Barrie Watts

"As I was waiting for my plane which was to take me to an Oxford Union Debate at Otago University, an old man shuffled up to me and thrust this speech into my hand. 'Shaw lives,' he croaked, and disappeared infirmly into the crowd."-B.W.

For some time now I have been feeling a little pain about New Zealand. In my approaching dotage, and as a certain sign of decay, I now know remorse for something I once said. Or, rather, what was Said I said, which is an entirely different thing altogether. It is widely believed that, in my destructive youth. I visited New Zealand and summed the place up in one supposedly apt and very vicious remark. I must now, alter all these years, confess that I didn't say what I am believed to have said, and as brilliantly worthy of me as it would have been had I said it. I wouldn't have said it anyway because I don't agree with the sentiment it implies.

The fact is, when I stepped ashore in Auckland I was met by the inevitable society matron, who attempted to gather me up in a twin-set and pearls embrace, and on failing to accomplish this unhygienic embrace, cooed at me with unerring typicality: "And What. Mr Shaw, do you think of New Zealand."

It must have been perfectly obvious to the dear soul, had she the brain to think about it, that I had spent no more than 10 seconds on her soil Somewhat taken aback, and at a loss for anything significant to say. I made a hasty utterance intended. I assure you, to convey only pleasantries

Unfortunately, the stupid woman misheard me completely probably because. I believe, her ears were encased in jowls upon which was propped an improbably huge string of pearls, thus obstructing her aural orifices.

This fatuous creature, when I had departed, went straightaway to the equally inevitable newspaper office, that organ of somnolent quietitude that represents-and often wipes—the blocked orifices of the world. And in the translation to a journalist, as near to verbatim as she could recall and he was capable of taking down, what I actually said and what I was ultimately Reported to have said became a grossly dislocated piece of historic memorabilia. I was alleged to have said my impression of New Zealand was "Altogether too many sheep." In fact what I Really said—in my desire to say something innocuous and pleasant—went, in context, like this: "I have as yet been unable to acquaint myself with the delights of your country, madam, and I would prefer not to do so while your arms are around my neck. If you would be good enough to stand back a trifle, thus allowing me something of the local panorama that your close presence at the moment excludes. I will be happy to make an observation." And when this was accomplished. I then looked around, saw what little there was to be seen, and said to her, in kindly and gentlemanly fashion— —and here, recorded for the first time, is what I actually said—"This seems a green and pleasant spot, madam, where one may loiter one's hours away in the company of good fellows and worthy beasts. We are all one in the eyes of the Lord, I have been told—we are all his lambs, and the country appears to haven for this living sentiment.

"Altogether, too many sheep this must he paradise enow."

Intense Reflection

Now, after many years of intense reflection upon the proper course of civilisations. I have arrived at the conclusion that, far from having too many sheep. New Zealand has as yet not enough to achieve the full nobility of its purpose. New Zealand is going through a steady process of conversion from a society wracked by the conventional torments of dissidence, individual ambitions, self-seeking goals of talent, higher education and the like, to a society where none of these things will be relevant because none of them will happen. The true New Zealander is only now being bred—he exists in large, docile numbers already, but there are still volatile elements to be eradicated or bred out of the strain.

I would like you to consider what I know of the real New Zealand, the wonderland that lies beyond the tourist trail. When I arrived I was witness to the beginnings of a noble experiment. I saw an infant nation of peoples striving to achieve the impossible—to grow not up, but down, to venture not out, but back in. The womb of New Zealand, some romantics say, is Mother England, but how wrong, how wrong. Mother England. I tell you, is merely a mammary substitute, which will be made do until New Zealanders have perfected a social technology that will allow them to create their own self-lactating, life-sustaining embryo cocoon, a magnificent chrysalis all wool and a mile wide. Into this they will eventually crawl triumphant, thus becoming in fact not merely the chicken before the egg but a chicken that actually arrived, like Topsy, looked around, liked little it say, built itself an egg and somehow contrived to get into it. Upon realisation of this ambition. New Zealand will have given anti-birth, or birth in reverse, to a feat eclipsing the Resurrection. It will be, moreover, the ultimate resurrection. It's a pity that New Zealanders, upon its conclusion, will not be around to hear the world's applause or note its astonishment.

I myself am consumed with nothing more than wholly committed admiration for this enterprise, this utter determination to withdraw. New Zealand has reason to be proud—I ask you to believe it is deliberately embarked on the greatest of evolutions, not a manifestation but a lambifestation, the finest and most incredible exploit, a transformation—and the greatest social experiment in the planet's history since Britain supplied arms to Nigeria.

It is an experiment that seeks to capitalise on the national characteristic of natural sheepishness, and transform the Kiwi into a more fundamental beast whose uniqueness will be his very proliferation. Consider, which creature is held in the highest regard? The lamb of God. Next best, and soon to be even better, is the lamb of God's Own Country. It is the lamb. I suggest, that typifies the quiet New Zealander above all else—the lamb, which has become a short of sacrificial, philosophic proxy for the human actuality. It is at once the New Zealander's religion and symbol, his goal and his soul. When its fleece is shorn, does New Zealand not glory? When none will buy it, do they not despair? When its throat is cut and its entrails made into chippolata sausage skins for the Irish market, do they not rejoice? When its Sunday joint fails to sell in the United Stales, are they not grieved? And when the Japanese object to mutton chops because of a stench similar to the New Zealand, in gangster parlance herds' morning drenching of the pasture, does New Zealand not bridle?

subtly converted to the national idiom, is on the lamb. New Zealanders are also of it, in it, all around it and, economists say, still coming home on its back.

So it is natural the country should emulate it. The credo of sheepishness, the authentic quality of the sheep, is now being Instilled in the people by all instruments of Government, mass organisation, news media and the advertising agencies. New Zealanders are directed, above all, to be the same and want the same as each of their fellows, which is to say they wish for complete anonymity undisturbed by extraneous influences, such as opposition to the Vietnam war and questioning of Mr Muldoon's suitability to play shepherd. A herd instinct, a clever substitute for nationalism, is truly developing. They learn to be suspicious of that which is different, which is to say they wish to be safely nondescript unidentifiable and therefore virtually unassailable. They willingly, in fact, draw a blank. If there can be said to be many shades and hues of thought in the world, New Zealand sets a new example by lusting after one that is not even on the spectrum, the very whiteness of non-existence. They deify this non-shade in the Land of the Long While Shroud. They are directed by commercial television to hunger for non-attributes. They want, be it ever so splendid, to resemble as nearly as possible the pelts of their thicknest, purest Canterbury lambs—all white and palely shimmering.

Social Fabric

New Zealanders do not seek the Golden Fleece. They seek at flat, matt-finish, pastel-toned, hormone-treated. Riccarton Dalton A. xminster; they tread softly on somebody's dreams, they talk of the night they met P-a-u-l B-a-r-o-n, the NOW decor, and a housebroken bulldozer that didn't really tear the tufts—this is the fabric of New Zealand society.

It is not, even, sufficient for the fibre to be merely white. They strive for whiter-than-whiteness, the unattainable that becomes attainable to the sufficiently devoted. "Which one is your John-nee?" "The one in white." "But they're All in . .. ohhh."

The culture of the lamb, however, makes realistic if temporary allowances for the black sheep. Where toughness, aggression and a modicum of forward drive is tolerated, it is in fact dressed in black to distinguish it and put on the football field. It is sent forth to confuse and occasionally dismay the international conspiracy of excellence. If white represents not so much the purity of New Zealand's being as the vacuum of its character, and is a private, patented, wholly New Zealand-owned thing reserved entirely for itself, black is the nominated national colour presented to the world. The black sheep are despatched to blacken, hopefully, not the country's reputation but the world's eye. One man's Meads is another man's poison. It is a bold subterfuge behind which New Zealand revels in timidity. It is able to get on with the greatest vanishing trick in history while everyone else's attention is cleverly drawn by its ebony envoys. When New Zealand chants "black, black, black." it refers to the sanctuary of the deep pit it is digging itself at home.

But black, like while, is another non-shade. It is, if the world could only see it for what it really is, representative of New Zealand's true aspiration—which is to merge, to hide, and if possible to disappear completely.

Pen Mightier

This is shown by the drift of the flocks to the suburbs. There they gather in swelling numbers, bleating about rubbish collections. TV reception and cans of ersatz country-fresh beef stew. The truth is that New Zealanders do not like the countryside, which is why they forsake the green pastures to huddle in the cities, those ever-expanding stock yards. This proves the maxim that the pen is mightier than the sward.

Ultimately all New Zealanders will occupy pens, where they will be able to more fully co-operate in complete docile managability. In the meantime some managerial functioning must be maintained to ensure the country is inexorably ushered into the age of maximum conformity. And so there has been made room in the community for the sheepdog, who functions in the classic sense of guardian of the virtuous and nipper-of-heels of the tardy, and harasser of any who may look like straying out of line.

For this role of sheepdog, watcher of the flock. New Zealanders have a man who arrived at the job by the curiously New Zealand process of assumption rather than election or even nomination. Consider him, then, the good Brigadier Gilbert. ... Regard his entirely appropriate countenance—half mournful basset, half retriever, and as low to the ground as a dachshund. Give the faithful hound a fond pat on the dewlaps, but be careful lest you lose your hand.

This, then, is the New Zealand I have come to love and admire. A nation doing its utmost to approximate sheepishness, a cardinal virtue in a world of unChristian behaviour. The lamb will lie down with the lion, but the frightful flavour of its greasy wool will deter the lion's covetous eye.

So this is a nation not of altogether too many sheep but, in the present analysis, too few. The dream will be realised given sufficient lack of energy—New Zealand, for the sake of attaining heaven, don't rattle your dags.

* * *

So ends this remarkable document. It leaves me only to say that history will decide whether our society shall, for its efforts, be promoted to the Great Station in the Sky—or consigned to the eternal charnel house, the Great Abattoir Down Below.