AUT Master of Creative Writing Thesis Exegesis - Scholarly ...

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AUT Master of Creative Writing 2008 Shorty © Michael Botur 2009 Subcultures such as skinheadism ‘provide a means of rebirth without having to undergo the pain of symbolic death’ (Stratton ibid.) Self-loathing drives this desire for rebirth; the Narrator ‘dies’ in severing loyalty to his family and their friends. Embracing skinheadism is for this character ‘an attempt to retrieve some of the socially cohesive elements destroyed in (his) parent culture… combining this with a confrontational element’ (Stratton.) Here we have the son of a Briton embracing Nazism, which in reality was once an enemy of his ethnicity. This ‘unemployed working class’ narrator, who wears steel-capped boots and braces, remains in his social confines by pushing in all directions, inviting hostility and causing a centripetal effect to try to affirm his indigeneity. Iesu Ah Scab ‘He rubbed Iesu’s afro. Iesu folded into himself then found the power in his thighs to stand up, albeit hunched over.’ Iesu Ah Sam is a target of bullying and repression because he is a ‘fob’ (Fresh-off-the-Boat referring to the original importation of Polynesian people to contribute cheap labour in NZ’s industries and processing.) He has grown up in a home insulated in its Samoan identity and is unconfident in English language. Iesu can be seen as having some advantages – a loving father and rugby talent – but he has been held 24
AUT Master of Creative Writing 2008 Shorty © Michael Botur 2009 back by an overbearing mother who established herself in the community at the expense of producing a well-rounded son. Iesu Ah Scab concerns an ethnographic conflict with social undertones played out on the rugby field at a high school. Sport is the situation identified by Teaiwa and Mallon (New Zealand Identities: Departures and Destinations 2005) as representing the ‘ambivalent kinship’ which Pacific Islanders arguably receive in NZ. Iesu is gifted at rugby, and is the son of the late Lika who had been matriarch of the community. ‘Fob’ could be identified as Iesu’s subculture; certainly, Iesu’s identity is bound up with persecution and insecurity. In spite of his rugby prowess, his difficulty with language makes communication unfair on him. Iesu is easy to ostracise. The rugby field is a scene of jealousy and tension and Iesu’s size advantage is not welcomed. With youth, individuals gravitate towards solidarity and collective affiliations (Wyn p.275) and this can be at the expense of others – hence, we see another Pacific Islander, Sione/Chonny, leading the rugby collective at the school at the expense of Iesu, who is treated as extraordinary. The character of Coach, meanwhile, homogenizes the team and makes no exceptions for Iesu’s shortcomings. This is because urban political power (Falconer p.182) is being upheld – with Lika gone, the threat of non-Anglo achievement is diminished. Iesu is not afforded the ‘hospitality without subservience’ which the tangata whenua should afford him, due to his ethnicity as a tuakana (Polynesian sibling of Maori, from Teaiwa and Mallon.) 25
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