Who am I?

Today I learned that I was adopted. I’m 79, so this came as something of a surprise. How did it come about that at this advanced stage of my life, I learned something about myself that at least some others knew, but which had been hidden from me for nearly 8 decades?

It started out with a recent DNA analysis, in which it was revealed that 23% of mine was Polynesian.  This was a surprise, as nothing in my known family history hinted at this, since my father was born in Sydney of English descent, and my mother was born in England, also of English descent. So, I contacted a cousin in New Zealand, where I was born, and asked her if she had any leads which might reveal where the Polynesian part of me came from. (As my son also had had his DNA analysed by a separate organisation, which produced a 10% ‘Oceanic’ component, there clearly was something Polynesian somewhere.)  Without really believing it possible, I suggested that maybe there was an adoption, possibly my own.

Today I received a letter and some documentation from my cousin. It arrived just as I was preparing lunch, and my wife opened the package, so while I was in the middle of cooking beef stroganoff, I heard my wife say “You’re adopted”.

This information raises as many questions as it answers.  Unfortunately, the generation which might have some answers are all dead, and few of my cousins will have any knowledge of my adoptive status, nor probably any interest. Quite simply, I imagine that in the past this was something that wasn’t discussed, and that after a while, people — including even my parent — forgot that I was adopted. Now, it’s only because oner or two cousins have been exploring family history that this has come up, and more significantly, only because of the questions raised by my DNA analysis, and subsequent contacting my cousin, that it has come to light.

Now I’m wondering whether I’ll go through a sort of revere equivalent of the five stages of  grief and loss : 1. Denial and isolation; 2. Anger; 3. Bargaining; 4. Depression; 5. Acceptance. At the moment, my feeling is one of regret — of not having known when my parents were alive. But thoughts on that, and a request for my pre-adoption birth certificate form the New Zealand Dept of Internal Affairs are matters for another day. Meanwhile, I end 2017 knowing a lot more about who I am but with a great deal more remaining to be discovered in 2018. 

PART SEVEN: REFLECTIONS

 This visit ‘home’ had been undertaken almost spontaneously, and had been intended to be both a trip down memory lane as well as an opportunity to see some parts of my native country which I had never visited – thus the time spent in Marlborough.  It was also to be a voyage of discovery and rediscovery which might reveal things about NZ and about myself.  The visit to Te Papa introduced a significant theme: identity.  What I was exploring and discovering was, in part, New Zealand’s contemporary identity, and what, as an expatriate kiwi, is my own.  How has one contributed to the other?

I think the first thing that struck me was less the lansdcape, significant though that is, than the built environment because, of course, there are buildings everywhere, some dating back to the Victorian and Edwardian eras,  many from the interwar years, and some from recent times. Some have been cherished and preserved, others have been repurposed, some abandoned, some gussied up in a style which would have puzzled the original builders, others wrecked by natural forces like the Christchurch earthquake.   The built environment is layered, with a rich patina, and I came to realize that it provided a kind of visual metaphor for the country and the changes which have occurred over half a century, while the reflections of some provided a counterpart to the distortions and misunderstandings of my own view of my birthplace.  The buildings that I recognized from childhood provided an anchor, taking me back to a period when I simply took such structures for granted.  Some, which I had been unaware of, a lifetime later take on a new significance. Art deco has acquired meaning in adulthood, and it is part of a small area of knowledge and experience acquired since leaving NZ.  

Other parts of the built environment also took on new significance.  The settlement and history of NZ can't be separated from the construction of roads, railways and bridges, harbours and wharves, the country’s infrastructure.  My railway journeys took me through landscape which offered a huge challenge to the railway and civil engineers.  With imagination, grit and a hard working labour force, they pushed the railways through and helped to knit together parts of the young nation.  Today, those railways are not so much a means of transport as a vehicle for leisure, representing yet another change since my departure. 

Finally, there’s the landscape itself.  In its pristine state, as when Abel Tasman navigated its coast in the C17th, the landscape of NZ must have been quite spectacular, though alien, being largely covered in dense forest.  There was an exotic bird life.  There were no vermin or snakes.   Although Maori had made some impact on the landscape and its fauna – they had driven the huge moa to extinction, for instance – when the first European settlers arrived, vast areas of the country were more or less as nature had made them.  Within a couple of generations of European settlement, huge tracts of forest had been cleared and replaced by pasture, and with this clearance came a decline in the native bird population.   Today, much of the landscape, as in Canberbury and the Manwatu,  is completely man made, and even in such isolated places as the Marlborough Sounds, there are huge areas in which the native forest and its bird life have been obliterated to be replaced by pasture or pine forests.

Now NZ has woken up to the environmental effects of these man-made changes, and what was formerly a resource to be plundered is now a damaged landscape to be restored or unspoiled forest to be carefully maintained in its pristine state.   Restoration trumps exploitation. For instance, Kapiti Island, which gives its name to the Kapiti Coast, is a strictly managed wild life reserve, and there are other islands which are being used as refuges to encourage the breeding of indigenous bird life. 

Restoration has also been applied to the land and resources of the Maori.  The most conspicuous form of restoration applies to the language. Fifty years ago, the Maori language (Te Reo) was not widely spoken and was little known.  My school, FAHS, sported a Maori motto, "Kia Toa Kia Ngakaunui” ("Have Courage, Desire Greatly"), a local substitute for the usual Latin moto.  There was also a constant reminder of the language in the countless Maori place names. However, their pronunciation was heavily anglicized and little of the music of  Te Reo survived its encounter with the pakeha tongue.  A truly massive change has taken place.  Te Reo is now widely taught in schools, many more people speak it, it has a highly visible place in public life and literature – my NZ passport is in two languages, English and Maori – and there are two Maori TV channels.  Most significantly,  great care is now taken in pronouncing Maori accurately and authentically, so the TV weather forecast presenters for instance, who necessarily have a whole range of Maori place names to articulate, do so as to the manner born.

The changing status of the Maori language has for some time been accompanied by a growing Maori assertiveness and what some would consider to be the overdue restoration of long denied rights and benefits deriving from the misappropriation of Maori land. Since the 1990s, governments have worked at restoration of use and ownership rights, though the so-called Waitangi process (after the treaty of 1840) has not been without controversy, particularly among  some of the pakeha population.   Likewise, the acquisition of significant sums by tribes and tribal groups hasn't always led to intra or even intertribal harmony. Even so, the so-called Waitangi process has attended to long-standing Maori grievances and attempted to put right injustices.   This represents a truly huge and desirable change since the 1960s.

So, Maori are secure in their own homeland and can look forward to a prosperous future. Or can they?  Some things don't change, and the socio-economic status of Maori hasn't changed so drastically as to move the majority into the property owning,  fully employed middle class.  I heard a radio interview with an MP regarding a controversial development in his constituency, North Auckland, which could bring employment to a region much in need of it. He pointed out that there was very high unemployment among Maori youth, a situation repeated on the East Coast where there is also a high Maori population.  Both areas are predominantly rural, with limited economic opportunities other than farming. So, despite their higher status and their significant contribution to NZ identity, the plight of Maori still remains problematic.  Like some of those old buildings, this unfortunate aspect of  NZ life lingers on.

There is likely to be another issue which will arise, as far as Maori are concerned, deriving from the considerable increase in immigration, especially from Asia.  It is projected that 250,000 Asian immigrants will arrive between 2006 and 2026, while even today, 23% of  New Zealanders were born overseas. (Cf 13% in the UK where immigration has become a significant political issue, at its worst verging on xenophobia).) Evidently most of New Zealand's  23% live in the Auckland region.  Although Maori are by a large margin a minority in their own country, the arrival of new immigrants further dilutes their proportion of the population,  so it is not difficult to see that migration could be a source of contention not only among the majority pakeha population, but also among indigenous Maori.  

Such immigration can and will have an effect on NZ identity, but in ways that it is difficult to predict.  I've already commented on the orientation of NZ towards the Pacific and Asia apparent in the displays at Te Papa.  How meaningful and acceptable this orientation will be to newcomers from beyond Asia, such as the Turkish waiter in the Devonport restaurant, is open to conjecture.   What contributions to the cultural mix will such newcomers make?  How accepting will they be of the specifically Maori seats in parliament? And how in turn will immigrants’ aspirations, attitudes and values affect NZ identity?

As my visit and the many changes in population and material culture demonstrated, for all its isolation in the South Pacific, NZ is fully integrated into the globalization which links the rest of the world through flows of goods, information, ideas and people. The original European settlement of the country represents an earlier phase of globalization,  when colonialism by such powers as GB brought a form of globalization in which the flow of power and ideas was distinctly asymmetrical, and remained so for many generations. With the expansion of settlement and livestock farming, NZ became a pioneer in the shipping of chilled and frozen meat and dairy products to the Mother Country and thousands of young NZ men heeded the call for troops to defend its interests, beginning with the Boer War in 1900.  This truly significant involvement in global conflict is commemorated in the ubiquitous war memorials, such as those found in Feilding, Palmerston and Auckland, and, in an invisible form in the demographic impact brought about by the deaths and disablement of a significant percentage of the most economically active male age cohort during the 20^th century.

Attitudes to the Home Country (aka UK), though largely favourable and carefully maintained by regular royal visits, inevitably began to change in the latter part of the C20th. Especially significant in this change was the entry of Britain into the EU because, while NZ could still continue to export to what had been its prime market, new markets for its products would have to be found to compensate for the reduction in exports to the UK.  Happily for NZ, a vast and rising market was available in a region of the world which till then had provided a relatively limited outlet for NZ produce: Asia and the Middle East.  Where trade goes, people and ideas also go, and with the striking economic development of such countries as China, Malaysia, Singapore and India (not to forget the leader, Japan), NZ’s focus has been literally reoriented. 

The integration of NZ into the globalized world has also been strengthened by the Kiwi diaspora.  Nearly half a million NZ born people live abroad, of whom around 360,000 live in Australia, including children of my two cousins and my hosts in Paramata.  Such a diaspora involves travel and the flow of people and ideas across the globe.  This is augmented by the flow of British and American TV and films onto Kiwi screens, including, with the cinema career of Peter Jackson, an important burgeoning of production skills and a wave of tourism in and to NZ – or Middle Earth. 

His films are a global phenomenon, but represent a European, even English Home Counties fantasy world.  The real world of NZ seemed to me to be somewhat unrepresented on NZ TV, in which all channels are commercial, and in which so many programmes were imports.  For once I could begin to understand the French obsession with protecting their cinema industry. Even more striking was the fact that Sky TV as seen in NZ is actually based in Australia, so the majority of the news items appeared to be Australian, and the space devoted to actual NZ news seemed to be comparable to the ten minutes allocated to ‘the news where you are’ on the BBC news in the UK.  In the UK, however,  ‘where we are’ is just a county, so this portioning out of space on the national news is understandable. But NZ is a whole country!  I suppose with such a small population, Aotearoa simply doesn't generate enough news for Aussie Sky. 

Alone among the unrepresentative sample of TV programmes that I saw, only two were made in NZ. The first was a crime series set in Auckland, with New Zealander Sam Neale playing the role of a police inspector trying to protect his team from the dysfunctional ambitions of his superior,  who was more concerned with getting ‘headlines in tomorrow’s Herald’ than with the just resolution of a current case, which appeared to involve a Polynesian family and the building of trust between the police team and the family in an attempt to achieve a satisfactory outcome rather than headline news. 

The other programme was one which presented a really important part of NZ society and culture to the Kiwi audience: the ANZ Young Farmer of the Year Grand Final.  Even here, globalization wasn’t far from the scene as one of the finalists had worked for a time under Gordon Ramsey, so that in addition to his many skills as a livestock farmer, he was able to rustle up a gourmet dinner.   This bit of reality TV, while drawing on a format developed elsewhere, presented an authentic slice of NZ to the nation’s viewers, reinforcing a central part of the national identity, that of the down-to-earth, multi-skilled give-anything-a-go laconic male Kiwi (there not being, evidently, any female young farmer finalists this year).  The finalists also served to challenge the stereotype of the Kiwi farmer immortalized in Fred Dagg from Taihape (New Zealand’s self-styled Gumboot Capital), a comedy character created by satirist John Clarke in the mid 1970s.

What I have come to realize, reflecting on this visit, is that identity, whether national or individual, is a continual process, a work in progress,  and not a fixed product (politicians obsessed with nationality quizzes please note).  Like the country itself, identity is continually constructed and bits of the old are left behind or are repurposed, while the new is introduced and maybe with some discomfort or irritation and adaptation is integrated, and an altered configuration/identity emerges. As NZ has evolved as a country and as a nation, its identity has been influenced and subtly altered with each generation and each wave of immigration. Fortunately, some of the old attitudes and behaviours have, like many of the old buildings, been retained in up to date guise, and some less desirable ones become largely extinct, if not entirely, as the anti-Semitic comment of the Christchurch taxi driver revealed.   Even so, Kiwis remain open, friendly, helpful , hospitable, unpretentious,  and critical of anyone who pulls rank or uses their position to gain advantage – as the unwise Mr Gilmore discovered.  Aotearoa is still a homely, comfortable place, despite the overlay of globalized sophistication.

When I left NZ in 1963, quite obviously I didn't leave my NZ identity behind like a discarded garment.  I took it with me, and since then, as with the country I had left, that identity has been a work in progress, subject to many influences and incorporating quite a few changes. What this visit made me appreciate is the basis of that identity: like the Marlborough sauvignon blanc, made and bottled in New Zealand/Aotearoa, but matured elsewhere.

On my last evening in Wellington, I arrived back at the Paramata railway station and started heading towards the 200 steps up to Derek and Rosemary’s house overlooking an inlet. As I looked out over the familiar Porirua Harbour towards the Ngatitoa Domain, which during the day provides a pleasant though unremarkable vista, I realized that in the fading light the scene had taken on an unfamiliar,  almost magical quality.  I whipped out my mobile and snapped the clouds, the evening sunlight, the reflections and the water,  capturing images that mirror the impact and memories of my visit --  some vivid, some permanent, some distorted, some as fleeting as the quietly magical scene before me.

Haere ra Aotearoa!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75004468@N08/sets/

PART THREE: WELLINGTON

The former ‘Pride of Cherbourg’ carried me through the Sounds, across Cook Straight to Wellington, my birth place where, thanks to a three hour ferry delay, I arrived in the evening to be met by old friend from Fiji days, Derek Robinson, who, with his wife, Rosemary, lives in Paramata, a dormitory suburb north of the city on the Kapiti Coast.   Fifty years ago the places along this coast were starting to make the transition from beach villages to dormitory suburbs. Now their expansion into full scale suburban townships is complete, and every work day thousands of Kapiti Coast dwellers make their way to and from the CBD in the excellent electrified train service which now runs as far as Waikanae, about sixty kms north of the city. 

The next day, Sunday, I followed their example, when I set out on a balmy late autumn/early winter day to explore the docks development and the Te Papa museum in Wellington.   In my childhood, the dock area was strictly functional and not  a place for recreation.  Since then, much of it has been converted into a promenade, buildings have been repurposed, rebuilt or newly constructed, and on a sunny Sunday it is an attraction for genteel strolling, cycling, skating, roller blading, or just sitting and watching the passing scene from one of the many bars and restaurants. 

One of the main atractions is the Te Papa (‘Our Place’) museum, established by act of Parliament in 1992, and bringing together the holdings of several national museums and galleries.  The main building, designed by a NZ architectural practice, cost $NZ300 million when it was opened in 1998, and Te Papa attracts over a million visits a year.  I had been encouraged to join in the enthusiasm aroused by this splendid enterprise, and, indeed, it is impossible not to be impressed by the scope and scale ot its exhibits, and the variety of ways of engaging visitors.   However, I was disappointed with the premises, which seemed to consist of an incoherent set of structures, while after several hours visiting the extensive range of galleries, I was left with a slightly uneasy feeling: what was the hidden ideology? 

A couple of days later I met Bernie Kernot, a now retired academic who was a fellow student at Auckland University, where we studied anthropology in the late 50s-early 60s.  When I expressed my puzzlement over Te Papa, he confirmed his own, saying that it seemed  to represent a post modern supermarket approach to museums, visitors picking and mixing ideas as they wished.  He questioned the absence of an authoritative guide to content implied by such an approach.  I said that the underlying theme that I took from the Te Papa supermarket was that of identity, particularly the identity of NZ as a Pacific island nation, and although the presence and influence of the ethnic European – or pakeha – population was acknowledged, the emphasis seemed to be less on their contribution to the development, way of life and identity of the nation than on that of Maori, other Pacific islanders and Asians.  In what sense is the museum truly ‘our place’ when the presence of the majority population appeared to be so under represented?

To be fair, a temporary exhibition on level six did represent a small slice of the material culture of the pakeha in the form of a collection of British and European ceramics, metalwork and glassware assembled between 1990 and 1965 by Wellingtonian,  Walter Cook.  With a keen eye for design and provenance, Cook built up his collection locally, and the exhibition explained the role of several Wellington shops, among them the now defunct James Smiths department store, in introducing new styles to the Wellington consumer.  Outraged by Thatcherite government policy in the early 1990s,  Walter Cook gave his collection to the museum for the benefit of future generations, and in its modest way, this exhibition seemed to me to contribute to filling a significant gap on the shelves of the Te Papa supermarket. 

The theme of identity, so prevelant in Te Papa, continued in the cityscape itself where it became entwined with that of memory and recall.  We are, in no small part, what we remember, and my earliest memories are of Wellington, where I lived until the age of ten.   My visits to the city during this brief stay became a kind of quest to identify the buildings which would have been present during my childhood.  This little project had been sparked off when I first arrived at Wellington station that Sunday morning.  It was obvious from the railways in the South Island that, notwithstanding the de luxe tourist trains, there had been under investment in the rail system, so I was prepared to find the splendid Wellington railway station in a state of neglect or even, like Grand Central Station in New York, destroyed. Fortunately, quite the reverse seemed to be true: it was clearly a cherished and much used terminus, containing a very smart supermarket for the benefit of commuters which, with a change of logo from NW to M&S, could have been mistaken for a branch Simply Food.  

Outside, the statue of Gandhi still strides towards the future, while across the road, the art deco Hotel Waterloo, now repurposed as a backpackers hostel, had been given a slap up coat of paint highlighting its art deco features.  And with the hotel’s style I had discovered a theme: art deco.   As a child, I was unaware of the significance of this dash of modernity in some of Welllington’s buildings, but as I now moved around the city identifying places familiar from my childhood, I realized that many of these buildings were art deco, a style which, like the Victorian, had been eclipsed in the early post-war period, but which is now sought after.   In NZ, the city of Napier has cornered the art deco market, and is a place of pilgrimage for art deco enthusiasts. However, as become obvious, Wellington has a considerable share of art deco architecture and maybe some enterprising individual will devise an art deco trail of the city.

For the time being, native son film director Peter Jackson,  who was born and raised on the Kapiti Coast, has set a lead by refurbishing the Roxy cinema in the otherwise unremarkable suburb of Miramar, where the Weta Workshop of ‘Lord of the Rings’ fame is also located.  In fact, as I was to discover when meeting Bernie for lunch at the Brooklyn cinema where I used to go to Saturday matinees as a kid, another art deco cinema is now, like the Roxy, enjoying a new lease of  life, if not in quite the technicolour splendour to be found in its Miramar counterpart. 

Wellington is built on a major geological fault, and until relatively recently, there was a height ceiling on buildings,  so that none of the ones that I could identify from my childhood stand at more than six to eight floors, which was then considered ‘high’.   This limit is now being flouted big time, with the CBD, which is largely located on reclaimed land, now being dominated by high rise office blocks and apartments, including a very dreary structure near the railway station, for which Victoria University should be ashamed.  While the wisdom of such development in an earthquake zone can be questioned, what is even  more questionable is the aesthetic effect.  Formerly a low rise city with a some architectural unity, Wellington has now become an urban place more or less like those found anywhere else, while the older buildings, mostly repainted and repurposed,  now cower under or are reflected in a jungle of high rise towers.  Furthermore, whereas in the past, there was some sense of propriety in the scale, style and relationship of buildings, today anything goes, and the cityscape is now an incoherent muddle consisting of mostly conventional and mediocre new high rise buildings and older structures repurposed or awkwardly incorporated into a new one . Even a building whose form might match its status and function may instead express the fanciful ideas of the architect and client, as is the case with the Supreme Court building, to be seen in the background of the new graduates in a later photograh. This low rise structure is enclosed in a curious cage, which, who knows, may be an architectural metaphor for the intricacies of legal process. Whatever the intention, form doth not reflect function. 

Sometimes an existing building is preserved, either as a shell to front a new one, or it is retained unchanged while a new high rise is added to it.  The Kirkcaldy and Staines (‘Kirkcaldies’) deparment store, the country’s oldest, being in business since 1863, is one such example.  In earlier times, some of Walter Roberts’ Te Papa collection may have passed across its counters to their original owners, probably one of the Kelburn ladies in hats and gloves who were among Kirkaldies clientele . 

Following a recommendation by my hosts, I spent part of one morning doing a tour of the Parliament buildings, where I was one of a small group making up the first tour of the day: a middle aged couple from Auckland, a couple from China, and another couple originally from Mongolia but now citizens of Australia.  As it happened, it had not proved possible to ignore NZ politics from virtually the moment of my arrival in the country because, for the first week or so of my visit,  the news was dominated by what passed for a political scandal.  Aaron Gilmore,  a National Party MP from a South Island constituency,  had, it was reported, pulled rank as well as insulted a waiter by calling him a dickhead when a guest and in his cups at the Hamner Springs hotel.  As always with such scandals, various versions of the incident were reported and mulled over, while the hapless MP (who does seem to have been a bit of a prat) was ruthlessly pursued by the persistent representatives of the media as he attempted to go about his job as MP.  Eventually, he fell on his sword.  For a visitor from the UK there were some strking parallels with the ‘Plebgate’ incident. 

Given the nature of NZ politics and the voting system, a ruling party is often dependent on garnering support from minority parties to form a government or to pass legislation, so the loss of an MP while a bill is in progress through the house can be quite serious.  At the time, the government was attempting to pass contentious legislation which would confirm or even extend the government’s powers of surveillance, so even a minor scandal and the loss of an MP were unwanted by and uncomfortable for the smooth talking PM and his cabinet, whose other priority was passing a budget. 

New Zealand has a unicameral parliament which, since 1996 has been based on Mixed-member Proportional Representation (MMP). Seventy MPs are elected directly in electorate seats and the remainder are filled by ‘ list’ MPs based on each party's share of the party vote, making a total of 120 MPs (population 2010 4.3 million). For comparison, there are 650 MPs in the UK parliament (population 2010 61.9 million).  Not surprisingly, the debating chamber is quite intimate compared with the one at Westminster, and actually visiting it put into context the widely viewed final reading of the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill (otherwise known as Same Sex Marriage) in April of this year, when people in the crowded public gallery above and around the chamber burst into Pokarekare Ana , a traditional NZ love song, on the confirmation of the vote, while a woman MP sporting spectacular millinery distributed bouquets to the MPs associated with the sponsorship and passing of the legislation.  Although NZ isn't the first country to pass such legislation, it has always been in the vanguard of political innovation, to which the Electoral Act of 1893 is a testament. It made NZ the first country in the world to give women the vote, although it was to be another century before one would become PM. 

New Zealand’s 20^th century adoption of MMP meant that when, in the 2010 UK election, the outcome led to setting up a coalition government, there were hasty visits to New Zealand by, among others, Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary and highest official in the British civil service, in order to find out how coalition government worked in another Westminster system.  Our tour guide was pleased when I mentioned this, although he wouldn't concede that New Zealand’s three year parliamentary term was too brief: ‘we can get rid of them if we don't like them’ was his response. Maybe, but I couldn't help but wonder what the dual effects of MMP and such a short parliamentary term might have on the way the country is governed.

On leaving the parliamentary complex, I ran into lots of young people in caps and gowns waiting to attend their graduation ceremony in the building opposite – reputedly the largest wooden building in the Southern hemisphere.  New university graduates, not a few of them Asian, and their parents seemed to be everywhere over the next few days.  Education is a big industry in NZ, and while students have been recruited from Asia for generations, they have been recruited in very significant numbers over the past decade or so.  Some of them don't return home, but remain in NZ, adding to the Asianization of the country’s population, as would also be discovered in my next stop: Palmerston North

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75004468@N08/sets/

Airlines and national identity

While I was in Australia in October, there were strikes involving Qantas ground staff (flight and cabin crew strikes occurred later). Qantas are, among other things, recruiting lower cost non Australian staff at all levels, including flight crews, as a way of reducing costs in pursuit of greater competiveness as part of a strategy led by their Irish CEO.

Having now travelled on various national airlines to and from Australia, I've been struck by the role that airlines play in creating and promoting a national identity on the global stage. Emirates have done this very successfully, even though none of the personnel that an Emirates passenger actually encounters is an Emirati. So, while Emirates crews are highly diverse, nationally and linguistically, through masterly management, the UAE have managed to project an entirely bogus Emirati identity and image by means of their airline.

Qantas, by contrast, has always been largely crewed by Aussies, and the airline has stressed its Australian heritage and identity. Will replacing Aussie staff by non Aussies jeopardize this unique quality? If Emirates can pull off the trick of creating an identity with non nationals as staff, can Qantas maintain an Aussie identity with non Aussie crews?

And then there's Singapore Airlines. One of the things they were pushing in their publicity in October was the ‘Singapore Gir’l -- the comely stewardesses for which they have long been well known. Obviously, SA employs non Singaporean staff, but the image projected is one of Singaporean hospitality and identity by and of Singaporeans. The airline is closely aligned with the promotion of Singapore as a sophisticated, efficient and safe place to visit and do business in.

Finally, there is Royal Brunei, with whom I’ve travelled on most of my trips to Australia. I've always thought of RB as a 'hobby' airline for the royal family. On the last sector from Brunei to Singapore on my return, I was bumped from business to economy, with fulsome apologies (I even received a personal grovel letter when I was between flights in Brunei). The reason: a member of the royal family and entourage were travelling on the flight. One might wonder why they don't actually have their own jetliner, although with a hobby airline I suppose they already do. At a separate royal part of the airport, we witnessed the royal member and wife arrive in a top-of-the line Mercedes S class, to be greeted and seen off by a line of signatories (including an Arab in flowing robes). So, I suppose one could say that the airline is 'by appointment' and being royal sets it apart from a neighbouring airline better known for its Singapore Girls.

By such diverse means, countries use their national airlines as a way of projecting national identity on a global stage, as well as providing, when successful, an important commercial enterprise. The challenge now seems to be successfully meeting commercial pressures – not least competition from other similar airlines – while also retaining the national identity that, potentially, makes each airline unique, and which provides an important part of their USP. I hope that the Irish CEO at Qantas doesn’t trash the Aussie service qualities that are part of the image and appeal of Qantas as he reconfigures the national flag carrier.