Ian asked if someone had details of the poem read in the National Programme on Sunday morning.
It was part of the Bookmarks Programme, about Courage Day.
Philip Temple said, "We're constantly being manipulated, especially by the network news by the particular arrangement of the film-clip, the sound bite and the buzz word. I was appalled that our very first Courage Day - which was all about freedom of speech and freedom of publication was not covered by either of the main TV news channels, or even worse by the local newspaper The Press. Then I suppose I shouldn't be surprised because it was drawn to our attention on that night that The Press had failed to notice just 100 metres from it's own office the presence of 3000 people from the Hikoi of Hope gathered in Cathedral Square."
Censorship by omission or manipulation is with us all the time. What we're being fed is severely manipulated. We should try to plug ourselves into other sorts of information.
As best I can, here is a transcription of the poem read. If anyone has contact with Kathleen, I'd like to get a corrected version. This is a little bit of history I'm keen to keep.
by Kathleen Gallagher
If you write eloquent words on a piece of paper
And you stand in The Square, on the steps of the Cathedral
And say the words to 3000 people
Who cheer and yell and clap when you speak
About poverty and suicide and depression and ill health.
And The Press don't publish a word you say.
They don't even photograph the 3000 people who walk
And stand and pray together with you
in The Square; outside their office.
They don't even note in the Monday Newspaper
the number of people who were there,
Nor the nineteen days that you walked from
Bluff to Christchurch Carrying a crucifix
made from two bits of manuka,
Rising at 3am, 6am to pray and again at noon and dusk.
Weaving your way up the island, the soles of your feet
Rubbing the bony parts of the land.
Through the wet green lushness
of the south along the cliffs,
Up over the kilmog above the sand
and the great boulder beaches,
Through the burnt brown dry hills, on and on
Across the great snow rivers of the plains,
at dusk, at dawn, walking.
The people in the small towns,
the quiet villages, coming with tea,
Boiling water, cream cakes, small mince pies,
egg and parsley sandwiches
Roaring hungi pits full of meat, kumera, spuds, pumpkin.
Great roast dinners in halls, marae, peoples homes
With mattresses, clean sheets, warm blankets laid out
Night after day after night after day of walking.
People on the road passing you water saying "Thank you.
Thank you for walking this way. It is needed to be done."
If you write the words down about your friend.
How he died because he had no work;
For too long he had no work.
And you read them out.
You tell everybody "This is why he died."
Because the government policy is that we have a fixed
percentage of unemployed people always
and this policy of the government kills people.
It killed your friend, and nobody publishes it.
Nobody dares publish what you say
So nobody knows except the 3000.
Written, Said, and Unpublished.
It's not allowed to resonate out among the people
So the people who need to hear it, don't get to hear it.
And none of them get angry and walk with you up the Island.
They follow the way of your friend.
This is the silencing practised here.
Thank you Kathleen.
I find those words moving and inspiring..
John