How good is your reading? Wellington mayor Celia Wade-Brown has suggested that City Council members shake out the cobwebs and prepare for a new regime by learning a language, or taking up ballroom dancing. Underlying the mayor’s subtle reminder is a message about the level of aptitude the Wellington public has a right to expect of its decision-makers. In particular, their comprehension skills. This was a genuinely clever move, producing a predictable and shrewdly calculated reaction.

Learning a language is about learning how to communicate effectively with those who think and express themselves differently. Essential for anyone trying to do deals internationally. Learning to dance is about mutual trust in a dynamic environment, about moving in step, and managing partnerships with elegance and grace. It is also about cooperation, strutting your stuff with confidence, and hugs.

A few Council members have been quick to go public, leak the email to the media, and distance themselves from the message. Without realising it, these mostly hoary veterans of the political scene have inadvertently identified themselves as lacking in social graces and conversational skills. The question now is, are the skill sets they prefer what are needed in local government today?

A similar controversy has erupted over a recent op-ed piece by Hone Harawira in the national press, in which he says the Maori Party needs to think seriously about its alliance with National. Instead of responding civilly to a lucid, temperately expressed, and perfectly legitimate point of view publicly aired in a clearly marked opinion forum, his colleagues in the Maori Party are threatening the MP with a range of sanctions, including expulsion, for the mortal sin of having a viewpoint and speaking his mind.

What is wrong with these people? Debate is the lifeblood of a healthy society, and informed and open discussion a natural and desirable consequence of learning to read and write. We should not be surprised if those political figures who enjoy the trappings of authority but lack essential comprehension skills are predictably the first to respond with alarm to new ideas of any kind, however mild and uncontroversial.

Learning a new language could be key to a much-needed plan to revitalize Wellington culture. Imagine a rolling programme of annual festivals in the Capital, to begin with say an Italian Festival for the Island Bay community, followed in future years by Chinese, Jewish, and Indian Festivals representing different original settlements in the city. What better way of celebrating its historic cultural resources than a cycle of week-long immersion events celebrating Wellington’s vital ethnic mix with art, music, fashion, film, dance, and drama, all presented in the original language. How difficult is that? How little would it cost? Why should the pedestrian underpass at Wellington railway station be the only place where the public can hear Chinese classical music performed live on authentic instruments?

And what could be more fun than an annual Masked Ball, timed to coincide with the Wearable Arts Festival, preceded by a symphony orchestra concert, continuing on into the wee small hours, with dancing in Civic Square, and prizes for the best outfit and dancers.

Looking beyond the cut and thrust of factional debate over the projected expense and architectural merit of a matching pair of lobster-shaped public privies, Wellington’s new mayor is signalling in the clearest possible terms that in her view civic culture is about doing stuff, not words.

She is right. Wellington culture should be about more than posting text messages from dead literary figures on public walkways. Perhaps, heaven help us, we may even hope for stronger Council determination in the campaign to save Island Bay’s Erskine College from further ruin and depredation, and backing for its permanent rehabilitation as a hive of classical music training for the entire region.

ENDS

© Scoop Media