Jafa is a slang term (sometimes pejorative) for a resident of Auckland, New Zealand.[1] It is an acronym, standing for Just Another Fucking Aucklander. This prejudice against Aucklanders started to appear around the 1900s, when Premier Richard John Seddon referred to Aucklanders as "Rangitoto Yanks," and is considered to be representative of the boorishness of Aucklanders, or the envy of the rest of New Zealand, depending on the perspective. The term is also misspelled as Jaffa, a chocolate confection from Dunedin, and is often used in sentences which render the original term useless in the grammatical sense. The term has wider currency than the earlier derogatory term "Rangitoto Yank".[2] A variant is Jaffa, Just Another Fuckwit From Auckland.
Origins
The word Jafa often conveys dislike for Aucklanders. While only a small part of New Zealand geographically, Auckland makes up 28% of the population of New Zealand, by far the largest city, and has greater economic power (mainly through the centralisation of many companies) than its population share would indicate.[citation needed]
Other factors in the use of the word:
- Auckland is alleged to dominate in national politics and society, a claim possibly somewhat overstated, as much of the political power is concentrated in Wellington, the country's capital. In terms of society recognition, Wellingtonians are also more than twice as likely to be selected to receive Commonwealth honours such as those on the New Year's Honour List.[3]
- Auckland is alleged to receive more than its fair share of government funds, though often in the past, as in 2005, it "received less than its share in terms of its proportion of total population",[4] and a report in 1991 showed that out of $150 million in fuel taxes, only $84 million had come back to the Auckland Region in transport investment.[5]
- Auckland is alleged to be a drain on the national economy. In fact, it is the main business centre in the country, but rural New Zealand produces the agricultural majority of the nation's exports. Auckland produces around 35 percent of New Zealand's GDP, however on a per-capita basis, it is fifth behind Taranaki, Wellington, Southland and Canterbury.[6]
- Auckland is alleged to dominate the National Provincial Championship in rugby union in the 1980s and 90s, when Auckland won the championship in 15 out of 30 years and never lost in a final, holding the prestigious Ranfurly Shield trophy for a record 61 successful defences over 8 years.
- Auckland is alleged to be full of rude, greedy and arrogant people, having a similar reputation as Mumbai and Kolkata in India, Milan and Rome in Italy, Paris in France, London in the United Kingdom, New York City in the United States, or Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia.
- Auckland is alleged to be full of cars and especially SUVs (often referred to by detractors as 'Remuera Tractors', with Remuera being the stereotypical 'rich people's suburb'), and its drivers preferring them to other types of transportation,[7] but Aucklanders use them less than the rural population.
- Auckland is alleged to be a culturally alien place due to the much higher proportion of non-Māori and nonwhite populations than the rest of the country. Percentage-wise, Auckland has the seventh largest ethnic Chinese population among all urban areas outside Greater China.[8] In the 2006 census, Asians comprised 18.9% of Auckland's population but only 7.9% in Christchurch, and 14.4% of Auckland's but merely 2.8% of Christchurch's population are Pacific Islanders. Most new immigrants to Auckland are from East Asia and South Asia, while people immigrating to other parts of the country show higher percentage rates of UK and South African origins.[9] Auckland is finding itself increasingly marginalised on sports traditionally identified with New Zealand culture, such as rugby and netball, because of high immigrant numbers from countries with little tradition of such sports.[10]
- Auckland is one of the few areas in New Zealand that has the traffic volumes associated with a major city. Most of New Zealand, including other cities, has a rural traffic pattern. This has given rise to the idea that 'Auckland Drivers' are overly aggressive. It doesn't help that the through route goes through the middle whereas other cities have by-passes.
Other uses
It has been claimed in one 2007 tourist article that in the United Kingdom, the term JAFA has also come to stand for Just Another Fucking Australian, apparently in reference to the hard drinking and allegedly arrogant behaviour of many travelling Australians.[15]
The acronym is also used, particularly by Australian Antarctic personnel, for Just Another Fucking Academic.[16]