Deborah Coddington: Violence so ingrained
– that’s the real tragedy
Why are we aghast at the revelation Tony Veitch beat his partner so badly she reportedly ended up in a wheelchair? This is New Zealand, remember, violence is our answer to everything. Every other morning we wake to news that another child is “fighting for its life” in Starship Hospital and “police are investigating” suspicious injuries. Or worse, another child has died at the hands of his or her “caregivers” (a misnomer, if ever there was one).
Physical and sexual abuse of children is so rife we’ve given up trying to do anything about it.
The Children’s Commissioner, Cindy Kiro, a genuinely well-intentioned woman, spends more time as commissioner of studies and reports than actively campaigning against cruelty to children.
Why not a children’s commissioner visiting every school in the country, giving every child her phone number, telling them to call her if someone so much as threatens to lay a hand on them in anger or lust?
Dream on, Coddington. This is a country where the only petition in recent years to gain enough signatures to repeal a law was one which advocated the smacking of children (to Kiro’s credit, she spoke out against this campaign to bring back Section 59 of the Crimes Act).
We couch child abuse in weasel words, like “the right of parents to raise their children without interference from nanny state”, or “the right of parents to administer a loving smack”. I’ve asked this question before, of Rodney Hide as I recall, but have yet to receive an answer – just what, exactly, is a “loving smack”?
We water down the horror of violence within families by calling it “domestic violence”, much like we make pussy cats more acceptable than their spitting, clawing, yowling feral cousins, by defining our pets as domesticated.
Maybe we’re shocked Veitch paid hush money to his former partner – $100,000 we’re told – to “compensate” for her trauma and loss of income. He’s not the first wealthy abuser to pay to keep the public away from his shame, but truth has a nasty habit of coming out.
Sadly, violence is everywhere in this Godless country – the rich and famous are not exempt. Every single night children are cowering in their bedrooms, hiding under the blankets trying to block out the noise of Mum and Dad (if he’s their real dad) yelling at each other, chasing each other around the house, pushing, belting and kicking each other.
These kids don’t get paid hush money, but nonetheless they go to school the next day and pretend nothing happened. They kid themselves their home life is as happy as today’s television equivalent of my era’s Brady Bunch.
Those kids grow up, become criminals, and Sensible Sentencing advocates more violence, demanding incarceration with hard labour. Yeah, like that will make a difference to someone who’s never heard a kind word of praise. As Celia Lashlie wrote in her book Journey to Prison, we imprison criminals as punishment, not for punishment.
What happened after the violent attacks against Asian people in South Auckland? Calls for more violence by some 10,000 members of the Asian community, angry because politicians aren’t lining up anyone who looks like a thug and locking them up if they’re even thinking about being naughty. And because he viewed the New Zealand police force as so ineffectual, Peter Low, leader of this anti-crime organisation, threatened to bring in the Triads, advising Asian people to defend themselves with violence.
Er, excuse me, but aren’t most violent crimes fuelled by methamphetamine addiction, and isn’t 90 per cent of that drug’s importation carried out by Asian gangs?
Low was quickly ridiculed, but unionist Beven Hanlon wasn’t when he called for prison guards to be armed, preferably with taser guns, after an inmate badly injured a guard with a yard broom.
In sport, violence is called biffo; if you’re an All Black you get a growling. In New Zealand, traffic violence is called “I own a bigger car so you can’t change lanes”. What did Sir Edmund Hillary say when he reached the top of Everest? “We knocked the bugger off.”
Last week I was appearing on Willie Jackson’s Eye to Eye programme and another guest, whom I’d never met, greeted me with, “My brother hates you”.
Veitch isn’t the first high-profile New Zealander to beat up his partner, and he won’t be the last. If anything good comes of this tragedy, it’s that New Zealanders face up to the intrinsic violence in our national culture. Goodness me, a pig just flew past my window.
* deb.coddington@xtra.co.nz
Ruby Harrold-Claesson
