Editorial
Declaration of independence
by Finlay Macdonald
You might say I’ve been writing this one for a while. Five years, give or take. I’d envisaged a reflective, contemplative time of it, unravelling some of the thoughts and impressions one gathers along the way to that door marked “exit”. Then I picked up a head cold with a kick like a carthorse and have spent two semi-delirious nights and moaning days struggling just to put a T-shirt on the right way round, let alone deliver some imagined Gettysburg Address of Listener editorials. So here I am, death warmed up on my final deadline, and already breaking one of the little pacts I’d made with myself at the outset, not to write about the process of writing (or struggling to write) the column. Just shoot me.
That title, by the way, is intended mildly ironically. Sitting around a while ago with various interested parties, I was asked what I might do with the final editorial; would I hold forth on our direction as a nation, the challenges facing New Zealanders, observations on the state of the culture and all that? I said I wasn’t writing the bloody Declaration of Independence or giving the Sermon on the Mount, lofty vantage afforded by the editor’s chair or no. Oddly enough, I feel less inclined to generalise, predict or prescribe than I might have once, the response perhaps to a growing personal distaste for the sort of sweeping, pseudo-omniscient rhetoric favoured by so many pundits and politicians. Pontificating should be left to pontiffs.
Anyway, the title obviously carries other resonances. Many of the kind and lovely letters I’ve had since quitting have made some reference to the magazine’s valuable role in providing an alternative viewpoint amid the general babble of unexamined and conformist orthodoxies. I know there are pockets of resistance out there where we’re still typecast as ideologically doctrinaire, but it isn’t supported by the evidence. Indeed, not so long ago I was accused by one letter writer of being a National Party stooge after some criticism of the Labour government, so we must be doing something right. I’d hope that the magazine has remained true to its best liberal, humanist traditions while adhering to the sceptical, heterodox values that journalism in general should aspire to.
Looking back, if there was a defining moment of my tenure it would probably be September 11, 2001. One week after the events, we devoted most of the magazine’s feature section to their meaning, largely questioning the logic and the honesty of George W Bush’s “war on terror”, now the defining geopolitical rubric of our time. The predictable accusations of “anti-Americanism” aside, I think our instincts were bang on. Watching the awful pantomime of evasions and falsehoods that was Bush’s recent State of the Union address, replete with choreographed ovations by fawning acolytes, I was struck yet again by how low US political culture has sunk, and how as citizens of the world we all have a stake in its resuscitation.
Other defining moments have been more domestic than epochal. One child started school, another was born, I turned 40, my father died. Working days spent wrestling with the meaning of current events and juggling staff, resources and budgets would routinely end with the bedlam of children’s dinner, bath and bedtime. Taxing though it could be, what modicum of sanity I’ve managed to preserve I put down to the grounding influence of changing nappies, washing Marmite off faces, reading stories and watching videos in which the goblins and monsters are only make-believe.
And through it all, the incessant rhythms of the Listener’s weekly production cycle. I’ve sometimes joked that planning and putting out a magazine like this is a bit like being run over by the same truck every Wednesday. You see it coming, you know what it’s going to feel like, and then you’re picking yourself up and dusting your self off in readiness for the next collision. The truth is you survive due largely to the talent, dedication and reliability of the people around you. So, to all the brilliant staff and contributors who’ve made the ride so memorable and the work so worth it, and to the readers whose loyalty and engagement are such an integral part of the magazine, my humble gratitude and respect. Been good talking, see you round. Independence declared.
