Apparently. The NZ Herald reports;
"New Zealand's lofty position in the Global Peace Index (GPI) partly reflects its lack of internal and external conflicts and its very good relations with neighbouring countries, namely Australia and fellow member states of the Pacific Island Forum," the GPI reports says.
It said the nation's political scene was stable and the index gave New Zealand very low scores on the likelihood of violent demonstrations and the number of homicides.
In this context "low" is a good. But here are the 2000 homicide rates (per 100,000 population);
50.14 South Africa
21.40 Russia (1999)
10.00 Lithuania
_9.94 Estonia
_6.22 Latvia
_5.64 U.S.A.
_2.94 Spain
_2.86 Finland
_2.84 Northern Ireland
_2.72 Czech Republic
_2.65 Slovakia
_2.58 New Zealand
_2.50 Romania
_2.31 Turkey (1999)
_2.23 Poland
_2.11 Scotland
_2.04 Hungary
_1.97 Sweden
_1.81 Australia
_1.79 France
_1.76 Canada
_1.61 England & Wales
_1.54 Belgium
_1.50 Greece
_1.48 Ireland (Eire)
_1.42 Netherlands
_1.42 Italy
_1.41 Slovenia
_1.24 Portugal
_1.17 Germany
_1.10 Japan
_1.09 Norway
_1.09 Denmark
_1.06 Malta
_1.01 Austria
_0.96 Switzerland
_0.60 Cyprus
_0.23 Luxembourg
NZ ranked 12th out of 38. The most recent figure available is 2.4 - only slightly better. Have the GPI mixed up 'high' and 'low'? One wonders.
"Our principled stance contributes to New Zealand's reputation as a world leader in peace and security" Miss Clark said.
Isn't it interesting that when UNICEF says NZ has a very high rate of child death from maltreatment at 1.2 per 100,000 there is a political storm and every man and his dog, including the PM, has a theory about a solution (most notably removing section 59) but now the PM is basking in this good news, happy to overlook that NZ's homicide rate is actually relatively high. In fact if you took the same countries as UNICEF used in the famous table that had NZ third highest for child deaths, our homicide rate would be 6th highest out of 25.
Today Ms Clark has us down as a world leader in peace and security yet for the past few weeks she has been hammering on about New Zealand's appalling record of violence towards children. Draw your own conclusions.
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4 comments:
South Africa being highest is no surprise. However I wonder how "homicides" are defined - must exclude deaths from civil wars, internal strife, and sectarian violence, as there are no muslim states mentioned. Where would Lebanon, Chechnya, Sudan and the Gaza Strip feature otherwise??
"Maori Party Co-leader, Tariana Turia, today welcomed the news that Aotearoa has been ranked the second most peaceful nation in the World on the Global Peace Index, as a much needed piece of good news."
Is this for real? Where planet does Mrs Turia live on? Just incredible!
Manolo, I saw that. Hear no evil, speak no evil. When it suits...
"every man and his dog, including the PM"
Unintentional, but I love it.
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