Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Go home - it is a safe place - make it so

We need to rethink a few things. Climate change is reality and so is peak oil and the effects of both along with the degradation and pollution we have wrought on Papatūānuku. There is a time of change upon us - we created it and we will have to live with and through it. We will have to give up some things but we will also gain a lot and the things we give up are not valuable whereas what we will gain is invaluable. To paraphrase JMG - collapse now and avoid the rush - or maybe collapse now while you can. Collapse? WTF! Yep and what it means is moving to a simpler lifestyle a more direct lifestyle from what we do to what we get. A reduction of all of the intermediary steps/jobs/people between what we do and what we get. Eating food grown locally for instance, rather than exotic stuff flown in from godknowswhere so that we, in our extravagant western lifestyles, can eat it. We are all going to have to make changes and Māori as indigenous people of this land can lead and show others how to do it.

Many Māori are on the way and programs like Manawa Hou are also invaluable - they show how we used to live and that knowledge of the past is essential to build our futures. It would take some wrangling but this idea from Rankin would be a good start
An economic historian is calling for the benefit system to become more flexible to allow people to function within traditional subsistence economies.Keith Rankin from Unitec was responding to a challenge from Mana leader Hone Harawira that the Abbott Government’s removal of support from remote Australian Aboriginal communities was similar to Work and Income’s policy of not paying benefits to Maori who return to their home rural villages.
He told Radio Waatea’s Dale Husband that being able to turn to a subsistence lifestyle during downturns in the economic cycle was a normal part of capitalism.
Instead of calling people to the cities, help them move out to the rural areas and pay the to do it. This would rejuvenate those areas, release pressure from the cities infrastructure, help reinforce connections and communities, teach the basics like how to grow food, how to live in a community, how to live simpler lifestyles and so on and so on. Many Māori are connecting back to their ancestral marae. This connecting can be encouraged and facilitated by Government for all of the reasons above. To further encourage the move I'd pay superannuation earlier to Māori going home so that they could learn and teach and build the mana of their marae and themselves.

The destruction of our currently structured society is likely to be slow, with falls, then plateaus, with false hope, then dashed dreams - we will live it and we will need to adjust to it, physically and mentally. Go home - it is a safe place - make it so.

5 comments:

NotAHobbesFan said...

Again like the aborigines you want tax payers to supply all the benefits of a 21st Capitalist society for free while you kick back and enjoy a "traditional" lifestyle which no doubt would involve lots of Weed.

Marty Mars said...

you sound a bit jealous - you could come if you put the work in.

Ovicula said...

I like the idea, Marty. Carrying on as we have been is a recipe for disaster. I plan to move into a semi self sufficient rural setting in a year or so. I'm jealous that I don't have a marae to go to.

PS For the would be philosopher: I won't be asking the taxpayer for much at all and I don't smoke dope. Still, pearls before poaka and all that.

Swimmer in Training said...

"...benefits of 21st capitalist society..."

Benefits? I'm barely forty years old and I can't see it anymore. If I thought Marty Mars was saying anything but joking, I'd send any captialist my alarm clock, PC, mobile phone, car and electricity bill if I could go live on a marae.

I can't go home, I'm NZ born Pakeha - born in the city. England ain't safe, but it's a lot safer than forcing me out to work some eighteenth century minded fucker's farm in Nelson. Been there, done that. I'd rather swim to England than face that.

Marty Mars said...

Ovicula - good idea becoming more self sufficient, every little bit will count.

SiT - I'm not joking.

The first step in finding a 'home' or marae is to get there and visit - the old adage is 'pick up a teatowel' and believe me it does work. Whānau means more than blood ties - it means extended family and anyone and everyone can be extended family - but like anything it starts with the first step and that step is doable. Kia kaha