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NEW
INTERNATIONALIST 163  |
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THIS
MONTH'S THEME |
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BUILDING PEACE AND JUSTICE |
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Pacific force Challenging Goliath
The weapons of winter Beyond
the cross of iron Dr Strangelove and Mr Geldof The need for war Life after death Yankee go home The unbalance of terror No
Kidding |
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FROM
THIS MONTH'S EDITOR |
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The reason for this was pretty simple - we couldn't afford to pay for editors to travel purely as reporters. It is far cheaper to use a journalist who has been to the country under their own steam. And this isn't such a bad system, since the most important role an editor plays is in the construction of an issue, in stripping a subject down to its basics and then putting it together again in a shape that will appeal. That's a job which is as easily - perhaps more easily - done in Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford, as in Chandni Chowk, Delhi. Yet in the last year I've been lucky enough to spend a month in a village in Burkina Faso, five weeks in South Africa and five weeks in Australasia. Other editors have been to Nicaragua, Zimbabwe and Kenya - and all for NI projects, a reflection of our much healthier financial position (I joined at the right time.) My most recent trip was to Australia and New Zealand. The NI is thriving in both countries, and it was great to meet all the people whose work has made this possible. This issue on peace and social justice was their idea - and it took shape in my meetings with peace activists from Perth to Brisbane and from Christchurch to Auckland. Like all NIs, it aims to treat the subject in an international way, but this time it is written almost entirely by people from Australia and Aotearoa (NZ). And that last, unfamiliar, country name is one indication of the different perspective I encountered. I found a New Zealand in ferment. Not just because of its anti-nuclear stand, but also because Maori and Pacific people are campaigning so effectively for their rights. One upshot is that, for the first time, white or pakeha people have started to take the Maori language seriously. You find meetings opening with Maori greetings. And people have started to use the Maori word for their country - Aotearoa, which means Land of the Long White Cloud. You'll need to get used to that word, because our supporters in aid agencies there have asked us to use the new name in the NI from now on, as a small contribution to the process of decolonization that they are going through. This may cause a little confusion, since it will take their Government a fair while to catch up and change the name officially. But it doesn't take us long to become accustomed to such changes, as the outdated feel of colonial names such as Nyasaland and Gold Coast proves. Indeed I find such name changes heartening. They may be only cosmetic but they are still signals that the world is changing. If we are to achieve peace and social justice it will have to change a very great deal. And this issue of the NI hopes to recharge our will to push it in the right direction. |
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Chris Brazier
for the New Internationalist Co-operative |
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Letters
COVER PHOTO: Joe Rosenthal |
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Before I got this job and was just a subscriber to the NI, I imagined its editors flying all over the globe to report for the magazine. But at my interview two-and-a half years ago I was assured that the magazine was put together on the phone, in libraries, in the back office - just about anywhere except on the ground in the Third World.
