Grim findings

Researchers at the universities of Auckland and Otago have found that almost all - 90 percent - of Maori doctors and medical students say they have experienced or witnessed racism in their education or work environments.

Of the 205 Maori medical students and 200 Maori physicians they surveyed, discrimination, bullying and harassment were common to all.

The research was published last week in JAMA Network Open, a monthly medical journal of the American Medical Association.

Institutional racism

Paediatrician Owen Sinclair (Te Rarawa) works at Waitakere Hospital. The findings are disheartening, he says.

"When you get into the system you see just how destructive it is to Maori. It's ambivalent to the needs of Maori.

"They come into this Pakeha system that's very rigid… and no one says ‘Kia Ora'.

"Maori have all these cultural needs and it's just not recognised as an issue."

Researchers also heard from many respondents that they had seen Maori patients and their whanau treated badly in clinical settings.

"There's not a lot of people running around sort of racially abusing Maori, but there's lots of decisions you can see being made that are made differently depending on whether someone's a Maori or Pakeha, and you see that a lot" Sinclair said.

"You see them getting sent home earlier, you see them not being able to get into ED. I think often people don't know they're doing it."

The study found some Maori doctors had even considered leaving or had taken a break from medicine because of their experiences.

Change needed

Urgent, systemic changes are needed, the researchers say.

This is critical to ensure medicine is safe for Indigenous medical students, physicians and communities.

"I'd like people to do something. There's been a lot of talking about addressing inequalities but there's actually very little that gets done to actually change it" Sinclair said.

"Maori working inside the system find it really difficult… it's very threatening sometimes."

Minister of Health's view

The Minister of Health Shane Reti says he did not experience racism during his 17 years as a GP.

"I firmly believe all interpersonal relationships need to start from a position of respect" he says.

"As a self-reported study this is useful in terms of gaining understanding of others' experiences within the system and of work to do in this area."

He now wants to see cultural understanding and competency within medicine established and maintained.

Respect is paramount, he emphasises.

"Levers such as the New Zealand Health Charter (Te Mauro o Rongo), the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights, and individual colleges standing by their policies and practice will help reinforce this."

Source

• Stuff

It also describes the life-time family structures, living arrangements, and residential mobility of 612 15-year-old New Zealanders and considers the differences in experiences of children born to younger and older mothers.

All the study participants had a parent who is a member of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study. The mothers' ages at the participants' birth ranged from 16.3 to 41.0 years.

Data on young people's life-time care arrangements, household composition and shifts were collected from their primary caregiver via a life history calendar.

In terms of family structure, the study found fewer than half of the young people were living in a household consisting of two biological parents. Only a fifth had lived in a household consisting of only nuclear family members for all 15 years. A proportion of those kids haven't always had a care arrangement.

Children born to younger mothers are less likely to live in a two-parent house for 180 months and more likely to have a non-resident father, the study found.

It also noted that participants born to older parents tended to have fewer changes to care arrangements and family structures.

Most young people have experienced a substantial degree of change across their lives. The authors led by Helena McAnally say that the data indicates that complexity and change are normal in young New Zealanders' living arrangements.

Another finding shows that most of the study's target group had experienced multiple changes of address (median 6, range 1-27).

Noting these changes is important because this degree of complexity and change is poorly recognised by the policies, practice, and research aimed at supporting young people, say the authors. In their view, conventional ideas about family structure should be re-examined.

The nuclear family in New Zealand isn't necessarily the norm, the researchers say. Assuming this fails "to take into consideration cultural variations in parenting and family systems and structures, reflecting a set of values that do not reflect the current diversity of society."

In fact, of the 612 participants, just 126 of them lived their whole lives in households with their conventionally defined nuclear family - mother, father and full biological siblings.

The study found almost all (94 percent) had moved house at least once and most young people have shared a household with a non-nuclear family member or family friend at some point in their lives.

"These changes are not necessarily good or bad, but should be recognised by those working with young people as a reality of family life," McAnally says.

"Families and households that include children are often flexible and may experience frequent change.

"The systems and policies to support families should also be flexible. At the moment this is not the case because most support agencies appear to expect stable arrangements with fixed and inconsistent rules about what counts as shared care."

Source

• Voxy
• Tandfonline
• Xinhuanet
• Image: Auckland for Kids

The Department of Theology and Religion is offering two qualifications

• a Postgraduate Diploma in Faith-Based Leadership and Management and
• a Master of Faith-Based Leadership and Management

Describing the qualifications as "much-needed" the Salvation Army Principal Adviser, Dr Greg Coyle says the University needs to be congratulation on the innovation.

He says it will help the Salvation Army and many other faith-based organisations in career development for their staff.

NZ Council of Christian Social Services Policy Adviser Paul Barber says he believes the new programmes will make a significant contribution to building capability in leadership and management in the faith-based social services.

"The social services of the six member churches in NZCCSS employ nearly 12,000 people and 16,000 volunteers. These new programmes look ideal for people working in such organisations as well as other similar religious and community-based services," he says.

Offered in conjunction with the Otago Business School's Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme, the postgraduate diploma will consist of four MBA courses and three Theology courses.

Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Tony Ballantyne believes the courses will have wide appeal.

He says the University's programme has a long history of providing top-quality content for students and he expects no different from these programmes.

"It is very pleasing to be in a position where Theology at Otago can draw upon the outstanding expertise of its teaching staff and their relationships with communities of faith to expand its offerings to meet clearly identified needs in the sector", says Ballantyne.

The programmes will all be available via the University's distance learning programme, and can be taken part-time.

Sources

• Supplied
• Image: University of Otago

In the time of Trump, it means we might worry that when America gets a little crazy, the rest of the world might go mad.

In years past, New Zealand's geographical isolation provided a measure of natural immunity to foreign viruses.

Today, however, Aotearoa is wired into the 24/7-365 news cycle of traditional and social media.

For better and for worse, the vices of the polemical back-and-forth take-no-prisoners rhetoric of the fact-check versus fake-news culture wars are always a click away.

Earlier this month, the tides of incivility washed up on our shores with the arrival of Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux.

In their wake came a series of storms in Auckland and at Massey University over Don Brash, and at Otago over the student magazine Critic Te Arohi.

From top to bottom, New Zealand has been drenched in torrents of indignation and recrimination.

In a perverse irony, the rhetoric of both sides plunges down the self-righteously slippery slopes of reductio ad fascism arguments.

Whether you or I want to prohibit or permit such speech, we're all "Nazis" now.

Of course, we are not all Nazis in the literal sense. Even if we were all Nazis in the rhetorical sense, none of us would be.

If this sneer applies to everyone, it loses its polemical force.

Even so, resort to such arguments forces us to pause and reflect.

Reductio ad fascism arguments are in bad taste and bad faith. They trivialise the experience of those who suffered under real Nazis. They demonise the existence of those whose differences we suffer only because we have to.

Worse still, they neutralise legitimate criticism of genuine authoritarianism and bona fide racism.

Corrosive attitudes

Now, my aim is not to litigate these specific events, or to adjudicate these particular speakers.

My concern lies with two corrosive attitudes lurking beneath and behind these stormy controversies.

The first is a seething form of selfishness that goes something like this. "I can say whatever the hell I want. And damn the consequences."

This attitude is non-partisan and non-sectarian. It is in evidence across the ideological and religious spectrum.

No group is immune from having members and moments that indulge in free speech absent any concern for the accuracy of its content or the hostility of its form.

Such self-indulgence divorces liberty from responsibility.

It ignores basic political and legal frameworks of free speech, all of which admit reasonable restrictions on public expression.

We need not wade into the legal minutiae of documents like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The spirit of these laws is more relevant than their letter.

Sucker punch or sparring speech

One emergent principle in these frameworks is the "right" of reply.

I place "right" in quotation marks, because, strictly speaking, reply is more of a guiding principle than a binding precept.

The idea, roughly, is this.

In cases of potentially offensive or inflammatory public speech, one test for permissibility is whether or not there is opportunity for response.

If there is, then there is a modest presumption in favour of permission.

If not, there is a slight presumption in favour of prohibition.

Whether or not this principle becomes the law of the land, it seems to me to be a reliable rule for our conduct especially in universities where freedom of inquiry and pursuit of knowledge are prized.

We can rephrase this principle as a simple question: "Is my speech a sucker punch, or is it sparring?"

To ask this question is neither dumbing down on vigorous debate nor chickening out from righteous dispute. (I, for one, will resist and protest racism in all its bullhorn and dog-whistle forms.)

This question asks not less of us but more.

It asks that even when we remain unpersuaded by our opponents, we remain engaged in the perhaps futile effort to persuade them.

It asks that we aspire not to knock them out but to draw them in.

This brings me to the second worrisome attitude that often comes packaged with the first.

It is a scathing form of rage that goes something like this: "I not only rebut your opinion or action as deplorable. I rebuke your person as despicable."

Such rebukes have their place. Certain persons merit this response.

But those who do are the honest-to-God Nazis of the world. In a society like ours, they, thankfully, are few and far between.

Liberty - responsibility

Whatever we think of Southern, Molyneux, and Brash - or those who would silence them - surely we should think better of them than we do of Hitler, Himmler, and Eichmann.

Self-indulgent contempt may win us followers 140 characters at a time, but it will taint the character of our leadership each and every time.

Civil liberty requires civic responsibility.

Freedom of expression must be freed from expressions of contempt. Or, in the words of Christian scripture, "Speak the truth in love".

• Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman is a lecturer in theology and public issues at the University of Otago.
• First published in the ODT. Republished with permission.
• Image: YouTube

BAF is an Anglican charitable trust based in New Plymouth to create and support initiatives that meet community needs throughout Taranaki. It works through a community development model.

The memorandum of understanding (MOU) will see the university work with BAF on research that contributes practically and theologically to the debate around issues relevant to rural communities.

The Director of the university's Centre for Theology and Public Issues, Professor David Tombs, says the move presents exciting new opportunities for researchers to share their knowledge.

"Otago already has agreements with NGOs such as the Salvation Army and World Vision, so this MOU is a welcome extension of our engagement with this sector."

The BAF have undertaken a wide range of projects, among which is one relating to "spirituality", Spirituality and Well-being.

"The terms ‘spirituality', ‘spirit' or ‘spirited' are used widely within New Zealand society - the ‘spirited' performance of teams, the ‘human spirit', spiritual experiences, but what these terms actually mean and why they are important is not well understood."

In response to this they have become part of a leadership group aiming to generate wider discussion about how people understand and respond to the spirit / spirituality as a central aspect of being human.

• Source
  Anglican Taonga
• bishopsactionfoundation.org.nz
• Image: lcmnz.org

It had been a year this month since marriage law was amended in New Zealand to allow same-sex marriage.

Fr Mark Chamberlain told the forum that Roman Catholics remain opposed to same-sex marriage.

"In the Catholic tradition, it is not possible for marriage to be widened beyond a man and a woman.

"That's something that's unthinkable for the Catholic tradition."

The Otago Daily Times reported that a questioner asked Fr Chamberlain why the Church was not shifting on gay marriage, when it is softening on other areas.

Fr Chamberlain said the Church was not changing.

Anglican Bishop Kelvin Wright of Dunedin said same-sex marriage was a "non-issue" for him, but opinions were divided in his church.

The Anglican Church is working on a way that people can disagree without being divided, he said.

The Presbyterian Church's Rev. Bruce Hamill said his church had a conservative stance on gay marriage, which should be rethought.

He said his own view was that people supporting gay rights were more in line with the thinking of Jesus.

Methodists had moved on after agonising over the issue, Rev. Greg Hughson said.

Forum organiser and Otago University Students' Association queer support officer Neil Ballantyne said that as a gay Christian, he found church attitudes disappointing.

It was not enough to be "middle of the road" on the issue, he said.

Churches must take a lead on the issue of gay rights, and should petition nations which actively discriminate against gay people, he argued.

The forum was jointly hosted by the University of Otago Centre for Theology and Public Issues and OUSA Queer Support.

Source

• Otago Daily Times
• Image: Neon Otago

Mana Maori and Christianity examines encounters between Maori and the Christian church. It looks at how the development of Christian faith among Maori has changed over time from the missionary endeavours of Pakeha settlers, to the development of indigenous expressions of Christian faith, to co-operative partnerships between Maori and Pakeha in the mainline churches, and to the recent emergence of the Destiny Church.

Mana Maori and Christianity includes:

• Rev Wayne Te Kaawa 'A Gifted People: Maori and Pakeha Covenants Within the Presbyterian Church'
• Rev Jonathan Te Rire 'Hihita me nga Tamariki o te Kohu'
• Dr Lachy Paterson, 'The Rise and Fall of Women Field Workers within the Presbyterian Maori Mission, 1907-1970'
• Professor Murray Rae, 'The Subversive Theology of Rua Kenana'
• Dr Hugh Morrison, 'Representation of Maori in Presbyterian Children's Missionary Literature, 1909-1939'.