On History

The thing I've noticed about New Zealand, in my five years over here, is the lack of history. In the UK we had these great ancestral anchors holding our feet to the floor in the form of ruinous old piles dotted liberally around the landscape- surviving weather, maurading Vikings, Romans, the might of Hitler's Luftwaffe. They were just there- some unnoticed, some made into tourist attractions, some just in a no-man's land in between- the bane of farmers and the delight of antiquarians. That's the interesting thing I guess- there are standing stones and cairns and burial mounds all over England, dotting the landscape like freckles, yet no one has thought to pull them down or dig them up. They'd be pretty good farming land, and while farmers allow their sheep to wander freely (one hasn't really experienced an English summer unless you've stepped in a sheep's little present to you) they still haven't destroyed these memorials. It gives people a sense of their own past, I guess. Doctor Who references aside, Stonehenge is as British as milky tea and rain in August.

New Zealand doesn't have the same reverence. Now, I'm all for progress, but the average New Zealander takes the word 'progress' and makes it walk up and down like a two-dollar ho. The city I live in has some spectacular examples of art deco and Victorian-Gothic decor, but if there was a chance that it would get in the way of revenue then knock that fucker down guys! Since there was a bitchin earthquake down here, it's got worse- the structural damage is being used as an excuse to knock-down all the lovely old buildings, and the facades that have fallen off the front of buildings are not going to be restored. Not to mention the Music Conservatory debacle* a few months back... I think it drives them mad, a little, not having history under their feet. In the UK, pull up any road or dig into any back-garden and one can unearth old roads, old rubbish heaps, even a cache of jewellry**- evidence of the people before us. It's not so in New Zealand, and I wonder if this is what drives them to smash their history before it's really began- a sort of schizophrenia, no concept of their own past or future. They smile at you, but there's no sense of the person behind. You have to wonder what it's like, having no national identity. Sure, they have their 'green' persona, rigorously defended and neurotically kept to- in fact, any

I miss the UK, at times like this. I miss the feel of the past beneath my feet. I know the UK isn't nearly perfect- I keep up via the BBC (today my RSS feed had druids celebrating Samhain*** next to fighting knife crime**** in schools)- though often I find the television shows (Sherlock, Life on Mars etc etc) give me a more accurate idea of what the country is like. I want to go back, in fact, I probably will go back. Hopefully. But more on that later...

*YouTube video. I know the guy who made it...
**Er, just a website.
***BBC news.
****BBC news.