A brown migrant can live in Aotearoa New Zealand for ten years and still find themselves puzzled by two very simple questions. What exactly is ethnic, and what exactly is multiculturalism? They may have filled in enough government forms by then to know which box they are expected to tick. They may have attended Diwali … Continue reading Identity Without Destiny
New Zealand
Another Bridge, or Another Century?
For years, Auckland’s City Rail Link was treated as a kind of civic extravagance, a tunnel-shaped affront to fiscal sobriety. Every revision of its budget invited the same small chorus of disbelief. At about $5.5 billion, the CRL became evidence, for some, that public transport had grown too ambitious for its own good. Then came … Continue reading Another Bridge, or Another Century?
Never Been Woke
I have just finished Musa al-Gharbi’s We Have Never Been Woke. It is a useful book because it does not offer the usual lazy attack on “wokeness.” Its more serious argument is about class, status, language, and moral performance. It shows how some highly educated professional classes can speak the language of justice while still … Continue reading Never Been Woke
