The Bible’s Garden of Eden is the prototypical paradise. God’s first hand creation of nature in balance with man is the dream of many, a place of bliss and innocence. Philosophers and biblical commentators ponder what would the world have been like had the snake never teased people into disobeying God’s command of eating from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Would mankind be simple and peaceful, enjoying God’s grace?
Alas, the world we live in today is a product of that fateful day. Mankind was expelled from the garden and soon knew of murder, and the snake became one of the most feared and hated animals to man. A steep price to pay for the knowledge between good and evil.
There are almost no countries on Earth without snakes today, as the reptile thrives in a wide variety of climates. New Zealand, an island far removed from most inhabited locations is one of those snake-free homes. Its natural beauty is beyond comparison, with a habitat with few predators; quite a world apart from its closest neighbor Australia with crocodiles, Great White sharks and killer spiders, jellyfish, snakes, and taipans.
New Zealand’s beauty and lack of lethal animals offers an initial peer into the inhabitants’ innocence. Its government makes visitors declare every food item and more upon entering the country, less its fragile environment become threatened by the introduction of new harmful elements.
This Eden Without Snakes fosters a socially conscious and environmentally-friendly culture, at least according to the European colonialists who took control of the islands from the indigenous Maori. White Europeans now constitute just shy of 70 per cent of the nation, Maori 16.5% and Asians 15.3%. The colonialists cemented their rule on February 6, 1840 with the signing of the Waitangi Treaty in which the Maori essentially handed over their land to the Europeans. The country celebrates Waitangi Day every February 6, without pausing how the European colonists importation of various animals and trees to make it resemble Scotland, destroyed the Eden that existed before their arrival, almost bringing the native flightless birds like the kiwi to extinction.
Residing thousands of miles from the nearest country – with whom it has warm bilateral relations – has insulated the country from wars. Its national assessment of the risk of terrorism is low, quite different than Australia (probable) and the United Kingdom (substantial).
The clueless New Zealanders (no admitted relationship to Ben Stiller’s Zoolander) broadcast their ignorance when they attack Israel in its defense against antisemitic genocidal jihadists who live next door. The country passed laws sniffing out Israelis visiting the country, while the actual local Kiwi colonists seek out Israelis for harassment on the streets.
No Western democracy deals with threats to existence like Israel. Israel exists on one extreme, a small sliver of a country surrounded by jihadists who seek to destroy the country as a matter of open public policy, while the remote Eden of New Zealand is on the other extreme.
To watch the Kiwis stand in judgment of the Jewish State is a pathetic display of virtue signaling by naive and entitled actual colonists, about a situation thousands of miles away which has no direct bearing on their peaceful existence. One is left with concluding New Zealanders are either idiots or antisemites.
We can also let them declare their every bias before they proffer their views to avoid contaminating other democracies.
{Reposted from the author’s blog}
