Small Country, Big Footprint
By Mowahid Hussain Shah
The World Test Championship Final pitting New Zealand, a nation of 5.1 million, versus India, a nation of 1.3 billion, is a symbolic coming of age of this remote South Pacific nation.
When I was in New Zealand in 1985, I was struck how it, under Prime Minister David Lange, had barred the USS Buchanan, a nuclear-capable ship, in February 1985, from docking at New Zealand ports, followed up by legislation in 1987 that declared New Zealand a nuclear-free zone and banned all nuclear-capable ships from entering the country’s territorial waters. New Zealand’s anti-nuke posture caused a considerable firestorm in Washington, ironically, at a time when Pakistan was being pressured on its nuclear program.
When New Zealand was a member of the UN Security Council, it refused to back down from supporting a UN Security Council resolution it had co-sponsored; the resolution passed 14-0, with the US abstaining, on December 23, 2015, demanding an end to Israeli settlements in occupied territories.
There were noticeably disarming features in Kiwi culture – the lack of tipping, a social welfare component of the state, a slower lifestyle, and bucolic beauty of its landscape. There was an aura of tranquility amidst natural splendor.
In a real sense, New Zealand garnered global attention because of the massacre at two mosques in Christchurch on March 15, 2019. There, its Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, displayed a leadership master class in rising to the occasion. Her empathy turned the tables and won the hearts of the aggrieved. Unlike America, where shooters get notoriety through the media – relegating victims to secondary facelessness – Jacinda refused to take the name of the Australian perpetrator who, in turn, had been incited by online hate emanating from the Western Hemisphere. She then followed up by calling for stringent gun controls and, on April 10, 2019, the New Zealand Parliament banned most semi-automatic and assault weapons. In contrast, the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre saw an Australian politician, Fraser Anning, gloating over the tragedy and blaming the victims. He, in turn, was egged one day later by an Aussie teenager at a press conference on live TV.
From America’s declaration of independence from Britain in 1776 to Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of emancipation on January 1, 1863, to June 17, 2021, it took 245 years to have Juneteenth (June 19) marked as an anti-slavery federal holiday.
For the first time ever in US history, a native American, Deb Haaland, on March 15, 2021, was confirmed to lead a Cabinet agency. New Zealand has its own indigenous Maori population. It took the dramatic inclusive step of elevating a Maori female, Nanaia Mahuta, to foreign minister on November 2, 2020. Her predecessor as foreign minister, Winston Peters, is also of Maori heritage. Incidentally, the first biographer of the Quaid, Hector Bolitho, who wrote “Jinnah, Creator of Pakistan” in 1954, was a New Zealander.
Australia – across the Tasman Sea – is a huge continent nation, albeit with a smaller heart and has been Washington’s doormat. Inhumane has been its stance towards refugees seeking sanctuary. In an interview given to BBC on June 18, Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, remarked on the dismal treatment of refugees: “All of this is not only morally reprehensible, frankly, abysmally reprehensible on the part of rich and privileged countries."
Counter-intuitively, gargantuan size and resources are sometimes indicative of miserly action. The Covid crisis unveiled the scale of misgovernance and incompetence in India.
Behind New Zealand’s cricketing success is its ably managed cricket board.
The budget of NZ cricket is less than that of Surrey County Cricket Club. They have shown good sense of what they have, what they need to do, and which direction to go. New Zealand has learned to do much with less.
