The walls are fuchsia. Outside – the sound of surf, the fragrance of frangipani. The pictures on the wall are of distant Paris. The Frenchman’s Café.
The other customer at this early hour is an American. What else would we talk of but the number of sheep in New Zealand? I should be grateful that she at least knows the clichés.
But our conversation strays from there to the dairy industry.
Should I speak of the epistemology of the colonised, anchored in the sense of the collective; of the understanding of indigeneity and the pursuit of agency, resistance and subjective politics through anti-colonialism? Should I raise my voice about theoretical conceptualisations and practices that oppress macro-political self-determination; about disenfranchisement from the socio-economic transformations of indigenist positions; about exclusion; about starving in utopia; about the legacies of genocide? Should I thump the table and quote His Holiness – ‘it is essential to show special care for indigenous communities and their cultural traditions … For them, land is not a commodity but rather a gift from God and from their ancestors who rest there, a sacred space with which they need to interact if they are to maintain their identity and values … they themselves care for it best.’ Should I yell that just as Mary’s pierced heart mourned the death of Jesus, so now she grieves for the sufferings of the crucified poor and for the creatures of this world laid waste by human power? Should I call her a racist bitch?
She should not have expressed her opinion that opposition by the native Hawaiians to the establishment of a local dairy industry because of its environmental impact was foolish.
But instead I reply, ‘This “Swiss Alps Crepe” is particularly delicious. Nobody quite like the French when it comes to crepes.’
Barnaby McBryde
The other customer at this early hour is an American. What else would we talk of but the number of sheep in New Zealand? I should be grateful that she at least knows the clichés.
But our conversation strays from there to the dairy industry.
Should I speak of the epistemology of the colonised, anchored in the sense of the collective; of the understanding of indigeneity and the pursuit of agency, resistance and subjective politics through anti-colonialism? Should I raise my voice about theoretical conceptualisations and practices that oppress macro-political self-determination; about disenfranchisement from the socio-economic transformations of indigenist positions; about exclusion; about starving in utopia; about the legacies of genocide? Should I thump the table and quote His Holiness – ‘it is essential to show special care for indigenous communities and their cultural traditions … For them, land is not a commodity but rather a gift from God and from their ancestors who rest there, a sacred space with which they need to interact if they are to maintain their identity and values … they themselves care for it best.’ Should I yell that just as Mary’s pierced heart mourned the death of Jesus, so now she grieves for the sufferings of the crucified poor and for the creatures of this world laid waste by human power? Should I call her a racist bitch?
She should not have expressed her opinion that opposition by the native Hawaiians to the establishment of a local dairy industry because of its environmental impact was foolish.
But instead I reply, ‘This “Swiss Alps Crepe” is particularly delicious. Nobody quite like the French when it comes to crepes.’
Barnaby McBryde
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