Patriotic? Yeah, nah
About the most patriotic thing you can do as a Kiwi is to barely be patriotic at all.
Don’t get me wrong, this is one of the things I love about us, that we are less jingoistic that our neighbours (Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi) and way less than the noisiest nation on the world stage currently, the United States of America, oft described by its citizenry as “the greatest country in the world” and currently being made great again.
I’ve been pondering this since a friend spent a recent “Australia Day” actually in Australia, sending back myriad clippings of newspaper features celebrating that nation’s Australianness. She asked why Kiwis weren’t as confident, positive, bursting with patriotism, or as willing to publicly list our cultural strengths and societal accomplishments.
I see her point – I literally see and hear it from the stage when I’m playing to Australian audiences or to rooms with clusters of Americans, all proud to be identified, cheering enthusiastically to show they’re here.
Kiwis, less so, though I’m discovering if you throw out a “Tūtira mai ngā iwi” you’ll get an “Aue!” back, which I like very much like since the first line of that song literally means, “Stand together, people!”.
But patriotism that comes with fervour has always made me nervous. We were taught a lot about WWII at school and at home, and it was clear when looking at Nazi Germany that patriotism contains many of the same ingredients as xenophobia (love my country, hate yours) and is an essential ingredient in the growth of fascism (hate anyone who is “other”).
Which is not to say that I don’t love my country – far from it. I’m proud of many things we’ve done: women’s right to vote, eight-hour working day, Sir Ed climbing Mt Everest and using the ensuing years to parlay that fame into wisdom and good works, and that time our government sent a frigate to Mururoa to protest French nuclear testing in the Pacific.
You will have your own list involving sport, film, music, literature, science, wine. My daughter is finding New Zealand stories with heroes who resonate with her, like Hēni Te Kiri Karamū, the only woman who fought at the Battle of Gate Pa.
I like this national characteristic of ours that we do great things but don’t crow about it. Sir Ed’s, “Well, we knocked the bastard off” and insisting he wasn’t a hero but Tensing was, is a prime example of that and about as far from Trumpism as you can get.
What I’d argue is that you can love your country without being “patriotic” - if patriotic means “I love my country exactly as it is”. I love it enough to want it to keep evolving by acknowledging what needs to change.
In reality, Australia Day is less of a celebration of patriotism than the newspaper features would have you imagine, increasingly being referred to as “Invasion Day” and fraught with unresolved trauma.
Waitangi Day here is – I think rightly – not a day of national pride but a time to reflect on our complicated colonial history.
But we are finding moments now where, as a nation, we can celebrate who we are, and who we are becoming.
Matariki feels like that to me, and has done since it first became a public holiday in June 2022 – an indigenous tradition embraced now by people whose ancestry is different but who are interested in becoming something new. That’s the kind of thing that makes me proud of us.