I watch documentary film to look at something real—and preferably shocking—without having to leave my own city. Every film is constructed by an artist, but when they’re constructed from footage of real people being themselves, we expect not to be lied to. The ‘Framing Reality’ section of this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival indicates that its documentaries take something from our world and frame it for easier consumption—but the centrepiece film, We Live in Public, breaks down this distinction between real and acted footage.

Director Ondi Timoner (Dig!), almost certainly the most interesting documentary maker of this decade, appears on screen for the first time, and turned up in person to discuss her film with us: We Live in Public follows internet pioneer Josh Harris, particularly during his December 1999 project Quiet. Quiet collected dozens of people who volunteered to be imprisoned in a New York basement for a month, surrounded by cameras and monitors upon which they could watch each other talking, eating, defecating, firing guns and rutting—there was no hiding from the camera, and Harris was delighted that people would subject themselves to surveillance and manipulation, apparently out of some desire to be seen; by the time police shut down the project, he found that constant electronic connection actually alienated the participants from one another. What Harris created has subsequently fed into Big Brother and Facebook status updates. The people on Quiet or on Facebook are real, but their real behaviour is modified by the knowledge that they’re being watched.

In another ‘Framing Reality’ doco, Examined Life, philosophers Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor walked on camera while talking about what it means to walk (Taylor is in a wheelchair). So one way of overcoming the problem “how manipulated is the reality of this footage by the fact that the subjects know they are on film?” is to acknowledge and discuss this very fact. But documentaries also have to grip and entertain us: We Live in Public would not have been so effective if Timoner hadn’t held back certain facts (Harris’ escape to Africa) until late in the film, just as last year’s Dear Zachary wouldn’t have left the entire audience in tears if it had been honest with us from the start. This is not a criticism, just so long as the film becomes honest by the time it ends, and admits that the appearance of its subjects on film is not “authentic”.

The very act of pointing a camera, then, affects what is caught. Dutch filmmaker Renzo Martens uses Enjoy Poverty to point out that, because Westerners will pay more to see pictures of African war and poverty than for pictures of African parties, therefore poverty is a resource. The document is determined by the demand: we see more images of African corpses than African wedding ceremonies not because there are more corpses than marriages on the continent, but because corpses seem more important to us, they make us feel something. Now, while Martens’ film makes this point, he is honest enough to show us himself as a rather annoying little man, egging his subjects on, encouraging them to perform and sell their poverty. This makes his film less effective than a less honest version might have been, but surely this is a virtue. Martens resisted dramatising his document as a quest for good.

Double Take, in the festival’s ‘New Directions’ section, played with the distinction between drama and documentary by cutting news footage of the cold war space race with scenes from Hitchcock and sixties coffee ads. The glue that held all this together was a fictional Borges story, but the film is still a documentary since it uses news footage to make an argument about a real event—director Johan Grimonprez suggesting that the cold war was all a joke designed to frighten us. Contrast the highly stylised, self-acknowledged manipulation used in non-fiction films like Double Take, Examined Life and We Live in Public with the deadly serious realism of festival fictions Firaaq and Balibo: both are deeply affecting dramatisations of ethnic violence (in Gujarat and Timor Leste respectively), relying on down-to-earth performances and camera work to convince us that what we are seeing is at least similar to what really happened. It’s as if by using real footage and calling your film a documentary, you can get away with more flashy self-analysis that you can in a dramatisation.

However, the six Barry Barclay documentaries the festival put on entirely reject the hyperreal self-awareness and flashy filmmaking of Timoner and Grimonperez. In particular, Barclay’s 1974 Tangata Whenua series simply shows members of various Maori communities walking their land while discussing loss, and cooking food while discussing family. Presenter Michael King occasionally appears on camera—he certainly isn’t being ‘hidden’ to make the footage seem more genuine—but only as a listener. Barclay’s style is not as gripping as Timoner’s, but it is neither better nor worse. Perhaps what Harris, via Timoner, is telling us is that we are inevitably, to paraphrase Judith Butler, performers, who dramatise ourselves even when we’re not on camera, so the notion that documentary footage can be fake is problematic. On the other hand, when you compare the Soundtrack to War clip of the filmmaker egging on a US soldier to sing ‘The Roof is on Fire’, with the edited version of the same clip that appears in Farenheit 9/11, without the egging on, you realise that while documentary footage will always be manipulated, it’s not too much to ask for a little honesty in this manipulation: great documentaries are able to remain true for the very reason that they acknowledge their own status as film.

Shannon Gillies comic book The Dangers of P is a response to the extraordinary media hype surrounding this drug: “When someone commits a crime, be it cutting off someone’s hands with a sword or beating up their loved ones, if they were on P at the time it is presumed that is why the crime occurred.” Gillies notes that when the media focuses on the role of P in a crime, they present P use as an excuse for this behaviour: not only do they not bother commenting on “the social causes that led to the commitment of the crime”, they also refuse to examine “those who take P and do not commit crimes.”

To my mind, the strongest example of such poor journalism occurred after P-addict Steven Williams murdered his six-year-old stepdaughter Coral Burrows. Following his conviction, his mother was given extensive television airtime in which she stated again and again that her son was a good man who would never have done such a thing without P, and that therefore the drug was the real murderer. Given that I’ve met a number of P users, most of whom are slightly fucked, but none of whom are at any risk of murdering a child, this is quite patently bullshit.

Gillies response’ to such hype is several pages of images of the letter P committing crimes, such as raping a cow, whaling, abducting a child, and “hunting animals to the point of extinction.” Both the sentiment and the drawings are simplistic, but such simplicity helps Gillies get his point across – and it’s a point that needed to be made.

Copies of The Dangers of P are available at Graphic on Cuba for $5.

Entering the gallery, one is confronted first by material detailing the armistice of November 1918. To the left is a lounge area with comfy leather sofas and headphones on which you can listen to interviews from the World War One Oral History Archive. Walking through into the exhibition’s main chamber, you’ll find documents detailing the 1918 influenza pandemic and the 1919 vote over whether to introduce alcohol prohibition, which looked like it would succeed until overturned by the votes of returning soldiers. This part of the exhibition is illustrated by a wealth of cartoons, many from prohibitionist papers War Cry and Vanguard—one cartoon from War Cry shows wholesome ingredients (barley, oats, hops) put through “Satan’s Sieve” and emerging as evil spirits to drown the globe; this image is set against one from the soldiers’ paper Quick March, depicting a soldier telling a businessman that as he defended him from the Hun, it is now the businessman’s turn to defend the soldier from prohibition. Next to this material is a newsreel showing Dunedin’s peace celebrations in July 1919.

Tragedy

The exhibition’s really moving element comes from the material detailing soldiers’ experiences returning home—besides photographs from their journeys and village memorials are advertisements informing soldiers how they can now become farmers. These experiences were recorded by Nicholas Boyack and Jane Tolerton in the Oral History Archive and their subsequent book In The Shadow of War. As part of the exhibition, Boyack and Tolerton gave a talk detailing how badly this country treated its servicemen. After being heavily pressured into fighting (partly by campaigns telling girls to marry only soldiers), their harrowing experiences on the battlefield were ignored by countrymen who simply didn’t want to know, treated those with shell-shock (almost all returned servicemen) as insane, looked down on and attempted to prohibit their drinking, and advised girls not to marry soldiers for fear of VD. On top of all this, the few soldiers who managed to make their under-supported farms thrive often lost them once the depression set in.

Comedy

Yet the tragedy of our mistreatment of soldiers is set off by the final part of the exhibition: letters from Edward, Prince of Wales, to his mistress Freda Dudley Ward, about his 40-stops-in-29-days tour of New Zealand in 1920. Besides their appearance in the exhibition, the letters were narrated in a talk by the Turnbull’s Curator of Manuscripts David Colquhoun. Edward, although adored by the local press, privately despised us as a nation of ingratiating drunks and “ham-faced” women incapable of dancing. The Governor, Lord Liverpool, was “hopelessly pompous” and grossly fat; his wife incapable of conversation. All-in-all, the Prince remarked that it was “a rotten way to see a fine country… Returned soldiers and shrieking crowds and school children are all I shall remember.”

Tristan Egarr

The exhibition closes on 14 March (this Saturday!), and a guided tour will take place at midday this Thursday, 12 March. Meanwhile, the National Archives has a similar exhibition, ‘An Impressive Silence: Public Memory and Personal Experience of the Great War,’ which runs until May.

This story has been told twice before – in Baxter’s memoir We Shall Not Cease, and in Paul Baker’s history of all aspects of conscription in the war, King and Country Call. Opening Grant’s book, I was a little apprehensive as to whether he could really add anything to the story. We Shall Not Cease is a harrowing, personal ordeal, and stands alongside Owls Do Cry and The Bone People as the most powerful of our nation’s literature. King and Country Call’s detailed research reveals so much pain that the New Zealanders of the 1910s inflicted on one-another that you feel betrayed by your own people. Field Punishment No. 1 reaches neither the personal passion of Baxter nor the historical breadth and scope of Baker, but it does add several important details to the story.

First of all, because Baxter (the religious objector) wrote an important memoir and had a famous son (poet James), he is far better known than Briggs (the socialist objector), even though the latter took on more leadership duties among their fellow objectors, and Grant seeks to redress this imbalance. Secondly, Grant spends the last third of his book putting Briggs and Baxter into an “anti-militarist tradition” stretching from Parihaka to the present: this helps us to understand where their strength came from, and what they have inspired. Thirdly, the book comes with sixteen pages of colour prints showing Bob Kerr’s paintings of the ordeal; Kerr’s haunting work is perhaps the book’s major selling point. And finally, if the book sells well, it will help inform another generation of the time in our history when Pakeha were crueller to our own kind than in any other era – equal with the racist treatment of Maori and Chinese in the 19th century as the most damning indictments of my people’s character.

By David Grant,
Paintings by Bob Kerr

However, due to AUS action Victoria University of Wellington instead accepted another 13 voluntary redundancies instead of the 18 proposed. Senior College of Education staff member Dr. Joanna Kidman had said that staff would protest via an “information boycott”, as “information provided by staff appears to have been used to target individuals for redundancies without them knowing it would be used for this purpose.”

Victoria Communications Adviser Heidi Stedman disputed AUS’ claim that staff hadn’t been notified of the cuts, pointing out that University policy is to personally notify staff affected by any potential changes. Although Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education) Prof. Dugald Scott did advise College staff in June that there would be no more cuts, the second round “was prompted by forecasting for the 2009 budget.”

While the voluntary redundancies removed the need for the boycott, the quality of teaching the College can now offer remains a concern. In particular, AUS told Salient that reduced staffing numbers mean lecturers are now having to teach outside of their specialist areas, and so are not providing the quality of training promised in the Education Act. Stedman told Salient that the allocation of teaching responsibilities is ultimately the job of the Head of School “in consultation with staff.”

Besides staffing reductions, Dr Kidman also claimed that “face to face hours between lecturers and student teachers have been cut by more than half—from 66 hours to 25 in English, say, or 58 to 25 in Maths.” This further reduces the quality of training—for which students continue to pay the same level of fees.

The cuts to the College of Education are a result of the way university funding is allocated between different subjects. In August 2006, as Victoria University’s budget surplus fell below the level recommended by the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), Vice-Chancellor Pat Walsh stated that “The level of fees increases proposed in 2007 will need to address the issue of the under-resourcing in our humanities & social sciences and education programmes.”

The TEC’s recent review of the Performance Based Research Fund suggests such under-resourcing is compounded by assessment procedures that favour the physical and biological sciences over the humanities. On 26 November, the Vice-Chancellors’ Committee stated that it is “nonsense” for the Government to restrict fee rises via the Fee Maxima, as they do not understand funding requirements, with Auckland University’s Hugh Fletcher pointing out that law students should be paying a lot more than history students “because of the difference in lifetime earnings.”

Perhaps most damaging, the increased allocation of university funding to research has come about at the same time that New Zealand’s colleges of education were absorbed into her universities (the final merger between Vic and the College of Education didn’t take place until January 2005, and mergers in Dunedin and Christchurch were ongoing throughout 2008). We expect teachers to help sculpt us into capable adults, but their training appears to be dangerously undervalued.

December

Last December, as soon as the new Government came into being, it passed under urgency two justice and two money-related acts. The Bail Amendment Act reversed changes made by Labour in 2007 which had meant bail could only be denied to offenders presenting a “real and significant risk”—National have turned the clock back so that bail can be denied to those who present any degree of risk. The Sentencing (Offences Against Children) Amendment Act makes an offence committed against a child an aggravating factor during sentencing. The Taxation Act brought in a new set of tax cuts, while the controversial Employment Relations Amendment Act puts all employees of small businesses (i.e. those with fewer than twenty workers) on a 90day “probation period”, during which they can be fired without any particular reason. National also introduced the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill, allowing police to issue on-the-spot protection orders to those at risk from abuse, without having to go through the courts seeking a warrant—this bill is now at the select committee stage. Besides these justice and economic bills, National also passed acts discouraging renewable electricity and biofuels.

Summer Holidays

While parliament took a break through January, John Key broke his arm, and Health Minsiter Tony Ryall continued cracking down on under-performing district health boards. Education Minister Anne Tolley baffled teachers throughout the land by suggesting they split the school-day into two separate streams, something which would require far more resources than the government is willing to use. Other than that, not a hell of a lot happened, because everyone was too busy being drunk, suntanned and swimming to pay any attention to politics. Oh, and John Key turned up and smiled at Te Tii Waitangi marae on Waitangi day, something Clark had given up on as it proved too stressful.

February

When parliament resumed in February, National returned to the business of passing new legislation under urgency. Their repeal of the controversial Electoral Finance Act was supported by everyone except the Greens, and they also introduced a bill to streamline the Resource Management Act, now at the select committee stage. However, the main work has been undertaken by Simon Power and Judith Collins in introducing law-and-order bills, at the same time as Judith Collins took Corrections head Barry Matthews to task over an auditor’s report showing his department was still allowing prisoners to breach their parole conditions without facing the consequences. Two of these new bills—the Corrections Amendment Act 2 (cracking down on prisoners’ communication with the outside world, for example by confiscating cellphones) and the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Bill—were actually written by Labour but had been allowed to languish until the Nats brought them into play (as we speak, the latter bill is awaiting a final reading). National’s Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill, which grants police greater powers to take DNA samples from alleged offenders, also passed its first reading.

Finally, Power and Collins have introduced four more bills which await final readings and select committee approval. The Gangs and Organised Crime Bill makes membership of a criminal organisation an aggravating factor in sentencing. The Sentencing (Offenders Levy) Amendment Bill requires all offenders to pay a $50 levy to cover their victims’ legal costs. The Children, Young Persons and Their Families (Youth Court) Bill brings 12- and 13-year-olds into the jurisdiction of the youth court, and gives the court a wider range of tools and punishments. Finally, the controversial Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill would bring in the Act Party’s beloved three-strikes policy, denying parole to repeat serious violent offenders—however, National have not promised to support this bill beyond the select committee stage, where it sits currently.

Final Thoughts

So, at the end of 100 days we’ve seen a tough approach to departmental heads in both justice and health, and a swathe of tough-on-crime legislation. This legislation only deals with toughening up the response to the effects of crime, but largely neglects the causes (domestic violence, socio-economic stress, poor quality education) that National promise to now turn to. John Key making a proper appearance at Waitangi, on the heels of appointing both Maori Party leaders to ministerial portfolios, makes this perhaps the first time in its history that National is more in touch with Maori voters than Labour is. The response to the “economic crisis” has been slight but certain, while the details of a promised RMA reform are yet to be really nutted out. National also sought to please the crowd by removing “nanny state” restrictions on fatty foods in schools. So, all-in-all, a bouncy, well-presented first one-hundred days in office, with a respectable amount of cross-party cooperation, but ultimately lacking in meaningful long-term solutions to the economic, environmental or justice concerns at the heart of their programme.

Tom Cosm

Tom Cosm’s set at Canaan Downs proved once again his standing as Aotearoa’s greatest trance DJ. Last year he played the midnight-on-New Year’s set to thousands of trippers under fluoro lights; this year he played the final set to a few hundred dedicated folk, dancing all the sweat from their bodies under the intense sunshine, clad in outrageous costumes as they spun about, grinning mildly and sharing waterbottles. Cosm, who despite gigantic dreads comes across as a sweet lil’ computer geek when he speaks to his audience, mixed in ‘Poi E’ and ‘Bad Boys’ among his own ‘The Sluzziest of Fuzz’. He gives all of his music away for free, and even hosts online electronic music tutorials—check out www.cosm.co.nz for downloads.

An Emerald City

Standouts at both Canaan Downs (playing before Little Bushman on New Year’s Eve) and the Big Day Out (morning in the boiler room), An Emerald City’s 2008 EP heralded their arrival as one of the most interesting acts in the land, playing a sort of instrumental pixie jam with sitars, capes, twigs-in-the-hair and large dancing eyeballs. Imagine Godspeed You! Black Emperor without the annoyingly drawn-out silences. They have been recording an LP in a cave somewhere, so keep an eye out.

Fantomas, Pendulum and the Prodigy

While a sadly mediocre selection of guitar acts (Bullet for My Valentine, The Datsuns, and Elememo P) left thousands of rock fans underwhelmed with their presence on the main stage at this year’s Big Day Out, the three incredible performances of the show were given by these three acts at the frontier between guitar rock and electronica. Fantomas, the demonic spawn of Mike Patton (Faith No More, Tomahawk) who cover old movie tunes and ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ with heavy guitars and drums playing narratives more often than the beat, featured Patton at a mixing desk, screaming into the mic and gesturing directions at his guitarist, bass player and drummer who perched on the other side of the stage. Pendulum played to the biggest crowd of the festival, blasting bleepy, bloopy synth, whammy guitars and pulsing bass, penetrating the wind interference in its cocky, laddish delivery to reach our ears. The Prodigy’s closing set in the boiler room saw their two MCs—the punk one and the dreaded one—strut across the stage, calling out to their audience as if leading them into battle. Okay, so neither Pendulum nor the Prodigy were exactly intelligent music, but their sound was fucking massive, and Fantomas was just fascinating. Also, Neil Young was Neil Young, which is sweet and all but not all that amazing to watch.

Leonard Cohen

He’s 75, he wears a pinstripe suit and skips onstage. Leonard Cohen is still a holy man. Warming up from newer tracks like opener ‘Dance Me to the End of Love’ to hit his great folk work (‘Suzanne’, ‘The Partisan’) in full stride with just his voice, the heavenly voices of long-time collaborator Sharon Robinson, alongside the cartwheeling Webb sisters, and Javier Mas on the bandurria. I’m not sure why the promoters felt he needed a warm up act – Sam Hunt was just embarrassing. Perhaps they thought that by showing us something mediocre, Cohen’s greatness would shine all the brighter, but he didn’t need it. ‘Democracy’, adapted from the words of a perverse madman in Cohen’s novel Beautiful Losers, became an ode to the progress of the ship of state, was the most perfectly apt statement one could make in the days following President Obama’s inauguration. His years in the Mount Baldy zen monastery have clearly left Cohen in great health, joking that he had tried all the pharmaceuticals and philosophies he could, “but cheerfulness kept creeping through.” Nevertheless, it is unlikely, given his advanced years, that we will see him again, and given his unparalleled lyrical genius, it’s not unwarranted to claim that we shall never see such greatness on stage again. But we still have those incredible words

History

Opening in Sydney in 1992, the Big Day Out came to Auckland in 1994. In those early years, the event was very much about bringing the big grunge acts of the day to an antipodean crowd – in its first six years, headliners included Nirvana, the Violent Femmes, Primus, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, the Smashing Pumpkins, Rage Against the Machine and the Prodigy, as well as a bit of brilliant eccentricity with Bjork and Nick Cave. In 1998 the Big Day Out was canceled and replaced with an electronic-only event. After the combined rock and techno event’s return in 1999, there followed several years of Industrial and Nu Metal domination, with headliners Korn, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, System of a Down and Tool where the big grunge acts of the mid-90s had once stood. With Metallica headlining 2004 and Iggy and the Stooges in 2006, the organisers began to show a penchant for aging nostalgia acts, repeated this year with Neil Young. In the last few years, the popularity of retro garage rock has come to the fore, with the Kings of Leon, the Strokes, the White Stripes and this year’s Arctic Monkeys performance.

Local Morning Delights

Although it pains me to admit it, the banality of this garage rock means that the guitar-heavy acts are now looking weaker when compared to the boiler room’s practitioners of innovation. Arriving around eleven in the morning, me and my reviewing companion headed straight for this tent, where An Emerald City were warming up. Probably the best addition to local music in 2008, these guys are a lot like Godspeed You! Black Emperor only without the overly drawn out silences, but with a violinist, a guy with a sitar and a cape (because why have just a sitar when you can accessorize it so?), a dancing eyeball (probably the spirit of the Residents come to help out), and general shamanic instrumental awesomeness. The violinist wasn’t wearing a twig on his head as he was at their Canaan Downs performance over New Year’s, but that’s okay because they had an extra level of intensity shooting through their sound at the Big Day Out.

An Emerald City’s strange, beautiful instrumental strumming was followed by some New Zealand Drum and Bass from Antiform and State of Mind. Antiform’s set sounded promising, but I really had to head to the beer tent at this stage, and arrived back for the beginning of State of Mind. Given the heavy, dirty punch of their 2006 long player Take Control I was expecting a lot from these guys, but a lack of bass kick gave them an underwhelming build up. However, the sweaty crowd was having fun, and when they finally pulled out ‘Sunking’ as their last track our hands exploded into the air, and at the end of it I remembered that one of my sarong’s main uses is to wipe everyone else’s sweat of my back after such intense dance sets.

The Boring Part

Moving from State of Mind’s boiler room set to the afternoon acts on the main stage was like witnessing the death of rock’n’roll. The only big “metal” act this year was the sanitised tweeny metal of Bullet for My Valentine; the Datsuns gave their usual energetic but uninspired and simplistic set of three-chord tracks; the Living End played catchy and enjoyable yet ultimately empty and repetitive pop; and somehow, someone once again thought that booking Elemeno P – easily New Zealand’s worst band – on the main stage was a good idea. This last group’s mediocre pop-“punk” is made unendurable by their vocalist’s total and utter lack of singing ability, and while it’s perfectly fine for them to play awful music if they enjoy it, what makes them such a blight on our vocal landscape is the fact that putting their songs on all those C4 and Telecom ads forces an otherwise unhostile public to suffer. Seeing the Telecom-branded video screens by the stage, I began to realise why such an obviously unbearable band had been given such an inexplicably central position in the lineup. They were followed by Bullet for My Valentine, who tried to be hardcore but couldn’t help coming off as cute, while their endearing lil’ fans ran around in circles.

Perhaps the best guitar-based act of the day were the Arctic Monkeys. Personally I find these Brits dull and overrated, but since I wanted to find out why they’re so popular I went along to watch: yes, their music is so simple they can play it well while entirely pissed (which they were), and yes there is no emotion in their lyrics, but the lyrics are nonetheless quite witty, and I finally understand why they are so popular – because they put on a fun show, and because their drunkenness and quirky accents are engaging. So although I still find nothing in their stuff to connect with, it was fun and I danced along. Next up was Neil Young, whose Harvest is still a truly great album. However, seeing this aging rocker on stage was nothing special – he looked cool, and sounded like, well, Neil Young. But Fantomas were on at the same time, and as interesting as Young is, he’s no Mike Patton.

The most thoughtful acts of the day had to be My Morning Jacket and TV On the Radio, who both put out insightful and creative albums in 2008, mixing quiet, brooding guitar with heavy electronic bass lines. Sadly, both acts were let down by the sound systems, as their delicate performances could not stand up to the wind interference. Nevertheless, they still stood out as some of the most interesting acts of the day, and TV’ were a lovely comedown from Pendulum, even if singer Tunde Adebimpe’s usually soaring vocals were muffled – but the starring roles went to the three acts that put out electronic bass lines and guitar textures so powerful nothing could stand in their way…

The Highlights: Pendulum, Fantomas and the Prodigy

That Perth Drum and Bass metalheads-turned-rock act Pendulum could kick the shit out of any of the proper rock’n’roll acts of the day was demonstrated by their audience size: whereas the D (the fenced in mosh pit) was barely full for Bullet for My Valentine (who played before Pendulum) and the Datsuns (who followed immediately after), Pendulum packed out Mount Smart stadium’s field almost to the back, and had people dancing in the stands. BLAM is probably the most appropriate way to sum these guys up. Well, maybe beep, Blam beep BEEP BLAM, because a) Jesus Christ that was enormous, and b) their synth bleeps really are quite silly, although yeah they’re a helluva lot of fun. ‘Voodoo People’, ‘Propane Nightmares’ and ‘Blood Sugar’ had the whole stadium leaping about, howling with pleasure. Their MC managed to get in a fair bit of hyping up without becoming really annoying or ruining the music. Of course, unless you like to ponder the confluence of techno and metal as if their fusion were a great philosophical question, Pendulum are hardly what you would call deep or thoughtful music, and they sounded positively shiny under all that sun when set against State of Mind’s serious, cavernous set – but the beats were stronger than anything else on the day, and it worked.

Fantomas, the creation of Mike Patton – the intellectual powerhouse behind Tomahawk, Faith No More and Mr. Bungle – saw Patton sitting on one side of the stage, squealing into the mike, feeding everything through his console and conducting with hand signals his guitarist, bass player and drummer as they looked on. He stared at the audience until we got goose bumps and, playing baseball classic ‘Take Me Out To The Ball Game’, told us to wave our hands along and pretend that it was “cricket, or something.” Giving us such a brilliantly eccentric act as Fantomas has to be the organiser’s greatest achievement. Thanks guys – I will never forget Patton’s soul-piercing stare, or the way my reviewing companion Haimona turned to me and said “that man is raping sound” with a gigantic grin on his face.

The last act of the night were the Prodigy, come back from the dead to attempt to reclaim ‘Voodoo People’ from Pendulum, and pack out the boiler room until it damn near exploded. MCs Maxim Reality (he of the monstrous dreads) and Keith Flint (he of the punky spikes and snarl) strode across the stage, strutting and issuing such commanding arrogance that I felt like I would follow them into battle. The lack of space didn’t prevent us from jumping about madly, and the day’s weirdest moment came with thousands chanting “Smack my bitch up!” I was a little too creeped out to chant along, although knowing that this was really just musical irony at its bluntest kept me amused.

So while the dearth of decent rock’n’roll or metal did sadden my old guitar player’s heart, the massive impact of these three acts, the bass that shat upon my ears and fierce attack of Patton, Reality and Flint’s vocals made the day more than worthwhile. Add in the beauty and promise of An Emerald City’s set and the satisfaction of hearing State of Mind do Sunking live, and we have one well worthwhile day of noises.

Faculty of Graduate Research
Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Research) Charles Daugherty spoke to Council about the way VUW’s system for managing postgraduates is devolved to each faculty, creating a recruitment disadvantage which hampers the University’s strategic goal to increase the proportion of postgraduates at Vic, which at 3.7% of full time students is lower than any other New Zealand university except AUT. As Chancellor Tim Beaglehole noted, the Academic Board has unanimously agreed that a single Faculty of Graduate Research to manage postgraduate thesis students is the way to go. Dr Jock Phillips expressed concern that individual departments were already shirking a responsibility to channel talented undergrads into postgraduate studies, but Assoc. Prof. Dolores Janiewski disputed this and noted that the three separate processes for international students’ to enrol in thesis study was confusing, as US universities all have a single process.

Investment Plan KPIs
Council’s discussion of the Investment Plan KPI report (information from which influenced the decision to create a Faculty of Graduate Research) largely focussed on the external relationships section, with VUW’s relationships with both other universities and local iwi brought into question. Rosemary Barrington said the report was frustrating as KPIs are process- rather than outcome-oriented. Vice-Chancellor Pat Walsh commented on the relationship between VUW’s and Massey’s engineering programmes, and the potential for greater collaboration. Shaan Stevens criticised the decline in interaction with local iwi, linking this to increasing numbers of Maori going overseas to study. Outgoing VUWSA President Joel Cosgrove questioned students’ experiences of hostels, with the Vice-Chancellor responding by noting additional placement numbers in 2009 due to Te Puni and St George.

Accounts
VUW’s management accounts for the period ending 31 October were presented by Chief Financial Officer Wayne Morgan and Finance Committee chair James Ogden. Year to Date revenue is currently $0.4m below budget, but expenditure is $1.4m below budget. Ogden stated that a decline in EFTS numbers could herald “unpleasant surprises”, while the fact that restructuring costs would be brought into the accounts when audited would bring VUW’s surplus down to $3.2m.

Bad news: Faculty of Science revenue is down $791,000 due to a decrease in external research income; Faculty of Commerce revenue is $514,000 below budget due to a decrease in enrolments; Faculty of Humanities revenue is down $550,000 mainly due to a decrease in Malay Teaching Contract revenue; Faculty of Education people costs are $940,000 over budget due to restructuring; and Library expenditure is $242,000 over budget due to database, copyright and depreciation costs.

Good news: International student revenue is $443,000 above budget, while Finance and VC revenue is above budget and Deputy Vice Chancellor expenditure is below what was budgeted for. The accounts also lay out expenditure on projects such as Te Puni Village, the Teaching & Research Building, and Campus Hub Redevelopment.

Equity
The Equity Advisory Group’s 2008 report, tabled by Pro Vice-Chancellor (Equity) Deborah Willis, analyses the “recruitment, achievement and retention of Maori, Pasifika and disabled students.” Chancellor Beaglehole noted that the report’s substantial length was justified, before a number of Council members raised their concerns. Student rep Jordan King noted that the problem of high fail rates among Pasifika students, particularly in Law (with only 51% or Pasifika students passing, as opposed to over 70% for both Maori and overall students), had not been addressed. Jock Phillips noted that in addition, the report contains little in the way of comparison between student numbers and the wider community, and does not provide strategies to change problems identified. Shaan Stevens asked how the drop in Maori and Pasifika enrolments at Vic in 2007, and Pro Chancellor Ian McKinnon asked whether more of these students were now going to other institutions. Joel Cosgrove noted the worrying 34% decrease in first year Pasifika enrolments despite an increase in programmes seeking to reverse this. Willis responded that the drop at Vic was largely in sub-degree programmes, and suggested some changes were being made to address the problem. Pat Walsh noted that much of the decline in Maori and Pasifika numbers was due to a decrease in mature student numbers.

Helen Sutch asked whether equity reporting should be extended beyond issues of gender and race, and whether equity strategies were being incorporated into everyday decision making; Willis replied to the latter question that heads of schools were showing positive signs of taking ownership of equity issues. Fleur Fitzsimons praised the report, but stressed that it must be put into practice and compared with other universities.

In regards to staff equity, Cosgrove noted that while men outnumber women at the top of the staffing hierarchy, woman outnumber men at the bottom; Dolores Janiewski pointed out that the large number of women at the bottom of this hierarchy were often in general rather than academic staffing roles, and that the gender equity issues examined by the report focused almost solely upon academic staff.
Besides the Equity Report, Council also discussed a Pay and Employment Equity Review, which will not be undertaken in 2009. Some members questioned the decision not to undertake a review in the coming year. Jock Phillips discussed how a similar review had been conducted in the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, noting that oral submissions had been valuable in giving personal evidence of discrimination, but that the review had been time-consuming and restricted to issues of gender equity. Fleur Fitzsimons put forward a motion that high priority be given to undertaking such a review in 2010, seconded by Jordan King; the motion passed.

Yesterday, a friend of mine remarked that the election of Barack Hussein Obama is the first historic moment we have lived through that actually feels good – sure, I lived through the fall of the USSR and Berlin Wall, but I was too young to notice. 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq were historic, and truly awful; China overtaking the USA as the largest manufacturer of technological goods a couple years back was historic, but in a hidden, unremarked kind of way, and I don’t know that it’s a positive thing.

Obama gives me hope. But I’m somewhat frightened of the hope he gives me. When he spoke about his presidency being “the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian , Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled,” I cried because I never expected a US President to speak so genuinely with respect for queer people, to include us in an historic thankyou as if we are not an embarrassment. I think back to the utter cynicism of 2000’s race between the twin evils of Gore the empty block of wood and Bush the walking joke; at the mad arrogance of Bush’s march towards war, and remember that I never thought a US President could ever make me cry with joy.

I grew to an awareness of the world and America’s role within it during the superficial media circus of the Clinton impeachment, but the cynicism I gained from his eight years were nothing compared to the next eight, as Bush, who began his tenure as a clown notable only for statements like “Africa is a very poor nation” and “is our children learning?”, would go on to demonstrate just how corrupt US democracy could be. Defending the torture of prisoners of war just as long as it didn’t cause organ failure; massive tax cuts for the rich alone; unfettered corporate freedom, allowing Enron and Wall Street to swindle the American people; his support for high schools that prohibit mixed-race dating; religious Puritanism that allows Kansas to prohibit the teaching of real science, and bans on gay marriage; and of course Bush’s legacy as a Texan governor allowing virtually unconstrained gun sales and the execution of mentally retarded inmates. All this is over because millions, led by our generation, said Yes, we can put a stop to this; fuck our cynical hip disdain for the system, let’s try to change it.

During election night, a CNN pundit noted that Obama’s election was due to a new youth movement, and that whereas the movement of ’68 – the Yippies with their porcine candidate Pigasus – rebelled outside and against the system, we are now working to right it from within. But this is only half the picture. Between the assassination of Kennedy and the election of Obama, the USA has waited 45 years for an inspirational leader. Kennedy’s election constituted a youth movement for civil rights, acting within the system. It was only his death and the Great Society’s descent into the quagmire of Vietnam that forced the youth movement to reject the system entirely.

And I remember back to my involvement with the anti-globalisation movement of the late ‘90s and early new millennium, our rejection of a capitalism that undermined farmers in the poor world and shifted manufacturing from Detroit to sweat-shop nations without any notion of a minimum wage, all in the name of ‘liberty.’ We fought the system from outside – and lost. For just as hope seemed possible, with the dissolution of the Cancun talks suggesting the WTO could no longer dictate to us, along came 9/11. We couldn’t fight the underlying, fundamental issue of global inequality when we were hit with the need to fight the more immediate issue of an unjust war. Not only were we distracted from the economic battles, we also, despite the march of millions for peace on 15 February 2003, lost the battle for peace too. And slowly, through undergraduate debates and extensive reading, it dawned on me that the anti-globalisation movement got a lot of things wrong. Free trade is not itself the cause of poverty: rather, it is the manipulation of free trade by monopolies; the absence of free migration, meaning that while companies can move production to low-wage areas, workers are not free to migrate to higher-wage nations, which allows the downward spiral of living standards; and finally, it is the fact that rich nations preaching ‘free trade’ in order to remove regulations protecting poor-world farmers then refuse to remove subsidies and protections for their own farmers, that causes inequality. The problem is not globalisation, but unfair manipulation of trade rules – which can be fought within the system, by using the WTO for good – not by attempting to bring it down by smashing the windows of people’s shops. So just as the youth of the sixties moved outside the system when their attempts to reform it from the inside failed, our generation has moved within the system when we realised that throwing stones from the outside was not making anything better.

But hope is a very unsettling thing. Under eight years of the blatantly callous Bush administration, an attitude of lazy cynicism was easy to maintain. If things worked out well, then good; but we didn’t expect them to, so when, for example, Iraq turned into the sectarian violent mess we expected, we could just intone “I told you so.” Now that I actually trust Obama to make things better, what happens if he fails? What happens if withdrawing from Iraq makes things worse? I have to take the risk and trust that he’s right, but if he isn’t I’m going to have to eat the sort of humble pie my conservative opponents have had stuffed in their mouths, to my delight, for so long.

Of course, Obama knows he cannot fix the world – as he writes in The Audacity of Hope, “I am bound to disappoint some, if not all” and although “we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done.” It would be wrong to expect too much – indeed, even though I was unhappy with the state of the world in 2000, things have gotten so much worse in the years since that I would be happy if he merely reversed this slide and got things back to where they were at the turn of the millennium, when despite gnawing poverty we did have a stable global economy and no major international conflict.

As Obama demonstrates in The Audacity of Hope and in his acceptance speech – “to those who would tear the world down, we will defeat you” – he is no uncompromising pacifist, and although part of me worries, I’m okay with this. One of the reasons I flocked to his movement over 2005-6 (besides the maturity of his honest declaration that he had tried drugs in his youth and, unlike Clinton, actually inhaled), was the fact that one of his major advisors was Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. While Power, like Obama, strongly opposed the invasion of Iraq, she supported military intervention in Yugoslavia and has encouraged Obama to support intervention in Darfur, based on her discovery that the leaders of the USA have not only known about every genocide from Armenia and the Holocaust to Zimbabwe, Yugoslavia and the Sudan as they were happening, but they have consistently refused to act until the number of victims in each case had already become overwhelming. Obama will not support the kind of isolationist pacifism that Robert Fisk (and sometimes myself) avows; but he will think long and hard about how best to utilise his massive military resources for good. Yes, he will get things wrong, and yes, in a military situation, this means the death of innocents. But I have to trust his judgement, just as I trust Power’s (sadly, she had to resign from his campaign team in March of this year after an offhand remark in which she called Hillary Clinton a “monster”, but her arguments remain a part of the new President’s philosophy). Whereas McCain wanted to draw out the war in Iraq, ludicrously believed he could defeat Al Qaeda within one term, refused to engage in diplomacy with Iran or North Korea, and sought to remove Russia from the G8, Obama has pledged to talk directly with the USA’s enemies, in the belief that diplomacy is the best option, and in the knowledge that places like Iran – whose voter turnout is usually around 80 per cent, double that of the USA’s, and whose people held massive pro-USA rallies after 9/11 to demonstrate their empathy with the victims of terrorism – are not so different from his own country, after all. Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo Bay and withdraw from Iraq within 16 months of assuming office, moving 7000 troops to Afghanistan, which was always the more justified of the two wars (although it may be no less futile). The challenges are huge, but the leader now has the right attitude to meet them. One French pundit observed that Obama is the America of jazz and the beats, of Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., not the America of religious intolerance, processed fat and crappy action comedies embodied by Bush. As Sarah Silverman noted, Americans no longer have to pretend to be Canadian when they travel abroad.

The victory is not significant just because a man who was four when black Americans were finally guaranteed the right to vote has gone on to become their first black President. It is significant because his politics and policies signal a change of direction, replacing fear with hope. And yet I fear for this hope, because now we have something to lose. But fuck it, let’s celebrate. Hells yeah.