No depression in New Zealand?

Back in 1981 the New Zealand band Blam Blam Blam (including singer Don McGlashan) had a minor hit here with the song ‘There is No Depression in New Zealand’. Along with praising our lack of depression, the tongue-in-cheek song claimed New Zealand had no dole queues, drug addicts, racism, or sexism—and no sheep on our farms.

While Blam Blam Blam has faded into the forgotten corners of Kiwi music history, the idea they were mocking, of New Zealand as a paradise where life is great for everyone, has remained.  

Today (20 February) is the United Nations World Day of Social Justice, a day to promote social justice causes. It comes just a few days after the release of the annual Salvation Army State of the Nation report that, among other things, assesses social justice for parts of New Zealand society.  

Social justice often seems a vague catch-all term, but at its core is the aim that every person is treated equally, with an equal opportunity to receive the benefits of a society and equally protected from harm.

But those benefits are dramatically different in the poorest countries compared to New Zealand. Being denied social justice in the developing world can be a matter of life and death, or of horrors that make our own miseries seem small.

The idea that ‘your life isn’t as bad as those people’ has become a popular stick with some to beat the less fortunate in New Zealand. There is no poverty in New Zealand, the argument goes.

The people with the lowest wages in our society who are more likely to live in freezing, leaking homes and have high rates of poverty-related illnesses usually only seen in the third world that hold them back in education and work. The people who have less access to the best education and are more likely to be the victims of violent crime. These people are not suffering like those in South Sudan, so the argument goes. They’re ‘whingers, bludgers, addicts, breeders, who don’t know how lucky they are to live here’. Anything to avoid calling them ‘people’, or worse yet ‘our neighbours’.

But why should that be acceptable in our country? Are we not better than asking, ‘Is your life miserable enough for me to help’?

This year’s State of the Nation report is titled Moving Targets. Social justice around the world is a moving target—the targets look different in New Zealand to South Sudan, but the aim is still justice.

Christians have a long history of leading social justice movements, based on Jesus’ call to love our neighbour. However, as the secular world has begun enthusiastically embracing social justice, sadly many Christians behave like the church leaders in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Those who wore their faith openly and preached loudly about the importance of care for the suffering, but walked by on the other side. In contrast, Jesus chose to describe a hated and marginalised foreigner risking their life and using their own possessions and money to help the suffering man, without expecting any reward.

The World Day of Social Justice is more than another pointless UN gimmick; it’s an opportunity for us to take a fresh look at how we love our neighbour—to think about what justice looks like in New Zealand. Or not, after all there is no depression in New Zealand. Yeah, right.

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by Robin Raymond (c) 'War Cry' magazine, 20 February 2016, pp 3.
You can read 'War Cry' at your nearest Salvation Army church or centre, or subscribe through Salvationist Resources.