics teachers, hower, are not always fond of considering reality. If the practical examples of what they are teaching might tend to tarnish the image of capitalism, the practical examples are not given. A case in point is the discussion of "price discrimination" as a facet of monopoly power, which is again, a topic in the Microeconomics course at Economic II. Perhaps in example is given of the foreign dumping of surplus production — the EEC butter, for example But is monopolistic price discrimination ever considered in the context of the factor market? Of course not. And why? Precisely because the ability to definitely, irreversably separate: the working class by the colour of its skin is the basis of institutional racism in Southern Africa. How could it be acknowledged that monopoly capitalism was the basis of that deservedly loathed doctrine of apartheid?
This is part of the role that capitalist economics has taken of glossing over all the evils of capitalism. One of the worse examples of this is in the role that is generally, accorded to advertising. Orthodox economics views advertising (a facet of imperfect competition) as a minor cost which is outweighed by the advantages there by afforded the consumer who is enabled to choose between one brand of soap and another. Naturally the increased price that must be paid to cover the costs of all the advertising and useless packaging is ignored. The role of packaging in environmental despoliation is conveniently forgotten.
Economics like many other social sciences is also used to defend the structure of capitalist society against outside attacks. Some illuminating insights into this practice can be gained by looking at the orthodox views of Marxian economics. Take as an example the attitude adopted to Marx's prediction of the increasing misery of the proletariat. In Econ 322, when Marxian Economics is discussed students are told that when statistical data are examined, this prediction is found to have been proved false in reality. But Econ 326 students were taught that there is a widening gap between the rich and the poor — the inference is that it is all right to tell the truth unless the truth is shown to blacken capitalism.
Despite Samuelson's claim that the price system can resolve everything quite obviously it cannot resolve the problems of economic fluctuations. Bourgeois economists are forced to accept that alternating slumps and rising prices are inevitable. They refuse to admit that the cause of economic fluctuations might be the price system and the anarchy of capitalist production. The economists once again have to leave problems unresolved because the cannot risk damaging their sacred ship of capitalism.
That, then is a brief outline of some of the faults that may be observed with respect to what is taught as economics at this university. But economics students should not give the subject up. Given a different perspective (that is, if the student is prepared to attack capitalism), the subject can be quite instructive. Just be prepared to remind your lecturers when they are bullshitting.
At 2 a.m. last Wednesday morning 15 people left the timber town of Kaingaroa in a convoy of cars for Wellington determined to have an urgent meeting with the Minister of Forests, Colin Moyle. Stopping only at Foxton for a hastily cooked breakfast they arrived at the Timber Workers Union offices in Wellington at 9 a.m. After receiving an assurance of support from union officials they called at NZUSA to discuss tactics for seeing Moyle. Salient was notified that they had arrived.
Outside Parliament Buildings the group explained to us that they were a voluntary deputation which had been sent to Wellington by a meeting of Kaingaroa residents on Monday night. This meeting followed a mass meeting of residents in July, which had laid down demands for a democratically elected local council and improved community facilities. Dissatisfied with the response they had received from the Forest Service, which runs Kaingaroa, and fed up with years of futile letter-writing to Government, the local people had decided to come to Wellington to put their complaints on Colin Moyle's doorstep.
We accompanied the delegation into Moyle's offices where a couple of rather shaken private secretaries told them the Minister was "very busy" and moaned that the delegation hadn't made an appointment. "We're busy workers" was the immediate rejoinder, and the delegation stood fast waiting for Moyle to return to Parliament. After about twenty minutes they were told that the Minister would see them and we all trooped into Moyle's office.
The spokesman for the group, Willie Wilson, began by saying that he and his wife had worked at Kaingaroa for 10 years and had tried to get facilities for the community. There had been a breakdown in co-operation between the community and the Forest Service. The idea of elections for a local council should be to give the people of Kaingaroa voice in running their community and solving its problems. There were community elections forth-coming but Kaingaroa residents had no confidence in them as they appeared to be top-heavy with the bureaucracy of the Forest Service which had a strong grip on the town. People thought it futile to stand in such an election, and they remained silent because the Forest Service, with all power in its hands was very persuasive to most people.
Willie referred to the way the Forest Service was organising the elections at Kaingaora, i.e. there would be a 7 member Council, 5 members of which would be elected from the general community, I member from the Single men's camp, and I member from the Woodsmen's Hostel. He pointed out that there was a glaring contradiction in these arrangements because a few staff personnel who were single men were quartered in the married quarters and were thus entitled to vote for 5 members for the council. But the great majority of single workers at Kaingaroa could only vote for one member. "We are one community and in this election we are being broken up into three parts".
Willie went on to state that the Forest Service had neglected community facilities and activities al Kaingaroa. He mentioned the local swimming pool, which was started in
Instances of class discrimination at Kaingaroa were mentioned, where entry to particular clubs depends on one's occupation. A young woman in the group later elaborated. "If you're not staff, you're nothing — it's all class distinction at Kaingaroa. The staff are the only ones who have any privileges at all."
Mr Wilson summed up the group's feelings: "You as our Minister have ignored the community's feelings and adopted the proposals of the Forest Service. We're determined that the facilities be upgraded and we base this on the wealth which comes from our hands and our toil."
Talking about living conditions a married man in the group who had two children said he had lived in a Forest Service home at Kaingaroa for two years. When he'd moved in his section was so overgrown and full of rubbish that he needed machines to dear it up. He'd asked repeatedly, but he'd waited 18 months for it to be cleaned up. He said an Executive Officer had told him this was a short time to wait. "There are rats running wild on my section, and it any rat gets one of my kids I'll know who to see about it".
Moyle said he wouldn't be happy for a council to be elected that didn't have the confidence of the people of Kaingaroa, or fully represent them. He said he would find out what the situation was and added that he was unaware that there was a differentiation in the election arrangements between different groups within the community and that there was a bar to some people standing. It was pointed out to Moyle that the residents had proposed an eleven member council, with three members coming from the Forest Service to represent the Service.
Willie said that there was a racist undercurrent in Kaingaroa. The only families that were pul into the old mill houses in the town were Maoris who took these houses because they had to have a home. Maori people had been pushed into these old mill houses which are over 40 years old in "The Loop". The workers' huts are just little boxes", said one girl.
"There's no wallpaper, just flaking paint on hardboard with holes all over the place. Some people have got dog kennels that are better than the huts". Willie said he had appealed to the Minister of Maori Affairs to help in February because he thought the situation was urgent.
"If we ask the Forest Service for community facilities their reply is to say who'd look alter these facilities", Willie told Moyle. "Well all of us want to be involved in the community and are prepared to take the responsibility". Another delegation member said that senior Forest Service staff had moved to Rotorua because there were no facilities for their children in Kaingaroa.
A member of the group, Mr Corrigan, asked if the Forest Service would have the final power of veto over the council's decisions. Moyle said the Forest Service was responsible for the maintenance of crown property. If something was decided by the council which would be "detrimental to crown property" Forest Service officers would be responsible. He said the Forest Service was talking about property and their responsibility, while the members of the delegation were talking about people.
"I would consider that the use of a veto in a dictatorial manner is not intended anyway. I want to make it clear that my interest as Minister is that the property of the Forest Service is maintained, but also that the Forest Service's employees are cared for in a proper manner and that they are not expected to live in conditions that are unacceptable to other New Zealanders".
Moyle added that he was under the impression that the proposed council would solve the difficulties that had arisen at Kaingaroa. "But if you think that the council will be divisive then we'll have to reconsider the matter".
Moyle said he would look into the question of the form of the constitution of the council that was proposed by the Forest Service, and that he would go to Kaingaroa and devote a couple of hours to looking around with members of the delegation. He aid it was only fair and reasonable that he should hear all sides of the story.
"I'd like to make it clear that I think we're on the same wave length", he added. My responsibility is to property and people, but people are more important than property. We're not going to ride roughshod over anybody, I think the only way to satisfy everybody is to make sure that any council that's elected enjoys the confidence of the whole community. I've talked about this to Mr Rata and we don't want you to feel, or anybody in New Zealand to feel we've got a dictatorial attitude. I'll come to Kaingaroa but I can't give you a date at present".
Mr Corrigan then asked Moyle if he would give the delegation an assurance that the election would be called off. Moyle said he thought the election wasn't imminent anyway. Several angry voices told him that the election started on Saturday and that was why the delegation was in Wellington. On Saturday nominations closed and no more ballot paper a would be sent out.
Moyle said he would look into the matter, and said he was now much more concerned about the council election. He didn't think it would be any skin off anyone's nose if the election was postponed for a month.
Although some of its members who had had past dealings with Government fell sceptical about what Moyle would actually achieve, the delegation left Parliament feeling satisfied that it had forced Moyle to take notice of the Kaingaroa people's demands. The delegation members also felt that other working people could learn from their example of taking direct action without being put off by any government official.
The dispute between the Forest Service and the local people at Kaingaroa is by no means over. But last week's action by the Kaingaroa workers was a clear warning to the government that it must take immediate action to satisfy the people's demands for a democratic form of local government and decent housing and facilities for the community.
Degrees and terms will be abolished, $1200 will be given to the Vietnam Aid Appeal, $500 will go to Te Reo Maori Society and another $500 to Nga Tamatoa, and the price of tea and coffee in the cafe will be lowered from 10c to 5c if the Student Representative Council has its way. Motions including these items were passed at its meeting last Thursday.
Students should not look for a red dawn tomorrow, however, as power over exams rests solely with the university, and Students' Association money is controlled by its executive and not SRC. The executive is likely to follow the direction of the Representative Council, if the money can be found. Members of the Union Management Committee are reported to have brought up their dinners in disgust on hearing of the price of tea motion.
SRC Education Officer, Graeme Clarke moved:
All these motions were discussed together and all passed with very little dissent. After all, they are only matters of principle, and it is known that the beliefs of students make little headway with the conservative administraiton of this university.
Debate heated up over Don Carson's motion"that VUWSA donate $1200 to the Vietnam Aid Appeal." Don said that the money would supplement the money raised by various activities on campus during Vietnam Aid Appeal Week. The total amount would just about purchase a mobile surgical unit (total price about $2000) for use in PRG zones of control in Vietnam.
Ian Caddis, a law student who achieved notoriety when he sought an injunction against money voted for medical aid last year, featured again in this year's debate. He asked whether the students' association, not as New Zealanders but as students, should be making a donation to this appeal which was not even an educational charity, "if it was a charity at all." It was quickly established that it was indeed a registered charity.
Student association president, Peter Wilson, left the chair to make a few observations. While he was sympathetic to the cause, he said, he wanted to stress that the giving of money should be a political action and that it should be raised not given. It was not so important to give this 'drop in the bucket' as to raise the political consciousness of New Zealanders.
It was repeated to Peter that this sum would only consolidate the excellent efforts made in raising money during Aid Appeal Week. One speaker said that Wilson was equivocating like Walter Nash, except that he also sounded like George Fyson.
Another speaker, John Mc-Caffery, set out to make the gathering feel uncomfortable. The Studass, he said, was very good at giving money to groups outside New Zealand. "It seems sad at a time when Nga Tamatoa is scraping the barrel for funds for its legal defence scheme, and Te Reo Maori (Maori Language) Society has no money to sponsor the Maori Language Day, Te Ra Nui O Te Reo Maori."
McCaffery's point was answered after the Aid Appeal motion was convincingly won. A motion was immediately put and passed to allocate $500 each for Nga Tamatoa and the Te Reo Maori Society.
Last weekend NZUSA moved its offices from 1 Marion Street to a multi-coloured concotion that embodies the very worst in both colour sense and modern capitalist mis-management. Although this new home for the elite of the country's students is rather tawdry and expensive and although no one is happy with the new office this is not the major problem for those bludgers who are paid by NZUSA to waste their own time or cause trouble.
NZUSA is fraught with difficulties at present, lack of finance and lack of sound political priorities. Things political are so bad that the lefties in NZUSA had to indulge in a public squabble to see who was going to pick up the crumbs after the rest of the" council had thrown the association's funds away on the ridiculous salaries that were set by the May Council. The lefties are squabbling over the relative importance of International Politics to the organisation and the employment of Bunny Wilson's dream, a sort of undergraduate Bill Sutch to be a National Research Officer.
However the right wing and the factions of the left are united on one thing. That is the unsuitability of Neil Polonius Newman as NZUSA's next President. Things look so bad on this front that when through a series of unfortunate accidents a( NZUSA's winter council, Newman was elected (with the bare number of voles needed) nobody except Russell Bartlett of Auckland was pleased. Ed Haysam, the new President of Auckland was heard to ask when he heard that Newman was elected and was an Aucklander...."Who is he?" Somebody is rumoured to have sent a telegram to Newman signed by Stephen Chan with the hopeful news that Newman's election to high office was being appealed against.
It is true that appealing against the election was desperately considered by all officers of the National Body. However they found to their dismay that it was not on. The next step for at least three of the officers of NZUSA was to lender their resignations to take effect from December 31 this year.
The next question to ask was how did it happen? The election was being contested by three candidates First was Waikato President Carl Gordon and two of his scruffy mates, standing as a triumvirate. The present Education Vice-President Graeme Clarke was a candidate, and finally last and least was Russell Bartlett's attempt at king making...Polonius Newman. The whole of the Waikato Students Association is regarded in NZUSA as a rather long winded joke, so they were discounted. Graeme Clarke gave a campaign speech that ensured that he would not he elected and gave as much credence to his attempt as Nixon would have in seeking the Chairmanship of the Senate Committee investigating Watergate. Clarke attempted to withdraw from the contest after telling the assembled multitudes that Bartlett was a shit and Newman a fool and that he would resign as EVP if Newman was elected. ..therefore do not elect Newman or else. A few of the constituent presidents were sufficiently pissed off with Clarke to turn around and elect Newman.
What of Neil Newman? Stephen Chan referred to him after the election as a fuckwit and the director of Students' Art Council, Kirkland, maintains that Newman's ability is less impressive than that of an empty chair. One of the few things known about Newman apart from the fact that he is sententious and incompetent, was that he opposed the introduction of equal pay at the Auckland cafeteria and explained this in his speech at Council. He more or less said that the workers were a pack of lazy sods and as soon as equal pay was introduced he knew that the incidence of absenteeism would rise. He claimed that the women in the caf had displayed a lack of loyalty.
Hopefully the fact that just about everybody is united on the issue of Neil Newman will mean that for once NZUSA will achieve something. And in this case the obvious thing to do is to get rid of him.
This Thursday is closing date for publications' applications for 1974.
Applications are open for Salient Editor, Advertising Manager, Handbook Editor, Cappicade Editor. Distribution Manager and Publications Board Treasurer.
To date, few applications have been received which is somewhat alarming, because it is the editors of these publications who are responsible for the content of them and this should be of interest to all students.
If you have ever thought what sort of paper Salient should be, now is the opportunity to do something constructive about it. Apply, any student has the right to.
Candidates will be interviewed at a meeting on Thursday night, and the choice of editorship will depend on such things as previous experience, willingness to work long hours, and other technical matters.
There must be many students who have some desire to work on extracurricular activities and in this respect, we encourage you to come along on Thursday night to meet the Publications Board, and perhaps offer your services for work on any three of the publications.
It you have any thoughts at all about applying for an editorship, please get a note to me today.
The rising flood of revisionism and meat prices suffered another blow this week when they were uncompromisingly attacked by "Salient' workers Neil Pearce. Bruce Robinson and David Tripe.
Exploiting contradictions as" well as the IBM typesetting machine were Claire Smith and Meg Bailey, who declared their unfaltering determination to bring down multinational corporations. Rendering valiant support to the revolutionary vanguard were Gordon Campbell, Peter Tyler. Stephen Hall. Tony Ward, Lloyd Wreber, Helen Pankhurst, Jonathan Hughes, Katherine Baxter and Gordon Clifton. Bunny Wilson (tea). Lyndsay Rea (fudge) and Wong Ah Fo (transmogrified toast) manned the commissaria while Keith Stewart and Roger Steele recorded on film for future people's courts the misdeeds of capitalists.
Feverishly thumbing through 13 volumes of Joseph Stalin's 'Collected Works' to provide the workers with a correct line was Peter Franks, who assisted the versatile Steele in editing the issue.
is in the capable and correct hands of Brian Hegarly who can be contacted at Salient (phone 70-319, ext. 75 & 81) or at home (phone 87-530 Upper Hutt).
1st Floor, University Union Building, phone 70-319 (ext. 75, 81 & 56). P. O. Box 1347. Wellington. New Zealand.
Printed by Wanganui Newspapers. P. O. Box 433 Wanganui, and published by the Victoria University Students' Association. Victoria University of Wellington. Private Bag. Wellington.
This article, about the weird practices of the anthropologists who study American Indians, is condensed from "Custer Died for Your Sins" by the famous Indian writer, Vine Deloria. It is a commentary on all anthropologists, if not all academics.........
Every summer when school is out a stream of immigrants head into Indian country. From every rock and cranny they emerge, as if responding to some primeval fertility rite, and flock to the reservations.
"They" are the anthropologists. Social, historical, political and economic anthropologists, all brands of the species They are the most prominent members of the scholarly community that infests the land of the free, and in the summertime, the homes of the braves.
The origin of the anthropologist is a mystery hidden in the historical mists. Indians are certain that all societies of the Near East had anthropologists at one time because all these societies are now defunct.
But while their historical precedent is uncertain, anthropologists can readily be identified. Go into any crowd of people. Pick out a tall gaunt white man wearing Bermuda shorts, a World War II flying jacket, an Australian bush hat, tennis shoes, and wearing a large knapsack incorrectly strapped to his back He will invariably have a thin sexy wife with stringy hair, an IQ of 191 and a vocabulary in which even the prepositions have I I syllables. He will also have a camera, tape recorder, telescope, hula hoop and life jacket all hanging from his elongated form.
This creature is an anthropologist.
An anthropologist comes out to Indian reservations to make observations. During winter these observations will become books by which future anthropologists will be trained. After the books are written, summaries of the books appear in scholarly journals in the guise of articles. These articles serve as a catalyst to inspire other anthropologists to make the great pilgrimage next summer.
The summaries are then condensed for two purposes. Some go to government agencies as reports justifying last summer's research. Others go to foundations to finance next summer's expedition west.
The reports go round agencies and foundations all winter. The only problem is that no one has time to read them. So $5000 a year secretaries are assigned to decode them. Since the secretaries cannot read complex theories, they reduce the reports to the best slogans possible and forget the reports.
The slogans become conference themes in the early spring, when the anthropological expeditions are being planned. The slogans turn into battle cries of opposing groups of anthropologists who chance to meet on the reservations the following summer.
One summer Indians will be greeted with a joyful cry of "Indians arc bilingual!" Next summer this great truth will be expanded to "Indians are not only bilingual, they are bicultural!"
Biculturality creates great problems for the opposing anthropological camp. For two summers they have been bested at sloganeering and their funds are running low. So, in a do or die effort the losing anthros adopt the cry "Indians are a folk people!" The tide of battle is turned!
Thus go the anthropological wars, and the battlefields unfortunately, are the live of Indian people.
You may be curious as to why an anthro never carries a writing instrument. This is because he already knows what he is going to find. He need only record his expenses, because he found all the answers in the books he read the previous winter. No, he only does "field work" to verify what he suspected all along — Indians are very quaint people Who bear watching.
The anthro is devoted to pure research. This is a body of knowledge totally devoid of useful application and incapable of meaningful digestion. Pure research is an abstraction of scholarly opinions about some obscure theory first put forward in pre-revolutionary days and systematically checked each summer since then. A
Some anthros however are not so clever at collecting footnotes. They go on field trips and write long adventurous narratives in which their personal opinions are used to verify their suspicions. Reports, books and articles of this sort are called applied research. The difference is one of footnotes. Pure has many footnotes, applied has few footnotes. Relevancy to the needs of Indian people, is not discussed in polite company.
I am sure that if we had been given the chance of fighting the cavalry or the academics there is no doubt about who we would have chosen. A warrior killed in battle could go to the Happy Hunting Grounds. But where does an Indian laid low by an anthro go? To the library.
The fundamental thesis of the anthropologist is that people are objects, things he can use, inhabitants of his private zoo. People are objects to be observed, experimented with, manipulated, and then categorised for eventual extinction. Behind each programme and policy with which Indians are plagued (if traced back far enough) stands the anthropologist. He has provided the rationale for treating Indian people like chessmen. Our real problems have become invisible under the massive volumes of useless knowledge produced by anthropologists trying to capture real Indians in a network of theories. The worst of it is that many Indians parrot back the ideas of academics; What passes for Indian thinking is often in reality theories originally advanced by anthropologists and echoed and perpetuated by Indians in an attempt to sort out the real situation. We are losing the battle for the language to describe our own condition!
The real situation, according to the anthrosrests on a basic premise Indians are folk people, whites are an urban people and never the twain shall meet. From this premise come such sterling insights as Indians are between two cultures, they have lost their identity they are bicultural, they are warriors, These slogans, repeated with deadening regularity and pontifical authority become excuses for Indian failures. They are crutches by which young Indians avoid the task of thinking out their place in the white man's world.
To take one example, of the Oglala Sioux, perhaps the most famous, meanest band of Indians in history; among their past leaders were Red Cloud (the only world leader before Ho Chi Minh who ever defeated the United States in a war) and the great warchief Crazy Horse. After "pacification" the Oglala made a fairly smooth, relatively prosperous transition to farming. Community spirit was strong. But over the years immigration by other Indians caused over-population. The government allowed white farmers to encroach on the reservation and take the best land. Reservation control was taken out of Indian hands. During the war parts were taken as a practice bombing range. This land was not returned until
Now the tribe, because of its romantic past had always attracted anthropologists. Gradually theories arose attempting to explain the apparent lack of progress of the Oglala. One study advanced the startling hypothesis that Oglala with cattle were generally better off than Indians without cattle. Perhaps cattle Indians had more capital and income than non-cattle Indians! Innumerable graphs and charts demonstrated this great truth beyond the doubt of any reasonably prudent man.
But this type of study lacked the certain flair of insight, those "stimulating" but basically unintelligible flights of intellectual daring so beloved by anthropologists. The one day the thesis was put forward that the Oglala were "warriors without weapons".
The chase was on.
From every library stack m the nation anthros converged on the innocent Oglala. Every conceivable problem, every conceivable difference between the Oglala Sioux and the folks of Bosten was put down to this quaint warrior tradition. How can you expect an Oglala to become a small businessman when he was only waiting for the wagon train to come round the bend? What use education, roads, houses business or income to a people everyone expected would soon depart on the hunt or warpath?
And so the very real problems of the reservation were treated only as by-products of the failure of a warrior people to become domesticated. Past exploits became elevated to a demonic spiritual force. The real issue, white control of the reservation, was ignored completely.
Would not perhaps an incredibly low per capita income, virtually non existent housing, extremely inadequate roads and domination by white farmers and ranchers also make some difference? It this little Sioux boy or girl had no breakfast, had to walk miles to a small school, had no decent clothes and place to study in his one room log cabin house, should his level of education be expected to equal white middle-class standards?
What is needed is a return to real life Lumping together a variety of tribal problems and seeking the demonic principle at work may be intellectually satisfying, but it does not change simple realities. Anthropology tends to abstract away every problem that faces the Indian into some vague theory about the nature of man. But regardless of theory the Paiutes and Maricopas are poor because they have been systematically cheated of their water rights No matter how many cultures straddle the plains Indians have an inadequate land base that continues to shrink. Straddling worlds is irrelevant to straddling small pieces of land and trying to earn a living.
The ironic thing about this is not so much that Indians aid and abet academics in the compilation of this useless "knowledge for knowledge's sake", it is that these academies do nothing to help us in return. During the crucial days of
I suggest to all native peoples cursed with the presence of these ideological vultures; before permission is given for them to do fieldwork demand that they contribute to the community an amount equal to what they propose to spend on their study. In this way we can make the anthropologist begin to be a productive member of our society.
Further to my letter of last week in Salient I now wish to speak of how my language, Maori, functions today in a rural setting. A group of Anthropology students from Victoria University did a field trip to my sub-tribal area in Northern Hawkes Bay on August 11 and my particular area of study was "Rasponeas of the Maori Language to Social Changa in a subtribal area." The aim was to collect data on differences between Classical and Colloquial Maori; specifically to compara tha number of loan words in the two varieties, and to collect some information on Bilingualism.
I want to say here that I belonged to the sub-tribal area chosen and so spoke the same Maori language as the people there. I tape recorded the young chief's speech to us at the marae of the meeting-house after our group had been to visit some children. While at the school I tape recorded the children's answers to my questions.
At the Hawkes Bay marae, a young chief made a fiery speech to us in which he clearly used High or Classical Maori: "Anei nga metua kei konei a tiraha ana. Mauris mai kia tangihia ratau kua mene ki te po. " (Here lie our elders. Let us bring them [their memory) together so that their departure to darkness may again be lamented.) During this speech as well as the speeches that we, the visitors, made later, we felt that the spirits of our dead were with us. "Anei etabi kei roto i te where nei e tutu haere ana. Anei etahi e tutu haere nei kua mene ki te po." Still addressing the departed ones in accordance with Maori custom. (Here in this meeting house we see some of them [in the form of cerved figures] standing right round. All have gone into darkness [meaning that they are not any longer physically visible] .) "Na reira no te ra nei kua tae mai, kua tu te manuhiri tuarangi. Kua tangihia atu ano, kua mihia atu ano e tatau. No reira, hara mai, ta tatau manuhtri tuarangi haere mai ki mua i te poho o te where nei anei e tu nei, e tu nei. A K., te poho o K,. Hara mail kua putal kua putal kua puta! Ko nga taiapa o te motu kua horo." (And so today, illustrious visitors arrive and stand before us. Together, we lament for the departed ones, we pay homage to them. Welcome our illustrious visitors. Come and stand before the bosom of this house which stands here, which stands here. K. (the marae), the bosom of K.. Welcome, you have appeared, you have have appeared, you have appeared. The fences of our land have been removed (i.e. the wall of separation is no more.)
In this speech the young chief repeated himself quite often but this did not in anyway minimise the effectiveness of the occasion or of his speech. Rather it enhanced it. By repetition strong emphasis was laid on the situation and enabled the speaker to bring out the great importance of the occasion, e.g. "Kua putal Kua putal Kua putal na reira, hara mai koutou, hara mai, hara mail Kua ngarongaro atu ratau." "Kua putal Kua putal Kua putal" can also mean that the illustrious visitors have appeared.
Their appearance is emphasised as if dramatic and unexpected at in the Maori expression "Kotu ku rerenga tahi" — the few and unexpected appearances of the white heron. The words "hara mai" have occurred several times. According to colloquial Maori grammars "haere mail haere mail" it the usual form. This therefore is a phonological change by the elimination of the sound 'e' giving the form 'hara' used by good orators. Then to finish his classical speech he expounded the genealogy from Rangi and Papa, Tanenuiarangi, Hinemenuhiri, Hinerauwharangi and so right down to hit grand father, 46 generations.
This could not be done as I had envisaged with tapu subjects such as tangihanga, mate and atua. I tried taping it with my first cousin but we always ended up in sadness and speaking High Maori. So I dropped it. This illustrated. I think, that such subjects as the above could not be readily discussed in colloquial Maori because of its implications. The Maori language takes less traditional, and revered, and more every- day occurrences for expressions in the colloquial language, and it it in this area that it can expand its usefulness and popularity.
It has been suggested that because of its restriction to ceremonial occasions, the classical or high language might die out eventually in the same way as has happened to Latin. But I feel that as long as there is the marae, the meeting house (or an equivalent), the dining hall, the tangihanga, the hui and so on, the classical or the High Maori must still continue. The late Sir Apirana Ngata was the founder of all this, and we sec his work, his mind in all these places and houses to perpetuate Maontanga.
On the Sunday after the buffet meal in K Church of England hall, we all moved into the hall itself, the dining hall joining on to it. While we were waiting for the competition group to begin their practice and to welcome us as well, I taperecorded ordinary conversations I had with my relatives, e.g. Hemi: "Ko wai to koutou kapene o te tuma hooki?" (Who is your captain of the hockey team?" Granny "Ko Peti (Betty) Jones. " As I have previouslv staled I belong to the local hapu, and so my Maori language is the same as iheir's. I used the word "kapene" for captain, and so I borrowed from the English language, a necessary borrowing. Maori words used could have been "rangatira" or "kai-whakahaere" but they do not exactly fulfil the requirements, as hockey is a Pakeha game. Similarly the words "tilma (team) and "hooki" (hockey). Three borrowed words in my sentence. Hemi: "Ko wai te kai-tataki o te haka?" (Who is the leader of the haka?) Tangiaahua "No O. He tamaiti na Keita (Kate) raua ko Niri Kua mate hoki a Keita ma." (He is from O. One of Kate and Niri's (Kate) raua ko Niri. Kua mate hoki a Keita ma." (He is from O. One of Kate and Niri's children. They have both died.) Hemi "He nanakia ia." (He is doing well.) Granny "He is called after (his uncle) Paraire (Friday borrowed). Note Granny speaks here in English These latter words are examples of codeswhiching and Paraire is the Maoi name for Friday, borrowing from English. Even the name Granny is English for grandmother or grand-aunt. This is a nickname given to her. Her married name is Mrs R. Hemi: (diversion of the conversation)" "Granny, i pewhea to koutou tiima hooki?" (Granny, how did your hockey team get on (in the competitions) "Nga kapu". (Your cups — you won) "Kapu" is a Maori word borrowed from the English word "cup" meaning "trophy". R. J. Ryan in Orbis says "kapu" means "cup" (a trophy) and "kapu" also means "cup" as in the expression "a cup of tea".
On the Sunday alternoon when we were ready to visit the local Latter Day Saints Chapel and the Presbyterian Maori Synod Church, my brother-in-iaw said to me: "E Hemi. he mea atu tenei ki a koutou kua tae ki te wa hei haere mo koutou kia kite i te wharekarakia Momona . . . Mea atu ki a Heni (Jane) kia purei i te okena". (Hemi it is now time for you to visit the Mormon chape! . . . Ask Jane to play the organ.) Note the borrowings "purei" (play) and "okena" (organ).
On the group's last night my sister spoke in excellent Maori for the main part when she thanked her people for their wonderful help. She also expressed great pleasure in having Joan Metge, Barnie Kernot and the group. My Sister: "Na reira. Jim (Hemi — borrowed), Kia ora koutou." An action song was immediately sung, and in it, it had these words "E nine, o taera (your styles — borrowed). My Sister: "Haere mai ki te kapu (cup) ti (tea)". Even in colloquial Arabic "Eddini shyee min fudluck" (give me some tea please) "shyee" is borrowed from the English "tea". In French "une tasse de the" — "a cup of tea". Both are borrowed from Chinese.
A young Maori man in his speech about farming on the last night used the words "rui maniua" (manure — borrowed). He used "taima" for "time". The personal pronoun "awau" is usually known as "ahau" or "au".
As I said in the second paragraph of my letter I taperecorded questions that I asked the children in the K. hall on the Sunday, and the local school children the next day, and their answers. Altogether 18 children were taperecorded, So far as I was able to ascertain I think fairly accurately, all the parents of the Maori children could speak Maori, but in the home they spoke mostly in English except sometimes when they get angry with their children they spoke in Maori "te kore take nei" — "the useless child." Most of the children I interviewed could not speak Maori or spoke very little Maori. Four definitely spoke Maori. With the exception of two — on religious grounds — all including the four Pakeha children wanted to learn Maori at school.
I taped several of the children, out of about 106 — when we mixed with them after their wonderful performance in action songs, poi, patere and haka to us One conclusion I have come to is this. I think the majority of these Maori children could not under stand or speak Maori although their Maori cultural performance was really good, Like the local school,
This is principally in the colloquial Maori e.g. buying their stores, groceries from Pakeha storekeepers. Everything Pakeha such as bread — paraoa, shoe — hu, boot — putu, lolly — rare, and so on. Store — toa. hotel — hotera, beer —pia, whiskey — weheke or wihiki, wine — waina, and so on. They could alto hold their own in discussions as in Community 73 on Sunday night with the Pakehas. My sister was Chairman.
On Sunday the young local chief took six of us from the group to the monuments near the road just outside the local hall and explained each one of them to us. One of them belonged to a high local chief who died In are the descendants of the chief living here locally today?) Reply "Ko nga uri ko Namana (Norman), ko Hirini (Sidney) me Paraire (Friday). me te Wano ma." (The descendants are Norman, Sidney, Friday. Wano and others.) Hemi; "Ka pewhea a Ahenata?" (What about Ahenata?) Reply. "Me Ahenata. kei konei a Ahenata" (She's here, direct descent [code switch]). Ko E. W. koianei te "Eldest" (code switch again) I. W. married (code switch) T. "another wife" (code switch) koiraka "the Son" (code switch) ko I, M " Some of this 'codeswitching' was in an attempt to be polite to the pakehas who were listening.
I think I have demonstrated here that there are linguistic and sociolinguistic differences between classical and colloquial Maori. I have illustrated some of the borrowings from English which occur in colloquial (but never in classical) Maori. And I have given examples of the way bilingual Maoris codeswitch between English and Maori. Finally. I have discussed the prospects for Maori English bilingualism which look sad at the moment. It our children are not learning Maori from their parents, it would seem a good idea for the schools to teach them our language since the majority of children indicated that
Te Ra Nui O Te Reo Maori ( Maori Language Day ) Hepetema Tekau ma wha ( September 14)
A Kona te reo Maori Learn the Maori Language
This week we are continuing our series of reports on life in the People's Republic of China with a report sent from Peking by Wilfred Burchett about the downfall of Lin Piao, a key figure during the Cultural Revolution and once the number two man in the Chinese leadership.
For the past two years the fate of Lin Piao has been the subject of much speculation in the western press. While it has been generally known that Lin died in September 1971 while trying to flee by plane to the Soviet Union after failing in a plot against Chairman Mao, the background to Lin's plot and the details of it were unclear.
Last week the 10th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party expelled Lin and another former member of the five-man Secretariat of the CCP, Chen Po-ta, who also disappeared in September 1971.
In his report to the Congress on behalf of the party's Central Committee Chou Enlai said the "Lin Piao Anti-Party Clique" had attempted to restore capitalism domestically, and to align with the Soviet Union internationally.
Referring to the clique's practice of pretending to be Mao's most loyal supporters while secretly plotting against him Chou En-lai said: "They never appeared without a copy of Mao's Quotations in their hands. They never spoke without shouting 'Long Live!' They smiled to your face, but stabbed you in the back."
Chou En-lai's report substantially confirms Burchett's story written before the Congress, although Chou mentioned that Lin launched his plot against Mao on September 8, 1971. This fact suggests that there was probably an atmosphere of suspicion surrounding Lin by September 12 when, as Burchett relates, several minor functionaries involved in the plot backed out and others tried to prevent Lin's escape.
A massive dossier on Lin Piao's waverings ambitions, and feudal type plotting, has been under discussion all over China in the past weeks. Some lurid details on the private life of Lin Piao, his wife Yeh Chun and his son Lin Li-kue, proclaimed a "genius" by his father, are included. But the essence of the charges against Lin Piao, the former Minister of Defense, are similar to those against Liu Shao-Chi. Lin is described as a political swindler, "a capitalist-roader" and of "having illicit relations with foreign powers."
The report shatters the image of Lin Paio, created by himself and his closest followers. The image of Lin as the "closest companion in arms" and "unwavering supporter" of Mao is repudiated. One of Mao's most famous articles, "A Single Spark can Start a Prairie Fire", the report recalls was in fact a letter of criticism addressed to Lin Piao in
The portrait presented in the report is of someone continually wandering from the "straight and narrow" and being pulled back into line by Mao Tsetung: a Lin Piao repeatedly promising to correct his errors but in fact never really changing his basic ideas. That Lin Piao had his merits as a field commander is not denied. "Although he turned out to be a traitor, he also did many good things," a high government official told me.
Examples of the lengths to which Lin Piao's closest supporters would go to fabricate the "closest disciple" image include, the report notes, two recent paintings which falsify history. One was of the famous episode of the meeting up of the Red Army forces headed by Mao Tsetung with those headed by Gen. Chu Teh in Kiangsi Province at the beginning of the Long
The second painting shows Lin Piao at Mao Tsetung's side at the Tsunyi conference at which Mao Tsetung was elected, after a heated debate, secretary general of the Communist Party's Central Committee. In fact, the report notes that Lin Piao was a back-bencher who never opened his mouth during the debate and voted against Mao. Details of these falsifications are judged necessary to expose because they help explain the over-weening personal ambitions that pushed Lin to the ultimate crime of the attempted assassination of Chairman Mao on the night of
That Mao Tsetung was suspicious of Lin Paio's machinations for a considerable time is clear from this remarkable letter he sent to his wife, Chiang Ching, on
"Evil geniuses surge forth spontaneously," Mao wrote, according to the Le Monde version. "Pre-determined by their class origins they cannot act other than they do. The Central Committee is in a hurry to distribute the text of a speech by our friend. I am prepared to agree to this. In this speech he particularly referred to the problem of a coup d'etat."
The speech in question was a report given by Lin Piao at an enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the party's Central Committee on
"Never has such language been used," Mao continued and it is clear that he had doubts both as to the alleged plot and Lin Piao's motives. "Certain of his ideas greatly disturb me. I could never have believed that my little books could have such magic power. Now that he has so praised them, the whole country will follow his example....It is the first time in my life that I am in agreement with the others on the essence of a problem against my will....."
Mao then quotes from a Chinese classic. "The world being in need of a hero, enabled a type like Liu Pang to make his name..." Then Mao warns his wife about her own association with Lin Piao: "You must pay great attention to his weak points, his defects and his mistakes I do not know how often I have spoken about this. I spoke of it again in April in Shanghai. What I have said may seem treason. Do not antiparty elements talk just like this? But to look at it that way would be incorrect. The difference between what I say and what traitors say is that I am speaking of my own reactions whilst the traitors aim at overthrowing our party and myself."
Mao is clearly referring here to Liu Shao-chi and his supporters, the fight against whom was reaching its climax at this time. He explains why, at a time when the cultural revolution was reaching its climax, it was difficult for him to speak out openly against Lin Piao.
"At the present moment, all those on the left speak the same language. If what I write you was divulged publicly it would look as if I were pouring cold water on them and thus aiding the right. Our task at present is to partially overthrow the right — not totally because that is impossible — inside the party and throughout the country. In seven or eight years, we will launch another movement to clean up the evil geniuses...." (By his ill-fated coup attempt in
The report makes it clear that Lin Piao was a most enthusiastic supporter of the cultural revolution because it enabled him to eliminate a very serious rival for power Liu Shao-chi, and many others, while reinforcing his public and party image as the closest and most devoted alter ego of Chairman Mao. Similarly when Liu and a number of other important "rightists" and "capitalist roaders" were eliminated, Lin Piao used the so-called May 16 Movement in what at first seemed an "ultra-leftist" movement to eliminate as many others as possible, starting with his most serious rival left. Premier Chou En-Lai.
When the ultra-leftists stormed the Foreign Ministry in mid-
Chou En-lai was very briefly eclipsed but when his detractors demanded that he appear before them, Mao said, "Agreed, as long as I stand with him."
All the above is part of the essential back-ground to understanding the dramatics of
At the Ninth Party Congress in
But at the Second Central Committee Plenum of the Ninth Congress, the Mao-Lin confrontation broke out into the open, as far as party affairs were concerned. Lin Piao's supporters with his wife Yeh Chun, the leading activist in pushing from behind, proposed that Lin Piao be appointed President of the Republic — a post left vacant after Liu Shao-chi's disgrace. Mao opposed this and delivered a very strong criticism of Lin for his over-impatience in his bid for the leadership. Doubtless this will be a passionately interesting section of the report, if it is published verbatim.
Lin Piao seems to have decided, probably correctly, that his hopes for supreme power were ended. So from the heir-apparent, as he appeared in photos and paintings with his perpetually wagging little red book, Lin turned into a classical, feudal-type conspirator from that moment on. Some elements of the drama played out in
In the late summer of
Lin had used the May 16 Movement to discredit veteran Marshals such as Ho Lung, Chen Yi and others. He had also put his own men in many of the key posts at the top where it was relatively easy to guard the secrecy of the plot. It was not the same with the commanders of field units. As the deputy commander of the PLA's 1 79 division stationed in the Nanking area told me in regard to Lin Piao's influence; "Ours is a people's army created and led by Chairman Mao. It was so, is so and will always be so...." In other words, Lin could only resort to a top-level plot. In any confrontation of loyalties towards himself or Mao Tsetung. Lin knew he would never stand a chance.
On
Lin seemed to have been impressed by the way the Japanese blew up the Manchurian warlord, Marshal Chang Tso-lin in his train in
Lin however ran into just those sort of difficulties that could be anticipated once details of the plot had to be diffused to lower-down operatives. The officer in charge of the first bomb attempt had misgivings and proved unable to perform such a task.
Mao travelled over the first charge safely, unaware of any danger. Warnings were flashed to
Later that night Chou-En-lai learned that Lin Piao (still not suspected as being behind the assassination attempts) had ordered a couple of Trident passenger planes to an airfield near Peitaho, a seaside resort some distance east of Peaking where in Piao, his wife and "genius" son and some top staff people, were supposed to be holidaying.
Lin had used his conviction about the "genius" qualities of hit son, Lin Li-kuo. to secure the son's rapid promotion to Deputy Director of Operations of the Chinese Air Force at the ripe age of 24. His "expertise" may well have been a decisive factor in the disaster that followed.
A daughter of Lin Piao from his first marriage. Lin Do Do, told Chou En-lai that the family was leaving on a night flight for an unknown destination. Chou En-lai still not linking Lin with a plot, telephoned to Peitaho to ask whether this was so. According to an account I heard from a high cadre, his Intention was simply to advise that Lin should not take off on any night inspection trips because of the imperfections of facilities for night take offs and landings.
Lin Piao was at a concert but his wife Yeh Chun took the call and assured Premier Chou that he was entirely mistaken. She said they had no intentions of a night flight or any other flights. Chou En-lal't suspicion were aroused and he immediately issued an order that all planes ware to be grounded unlets authorisation was produced and signed by three people. Including Lin Piao and himself.
Another incident in that drama-filled night was the appearance of an officer at Chairman Mao's Peking head-quarters, urgently demanding an audience with Mao to deliver a "safe-hand" message of the utmost urgency. Enough suspicions went aroused by that time to arrest and search the officer and it was found that the "safe-hand" message was an order to assassinate Mao on the spot, which the officer speedily admitted.
Meanwhile, Yeh Chun had rushed panic-stricken to the concert hall to warn her husband that Mao was evidently very much alive; that Chou was privy to their flight plans and they must leave immediately. Within a very short, time a convoy of cars was hurtling through the night towards the Peitaho airport, with Lin Piao's in the lead. A guard in the cat who objected to what was obviously an unseemly flight, was shot by Lin Li-kuo and pushed out of the speeding car. (He was later rescued still alive, with an incredible story to tell.)
At the airport, Lin was confronted with the Chou En-lai order. He bluffed his way around that by saying the order was garbled and that authorisations were valid if signed by one of the three persons named. So he immediately signed his own death warrant.
One plane was fuelled. Whether the tanks were completely filled is not clear but one can assume that in the hurried escape no great margin of fuel was taken on for the first leg of the flight to Ulan Bator, in Outer Mongolia. As the plane started to taxi, a suspicious member Of the fuelling crew parked a huge fuel truck square across the runway, The plane had to make a detour over rough ground and in order to take off on what was left of the runway, had to make as nearly a vertical takeoff as possible with the fuel-consuming boosters fully exploited.
The plane, later ran out of fuel and crashed in Outer Mongolia, killing everyone who was still alive by the time it crashed. It teems there was a gunfight on board, according to leaks from Soviet sources which say bullet wounds were found in some of the chaired bodies.
After the plane took off, a helicopter with three of Lin's top staff officers and several cases of documents also took to the air. It circled several times around Peitaho airport until the pilot was shot for refusing to follow the direction taken by Lin Piao. By the time the helicopter started on course, fighter planes were airbound and forced it to land. It transpired later that the three officers were pledged to destroy the documents and commit suicide in the event of plans being thwarted. Two officers did shoot and kill themselves as militia-men raced towards the helicopter. The third succeeded only in inflicting a headwound. He was captured and the documents, including some revealing diaries of Lin Piao and his wife were seized intact.
I have bean able to check and re-check all the above elements of the "Lin Pioo case" from authoritative sources but there is one tantalising detail which I was not able to clear up. Did Lin Piao take Wu Fa-hsien, the then head of the Air Force, the head of the Navy and other officers of the general staff with him, as is generally rumoured? One of my Informants assured me that they were to leave on a second plane but were all arrested and the second plane never did take off. This seems plausible as it is hardly likely that Lin Piao would have all his general staff officers at his side during the Peitaho "holiday" and it was so planned that they would join him at the time for the original departure time — probably just about dawn — in case the assassination attempts failed.
This detail end the question of whether the Soviet Union was informed and ready to receive the fleeing plotters will only become clear when the official report is available.
If this account seems to reflect only a personal obsession of Lin Piao to seize power, Chinese party members and the public are encouraged to see it as part of the eternal "struggle between two lines," a sort of twin Liu Shao-chi's plot to divert the Chinese revolution into a restoration of bourgeois capitalism. However, the drive for personal power emerges as a much clearer additional motive in the case of Lin Piao than in that of Liu Shao-chi.
In any case it is one more extraoidinary episode in the drama of the Chinese revolution.
Late on the night of
To justify its naked aggression, the Soviet Union demagogically claimed that it had occupied Czechoslovakia in order to "defend socialist gains " and out of "concern for the consolidation of peace". But at no time was socialism involved. In the Soviet Union itself a new bourgeois stratum has seized control of state power and turned that country into a new type of monopoly capitalist state. Dubcek's programme was one of capitalist restoration dressed up as the "Czech road to socialism". What was at stake was whether Czechoslovakia would remain tied to the Soviet Union or whether there would be Czech-West German-US economic collaboration.
At the time of the Soviet invasion what threatened in Czechoslovakia was not counter-revolution — that had arrived with Novotny — but a congress on the Czechoslovak Communist Party which would have entrenched the Dubcek group in power. As a consequence Dubcek would be able to press his political programme, the essence of which was the introduction of bourgeois democracy (allowing a free hand to all the old exploiting elements) and the orientation of Czech foreign policy towards the West.
Under Novotny as in the Soviet Union, economic reforms intensified the trend to capitalist restoration; control of enterprises within the enterprises themselves, the profit criterion, coordination of the economy by the market, widening income differentials and control of the means of production by the privileged bourgeois stratum. For example, "Rude Pravo" reported on
The Action Programme, adopted on
Czechoslovakia in
In particular, the works of Mao Tsetung were forbidden Party and government cadres who had fought fascism and who delended the socialist road were removed and replaced, often by counter-revolutionaries recently released from prison. The Ministry of Defence was directed by just such a person. Openly counter-revoluionary organisation flourished. For example, Club-231 was an organisation led by Nazi generals. SS officers and formers Ministers in the Hitler regime in Slovakia. The Club of Nonparty Activists revived and built the cult of Masaryk. May Day demonstrations were enlivened by US flags, and the slogan. "Long Live the United Slates". In April Vietnamese students who had demonstrated outside the US Embassy in Prague tore down a US flag, They were attacked by Czech students. Later the Czech students replaced the flag and apologised to the United States!
Dubcek had his credit scouts scouring Europe for hard currency loans. The United Stales is thought to have promised him $(US)400 million. He moved to make Czechoslovakia's currency internationally conventible. These were all steps towards the integration of the Czech economy into the capitalist world economy.
The Communist Party of Australia's Moscow correspondent, Eric Thornton, reported "The National Assembly and the National Front ... are working already in a new way giving hope that they will become more like the form of parliamentary institutions idealised in the west." (Tribune,
Thornton reported that the Communist youth organisation had been dissolved and replaced by a new, diversified youth movement "with several centres according to separate interests." He thought the revival of the Boy Scouts an "interesting development"'
With Czechoslovakia being rapidly turned into a capitalist country like those of West Europe, no wonder Dubcek was more famous than Mickey Mouse. The US loved him.
What Czechoslovakia needs is not a return to Dubcek's capitalism with a "socialist" face, but a thoroughgoing cultural revolution which will reestablish the dictatorship of the proletariat under which the working class and its allies enjoy broad democratic rights and the bourgeoisie is suppressed.
Brezhnev's doctrine of "limited sovereignty" is the most dangerous child of Czechoslovakia Under this doctrine, the Soviet Union reserves the right to intervene in any country of what it calls the "socialist commonwealth" where "socialism" i.e. Soviet imperial interests, are threatened.
Following the Czechoslovakian invasion, countries such as Albania, Rumania and Yugoslavia steeled themselves against a possible Soviet invasion. When the Soviet Array began manoeuvres near their borders the leaders of these countries, unlike the Dubcek traitors, mobilised the people to be ready to repel an invasion.
China is particularly endangered by the Brezhnev doctiine. A million Soviet troops have been stationed along the Sino-Soviet border. Soviet troops have created a number of armed incidents along the border, and the Soviet Government obdurately refuses to negotiate the border question. In
Eugene Rostow prominent adviser to the Johnson Administration, stated privately during his recent New Zealand tour that from
The Chinese people have taken the Soviet threat seriously and have made full preparations against such an attack.
The latest talks on European Security in Helsinki have shown that the Soviet Union, for all the prattle about "peaceful coexistence", is ready to repeat the Czechoslovakian adventure. While Gromyko made pious speeches about the "unconditional recognition of the inviolability of frontiers". one of his stooges, Sofinsky, specifically reserved the right for a repetition of Czechoslovak-type invasion. To cover himself, Sofinsky blatantly lied that the Czech Government had invited the Soviet Union to intervene!
Another consequence of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia has been the further exposure of the Soviet Union as a country which is "socialist" in words but imperialist in deeds. If Czechoslovakia had not happened, would it not have been more difficult to understand why the Soviet Union continues to aid the nationalist Lon Not scum in Cambodia?
The fall of Dubcek provoked a profound crisis in the pro-Moscow "communist" parties. Because Dubcek's Action Programme was essentially identical with than political programmes most had been enthusiastically proclaiming the virtues of Dubcek. In New Zealand the Socialist Unity Patty devoied a two-page panegyric of the Action Programme entitled "The word is 'democratisation'" in Tribune,
But once the Soviet Union occupied Czechoslovakia in its surprise attack, showing that the spirit of Dick Whittington lives on all the servile parties about-turned and vilified Dubcek with an energy matched only by what used to praise him. With unconscious irony. Tribune lectured its readers about how counter revolutionaries do not advertise themselves as such, etc. etc.
(See Tribune,
In northern Mozambique the river Zambesi flows into a gorge 2000 feet deep. An international consortium with workers from ten nations is attempting to dam the Zambesi at this gorge called Cabora Bassa. A hundred miles up country, and strung back along the bolders of Zambia and Tanzania, seven thousand men are training under arms. Their mission is to bust the Cabora Bassa dam before it is built Sixty thousand regular troops stand between the dam-builders and the dam-busters.
The dam-builders with the 60,000 troops represent Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique. The dam-busters are African freedom fighters organised into a liberation movement (Frelimo) fighting for national independence and freedom from foreign oppression. The Portuguese have a history or savage barbarity and repression in their African colonies of Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau. The Cabora Bassa dam is a ploy on their part to keep their hold on Mozambique in the face of mounting guerrilla insurgency by Frelimo forces.
The Portuguese claim that the dam will irrigate four million acres of barren land, generate 45,000 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year, and render the Zambesi navigable from the borders of Zambia and Rhodesia to the Indian Ocean. Also the industrial consequences of Cabora Bassa will provide a tremendous boost to the Mozambique economy. This is their justification.
But the dam-busters (Frelimo) don't see Cabora Bassa quite this way: they would rather see it through the sights of a rifle.
Just who is this dam going to benefit? Certainly not the Mozambique people. It will be used by the Portuguese as a vast instrument of colonial oppression. As a spokesmen has said "Yes the dam will make for fertile fields, but a million white settlers are being brought in to farm them while the 25,000 black peasants who have scratched subsistence from this land for centuries are being shunted off into reservations. Yes, the dam will discharge huge voltage of electric power, but most of it will hum through a thousand miles overhead cable to South Africa's apartheid industries. Yes, the dam will make the Zambesi navigable, but the chief beneficiary will be the land-locked and sanctions stricken regime of Ian Smith in Rhodesia. And yes, the by products will be industry and economic expansion, but this will only mean as in the past that the dominant white elite grows fatter while the black peasantry stays thin."
But these are not the only arguments which made the dam site at Cabora Bassa the most important piece of land in all of southern Africa. As both sides know, the huge dam across the Zambesi is the focal point of a strategy which could change the whole face of southern Africa.
Portugal is the only one of the old colonial powers now remaining. The Portuguese dictator Antonio de Salazar ignored all United Nations special resolutions on decolonisation. He maintained Portugal had no colonies. "We exist in Africa," he said.
Geography may not have been Salazar's Strong subject but he well knew which side of the Mediterranean his bread was buttered.
Portugal is poor: its colonies are rich. Mozambique is positively bulging with minerals. Angola is said to be floating on oil. The exploitation of these natural resources for their own prof i t is the basic underlying aim of the Portuguese in their presence in Africa.
Portugal is itself a poor country. It has a per capita income of only $220 per year. It has 40% illiteracy and lost l 70,000 refugees to other European countries last year. Yet it spends 40-50% of its annual budget on its wars in Africa to keep hold of colonies twenty times the size of Portugal itself.
Portugal has found itself now in a desperate situation. Previously they had no trouble suppressing any African dissent. In the fifties the black reform movements were forced underground only to reemerge in the hills with guns in their hands. Between
There was, of course, a second reason for opening the doors of the colonies to foreign capital. Companies and governments have a well known habit of protecting their investments, often by force. So by recruiting foreign capital Portugal not only hopes to pay for their war operations in the colonies, they are preparing the way for other countries' involvement on a military scale. Notably South Africa and the USA. Portugal gets most of its arms from NATO as well as getting large scale loans and military deals directly from the USA. The South African government has so far committed over $215 million and already there are four battalions of South African troops in Portuguese Mozambique. The French Government is involved in financing Cabora Bassa and Britain, through its 600 year old alliance with Portugal, is the reason Portugal gets supplied with NATO arms, bombs, napalm and defoliants.
The Portuguese case for Cabora Bassa is clear. Four million acres of citrus fruits, cotton plantations, coffee beans, sugar canes and forest lands will, with the help of the dam, pour their rich harvest into Portugal's war-drained coffers. Thick seams of iron-ore, titanium, manganese, copper and chrome are waiting to be brought to the surface and turned into industries by the power of the dam. Surveys have indicated that titanium deposits alone might amount to 200 million tons.
But this development will not be for and by the Mozambican people at all. The power of the dam will certainly be used to create an agricultural and industrial complex on the Zambesi. But Portugal's intention is to plan for a complex which will be financed, built, owned, managed and defended by international companies and white settlers.
Previously the Portuguese troops garrisoned a line to the north of the Zambesi; but in
Portuguese citizens are encouraged and financially aided to move to the colonies. Two hundred acres of fertile land is given to every Portuguese soldier who volunteers to remain in Mozambique when his military service has expired.
White immigration, though, is but one part of Portuguese policy. Portugal stands condemned for selling off the resources of Mozambique to foreign countries in order to lay the functions for a strong white dominated Mozambique and protected by forein interests. One hopes, for the sake of all, that the US imperialists have learnt their lesson from Victnam and if they interfere here as well, they will be defeated again by a protracted people's struggle. There is certainly no doubt that the US is actively aiding and abetting with the Portuguese. Large scale grants, loans and trading concession have been made to Portugal.
One of the most glaring example of the justice for Frelimo's case lines in the labour policies of the Portuguese. In finding labour to work on the dam the Portuguese have adopted policies consistent with their savagely brutal actions used to defend the dam. The 3,000 black Mozambicans working on the Cabora Bass construction and the consequent industrialising
Any African who breaks these laws, or wok
The wage for Africans for this kind of work can be as low as tenpence per week.
Informed sources have come to consider that forced labour in the Portuguese colonies is the most extreme form of exploitation that exists anywhere.
It should be noted that the dam has been made possible by the mutual interests and practical cooperation of the white supremacist regimes in southern Africa. (South Africa, Rhodesia and the Portuguese.) Eventually the power of the dam will link these states politically, economically and electrically. An unholy alliance of the white supremacist and power bloc, naturally assisted by the USA, Britain, France and others.
For the South African apartheid regime, Cabora Bassa is also a long term political investment. Vorster's fear is that if Frelimo over-ran Mozambique, there could (and probably would) be a link up between Frelimo and the ZAPU—ZANU freedom fighters in Rhodesia. This would bring the two liberation movements masses on the borders of South Africa itself. Cabora Bassa is the first (and vital) line of defense to that possibility, and so the industrialised white buffer zone to the north of Mozambique is of just as much interest to South Africa as it is to Portugal.
The conflicts at the Cabora Bass gorge are symptomatic of the sort of major conflicts in the world today.
Colonialism against independence, black against white, international capitalism against socialism, apartheid against the liberation movements. Your stand on Cabora Bassa depends on your stand on each of these questions.
Now what of Frclimo? To quote Samora Machel, "A mango does not become a great tree in its first day but like a growing mango tree, we are deeply rooted in the soil that is our people, and the masses are now tasting the first fruits."
In the liberated regions the first steps towards national reconstruction are begining. Land which had belonged to foreign owned concession companies has been redistributed and agriculture is being reorganised on a cooperative system. Though short of supplies and equipment, bush primary schools have been set up and 20,000 arc beginning their education.
The justice of Frelimo's cause is obvious. Their success depends to a large extent on the help- support and solidarity they receive from justice minded peoples of the world. The developing fighting around Cabora Bassa in particular, and southern Africa in general will become the new focal point in the struggle against colonialism and imperialism — the products of western capitalism.
Jose Tavares Magro, a 53-year-old form-Pide (Security Police) in Pide for from six months to three years, for an unlimited number of times. They are regarded, even in Portuguese government circles, as being of doubtful constitutional legitimacy.)
When there is a possibility of a prisoner being released he is first 'heard' (interviewed), and this is usually followed by a proposal for his release. Magro was 'heard' in
At present it is understood that Magro is held in Caxias prison where he is suffering from serious physical and psychologies ill-health. He has, for many years, suffered from a duodenal ulcer, and in
"Dr Mario Marques:—(Hospital S. Joao de Deus — the Caxias Prison Hospital). The patient was hospitalised suffering from acute depression accompanied by anxiety neurosis. His mental condition is accompanied by ulcers. These conditions are related to emotional conflicts, and I foresee no cure while he continues in prison."
"Dr Leao de Mirnada and another DGS doctor:— We are of the opinion that, in fact, while he remains in a stress situation which he undergoes in prison, it will be almost impossible to hope for total recovery."
In addition, most of the other members of the family have also spent periods in prison, on similar charges, or merely through association with him. His wife. Aide, has spent at least six years in prison, and for a number of years was not even allowed to see her husband. She spent some time in hiding from the Pide with her sister-in-law, who died during this period. The latter's husband. Pires Jorge, is also in prison.
As part of the Kelburn Group's efforts to secure the release of Jose Tavares Magro a petition is being circulated which calls on the Portuguese Government to grant his release, on medical, psychological and humanitarian grounds. It is available for signing at the Studass Office.
The Grand Wazoo has all the best elements of Frank Zappa's last six or seven albums blended with the new Mothers music in the totally innovative and unique manner that has made Zappa so famous, The first track "For Calvin (and his next two hitch-hikers)" with its mock-horritic lyric and toneless voicing recalls the best (or worst) of Zappa's masterpiece Uncle Meat.
Besides composing and arranging all his music Zappa is an excellent guitarist and the frisky wah-wah effect which made the
The new Mothers comprise 22 members and are particularly strong in their brass and wood wind sections: and it is interesting to note that some of these musicians are retired jazz-men Zappa had 'found' languishing as obscure session 'cats'. He has certainy wrested the best from these old professionals as Bill Byers brilliant trombone solo on thi song "Grand Wazoo" will testify, with its fusion of serious jazz and Zappa-esque insanity.
In arranging many of his compositions Zappa begins with a simple catchy melody line gradually building by adding and mixing additional instruments to climax in a blaze of Fairground-like activity On side two "Eat this question" follows this design with a grand finale reminiscent of the best of one of his later works "Burnt Weenic Sandwich" in its frenetic helter-skelterish intensity.
Frank Zappa is often called a genius but in recent years, many had to begin to wonder if he had not reached his artistic peak. Happily The Grand Wazoo" destroys that notion and re-establishes Zappa as the wizard of contemporary music; rock or otherwise, and in addition it can serve as a good introduction to those who have never heared the man.
It's fascinating to consider the Mothers of Invention's
The gentle business of Good hand Taits voice with its unpretentious musical accompaniment took a few weeks to bring a reaction but this album has proved to be a find. Aside from a tendency towards a repetitive sound, 'Songfall is a very mellow, balanced work from the traditional Buddy Holly standard "Everyday" with its simple piano backing to the hymn-like "Processed" with its revival sentiments.
From the singers ecstatic expression pictured inside the record-jacket and scattered clues such as the gently banal song "Child of Jesus", one might deduce that the artist is himself some kind of religious revivalist but happily this line is not over emphasised. The record is curiously pleasant and Phillip Goodhand-Tait's name may well be one to remember.
Sandy Denny justified the existence of the Fairport Convention. The present bunch of folkies are Fairport Convention by name only and there seems little point in churning out another album, 2YA will give us all the Irish jigs we need. Jimmy Shand (and his band) have said it all, but still the Fairport Band plods on. Dave Swarbricks braying makes me cringe but I realise there is a place for this music. "Rosie" itself is a nice enough ditty but it's not a reason for an album. The record jacket takes the form of a gift-box of candies with a pretty ribbon, hut as usual, he wary of shoddy merchandise in a bright wrapper.
In the days of In the Court of, nobody did schizo-rock better than King Crimson. I remember "21st Century Schzoid Man" and thinking just how deranged Pete Sinfield and Robert Fripp might be.
Then I heard Earthbound and I'm not thinking that any more. Sinfield went a long time age and Fripp's been listening to Edwin Start and recruited three blokes to produce an
"21st Century Schzoid Man" is here and amid the other half hour of foot-Stomping tedium, it's good to hear. The title track side-steps clumsily from Boz on vocals (like Little Richard on CNS depressants) to Fripp on middling guitar, The rest is a filthy mess of Edwin Starr soul and 4/4 rock with Mel Collins featured far too heavily on saophones.
Things have changed now and Fripp's back with a new band and a new album — possibly a vengance. To cover up for one very earbound mistake.
I thought the Singer-Songwriter-See My Guts syndrome really did die last year with Cat Stevens and a bit too much teasing. I'd had music-box diaries and Jackson Browne and Saturate Before Using wrote all your lives off last year anyway.
Drank half a cup of sour milk yesterday and the TV got turned off at 10 the night before and two Warm and Genuine lp's arrived. And I had to sit down and listen to em and evaluate 'em and say good things about 'em. Ok I sez and I read the publicity blurb inside and I jes puked.
"The idea of having our own label gives us a freedom to record exactly what we want and how we want it... the whole thing has to have an artistic approach rather than a business dominated one..." et cetera and signed by G. Wayne Thomas.
No joke either.
Nothing new though — ten mostly original cuts on G. Wayne Thomas and ten mostly flogged on Wine Dark Sea. And who really wants to hear "Handbags and Gladrags" again? Or Carly Simon's ode to Doomsday, "Share the End", again? Who wants two more Sweet Baby James and a bunch of sheepshit about 'I bin there and I wanna tell you about the bad times"?
Have another listen to Tea for the Tillerman or Tapestry or American Pie before you buy — you really don't need Warm and Genuine.
While there's still plenty of time for you to buy sell, haggle, barter and consume and generally get that real Christmas spirit. I'm going to pick my record of the year. This is it. Take the best of the Band, the very best things about Delaney and Bonnie, and add in guitar and vocals which at times sound uncannily like free and you have Little Feat Unbelievably tight playing, ten strong, well written tunes, clean uncluttered arrangements, magical lead guitar work from Lowell George, there's just not one really weak moment on the record.
Little Feat have got one other LP out, another masterpiece Called "Sailing Shoes" which Pat O' Dea begged you to buy and you didn't but don't pass this one up. The current shotgun release policy adopted by most companies makes it impossible to keep abreast of releases and it hits hard at groups like this.
We have moved from a record business dominated by the hit single to the other extreme, where anyone can get an album out. And so the wheel has turned full circle. A group has to have a hit single, like the Doobic Brothers, or endorsement by a Beautiful Person to break clear of the pack. Little Feat lose in both directions. Not quite crass enough to make Top Forty and too hip to be seen in public with Bette Midler. The future of the best rock band in America is in your hands my friend.
This record just about clinches the suspicion (first derived from religious sources) that idolatry may be addictive. It seems that McCartney years to be a teenage idol all over again. Its hard to be too critical. What do you do after you've been a Beatle ? It must be hard for an ego as big as Mc-Cartney's to surrender the spotlights to some pipsqueak like Alice Cooper; but what is irritating is to see how callously he rides on the back of Beatle style and nostalgia to stay up there. Of all the Beatles he's changed the least, and even poor Ringo hasn't cashed in so blatantly on his past as Paul does here.
Ringo's solution actually has been to dabble in voyeurism. He's just finished a movie about Marc Bofan in which hundreds of teenage girls scream, tear their hair and wet their pants just like in the fab old days of Beatlemania. Ringo claims the experience was "tremendously exciting".
But back to McCartney. Twenty four cover photos of Mr McCreassure you gals out there that he's still as boyishly handsome as ever, "My Love" is in the bloated ballad style of "Winding Road" and "Yesterday" because Paul couldn't get a hit with the other Wings stuff. "Little Lamb" shows us his endearing childish simplicity endures despite fame and fortune, and who could resist "Sing Pigeon"?
Do you need a pal for a minute or two?/ Me too, me too, me too I'm a lot like you, or dazzling word plays like "weeping on a willow/ sleeping on a pillow/ leaping armadillo. Eat your heart out, John Lennon.
All the other tracks sound like endless reruns of "Why don't we do it in the road". On "Hold me tight". "Lazy Dynamite" and "Right Thing" the title phrases are repeated 17, 12 and 36 times respectively. And so it goes as faded charms are relentlessly flaunted; Mc Cartney is the Mac West of rock, an Old whore still trying to shake that money maker.
Of course I could be wrong. Maybe all this mindless repetition is really raw nitty gritty downhome folk simplicity. You'll have to check that out with Richard Best.
The dark Side of the Moon" explains why Pink Floyd have finally crased through to a more lucrative market, why their music deals with themes and situations that most other group don't even realise exist. From "Ummagumma" onwards the Floyd's music displayed a marked tendency towards repetition but "Dark Side ..." represents a complete rift from past musical structures and patterns.
Thematically, the album deals mainly with the depravity of the human condition, and no cut more typifies this than "Money" which looks set to become a hit single now that the NZBC has changed its mind, after first rejecting it out of hand. It balances Dick Parry's weighty sax solo against Dave Gilmour's shimmering guitar above an infectious rhythm section. The lyric according to Gilmour, comes "straight from the heart": "Money .... so they say....is the root of all evil today/But if you ask for a rise it's no surprise that they are giving none away."
Despite the overall conceptual unity, other tracks are also strong enough to stand alone, notably "Time" and "Brain Damage" from which the album title was lifted. It conjures up visions of a lunatic locked into his little padded cell, being watched through a peeohole by psychoanalysts, then drifts into the cataclysmic last verse, with appropriately maniacal chantings in the background: And it the dam breaks open many years too soon/and if there is no room upon the hill/ and if your head explodes with dark forbodings too/I'll see you on the dark side of the moon." It's all there on "Eclipse" too.
Previously, Pink Floyd had mixed up the intricate guitar-organ interactions, sequestering the sound into distinct clumps. Now the lead instrumentation has been mixed more completely into the music fabric, giving the effect of greater continuity when all is said and done this is probably, the occasional vocal lapse excepted, the group's best to date. Throughout they play adroitly, fleshing out the spaces with a broad spectrum of effects including the clanging of cash registers, voice tracks and synthesiser squawkings, but I still prefer "Atom Heart Mother". Why? The answer is supplied in the form of a paradox as the album fades: "There is no dark side of the moon. As a matter of fact, it's all dark."
This Saturday, September 8 in the Union Hall two rock groups will perform. Country Radio, a four piece Australian band, feature Greg Quill on lead vocals and 6 and 12 acoustic guitar. Earlier this year the band was popular in Oz for their original material broke up, the band now comprises Greg Quill, the original bass and drums, and lead guitarist Les Stackpole who has worked in 'Hair'.
Country Radio is described by their management as a 'tight, rocky outfit writing and performing more Australian based music originals'. Their live album illustrates Quill's controlled vocal technique — a thin, country influenced style which rides over the backing harmonies. The rhythm section is incredibly tight displaying a sensitivity often lacking when the front instruments are acoustic. Their 'Pop Co' appearance where they rendered a 'rock' version of 'South Australia' did nothing for their image but satisfy the breweries and hotel circuit promoters that they really are an indigenous Ozzie group. However they are undoubtedly accomplished, professional musicians and that alone warrants an audience.
Appearing also is Highway who have not played on this campus since 1971. Dave Brown on saxes joins original members Phil Pritchard (guitar), George Limbidis (bass), and Jim Laurie (drums). The sax is run through a Maestro which splits the sound into three octaves. This sound is beautifully entwined with the subdued guitar developing free musical patterns reminiscent of Mahavishnu. The bass is as impressive as ever riding over Laurie's snatty drumming. Highway, like most original and inventive NZ groups are struggling with equipment hassles but will soon be using a PA system of unheard quality. This is by no means the old Highway but efinitely an exciting and stimulating sound.
The Report for the Club of Rome's project on the predicament of mankind, published as "The Limits to Growth", forsees a world where industrial production has sunk to zero, where population has suffered a catastrophic decline. In the near future, says the report, air sea and land will be polluted beyond redemption with civilisation becoming a distant memory.
Prepared for the Club of Rome, an organisation of distinguished industrialists, bankers and scientists from 25 countries, the report gives us the conclusion that within seventy years our social and economic system will collapse unless drastic changes are made soon.
Apart from the colourful, if dire, world new of the future, the most interesting aspect of this study, in actual fact conducted by a team of M.I.T. scientists, is that a computer was used for the first time to produce a complete examination of the future. The machine was fed masses of data on population and industrial growth rates, Agricultural yields and so on.
However, even before the report was published critics were validly attacking the methodology used. The computer takes the assumptions of its programmes and shows only the adverse trends of elements in the world environment. The simplistic-approach taken by the team was probably governed by the one-track nature of the computer. However with this methodology the report could do nothing else than join the many texts already vividly describing the catastrophic future instead of analysing strategies to avoid such a prospect.
And there is a mass of material which shows just what can be done to reverse environmental mismanagement. The case of London's experience with river and air pollution comes to mind. The river Thames is now the cleanest it has been for over a hundred years with the fish population growing, while the smog for which the city was noted has been greatly reduced by the imposition of 'smoke-free' areas.
While we will not dismiss this report outright as it does have the effect perhaps of shocking people into considering more closely environmental matters, the fact is that the work is flawed even from its beginning. When the statistics used were published they were found to be incorrect. Moreover the whole exercise is handicapped by the fact that the past is a shaky gauge of the future and that the conclusions coming out of the computer depends totally on the quality of the assumptions programmed in. The assumptions in this use are of those who take great delight in picturing the worst conditions possible for the future while hoping that their standard of living is not reduced. Their employers for this project make the whole affair suspect especially since the inaccurate and unscientific methods used have come to light. No allowance is made for remedial activities to be undertaken nor for the change in population growth rates for which there is every scientific reason to believe is inevitable.
The Diseconomies of Growth is a more valuable text for it considers in somewhat of a more reasoned way use of t he environment. It's author, Hodgson, attacks the cull of growth. He maintains, of course, that there is a limit to economic growth as we know it, but instead of going off into details of his vision of the final apocalypse he looks to the use of our resources. The dominance of the West, its economic and social despotism, comes under strong attack.
Growth on the western model makes for imbalance as Hodgson points out. But the remedies for this lack of equilibrium seem to be, according to the author, placed almost totally on the heads of the under-developed nations. Moves by the west that would, for example, impose population control should be closely examined. Hodgson says that the poor Pakistani or Nigerian has a life-style that causes him to have more children than we of the west think his personal and national means can support; so we bid him change his life-style, forsake his religious taboos, adopt our attitudes towards child-bearing, and when he asks "why, what business is it of yours, is this not a plot to keep my people weak while you grow stronger?" we can only answer that the limited resources of the world will not just go round. But can we say this without hypocrisy?
In Diseconomies of Growth the validity of the often near hysterical cry "over-population!" is debunked It is shown that of population growth and economic growth the latter has contributed more to the world's troubles with waste of resources and pollution than has population growth.
"There is no doubt that slower population growth would make it easier," he states. Time and time again Hodgson points out that we cannot shift the quill of unmitigated growth from ourselves by blaming unmitigated fertility.
To talk about the 'quality of our life' without talking about the limitation or redistribution of our land and resources is an exercise in self-deception. The resources of the world are not being run down so much by the numerous poor people, but by the 20% of the world population from the affluent nations. A citizen of the US consumes 50 times as much as does an average Indian, and the resource consumption rate can't be much less for the rising New Zealander than it is for the American.
A social scientist at a Congressional hearing in America stated that if the US standard of economic activity arrived among the undeveloped nations there would be an increase of 200 times the present demand for natural resources. So it is understandable that foundations and trusts set up by the economic giants in the world are in the forefront of the campaign against over-population'. Gandhi's dictum is still valid today 'There is enough for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed'.
In conclusion we see that the greater relevancy of Hodgson's Diseconomics of Growth as against The Limits to Growth arises from his reaction to the hypercritical and superficial solution to the industrial growth and population questions.
Correctly Hodgson introduces the relationship of people, resources and land. The first solution to present difficulties must be to share what we have and introduce true management of resources through a change in economic and political systems
So it becomes clear that there has to be drastic change in the patterns of resource usage, in the pattern of life tor the peoples of rich nations.
It's been a long time since such a concise summary of China's foreign policy from
In
In dealing with such questions as the Pakistan and Ceylon crises and the Nixon visit which have caused controversy among some sections of 'the left'. Smith shows in factual terms how China approached each situation.
The pamphlet is important reading for three reasons. Firstly it traces the consistent strategy of Chinese foreign policy since
Smith explains that in order to appreciate the present foreign policy of China it is necessary to understand the history of Sino-Soviet relations over a long period Simply and logically, without jargon, he traces events, dealing in turn with CPC and CPSU relations, Hungary, Korea and what is termed the 'third great debate in the world'communist movement in this century, that of modern revisionism versus Marxism-Leninism.'
Step by step, the reader gains a clear picture of why China firmly believes that the situation has now been reached, where "the world is dominated by two superpowers — the US and the USSR which collude and contend with each other in dividing the world into spheres of influence which each would control and exploit." and why China urges the formation of a broad united front consisting largely of third world countries but also including any country not under complete domination of the US and the USSR.
For those people who berated China for her role in the Pakistan and Ceylon crises, "Unite the Many, to Defeat the Few" will be illuminating reading. Smith quotes his frank discussions with Chinese officials from the Foreign Ministry. He sheds new light on the strength of the true revolutionary forces as opposed to the Awami League in East Pakistan and why they had to be defeated. He analyses in considerable detail the background to the Ceylon question, particularly pointing out the adventurist role of the Trotskyisi movement in that country.
From his discussions and observations, Smith concludes that "People's China was in a distinctly disadvantageous position in
"Unite the Many to Defeat the Few" is a 'must' for any serious student of both China and New Zealand affairs. At 75 cents it's a bargain.
I dropped into the Memorial Theatre the other night to see 'The New Dance' put on by the Modern Dance Company, or was it 'The Modern Dance' put on by the New Dance Company. I missed the first half, but it can't have been too bad, because the house was still full.
The first item I was confronted with was "Ergon" which began with the house in darkness. Then the curtains opened and a shaft of light from above revealed three people of a variety of sexes jumping up and down with unbended knees. The first impression that came into my head was "This is demented" and though I tried I was unable to rid myself of this feeling through-out the piece. (Moody bugger).
I was warned that the next piece featured Jack Body's "music" so I anticipated it With a heavy heart. And sure enough it droned, as though it had been composed one rainy night in a swamp. I'm sure I heard somebody snoring. Then my eyes focused on a lumpy carpet of black plastic on the stage, and a red table with foam disembodied heads atop it, and in the background a tall tube of loose carboard. And everything began moving, the music jazzed up, hands appeared and gesticulated from an unseeable orgy. Eventually from the cardboard bubbles were spewed, and ribbons and streamers and knives cutting holes. And eventually everything self-destructed. The audience had been sympathetic but uncomprehending in the previous piece, now their applause had a ring about it that said they had grasped something — there's often a moral to be drawn from wanton destruction.
One of the reasons I had thought the "Ergon" piece demented was that the dancers appeared to be no more than go-go girls (and boys) dressed up for the avante garde. They confirmed this in the dance "To P.J." which was to the pop song "killing me softly". I think it was during this piece that I overheard a well-known young cultural entrepreneur declare "I can understand why this goes down well at schools — it's so puerile".
The finale of the show had such a droll title: "The Incredible Adventures of Reginald A. Antwhistle and other nostalgic dances" that it had to be a scream and it was. Well, everybody laughed, and clapped for three curtain calls.
So what can I say? The culture vultures and the bourgeoisie loved it, they turned up in their beards and their hundreds and some of them found clapping inadequate so they stamped on the floor. Kids would get a laugh here and there, and a big giggle in the finale that would make them forget the heavy bits and go home happy. Hell, even yer workers would be tickled more than bored.
But would anybody learn anything? Would the New Dance, liberated from the constraints of the classical ballet, inspire people to enjoy their own bodies and other people's better and more? Not for me, alas, the whole thing was so contrived and pungently "cultural" that it reminded me of a poem which I looked up after the show. The poem turned out to mean something a bit different:
There was motion all right, but it was rather form without shape; and colour without shade, that turned me off the New Dance show. It was paralyzed force all right, incoherent because in its guts it had nothing to say, if it had guts at all.
Amamus' recent production, Pictures redeems them utterly from their travesty Christmas. Whereas the latter was little but slick stereotypes and arrogance, Pictures communicates a very deep and humble sense of humanity. The programme notes state that 'For the script we have borrowed mainly from Peter Weiss: Discourse on Vietnam and Notes on the Cultural Life of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam; Satre's trilogy: Roads to Freedom; US; The New Testament'. But it is not an anti-war play pandering to liberals' need to have their faith bolstered by horror shows. Just as Theatre Action used clowns last year to distance the audience, while simultaneously paring away ego barriers, Amamus set their play in a ward of schizophrenics. Using the mentally ill to reenact man's inhumanity to man in the world outside has become a popular theme, almost a device, in contemporary theatre. But Amamus forego wallowing in picturesque insanity; the characters are honestly portrayed, and seem to stem from the actors' personal experience rather than a cursory reading of e.g. R.D. Laing. In fact, what happens as the characters explore themselves through portraying the continual struggle for autonomy of the Vietnamese peasant, is, in a sense, irrelevant. It is the manner of portrayal, intense and yet humble, that moved me. The first time I saw the play, I was bothered by the stridency in their voices, the repeated violence of their actions, which ceased to have any effect — and yet fell that they had touched on very fundamental experiences. The second time these criticisms were irrelevant. Afterwards I felt as if I had made a journey to a very important place, but that the impressions were made at such a deep level that they were not amenable to conscious analysis. At such rare moments, the critical faculty is more of an obstacle than ever.
Hopefully Amamus will revive this play, their best. However, I'm not sure that the spell will work for everyone. Not that is important — it's useful to remember Grotowski's desire to reach an audience to whom his art, or creativity, was neecessary, rather than a mere adjunct to life, as theatre often is.
The Bed-Sitting Room, by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus, and playing at Downstage, is a good example of what I mean by 'adjunct to life'. It's really nothing more than a loose collection of parodies and skits, with a very solemn and ill at case last action. The topic is purported to be Britain after the third world war; but it's just an excuse for the authors to parade the usual motley assortment of jokes (not good enough to merit the label 'satire') of the English comic-script writer. These ones are ten years stale, and rely heavily on sexual innuendies, usually camp, and lavatory jokes. It's interesting to note here that both the daily papers' reviews which made use of very similar phrases anyway, were greatly impressed by the 'plastic-mac man'....."a superb pervert", said R.M. in the Dom;.... "the perfect pervert" in the Evening Post. Well, perhaps I'm being harsh — there may well be an audience to whom this kind of theatre is truly neecessary.
Tim coneysays that when he appeared in Oxford Street in central London wearing shorts and tee shirt he shattered the normally reliable Londoners' sang froid and attracted some rather ungentlemanly wolf-whistles. But For Tim and his wife Margaret this is all part of the job of settling down in a new job overseas.
Tim, 27. is on his first overseas posting. He joined BP five years ago after graduating from Victoria University of Wellington with a degree in commerce. His first job with the company was as a systems analyst. He then moved over to the Sales Department and among other things gained experience as a sales representative in Hawkes Bay.
Now he is at the BP group's headquarters in London to gain wider experience of international marketing. His first attachment there was in the International Sales Department where he was involved with the problems of marketing marine lubricants. Then he moved to Area Supply Branch and more recently to Automotive Branch. When he returns to New Zealand he will be responsible for the co-ordination of the company's forward planning programme.
Does he think this two-year tour will be worthwhile'? "Since I've come to do a job and not merely attend a series of courses I believe it is very worth-while. Seeing things from this vantage point in London helps me to see how apparently obscure decisions in New Zealand are sometimes quite explicable."
Duncan Simpson, 26, joined BP in
Duncan's visit to the United Kingdom is something of a home-coming because he was born in Scotland. "We are drunk with power" he says, "because we can send home advance news about Coronation Street."
Philip Oliver, 26, and his wife Elijabeth are on their way back to New Zealand after their two year tour in London. Having worked overseas they are entitled to a generous period of leave and can thus take their time on the journey back if they wish.
A maths graduate of Victoria University, Wellington, Philip has been doing market research in London, thus gaining experience which he will be able to apply in New Zealand.
If Murray Law hoped for variety in his job be undoubtedly got it. In less than two years with BP he has worked in the Operations Department at head office in Wellington and live local installations out in the field.
Murray is 22 and joined the company straight from the University of Waikato, where he read economics and social psychology—a rare combination of subjects which he reckons could have been a gateway to a variety of jobs. He chose BP because it seemed to offer the kind of openings where he could use his academic interests in applied economics.
At BP's Mt. Maunganui installation he did six months initial training handling almost every job there except that of superintendent. Later he did temporary relief duties, is superintendent at Taumarunui and Paeroa. When the company introduced a new domestie heating oil delivery system Murray went to Auckland to supervise the programme there.
Back in Wellington head office he next found himself doing feasibility studies for lubricants blending plants at two large depots, examining data from widespread sources.
Murray is now a distribution planner in Operations Department and is currently working on road transport costings. He says he enjoys the work because of the significance of transport costs in the overall operations of the company.
Like most other industries the oil industry does not have a long record of employing women in executive roles. But today the barriers are coming down.
Anthea Foster represents the new generation of graduates who have proved that they fit very well into many of the jobs traditionally done exclusively by men.
She joined BP a year and a half ago with a degree in economics from Victoria University of Wellington. Starting in the cost accounts section she is now one of a team in Operations Research working on a new planning model embracing the whole of the company's operations. The teamwork aspect especially appeals to her, as does the fact that the work has significant implications for the company's development.
Anthea says operations research is not confined to a restricted area. "One is constantly in touch with what the various branches of the company are doing, how projects are progressing and one is always considering the long-term results of the work. There is also the satisfaction of thinking things through. This appeals to me".
"Flexibility is a primary personal characteristic we seek" saw Kevin Miles, BP's Personnel Manager.
"When we recruit a graduate we have two problems to solve. First we have to project a path of employment two to three years ahead. Then together we have to examine the areas of mutual interest—what the graduate is capable of doing and where he can he progressed in the New Zealand group of companies. However, his first job is normally related to one of his university subjects.
"Our aim is to find people with flexibility. For example an engineer may be expected to use his training in logic to develop marketing operations as well as doing design work in the drawing office.
"Our operations are a vital challenge to those who can adapt to change in occupation, location and outlook."
Groping for the job in which Fate decrees you will eventually find yourself is very difficult if you are unaware of its existence. Without recourse to the Delphic Oracle, those who are uncertain as to where their interests lie should first establish the range of work open to them.
While by no means exhaustive, the following notes should provide a broad outline of the type of graduates who take up appointments in the Public Service each year. There it no attempt made here to cover degrees which are directed toward entry into specialised professions such as law, engineering and forestry.
For those unfamiliar with it, the Service comprises thirty-four departments excluding Railways, Post Office Broadcasting and the Teaching Service.
The various branches of science are too extensive to treat in any detail, but in general it is true to say that for substantive scientific research work, the major employing departments such as the D.S.I.R.. the New Zealand Forest Service, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries usually seek first or upper-second-class Honours degrees and competition is keen. In these Departments there are fewer opportunities at bachelor level, although some occur in technician, library, editing and information areas.
Subject to vacancies arising, arts graduates in most disciplines are placed in almost every department. The work they do is usually of an advisory, investigating, research or clerical nature (the latter not to be confused with filing, typing or sorting invoices!). The emphasis in the selection of any arts graduate is placed on his or her ability to assess proposals and problems intelligently, and to be able to write clearly and coherently. The majority of positions occur in Wellington at Head Office level and it is rare for appointments to be made in Christ -church, Dunedin or Auckland.
For some careers, majors in specific subjects are required, (e.g. vocational guidance, town planning).
Graduates in both fields will find that their degrees are directly relevant to the work of most departments. Positions are mainly in Wellington.
Mathematicians are employed in most departments in a variety of fields from biometrics and statistical analysis to operations research and meteorological research. In certain areas a particular combination of subjects may be necessary (e.g. mathematics and physics for meteorology) and in others a postgraduate qualification (e.g. some research positions in the New Zealand Electricity Department).
Although departments naturally take account of good level grades, they arc equally concerned with personal acceptability, as most graduates work in small sections in which a congenial environment is essential.
The influx of university graduales in commerce and administration into New Zealand business is steadily increasing. Whereas now about four per cent of managers on this country hold degrees, this figure will triple by
Two common questions asked by managers about the B.C.A. graduate are (a) what does he know about business, and (b) what does he want in a job. These queries are especially relevant to the business administration major because the degree in this field is relatively new and also because it is still in the process of evolution. The first question can be briefly answered through a summary description of the programme at Victoria University of Wellington, where the Department of Business Administration offers the most comprehensive course to the largest number of students in New Zealand.
The programme at Victoria provides the student with a comprehensive background in the essential elements of business while stressing a decision-making orientation. Problem-solving, case studies, and practical exercises are extensively used to interweave theory with actual business situations. Each student studies the following subjects during the three year programme; administration, accountancy, economics, quantitative analysis, marketing (two courses), organisational behaviour (two courses), business research, production and operations management, personnel administration, management theory, and management planning and control. Most graduates fully recognise their limitations in practical experience, but they feel that they have a good conceptual grasp of business problems and are eager to put their decision-making skills into practice. It is with graduates who have competed this programme in mind that this article now turns to its main theme: what does a business administration graduate look for in a job.
Note: Percentages indicate the number of students who expressed strong agreement with the statement.
The university student has been widely publicised as being radical and seeking change. There is evidence that some students meet this description, but it does not apply to the typical business student. Research into business students at Victoria University shows them to be highly conservative, particularly in comparison to those studying arts and humanities. They are not as resistant to change as the average New Zealand manager, a act which
Graduates are known to be optimistic about their salary prospects, leading some observers to comment that new degree holders expect to be hired as managing director. The average third-year student at Victoria University in they want the opportunity to prove their value to the firm and to earn their money through effort and performance. As shown in Table 1, the most sought after jobs are those which link salary to individual output. Opportunities for earning a bonus are also seen as a positive incentive.
Companies known to be involved in heavy competition and which encourage open competition for excellence among staff members are held by business student to be desirable as employers. Jobs which offer a high salary, but which carry the risk of failure are also valued, an understandable attitude for young graduates whose family and financial responsibility are light enough to permit risk-taking early in a career. Job security is held to be less important than pay. A substantial number of students say that they would avoid companies whose policies require continual improvement in performance as a condition of employment. The inference is that if a person's performance is maintained at a high level, this should be adequate effort to provide an equitable return to the employer. Overall, business graduates prefer jobs which give challenge and they are apparently willing to tolerate a reasonable risk of failure if the rewards are substantial.
One dominating factor emerges in the description of jobs to be avoided — routine work. Having studied for several years to learn how to solve problems and how to apply analytical tools to business decisions, the business graduate will be dissatisfied with employment that frustrate the need to fulfil this challenge. Even the prospect of a high salary does not motivate the graduate to choose easy, unimaginative work. Most routine jobs which are valuable to the community, such as civil service, do not appeal to the B.C.A. graduate in business administration. The opportunity for personal autonomy in decision-making is rated highly and jobs which feature purely administrative duties closely tied to company rules and regulations are rated as undesirable. Close supervision by superiors is also seen as a negative factor in a job.
Business students say that they will avoid jobs in which promotion is based only on seniority or in which there is an inflexible wage scale directly tied to length of service. They prefer employment conditions which stress performance and in which outstanding effort can be rewarded by early promotion.
It is well know that work attitudes change as one grows older and acquires more family responsibilities. The attitudes expressed d in this survey reflect only what is seen as desirable in the eyes of business students and do not necessarily predict actual job selection. Numerous factors are included in the choice of a job and quite often the decision hinges on relatively minor points. In the full employment conditions within New Zealand, however, there is wider possible selection for graduates than exists in most countries. For this reason, offers of routine work with minimum opportunity for decision-making may prompt business graduates to decline in favour of more challenging jobs with lower initial salaries. The most attractive jobs are those that provide a chance to put problem-solving skills into action and which He salary and promotion to actual performance.
These findings should please critics university business education who argue that graduates must not be accepted merely on the basis of their degree, but most prove that they can pay their way in the firm. In cossence, the business graduate is saying that he wants a job in which he can prove himself and he values most highly work which him the maximum opportunity to do so.