by Finn Bell
Because here, if you are willing to work hard, you can get everything you deserve, and more (really). A place where anyone, no matter who you are or how much you have, is free to build the life they want and then to use that life to do things that matter. That’s the south, that’s New Zealand.
Digging Quietly for Bad People
Mining, both legal and illegal, is encountered several times in this book. And mining is old. Radiocarbon dating estimates that the oldest example of human mining is a hematite mine in Africa that is approximately 43,000 years old. There are, believe it or not, older examples of non-human mines, like a flint mine in Hungary that appears to have been worked by Neanderthals.
It’s safe to say we’ve had a fair amount of practice. And (like many things we get used to doing) we’ve become both better and worse at it. It seems built into human nature to continually try to get more for less, which (depending on your perspective) can be explained by either our continual drive for progress or our inherent laziness (but probably both).
Within the confines of our example it has led to mining becoming both better and safer as well as worse and more dangerous over time.
Illegal mining has a global history spanning millennia and falls in two main categories: a) mining for things that aren’t yours (according to other people of course), and b) mining in ways you shouldn’t to make more money (which usually means cutting corners on safety and then woefully underpaying small children as labourers to better fit into those corners). Much has been reported about the evils of illegal mining, which is bad and (perhaps worse) is commonly known without much of a public outcry.
The reason for this is simple but unpopular. Illegal mines make money. A lot of money. Conservative estimates put it at around $US12.48 billion per year and growing. That’s comparable with the global illegal drug trade.
And money (if we look at what people are actually doing and not just what they’re only saying) is worth a lot more than people. This seems at times also to become a relative attribution; the more money you get the less valuable people become to you.
But there’s a little more to it than just the few people making a lot more money than the rest of us. It is in fact, about the rest of us. You see, all the valuable things those small children are digging up end up in uncomfortable places, sold by established brands (in a mall near you). It is estimated that anywhere from ten to twenty-five percent of minerals that come from illegal mining end up in legally-traded products including jewellery, cell phones, computers, cars, planes, boats, building materials, kitchen appliances, TVs, clothing and cosmetics (the list goes on but you get the depressing idea).
So. While it is easy to judge the magnates who are devaluing human life for a whole pile of money (while obviously professing the appropriate level of ignorance and innocence), it is perhaps less so to realise the rest of us are busy doing the same thing (only we’re doing it for free).
The Problem with all these Asian People
Much of this book relates to the history of the south and more specifically of the Chinese settlers herein. But to best explain things we need to start elsewhere. If you happen to speak French and also find yourself in Central Africa with some time on your hands, go to the Congo (the Democratic Republic of Congo to be exact). Arrive early, bring a chair and head out to Kinshasa’s famous open market (known locally as ‘Marché Central).
Sit quietly and you’ll notice (once you get used to the constant barrage of sights, sounds, smells and good-natured attempted muggings) that humanity on most days, on the whole, probably starts off with good intentions. Unfortunately this state of affairs rarely lasts past lunch time and the Kinshasa open market is no exception.
By about noon the natural selection of basic economics will mean that inevitably some fervent hopes for what this day might bring will have been fulfilled, while a great many more others will lie irrevocably dashed as most customers leave for the day. This unfortunate reality will now meet the tenaciously optimistic position of virtually all Congolese market sellers coming the other way, who view everyone (but said Congolese market seller) as eager clients who just need some encouragement. What to do then? Perhaps – or so it is assumed the thought process goes – if I buy some of his/her goods (at a low price of course) then he/she will be obliged to buy some of mine (at a much higher, but really very fair) price. He/she only needs some convincing. It may also be assumed that both parties in a given transaction hold these views concurrently. And now, almost as one, the market, left without enough customers, will begin the novel process of marketing to itself.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Because the Congolese are perhaps the best in the world at getting really, really offended. And what’s even better is that they do it in French, arguably the best possible language in which to swear outrageously (do try it, you’ll feel so much better). Once you’ve witnessed about ten or so seller-on-seller arguments (don’t worry, you’ll see many more) you’ll be able to see a general theme emerge. Aside from the specifics of the individual case (which can involve anything from roasted baboon meat to one-size-fits-all cell phone chargers), you’ll discover that the heart of the matter usually centres on a single, universal point. This can essentially be expressed as, “I’m mad because you made more money than me.”
Or, to put it simply, “I’m angry because you’re better at this than I am.” Keep this in mind.
Chinese people, mainly Cantonese to be exact, started arriving in New Zealand before it really was New Zealand. From about the mid-1800s various Western explorers from Britain, Europe and America started encountering these exotic foreigners in growing numbers, especially in what was then still the very wild and far south of the South Island.
To Western eyes they were truly different. They were small in stature, their features were slanted, their language oddly melodic, their clothing unusual. They ate troubling things, worshipped their own gods and tended to do things in their own, very unique ways.
On the whole, they were just not like everyone else. It couldn’t be denied that they were polite, respectful, family oriented and hardworking, often willing to quietly accept conditions most Westerners would scoff at.
And, as it all too soon became apparent, many of them were good at it. Very good. And that really, like in the Congo, is where the trouble started.
Chinese miners found gold, more gold than many others, and annoyingly often in places other people had already looked. They built rail faster, roads better, and often for less pay. They turned failing business around after other people sold to them for more than they were worth. They grew vegetables and started shops, often sleeping in them at night, and then started another shop down the road. In short, they thrived.
Throughout the south, generations of Chinese people literally helped to build the bones of this country from roads, rails, bridges and dams, through to businesses, schools and hospitals.
It was said that for work ethic in the deep south, the Chinese were only rivalled by the numerous Scottish settlers. And the Scots (kilts aside) were at least a lot more like everyone else. And so the tensions started early (and some would say that even now little has changed, perhaps because most of the descendants of those Chinese settlers are still doing so well). Today you can look at any map of the deep south and easily see the Scottish dominance: Invercargill, Dunedin, The Catlins, Gore, Milton, Balclutha, Alexandra, Queenstown. Aside from their many descendants, comparatively very little evidence (museum-ed, monument-ed or otherwise protected or celebrated) remains of the significant contribution Chinese people made starting this country. It’s a strange thing but often history will show you that if you work hard and sacrifice and succeed that’s still the price you pay for being different.
Leprosy
Leprosy (much like scurvy and the far too friendly-sounding ‘Dropsy’) was, for thousands of years, essentially a death sentence. It can cause, among other things, blindness and loss of all sensation in large areas of the skin. It does not, despite the com
monly-held belief, cause things like fingers, noses and ears to fall off people without warning. However this has often been enthusiastically reported throughout history (it is assumed by historians documenting from a distance).
What most likely occurred in these tragic cases was that fully blind sufferers would also loose all feeling in their extremities and then end up with a small wound or infection, leading to gangrene. They were unable to see or feel it and, if left untended, it could end literally in some smaller body part rotting to the point where it would loosen and fall off the body.
This sad process was unfortunately aided by the fact that there was usually no one without leprosy around to help. Because across various cultures and centuries (from Europe and the Middle East through to China), sufferers of leprosy were often segregated into isolated Leper Colonies for fear of spreading the disease. This never worked, because leprosy can and quite happily will infect someone and then lie dormant for up to 20 years before showing any symptoms.
People also wrongly believed that it was spread by touch, which meant that quite frequently all the belongings of a suspected leprosy sufferer were burned. There are even records in Europe and Asia of wide-spread cases leading to entire villages and towns being completely abandoned. As is the case in this book, during the 1800s New Zealand faced an outbreak that also struck down several Asian and European miners in and around the area of Lawrence and Waipori Falls.
Given the above-mentioned beliefs (held about both leprosy and Asian people) it is perhaps not surprising that several people (who were conveniently not Asian themselves) became convinced that Asian immigrants brought leprosy to New Zealand and that the only reasonable course of action was to close down their mines and burn everything (this suggestion sometimes omitted the actual removal of said Asian miners first). On the bright side, the controversy did apparently manage to briefly unite the then-warring Europeans and Māori (albeit in shared hatred of someone else).
It may be of interest to note that at the time of this outbreak, it was already established fact that leprosy had a century-old history in the neighbouring Pacific islands where Māori routinely traded, warred and married. And that many of the Europeans mining in the region (presumably standing shoulder to shoulder with the Māori in their shared judgement of Asians) came from the recently-colonised Texas, where the only animal in the world that can infect humans with leprosy, the armadillo, is also found. (But why ruin a good story with the truth.)
Good Intentions and Milton Prison
The Milton Prison mentioned in the book is in fact called the Milton Correctional Facility and is a modern construction built with more glass, steel and coloured-accent walls than may reasonably be expected. Like many of its kind both here and abroad, the design is intended to reflect a shift in goal for the job of the building from simple incarceration (for which lots of bricks and bars seemed to capture the architectural spirit) to the more ambitious aim of rehabilitation.
This matches a global trend towards the more humane treatment of prisoners (or at least more frequent accusations that such is not being achieved) and the abolition of the death penalty (excluding those few places who have, bucking the trend, dramatically increased executions in the last few years – but that’s people for you). Setting questions of morality and political momentum aside, the numbers do provide some speculative entertainment. In New Zealand (again as elsewhere) the majority of crime is economically motivated. Unsurprisingly, people do bad things for more money. Which they then callously spend (mostly) on things like food, shelter and their kids.
Here’s where it gets interesting. The average income in NZ at the time of writing is $NZ49,000 per year. In local terms this is enough to live reasonably. While leaving little for luxury, it is adequate to provide for yourself and your family, including tertiary education for the kids and your own retirement. This is only possible because of a whole range of easily available support programs and funding (covering health, housing, education, childcare and food subsidies, and pension).
On the other hand it costs around $NZ90,000 per year to house a single prisoner in a NZ prison. But said prisoner is now not just to be housed but is also required to be rehabilitated, which (spanning things like education, therapy, work placements and reintegration) will raise that cost to well over $NZ120,000 in most cases.
Where things go pear shaped is (of course) the money, of which the government only has so much. This means that in order to spend more on prison rehabilitation they need to spend less on other things (like the various support programs and funding available to help the normal people outside of prison).
So. The more people you put in prison the more it costs. Which means more money is drawn away from the support that makes living outside of prison easier. Simply put, the better it gets in prison the harder it gets outside of it. So far so good.
The problem is that the people in prison will get released into that same harder outside world, which will make it easier for them to re-offend (this is an absolute certainty as we no longer have the death penalty, which – it must be said – is the only known treatment boasting a zero percent re-offending rate). Meanwhile, more previously-normal people living in the now-harder outside world will start to consider crime to survive, which means more of them will go to prison. Which means spending more money there and even less in the community.
At which point the cycle becomes self-sustaining (which just goes to show that, even in near-perfect New Zealand, while you can start out with good intentions, actually trusting elected officials to form a government and make sensible decisions is perhaps wholly too optimistic for a species at our point of evolution).
