Most Peaceful Country in the World. Yeah Right!

Kia Ora,

For those that missed it, New Zealand has been named the most peaceful country in the world this year. Even one of our local papers questioned that.

Exactly what do they use to judge this?

Violent crime is out of control, in particular so far this year & that is just the reported crime. A media outlet a few years back claimed that 95% of crime & 96% of violent crime are unreported in NZ.

Not sure about the figures but definitely a lot fo crime goes unreported unless there is a campaign about a particular area of crime.

I am also not sure that is really the view many people have of NZ.

1986 springs to mind when an army buddy & myself toured Europe & we meet up with other Kiwi's, Aussie's & groups from Britain.

Prior to them all coming to Crete where we bumped into them, a British tabloid had printed an article (front page I am told) where it named Kiwi's as the most aggressive people on the planet.

That image is not helped by the Haka (even though I love them, it does come across as aggressive) & even more by two movies. "Once were Warriors" &  "What become of the Broken Hearted".

There is also the statistic which has NZ with the second highest percentage of people in prison after the US in the developed world. That doesn't back up a peaceful place.

Neither does the way we drive. Nice until we get behind the wheel then watch out.

During that time in Crete as we debated whether New Zealanders were aggressive or not, we as a group were walking to have a meal.

On the side of the road were a couple with Auckland written on the bottom of their pack. Someone spoke to the guy then said is your girlfriend from the US? No, New Zealand, but glad you didn't say Aussie as she is going to hit the next person who says it.

Since she was very petit, immediately an Aussie woman says "see told you, you Kiwis were aggressive even more than us. Even a tiny girl like that is ready to fight."

This woman's contention had being that Kiwis were the most aggressive because 1. we are very good at sport for our population size (for many years we topped the medals per capita at the Olympics), 2. we party hard & aggresively & 3. even though we don't fight as much as Aussies & many of us say we are much of fighters, in her opinion you piss a Kiwi off at your peril.

So are we really peaceful? Or is it a myth?

In many respects the more peaceful places are those who are prepared for the worst.

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