1990: Kiri’s Homecoming
October 4, 2019
By AHNZ
Horatio Algar° (1832-1899) championed the American Dream. He wrote stories for young people based around the premise that value rewards virtue. Don’t worry even if you’re born poor in some New Zealand backwater to parents who don’t want you because, if you’re good, the benevolent world will recognise you and send opportunities your way.
For example, Kiri Te Kanawa became New Zealand’s greatest opera singer because her community recognised her talent and supported it. Te Kanawa was a child of an affair, abandoned by her parents. In another era, the singing Tall Poppy would be scorned but Mt Everest Dignity Culture (c.1947-1952) rose her up with the same ethic of Horatio Algar.
“In April 1944 a social worker came to the house of Tom and Nell Te Kanawa, who had placed themselves on an adoption list, with a five-week old baby girl. They turned the baby down. Later the social worker returned with the same baby and the wife said, “Look at that poor little girl—she’s got no home. Poor kid, no one’s adopted her yet.” And so they did and gave her the Maori name Kiri.”- Movin To New Zealand
Rutherford’s Last Potato
Sometimes, New Zealand looks at itself and its children in that individualistic way. “Anyone can make it,” says Dignity Culture. In Oliver Twist, Dickens threw every cruel twist of fate at his orphaned protagonist as if he were testing the buoyancy of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant male goodness to rise to the top no matter what.
And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar
And say, “Man, what are you doin’ here?”- Billy Joel
Dickens’ story¹ was written during the era of Dignity Culture that gave rise to so many of New Zealand’s early settlers. It was such a good DC that some of the people embodying it didn’t want it to end so they formed the New Zealand Company and built cities such as Christchurch. They took the Life Pod option in 1850 in the same way that their ancestors had done in founding Virginia 200 years previously. The next era of Dignity Culture came in about 1860 before being swept away by Kate Shepherd Victimhood Culture. The outstanding Algarian Boy of this era is without any doubt Ernest Rutherford…
“…a scholarship designed to benefit young graduates from outpodst of the Empire….Family anecdote recalls that Rutherford was working on the farm when he received news of the scholarship: “The’s the last potato I will ever dig” he remarked.”- display panel, Nelson Founder’s Museum
Rutherford, rather than yet another Kiwi farmer, went on bestride the world of nuclear physics as if it were an opera and he were its top diva. Yes, I do mean he had a temperamental flair but I also mean he was brilliant and incomparable.
Kiri’s Homecoming
It’s no wonder that Kiri Te Kanawa was enough of a star to sub in as an actor back in 2013. Downton Dignity Culture (c. 2009-2015) takes its name from the show Downton Abbey which is made its DC fanbase during DC days. Likewise, Kiri was in high demand during the previous cycle, Krypton Factor Dignity Culture (c.1987-1990.) The singing diva came home to New Zealand to a record-breaking reception raising some $100,000 for charity. New Zealand, in its sesquicentennial year, went nuts and fell in love with Kiri all over again.
More recently, in our post-Dignity Culture era, Kiri has been less popular in the mainstream. Te Kanua, a few years ago, was rightly dismissive of some popular singers² who are now forgotten. At the time those other women were very popular which soured Kiri’s reputation. However, a DC heroine can never expect to please the mainstream of a people who make being offended their past-time whereas her people, her audience, would only have approved of her honest opinion!
Kiri is in her retirement years but seems to have preserved very well. She doesn’t have to be able to sing anymore in order to be a public figure and celebrated if she can stick around for the next Dignity Culture. Like every Oliver Twist Algarian Hero, Kiri has paid her gift forward by helping other kids in the same boat she once was in to have their talents recognised. It’s what DC people do to Tall Poppies whereas VC people have them decapitated in the name of equality.
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° See also, Horatio Algar Exercise; If Someone doesn’t understand privilege, show them this; NZB3
1 Note, A later Dignity Culture era writer, Roald Dahl, also created characters in this Oliver Twist DC mould such as Matilda and Charlie. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the tale of one of these Algarian kids whose virtue takes them from pauper to prince. However, the moral lesson is imperfectly realised by Dahl because of that touch of SC in the author.
2 Eg. Susan Boyle, Charlotte Church and Hayley Westenra.
Image ref. Kiri’s Homecoming, VHS; Amazon
Image ref. Young Rutherford; Cox & Whittal; NZ Edge
Note. Concert was held at Trentham Memorial Park, Upper Hutt, 28 January 1990. Sponsored by the Bank of New Zealand, it was followed up in Auckland and in Christchurch.
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