Not PC has a post about how to cure what is going on in South Auckland (and many other areas of low decile suburban NZ). Most of it I can agree with but not this;
Perhaps most important of all is this, which is much, much harder: work towards the abandonment of the 'church-on-Sundays' thinking that infests South Auckland more than any other part of the country -- which imparts a superstitious hope that someone else will come along and can solve all one's problems...
In my experience the church-goers are not committing crime - except when they reject the church and go back to drug and alcohol abuse. In my experience the church-goers are not fond of welfare. I related some time back the story of the church-goers who came and worked on our property throughout what remained of their Sunday in order to raise money for a rehab unit in their community. They weren't holding their hands out to government and they weren't sitting on their bums.
In fact the party I would most strongly associate with South Auckland "churchies" is one of the few parties prepared to look dispassionately at welfare.
The Family Party is extremely concerned at a prevailing attitude amongst young girls who view the Domestic Purposes Benefit as a valid career choice; not understanding the detrimental affects such a lifestyle has on their children.
If Not PC wants his next suggestion to ever gain traction he might find more support from South Auckland churchgoers than most other groups.
Stop paying no-hopers to breed. We are forced by government to pay people to have children they don't want. The result of all those unwanted children appears on the front page of our newspapers nearly every day.
I am an atheist but I am also tolerant of people with religious faith. It is their business and to presume their faith somehow turns them into potentially dangerous, psychologically-malleable dependants is somewhat far-fetched.
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But that's not what I'm suggesting, Lindsay.
I'm not suggesting that church-goers are going out wholesale and committing crime -- although some are.
South Auckland is perhaps the only place in which church membership is expanding -- it's certainly true that in parts of South Auckland there's almost a church on every corner, and in Mangere the huge churches are the only growth industry at all.
Even the Muliagas were apparently paying their tithe to their church, much good it did them.
What I'm suggesting, perhaps imperfectly, is that the only 'morality' most South Aucklanders see is the one that comes from the church, whether they attend or not, and what it's teaching is that salvation will always come from somewhere else, or someone else.
Bit like welfarism, really. The 'church on Sundays' mentality dispenses with the mysticism, and keeps the message of 'otherism' -- that solutions are outside oneself.
It's a message that resonates well with the message of government welfare, which also strips away the connection between action and consequence -- removing any ethic of self-responsibility -- and which also suggests that help will always come from someone else. Someone godlike.
Remember, for example, how as their mother died, instead of heading over the fence to use a phone, or using one of the mobile phones on which they were playing games to call an ambulance, the Muliagas sat and sang 'What a Friend We Have in Jesus'? Much good it did her.
Did you contemplate how on earth a whole family could be that braindead?
The point is that this 'church on Sundays' mentality drives home the point that actions don't have consequences -- that self-responsibility is pointless -- that help will always come from someone else (how, if you don't even use the phone? somehow is the answer, ie., blank out) -- and hence that someone else is always to blame when that promised salvation doesn't arrive.
If actions don't have consequences and someone else is always to blame -- and you're angry at how shitty your life is as a consequence -- then why not lash out?
For a certain kind of small, stunted South Auckland mentality, God and Government are equally present -- there are nearly as many pastors in South Aucklland as there are social workers -- and yet equally distant, since neither seem to lift the losers out of the 'lottery of life' they think has made them losers. Neither have delivered. And if God or Government haven't delivered as promised, there's a feeling the whole world is to blame.
And the world has to pay for that.
BTW, if the party you would most strongly associate with South Auckland "churchies" is one of the few parties prepared to look dispassionately at welfare, then good on them.
But the solution is not really party political.
Sorry to take over your comments, Lindsay, but I said it better than I thought in this first post in my short series on South Auckland in 2005:
"Let's look at the landscape [of South Auckland]: This remember is the place that delivered the Labour faithful -- those doyens of nannying --- their slim victory on election night; a place in which individuals look largely to churches, the envoys of Nanny Government and an unlikely Lotto victory to deliver them from evil and lead them into the promised land. It hasn't worked for them.
"The churches have delivered large buildings, rich pastors, and young church-goers that are charged with attempted murder; Nanny Government has delivered social workers, welfare, full jails, and factory schools that discourage learning in favour of fitting in; and Lotto has given nothing but the hope of some sort of escape that can be delivered without effort. One thing this culture never encourages is to look to oneself to solve the problems; solutions there are always provided by others. It just doesn't work."
Either way, I both liked what you said.
And blogged about it earlier today.
www.nominister.blogspot.com
I have been to several different churches of varying denominations, and none of them preach against personal responsibility or that action don't bring consequences. The general theme is "God help he who helps himself" Christians encourage people to make the best from their lives, and don't encourage laziness or crime.
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