Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was.
I’ve been re-watching Girls lately, the HBO classic that perfectly captures millennial women in the most painful way. I highly recommend it especially if you haven’t watched it before. Every character on the show is deeply flawed and frustrating in their own unique ways, but one of my favourites is Ray, the grouchy complainer who reminds me of a young Larry David. Near the end of the series he ironically yells at the drivers honking outside of his apartment: “This incessant sound is doing irreparable damage. This incessant sound is prompting my norepinephrine production.” He’s referring to the neuro-transmitter that enables fight or flight, and he’s not wrong. Incessant noise can drive a person insane.
That show came out over a decade ago but the issue of noise pollution is as pressing as ever. In New Zealand, I mostly find the noise of my neighbourhood comforting. The lawn mowers, the drills, the buses accelerating away from the bus stop outside our apartment every seven minutes. It’s comforting because it’s a consistent and reliable reminder that I live among many others.
I find it so comforting that when I visit my rural dwelling parents, the silence (and darkness) at night can be alarming. It’s a shock to the system to remember that almost all the noise we hear in the city is manufactured and directly the result of human activity. Couple that with the incessant roar of, well, the entire human population speaking at once and at all times on the internet, and suddenly the noise is overwhelming.
So it is increasingly rare for thousands of people to agree to silence, even for a moment, as happens every Anzac Day to honour the troops who have served our country. The silence is always meaningful and heavy.
But this year, that silence had an alarm ringing with it, after a call for a boycott of the ceremonial aspects of Anzac Day. The reason? Some veterans feel that the gestures and the speeches are prioritised over actually supporting the veterans around our country today.
As Liam Rātana has reported, the call for a boycott came soon after the Waitangi Tribunal hearings in which the tribunal heard of the inequities in support for Māori veterans and the restrictive nature of veteran support, particularly for those who have recently served.
Sometimes even silence can prompt norepinephrine production.
This week on Behind the Story
The unreported reality for NZ veterans
Ātea editor Liam Rātana has reported two stories recently on the same topic, a topic that is so often ignored by both media and everyday New Zealanders: veterans. Our returned or retired army personnel are at the sticky end of almost every social measure: unemployment, mental health, suicide. But without even a national register of how many veterans we have, it’s even harder to tell the stories of a community that hasn’t been quantified yet. Madeleine Chapman talks to Liam this week on Behind the Story about his coverage of the recent Waitangi Tribunal hearings into the treatment of Māori veterans and a veteran group’s call to boycott the formal ceremonies of Anzac day.
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