NiuZila: Land of full fat milk and welfare money

Judge Ida Malosi, Niu Sila’s/New Zealand’s first female Pacific Island judge, was reported in today’s newspapers as saying many young Pacific offenders in Aukilani Saute / South Auckland are “chameleons” who attend church with their family the morning after committing a crime.  “On Saturday night he committed an egregious violent offence.  On Sunday he dutifully did as his mother said, got up and got dressed in his Sunday best and went to Sunday school.  On Monday he appeared in court”. 

In an earlier post, I mentioned how a cousin of mine had been arrested for aggravated robbery with a group of his friends, after the victim identified my cousin months after the incident, when my cousin stopped on the side of the road to assist the victim who’s car had broke down.  My cousin is who the Judge is talking about, and the many other Pacific youth who find themselves in such a position.

On one hand it seems so easy for our youth to get involved in criminal activity, yet it’s not beyond those same youth to do a good deed, as my cousin did.

Judge Malosi was commenting on a study conducted for the Families Commission by AUT University with Otara researcher Efeso Collins and Mangere researcher Ronji Tanielu.

Mr Tanielu said they found that family was still important for almost all the young “gangstas”.  “Most Pasifika youth in gangs did not want to replace their family or home with the gang,” he said. “A lot talked about the ‘blood family’ compared to the ’street family’.”  I think this would explain how easy it is for some of our youth to change hats, if you could call it that.  While they may be involved in criminal behaviour, their connection to family is stronger, but only just.

The researchers found that young people who joined gangs often felt unloved by their parents.  This seems to be the crux of the matter.  Why do our youths join gangs or commit criminal behaviour?  Because there is a need to belong.  And if the family is not that source of belonging, then our kids will look elsewhere.  Of course it’s not as simple as that.

AUT social scientist Dr Camille Nakhid, who led the study, said many Pasifika parents had multiple jobs and worked long hours, so were not at home for their children.  Our parents are not negligent.  In no way are they intentionally trying to push their children away.  While parenting skills can be improved, if parents have to work long hours and more than one job to make ends meet, it doesn’t matter how much communication skill a parent can obtain, it’s useless if they aren’t there to communicate with them.

Mr Collins said many young gang members were concerned about their parents’ poverty.  “A lot of them said, ‘In the future I want to help my parents pay the bills, I want to buy them a house’.  So approaches to young people including ideas about how they want to serve their parents is an important opportunity.” 

This isn’t a lost cause.  Our youth know the struggles our parents are going through.  Our parents are also beginning to understand that tough love isn’t always the best way.  In a world that offers so many good things, there are also plenty of bad things that can attract our youth away.  We just need to find a balance within our families where our youth are valued and feel valued.  At the same time, our parents need to be appreciated more, and given some slack as they work to pay the bills.

Ultimately, the onus is on us as parents and adults to find that balance. Because as Judge Malosi says “Young people, by definition, make mistakes. Adults, by definition, need to mentor and support them through those mistakes.”

On 29 September 2009, shortly after 6am, an earthquake, measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale, hit with its epicentre 190 kilometres south of the Samoan capital of Apia.  A few minutes later a series of quake-triggered tsunami waves hit American Samoa, Samoa and the small northern island of Niuatoputapu in Tonga.  The tsunami waves are said to have been as high as 6 metres.  The death toll in Samoa is 137, with 310 people injured and six still missing.  About 3,200 people (640 families) have been left homeless in Samoa.

Even typing this is gut-wrenching.  When the news hit here in Niu Sila / New Zealand, I feared for the worst, and hoped the best.  The early reports were few and far between, keeping my hopes alive.  Early in the morning a work colleague, who had just come back from a holiday in Samoa a week earlier, came into my office and casually joked about the tsunami hitting a few huts, might kill some chickens and a few roaming pigs.  I know she meant it jest-fully, and I think I smiled and went along with it, because I was still hoping she was right, that it was just a few things. 

But fear began to grow, a large lump in my throat, my stomach turned, as news throughout the day progressed and the magnitude of the disaster only just became apparent.  All the news was about the Samoan Tsunami.  My work colleague came in later that day and expressed her sadness and asked if my family was affected.  As did many other work colleagues.  I lied to them all, and said my family in Samoa is safe.  But only minutes earlier, my mother had rung to say my cousins who had left for school in Samoa were still missing.  Why did I lie?  Because sometimes it’s easier to deal with a situation without worrying others.  Despite feeling a deep hole in my soul, of worry and hurt, the need to lie also helped me cope with the unknown.  Lying was also a form of keeping as much of normality intact despite your world crumbling around you. 

Throughout the week I would stare outside my office window, high up in this glass tower, in this concrete jungle, looking into the distance of the beautiful Waitemata Harbour, beyond the mighty Rangitoto island and into the horizon towards the great Pacific ocean, towards Samoa.

It was an emotional rollercoaster every time I answered a call from family for updates, or clicked the refresh button on news websites.  My heart was torn, ripped apart, and pulled in all directions.

At mass on the following Sunday they showed a video clip from Lalomanu hospital on the big screens in Malaeola.  The congregation gasped and became teary eyed as the images came on screen of bodies lying on the foyer floor covered in ie’s.  More images of the injured, the crying survivors.  Another shot was of bodies in the pick up truck also covered except for feet hanging over the side.  It was so hard to watch because it was so familiar.  The people, the faces, the tears.  Although we might not know them by name, they were our flesh and blood from the same land.  Those feet weren’t of strangers, but are the same feet we walk with every day.

There was an interview on TV3 the day after the tsunami hit.  A TV presenter for Campbell Live interviewed a lady from the Taufua family, who had lost 13 people to the tsunami.  The Samoan woman spoke calmly and responded to each question respectfully.  You could see she was a strong woman, and although fate had bore a great tragedy upon her, the need to be strong was greater than a full on showing of grief and emotion.  But towards the end of the interview the Samoan woman was asked if she had any comments to make after responding to each question.  It was here the eloquence and poetry of Samoan oratary was seen through her words.  Rather than giving a methodical answer to a question, the Samoan was given the opportunity to speak freely.  “There were sometimes where I wasn’t sure if my family should be facing forward or facing back” she said.  But it was a “test of our faith” that this had happened, and we must continue to look to the future.

A few days later, in another interview, a woman who had lost her children from the grips of her hand as the waves swept through her fale, was asked at the burial of her children if she was angry at God for taking her children away.  She responded, no, she thanked God for giving her the precious time she had with her children while here on earth.

This is a true testament to the Samoan character of perseverance, strength and faith.  While others may curse God, it was God, our comforter, God our strength, God our protector.  There is always a time for mourning, for allowing grief, but there must always be a time to live.

Samoans have another great coping mechanism, laughter.  One of the survivors of a village in the south coast, was an elderly man too old to evacuate fast enough.  Instead he took hold of a pole of the house and survived the surges that destroyed his village.  Along with the rest of his house, his ie lavalava also went out to sea, meaning the old man was found naked holding on to the pole.  His missing ie lavalava has become the running joke in the village.  We find it so easy to laugh at ourselves, even in times of need, not because we have no sensitivity, but because laughter is as much part of life as sadness and joyfulness.

The week did end with an encouraging story, though.  Despite the many losses, the win by David Tua brought back some of the good into our lives.  But David Tua’s story is again, another illustration of perseverance.  Despite many having written him off as a has been, his decisive KO over a younger, taller opponent showed the world that Samoans live for another day.  David Tua had lost an aunty in the tsunami but said to media he had to “stay strong for the living”.

And now that I think about it, the biggest reason as to why I lied to my work colleagues, is because it kept the life going.  Continuation of life is always at the back of your mind, and despite the tragedy, there’s always a tomorrow to live for.  It’s not about forgetting, but as the woman from the Taufua family said, we must continue to look forward.

God bless Samoa.

My youngish aunty’s favourite song is Brown Girl in the Ring by Boney M.  And it’s a catchy tune too.  I remember going on long rides through the country to the beach or to church camp, in my aunty’s old van, and she’d sing along with the song: ‘brown girl in the ring, tra-la-la-la-la-la’.  And eventually all us kids would be singing with her… that’s until our adolesence (the “too cool to sing along with aunty no more” age) and the advent of walkmans and ipods.

The song actually comes from a Jamaican childrens game, an anthology of Eastern Caribbean song games.  It is suggested that ring games are a children’s precursor to adult courtship. Although my aunty didn’t know the origins of the song, (and probably the meaning of the words) she sang it with so much passion and vigour always pointing to herself or the other girl cousins in the van: “brown girl… yes that’s you, yes that’s me!”  And I guess back then there weren’t too many songs with “brown girl” in them.

I was reading the SPASIFIKS online magazine, and I wondered over to their new “girls” section.  There was an interesting blog on there about tips for an islander girl on how to introduce their islander boyfriend to the girl’s parents.  It was a good read, but I was interested in the authors assumption that most island parents want their kids to marry Palagi’s, because of their perceived wealth and status.

My experience has been the exact opposite.  My parents wanted us to marry Samoans.  My mother told us boys there are plenty of “good Samoan Christian girls out there”.  She would always use her family as examples: “Va’ai ia uncle Joe, ua leva ga gogofo ma le fafige palagi, ae e le kaikai fiafia.  Aisea?  E eseese le maga’o a le fafine palagi ma le maga’o a uncle Joe”.  I wasn’t entirely convinced of the connection between uncle Joe’s unhappiness and the “palagi fafine”, coz there were plenty of family members in relationships with other Samoans who were just as unhappy.

But I could kind of see where my parents were coming from.  A Samoan partner would most likely have a better understanding of the faalavelave / family obligations.  A Samoan partner would most likely have empathy when there is a family death and the public out-pouring of emotions.  A Samoan partner would most likely know that a birthday celebration is never limited to siblings, but first cousins and second cousins.  A Samoan partner would most likely open the family home to every cousin Sione and Sina visiting from overseas.  A Samoan partner would most likely acknowledge that you’re never too old to look after your elderly parents.

I think it was a bit of brain-washing because I have married a beautiful Samoan Christian woman, everything I’ve dreamed of - or was that everything I’ve been conditioned to dream of?  But hey, who said there’s anything wrong with being brain-washed by your parents?  hehe.  Here’s a bit of my brain-washing in action:

For my friends that know me, they know that I ‘dislike’ it when I see brown guys with palagi girls.  Let me qualify that.  Unless they are in love, it is most likely that the brown guy is with the palagi girl for the looks.  How do I come to such an assumption?  Because I’m a brown guy.  I’m privy to all the machoism blokey talk between the “boyz”.  I know the conversations us brown guys have.  I used to be a faithful follower too… that white was right.  You were “da Man!” if you hooked up with a palagi girl.  Dating a brown girl was seen as dating your sister!  Blue eyed blonds was what we were told was ‘beautiful’.  Then there’s the whole “run away from my culture” argument.  I know guys wanted to marry a palagi so they didn’t need to contribute to family faalavelave’s.

So I’m not basing it on prejudicial assumptions, but on my own experiences as a brown male.

There’s no doubt that many brown guys are genuinely in-love with their palagi partners.  But there are a whole lot of us (not all) who start these relationships with palagi’s, not looking for love, but because of the status, the escape from culture, the idea that beauty equates to palagi.

I know, I know, it’s very discriminatory, but so too are the starting assumptions many of us brown guys begin with when deciding to date a palagi or a Samoan:  that brown isn’t good enough, that it’s less hassle if you go out with a palagi, that dating a Samoan girl means your dating the whole family, that thick dark hair, brown skin, big lips and wide noses are not ‘attractive’ (even though we wake up to it every morning in the mirror).  Those are all discriminatory starting assumptions too.

If Samoan guys truly approach dating woman not based on how “palagi” they are, then I will be willing to drop my assumptions.

My wife has a beautiful Samoan smile, with her perfect Polynesian teeth, her long wavy black hair, her bronzed skin tone, voluptuous lips and perfect nose.  Brown IS beautiful.  But the best thing about her is that she loves me for who I am and I love her for who she is.  Put simply, she loves me and I love her.

She’s my brown girl in the ring!

It has been reported extensively that the previous Labour Government failed to mobilise it’s support base in it’s traditional stomping grounds such as Aukilani Sisifo / West Auckland and Aukilani Saute / South Auckland in the last elections.  Many people just didn’t turn up on voting day, as they had done in the last election, thereby reducing Labour’s chance of staying in power.

There are a whole heap of reasons why Labour supporters either changed votes or didn’t vote at all.  But one of the main reason Pacific Island / Samoan Labour voters were turned off in the last election was what became known as the “Anti-smacking bill”.

This was a law put forward by Greens MP Sue Bradford, and which the Labour Government supported, repealing section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961.  Previously, many adults who had seriously assaulted children and young people and were appropriately charged by the Police, had used the section 59 relating to ‘reasonable force’ as a defence when they went to trial and were acquitted in court for crimes that, if perpetrated against an adult or an animal, would have resulted in a conviction.

When the bill was first proposed the battle lines were quickly drawn.  The religious right were up in arms about the Christian value of a parent being able to discipline their children, and shouldn’t involve the State.  Where as the liberals countered saying children need to be protected by the law from abuse as an adult would, and that too many child abusers were using the defence to get off the charge.

As devout Christians, many Samoans agreed with the religious right.  No law was going to stop a parent from disciplining their child.  As comedian Russell Peters puts it, “my father would say: If I get rid of one, I’ll just make another one… and I’ll tell the new one what an idiot the last one was!”

We all remember getting a good ol fashioned beating.  And many of us would agree that at the time it hurt like hell, and there were times where we wanted to and probably tried to run away from the inevitable.  But I’m sure we would also all agree that it was necessary, it was part of growing up and learning lessons.  We probably feel we are better people because of those hidings.  And in many ways, we would exact some sort of version of those same disciplinary actions on our own kids.

I often wonder what the effectiveness of “time out corners” are.  They always seem like empty threats.  The real threats were the ones where you knew your parents were capable of carrying it out.  As a kid half the time I was scared not of the actual hit, but the threat of the hit.  “Ia e faatalitali se’i o’o i le fale, ona vaaiai loa oe…” (You wait until we get home, then you better watch out).  That usually ended with “le fusi pa’u” (belt) or “le salu” (hand broom) or “se’evae” (jandal).

I’ve been in situations where my non-Samoan friends have full on shouting matches with their parents.  Not only was it rude to do it infront of me, but it showed these kids knew they could get away with it.  Words weren’t going to stop them.  As for my house, words AND actions definitely stopped us kids from doing bad things.

But the other side do have a point.  Our community is plagued with issues of child abuse.  Of course, our definition of child abuse probably differs from the definition of mainstream palagis, but even we have to draw a line in the sand somewhere.

My uncle is a well known Kamuta / Carpenter in Samoa.  About a decade ago the family flew him over to renovate our great uncle’s house.  Using the young men in the family he created his little team of tradesmen and did a great job at it.  He always had time to teach us younger guys little tips and skills in building.  I was always fond of those times, going over to help, muck around trying to build something with spare wood, climbing on the roof and then back down.

But there was one incident which has stuck in my mind.  My uncle’s daughter had a bit of a cheek, and one day when it got out of hand, my uncle gave her a hiding for being tautalaitiiti / a smart arse to an older cousin.  There weren’t any adults around, from what I could remember, but us younger ones either stood there staring in shock, or quietly tried to continue on as if nothing had happened.  This wasn’t a light smack, or even a hard smack.  It wasn’t the usual fusipa’u beating that me and my siblings were used to, it was a two-by-four plank of wood!  I don’t know if something was up with my uncle that day, or if he is normally that way, but he beat her bad: bleeding and till she was black and blue.

I don’t know if our parents sometimes come home stressed from work, daily pressures etc, and unfortunately take it out on the family.  But that crosses the line from discipline into anger management issues.

In any event, the law was passed making it an offence to physically abuse a child, unless the contact is inconsequential (or some fancy legal term like that).  However, Niu Sila / New Zealand will be voting on a non-binding referendum on whether people support the change in law or not.  Without going into the debates over direct democracy, the wording of referenda and the non-binding nature of it all, this appears to be a waste of time (albeit a valued democratic process).

Since the passing of the law, there has only been one person convicted, and not the hoards of honest law-abiding parents the religious right said would be caught.  Furthermore, the issue has died down.  People have moved on.  A certain balance has been found, where child abusers will be punished, and parents can continue disciplining their kids ‘inconsequentially’.

It must be said that Sue Bradford isn’t only about liberalising laws, but she advocated for public education on the issues.  Parent’s need to be helped into recognising when discipline turns into child abuse.  To the previous Government’s credit, it ran a successful anti-family violence campaign: “It’s not ok”.

My parent’s gave us the beats, but also loved us and cared for us.  Discipline was not done in anger but with a purpose to make us into better people.  I’d like to think I discipline my kids now and then, but that is balanced with love and affection, knowing when I am angry, or actually giving out proper punishment. 

Most Pacific / Samoan families are like this.  But like Sue Bradford and Co have said, there are those that aren’t.  Those people should no longer hide behind the law.  At the same time we need to change out attitudes and culture towards child rearing.

Therefore, it’s no good just changing laws and hope people will change, but there needs to be support services, educational material, advertising campaigns: all things needed to change society’s culture.

I’m all for disciplining our kids.  But there’s got to be a point where “It’s not ok”.  There’s got to be a line in the sand.  Sometimes we have to lay down the smack, and not lay the smack down.

I was meant to post this up a few days ago… opps.

I’ve been following the blog pages of a few American Peace Corps serving back home in Samoa.  One of my favourite blogs is by Matt (http://diplomatt.blogspot.com/).  As it turns out the last couple of weeks he was on holiday in cold wintry Niu Sila / New Zealand.  I commented on his page how it was weird following a person’s travels on a blog especially when the blogger is in the same city as me.  Seeing pictures of landmarks in Aukilani / Auckland I had just been at days before, or drive past every day, gave the internet and blogging a sense of physical reality.  It wasn’t just some random dude back in Samoa, but it could be the next Palagi guy I walk past down Queen Street.

I also commented on Matt’s page that if he wanted to, he should come to Aukilani Saute / South Auckland to watch the Samoan Independence day celebrations at Malaeola.  Reality got even more weird when I read his post on Aso Lua / Tuesday about him taking up my offer and he actually went to the celebrations.  The poor dude had to catch the infrequent bus service (owing to it being a national holiday in Niu Sila but for a totally different reason: Queens Birthday) all the way across town to Magele / Mangere, and he said he spent an hour walking around Magele looking for Malaeola.  Opps, should’ve given him better directions, in fact I should’ve offered the poor guy a ride there at least.

But as it turned out, I didn’t even make it to Malaeola in the end. 

Here I was encouraging an American Palagi guy in a foreign country to travel across the city to witness my homeland’s independence day celebrations, yet I didn’t even go myself!

Yip, really felt guilty that day.  But I can explain myself.  As always we had faalavelave’s that weekend.  A funeral, a wedding and my uncles 50th, take my grandma to church.  Seriously, during the weekends my family all of a sudden place an invisible sign on my car reading “TAXI”… but the thing with my taxi is apparently it’s free fares!  On top of that are my own errands and events I need to run or want to attend.  One of my mates daughters 1st birthday, drop off the dvd’s I borrowed from a friend 6 months ago, buy light bulbs, buy deodorant… you know the important things.  So yeah, an empty gas tank by the end of the weekend. 

It seems like you’re so busy during the week that you try to shove it all in to the weekends, to the point where you get to Monday and think: have I even had any rest yet?  At the risk of sounding like I’m trying to make an excuse for not going to independence day celebrations, and feel less guilty for making Matt go, I do feel like I lose a certain amount of independence in the weekends.  During the week family (and friends) know I’m busy with work so don’t try and bother me, but when it comes to the weekends apparently I’m “on-call” and available to do my family feau / chores, running errands etc.  Which is mostly true, I am available… just not 24 hours in the day hah!

That said, I was very impressed with Matt’s navigational skills.  In contrast to me, his independence and courage in a foreign land to get from A to B is very admirable.  I’m not sure if he’s backpacked previously, but I guess living in Samoa for over 6 months forces a person from overseas out of their comfort zone, acquiring skills and an independent mind set.

So malo Matt!  Hope you enjoyed the celebrations.

And shame on me!  Maybe next year?

One of my favourite comedians is Russell Peters.  Despite the name, he is a Canadian of Indian descent.  Apart from his skillful and hilarious impersonations of Indians, Chinese, Jamaicans, Canadians, Americans, South Africans (etc), the funniest part is his re-telling of the time when as a kid he took advice from a Palagi friend, Ryan, on how to deal with his parents.  The gist of the joke is that Palagi’s have a different relationship between the kids and parents, compared to nearly every other ethnic/immigrant family.  Palagi kids are sent to their room or the time out corner, while everyone else’s kids are given a good old fashion beating. 

Of course it was a generalisation for the purposes of comedy, but my whole family cracked up when watching the Russell Peters show not only coz we could relate to a Canadian Indian guy from the other side of the world, but because it’s all true… it happened to us!

I remember as a kid, everyday after school me and my brothers and sisters would play with the kids of the neighbourhood: the Palagi kids nextdoor, a Palagi grunge-like girl from the house behind us, the Cambodian brother and sister from down the road, a Cook Island boy from further down, and the Niuean boy from across the street.  We would play anything and everything, from rugby, to cops and robbers, to games on the trampoline.  We had so much fun as kids that we would do stupid things like when playing rugby (or whatever else) on the front lawn, every time a bus drove past we would stop and freeze and do funny poses.  I’m sure the bus passengers thought there was something wrong with us all.

Of course, as with most games, someone usually gets hurt and goes home crying.  Me and my brothers (and the Niuean and Cook Island boys) unintentionally always found ourselves on one side of an argument, with the little scrawny Palagi’s on the other.  The Cambodians were always the sensible ones trying to act as peacemakers.  But more often than not, one of the Palagi kids would end up going home crying.  That subsequently was followed by my mum giving us a slap around the ears and telling us to “ka’alo faalelei” (play properly).  There were plenty of times she would make all of us, including the Niuean, Cook Islander and Cambodians, to go over and apologise to the Palagi kid.

Other than enjoying reliving my trip down memory lane, I noticed something that the Palagi kids said that us islander (and saiga / Asian) kids never did:  call your parents by their first names!

Coz sure enough, after every little argument between us kids in the neighbourhood, the very next day we would all be playing together again.  But the Palagi kid would always start off saying “Penny said you’re not allowed to tackle me so hard” or “Roger said you have to talk to me nicely”.  Penny?  Roger?  Who?

It was like they were talking about a family friend, or their older cousin… definitely didn’t occur to us at first that they were referring to their parents.  After a while we got used to it, but then it was totally weird when we heard them talk to their parents using their first names: “Penny, are we allowed to go to the shop?”  Maybe it wasn’t so much the use of the first names, but what really surprised us, was the tone the Palagi kids would talk to their parents, making the use of the first name even odder.  For example it wasn’t unheard of to listen to our Palagi friends demand things from or talk back to their parents.  “I am  hungry now!  I want some ice cream now Penny!”  “I hate you Roger, you never let me go to the park!”

If any of us kids tried pulling that off with my folks, we would be strung from the ceiling.  But adding our parents first names to such an encounter would have doomed us to hell and back! (Of course there is an argument about over-disciplining leading to child abuse - but I’ll leave that for another blog.)  And I do remember a few times where we picked up some of the courage our Palagi nextdoor neighbours had, and tried to talk back to my own parents.  Of course every time it would backfire.  Russell Peters joked about how his father responded to his attempt at talking back, his father said “Do I look like Ryan’s mum?”  I definitely know my parents never met Russell’s parents, but they’ve said the same things: “Do I look like Stuart’s mum?”  “Faapea oe, o kakou gi Palagi?” (You think we are like the Palagi family nextdoor?).

It must be a universal similarity or contrast between Palagi families and ethnic/immigrant families, or just a big fat coincidence!  Even on the calling-by-first-name front it seems to be prominent amongst Palagi’s.  I’ve even been reading a few Americans Peace Corps in Samoa blogs, where they too refer to their parents by their first names:

http://diplomatt.blogspot.com/ or http://seereeves.blogspot.com/

It always catches me by surprise when some Palagi’s refer to their parents by their first names.  Samoan families are not only opposite, they’re the extreme opposite.  Coz not only do we call our parents tina or tama (mum or dad), we call our grandparents tina and tama, even our aunties and uncles, and those who have raised us.  Calling those close to us in endearing terms is a sharp contrast to friends who call the same group of people by their first names.

I’ve course that was a long time ago, but heaven forbid the day my kids talk back to me… and use my first name!

This week newspapers reported that one of Aukilani / Auckland’s worst taggers is the son of millionaire former Fonterra company boss Craig Norgate.  Dylan Norgate, 19, was behind the notorious SPEKT tag which has been daubed across buildings in East Auckland, including Mission Bay, where his parents live in a house valued at $7 million.

Gaye Harford, president of the Mission Bay-Kohimarama Residents Association, said she surprised to hear Norgate was behind the SPEKT tag. “But nothing shocks me these days.  I guess it doesn’t matter with these young ones who their parents are; if they’ve got a bent for that sort of thing, upbringing may not even play a part.”  Dylan Norgate is an old boy of exclusive King’s College, the most expensive private high school in the country.  The reports have said he has been posted bail and can continue living in Kalaisetete / Christchurch City where he is studying at Uni.  Hmmm… a second chance for this rich guy huh?

Meanwhile on the other side of town, my aunty and uncle are deacons at a big Samoan lotu patipati / evangelical church, and have the utmost respect from the congregation and community.  They’ve worked very hard since coming to Niu Sila / New Zealand, providing for their four children.  The eldest son is a qualified electrician, and their daughter is in her final year at law school, with the youngest son in his last year at high school with the intention of getting into engineering school.  Yet, with the same upbringing, given the same opportunities, having the same values and beliefs instilled in them all, the third oldest has recently been sentenced to imprisonment.

If you met the third oldest, he aint no thug or a wannabe hardcore gangster, infact he’s just like his other siblings in mannerism and character.  He goes to church every Sunday, plays in our village kilikiti (Samoan cricket) team, and is at all our faalavelaves.

Apparently in the middle of last year, my cousin ended up hanging out with the wrong crowd.  This crowd weren’t harden criminals, but were known to deface public property with their tags.  One day, for some stupid reason, they decided to rob a taxi driver of all his money.  These idiots did the deed, leaving the driver heavily injured and thought they had gotten away with it.  And they did get away with it, for the next few months at least. 

Towards the end of last year, my cousin had some sense knocked into him, and he had left that crowd.  My cousin hadn’t told anyone about the incident with the taxi driver, but with this second chance to get back on track, given to him by his parent’s, my cousin made serious changes.  He enrolled into a foundation course at the local Polytechnic, he re-joined the church band, he even volunteered at the youth library down the road.

But one day he was in a car full of our other cousins, and while driving down the motorway he suggested they pull over to assist a broken down vehicle.  As it turned out, one of the passengers in that broken down vehicle was the taxi driver my cousin and his former-friends had robbed.  The taxi driver recognised my cousin, and informed the police… and the rest is history.

So in his act of being the friendly Samaritan, my cousin was recognised for his past mis-deeds.  Now the point of regret in this story line isn’t “he shouldn’t have stopped for the broken down car”.  No, the point of regret was much earlier.  Had he not joined that group of friends, had he just walked away from that crowd when he could have, had he just thought about the consequences, he would not be facing prison time.  In my opinion, my cousin isn’t a bad guy, he isn’t a fulltime or part time criminal, he actually has a good heart.  He made a bad decision by getting in with the wrong crowd, and not saying no when he could have.

This is not an excuse for his actions but it does point out the value in taking every decision one makes seriously.  It’s easy to get into a group of friends who appear to be having heaps of fun, but it’s not so easy pleading to a Judge for leniency.  No second chances this time…

We need to intervene with our younger family members before they get to a stage where it’s too late.  Because I’m a firm believer, in that many of our kids out there getting into trouble are good island boys that come from good island families, raised with good island values.  But for some reason when they are away from family, and amongst less desirable friends, they seem to be enthralled with the prospect of doing something “bad” without thinking about the consequences.

They are mostly stories about being at the wrong place at the wrong time, making the wrong decisions and hanging with the wrong crowd.

We all have cousins like mine.  Essentially they are good kids who like their siblings have the potential and opportunity to be a lawyer or an engineer, but could easily be veered away if put in with the wrong crowd.  We have to give a damn, because the world doesn’t; society is all too happy to lock them away and throw away the keys.  While rich kids may have an easier way out, that’s all the more reason for us to ensure our kids never have a reason to face a day in court.

We need to keep a hold of these vulnerable ones (and slap them over the head if need be!), coz once it’s out of our hands, and in the hands of the police and the Courts… no second chances.