Fancy A new Ethnicity?

Amongst the mountain of earnest reading presented to health board members one finds the occasional gem of entertaining nonsense carefully bound and prepared at great taxpayer expense from one of those towers of politically correct policy production in Wellington.

One such classic arrived last week from Ministry of Health entitled importantly "Ethnicity Data, Protocols for the Health and Disability Sector." Normally reading these is like eating Weetbix without milk, but I had nothing else to read on a recent plane trip and started browsing. The booklet asks "What is ethnicity?" and I thought this might be interesting.

As a person cast into the role of NZ European or Pakeha without ever being asked, I’ve always felt a bit grumpy about my ethnicity choices, or lack of them. I have no relations in Europe and cannot stay there for other than a holiday, not that I really want to. Genetically I’m a bit of a mongrel with bits of folklore about ancestors arriving via Australia, some from France and a rumoured Scottish connection. I generally feel like a Kiwi but disappointingly note that Kiwi is missing from the 450 options offered in the booklet.

So what is ethnicity defined as, and I quote. "A social grouping whose members have one or more of the following four characteristics:-

They share a sense of common rights.
They claim a common and distinctive history and destiny.
They possess one or more dimensions of collective cultural individuality.
They feel a sense of unique collective solidarity."

Reading on they add that, and I quote. " Ethnicity is self perceived so the person concerned should identify their ethnic affiliation wherever feasible. A person can belong to more than one ethnic group. The ethnicities with which a person identifies can change over time".

Wow! This is a heady brew of options. Kiwi is not on the list and I’m definitely not European. They’re all immigrants who share different speech from me and also share and maintain the right to return to Europe and to pass that right on to their children.

So back to the definition. What special group best defines my shared sense of common rights, history, cultural individuality and collective solidarity?

To help me in this choice of self perceived ethnicity the booklet lists sport, style of clothing, patterns of work and events as cultural factors. Where is race, I ponder only to be told that race as a social construct has been discredited. I’m not sure if Maori know that, but then that is their self perceived problem.

On thinking it through, it dawns on me now that my ethnicity is Surfer. At last I feel I have a home. I can now experience what Tariana terms "indigenaity" and I like it. Surfers do share a common history tracing our story back to the Polynesian wave riders of Raiatea and Hawaii, through recent developments from Duke Kahanamoku’s World tour in the early twentieth century, to the Californian surf renaissance of the sixties and on to the current global surf culture.

Surfers have lead musical styles at times and we definitely dress differently. It is interesting to note that our leading ethnic clothing suppliers, such as Quiksilver and Billabong are now among the largest listed clothing companies on the planet. I’m a proud shareholder in our own brand of ethnic clothing, Coastlines, which is selling well in over 45 NZ surf shops (or cultural centres) and the label is heading offshore in what we planned as a business expansion, but which I now more clearly self perceive as a form of emigration of our cultural roots.

Every surfer will tell you that "only a surfer knows the feeling" and that when we meet in other countries, we are linked by a form of global tribal custom. Like all the great ethnicities, there are occasional turf wars over access rights to surf breaks and many of these precede recent interest in foreshore claims by Maori. I look forward to the government debating our customary rights to the Raglan surf break in recognition of the Raglan Boardriders club shed erected in the 1950s and subsequently burnt down by another self perceived ethnicity.

I must say it is very empowering to express my dismay at the cultural affront to the surfer ethnic group from the appropriation of our cultural language by the world wide web. We were not consulted before everyone started " surfing" the web. This insult to our indigenaity can only be righted by a full and final settlement which we reserve the right to relitigate in the future.

I do not hold out hope of our grievance being solved, nor do I hold out much hope for a Ministry of Health, which prints such drivel as this booklet. No doubt ethnicities such as golfer, teacher and all the regular religions will suddenly self perceive into existence to join the Destiny Church in its march to take over NZ. I noted recently while flying back from LA that they have taken over first class so that’s a start for a new ethnicity.