Friday 5 March 2021

The Revolution All Around Us.

Revolutionary Formula: "A new Aotearoa is on the rise. Tangata Whenua (Māori) + Tangata Tiriti (all other ethnicities who are committed to a tiriti centric Aotearoa) = the Aotearoa I believe in fighting for." - Rawiri Waititi, Co-Leader of the Maori Party.

NEW ZEALAND is in the early stages of a revolution. No, not one of those revolutions. The streets are not overflowing with revolutionary crowds. The factories have not been taken over by the workers. The old constitutional order has not been cast aside. The nation’s historical time-line has not been reset to Year Zero. But, make no mistake, a revolution is underway.

At the heart of this revolution is an evolving understanding of what sort of country we live in – and would like to live in. The clearest description of this revolution and its ultimate objectives that I have read so far is contained in a tweet posted in the name of Maori Party co-leader, Rawiri Waititi. To describe the tweet as jarring would be something of an understatement:

The cau casity of Caucasian’s and their ‘active assimilation agenda’. Pay them no attention, their archaic species is becoming more extinct as new Aotearoa is on the rise. Tangata Whenua + Tangata Tiriti = Aotearoa > Tangata Whenua + Pakeha = Old Zealand.

Waititi was quick to distance himself from this message, describing it as the work of someone in his office who acted without his authority. Setting to one side the obvious question: “What kind of office is Waititi running?”, the tweet’s content offers New Zealanders a raw and unmediated synopsis of the Maori Party’s revolutionary agenda. “Transformative” barely covers it!

The first element to note is the highly charged racial vocabulary. “Caucasian” is being used, rather than Pakeha, in much the same way as the latter once referred to Maori as “Polynesians”, and for the same purpose. To subsume a geographically and culturally specific identity into a much larger and more general racial category.

Very clearly, it is not a nice category. In the exercise of their “caucacity”, Caucasians are accused of pursuing an “active assimilation agenda”.

This is a curious charge. Historically, “assimilation” was very much on the agenda of the New Zealand state. In the years after World War II, as Maori began migrating from the countryside to the big cities in large numbers, doing everything possible to turn them into “ordinary” New Zealanders was generally regarded as the most “progressive” policy response available to the authorities. Think of it as an early iteration of the “They are Us” formulation.

The intention was to create a “colour-blind” society. The key category was “citizen” – with all that implied about equality of access to gainful employment, housing, health and education. An excessive focus on racial identity was seen as unhelpful in this regard. The objective was a nation in which the terms “Maori” and “Pakeha” counted for much less than “New Zealander”. It is to the policy of assimilation that the members of “Hobson’s Pledge” pay homage with their insistence that we must all become “one people”.

What makes the tweet’s claim that an “active assimilation policy” is still part of the New Zealand state’s agenda so odd, is that the term “assimilation” long ago became a very dirty word in the corridors of power. From the 1980s onwards the clear policy of successive governments has been to support and strengthen the unique features of te ao Maori. From the Treaty of Waitangi Act of 1975 to the establishment of Kohanga Reo and the recognition of Maori as an official language, the direction of travel has been all one way: from mono-culturalism to bi-culturalism.

It was Donna Awatere, author of the seminal series of Broadsheet articles entitled “Maori Sovereignty”, who rejected this new goal of a bi-cultural New Zealand as insufficiently ambitious. Inspired by the irredentist national strategy of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, she argued for a sovereign Maori nation, freed from the constitutional, economic, political and cultural hegemony of the colonial culture which had, through the judicious application of force and guile, supplanted her own.

Following the Palestinians, Awatere argued for a strategy which is best described as “reverse colonisation”. On the one hand, delegitimise the colonisers’ occupation of lands that were never theirs; on the other, offer them the opportunity of assimilating themselves into Aotearoa, the sovereign Maori state that would slowly, surely, and non-violently, replace the colonial relic known as New Zealand. (Those with long memories will recall that for as long as it remained a revolutionary socialist organisation, the creation of a unitary, secular, Palestinian state, continued to be the PLO’s ultimate goal.)

Although Awatere’s personal evolution took her further and further away from the revolutionary vision that inspired “Maori Sovereignty”, her ideas and perspectives were taken up and developed by Maori nationalists across the country.

Perhaps the best way to get an idea of the revolutionary processes at work in this country, is to conduct a thought experiment involving another one.

Imagine that the Palestinians living in the occupied territories, rather than descending ever deeper into terrorism and religious zealotry, had adopted the non-violent civil-disobedience tactics of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Further imagine that the progressive Israeli political parties, urged on by the Americans, had responded by negotiating seriously with the PLO.

Consider the speed with which the whole situation in Israel/Palestine might have been transformed; the exciting possibility that young Jews and Arabs, together, might have mapped out a future in which the land of Israel/Palestine was deemed to have physical and cultural space enough for both peoples. Who knows, they may even have persuaded their political leaders to set up a permanent tribunal to hear and settle the many grievances arising out of the excesses of Zionist colonisation.

Gradually, thanks in no small part to the state education system and state media, the fearless elucidation of Zionism’s manifest injustices might have persuaded a critical mass of young Israelis to abandon their country’s name altogether. Slowly, surely, non-violently, “Israel” might have come to be known, once again, as “Palestine”.

Impossible? Certainly, Israel/Palestine has a great many more obstacles to overcome than New Zealand/Aotearoa. Still, if Jew and Arab had stopped firing bullets at each other way back in the 1870s and started marrying each other in great numbers – who knows where that unfortunate land might be today?

Which brings us back to that interesting tweet: and to what is undoubtedly its most objectionable sentence: “Pay them no attention, their archaic species is becoming more extinct as new Aotearoa is on the rise.”

Now, viewed from the perspective of those whose ancestors were, at the turn of the 19th Century, confidently expected to become “die out”, this sort of gloating racism is, perhaps, forgivable. From the perspective of the descendants of the colonisers, however, it sounds unnervingly like a direct challenge – an existential threat.

That sentiments like these could so easily put the chant of the White Supremacists at Charlottesville: “You will not replace us!”; into the mouths of angry Pakeha, clearly never occurred to whoever sent out the tweet in Rawiri Waititi’s name. Or (and this is a much more distressing thought) maybe it did?

Waititi is, therefore, to be commended for the speed with which he moved to defuse this political IED. Within a few hours, he had re-written the tweet, and clarified his own position on the slow revolution unfolding all around us:

A new Aotearoa is on the rise. Tangata Whenua (Māori) + Tangata Tiriti (all other ethnicities who are committed to a tiriti centric Aotearoa) = the Aotearoa I believe in fighting for.

Strewth! When you put it like that, Rawiri, so do I.


This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 5 March 2021

29 comments:

Barry said...

Ive just been reading bits of:
"THE REPORT OF MATIKE MAI AOTEAROA -
THE INDEPENDENT WORKING GROUP ON CONSTITUTIONAL TRANSFORMATION"

This essentially is a call for partnership government - sounds just fine - but it really means a non-Maori part of government that are elected and a Maori part of government - which is non elected.
And the two parties would rule as equals. The Iwi Leaders group are pushing it - expecting to be the Maori part of the deal.

Sounds like Rawiri Waititi is making a grab to be in the Maori group.

As they - fasten your seat belts because its going to get a bit rough and possibly interesting...........

Wayne Mapp said...

The difficulty of the Rawiri's final formulation is democracy, or rather everyone having the same fundamental rights of citizenship. It is one thing for New Zealand to be bicultural, it is quite another for it to be co-governed on the basis of iwi Maori and all others. It would fundamentally require an inequality of citizenship. Perhaps prior to the huge rise in immigration from 1990 onward, Rawiri's vision might have been possible. In the late 1980's nearly a third of school children were of Maori descent, and that percentage was growing. That is no longer the case.

For me, the future of Aotearoa New Zealand is quite unclear. There are the strident demands of those like Rawiri, now embodied in Te Parti Maori, with a much more radical vision that was the case two decades ago. There is the competing demand, that at a fundamental level everyone is treated equally, which largely means majoritarianism.

These two visions are currently accommodated within an increasingly bicultural New Zealand. Maori will become a compulsory school subject. All forms of governance will have an element of kaupapa Maori. However, this is a long way short of the co-governance envisaged by Te Parti Maori, or the type of Jewish/Palestinian state where both groups are more or less equal in number.

Such a vision discounts the equality of citizens, and focuses on the equality of groups. The individual becomes subordinate to the group. Is that really likely to become the predominant form of government?

Some of my inlaws say the greatest tragedy to befall Maori was colonisation. By that they mean the loss of sovereignty, the idea of Aotearoa as a sovereign Maori nation, in the same way as say Samoa or Tonga. In their eyes the process of colonising, by hugely out numbering Maori, meant a Maori nation could not happen. Just when there was a glimmer of it again in the late 1980's, then in came another million and half colonists, now called immigrants. As much as anything this was the origin of the NZ First party, although unlike Te Parti Maori, NZ First were reasonably comfortable with the concept of a pakeha maori nation that was being progressively created over the century prior to the 1990's.






Guerilla Surgeon said...


"Imagine that the Palestinians living in the occupied territories, rather than descending ever deeper into terrorism and religious zealotry, had adopted the non-violent civil-disobedience tactics of Gandhi and Martin Luther King."
1.Both Martin Luther King and Gandhi were pretty damned ruthless. MLK deliberately put kids on the front line to get beaten up, and was taken to task about it by the Black Panthers (if my memory serves) of all people.
2.Martin Luther King was successful because the federal government was to some extent subject to pressure from both inside the US – those Eastern liberals everyone pitches about – and from outside given that it was reasonably sensitive to public opinion, and trying to establish itself as an alternative to communism, which had the reputation of being racially neutral. Mistaken as it turns out.
3.How successful would King have been if there hadn't been this pressure and if the US government hadn't given a shit outside about public opinion? Something like the Israeli or Chinese governments at present. Gandhi would be in prison or in a re-education camp, and many of his followers would have been shot down. Remember the Amritsar massacre? If there hadn't been those northern liberals and Bull Connor had been allowed free reign, race relations in the US would have been set back – well to the 1860s let's say.

John Hurley said...

I'm not sure if I already posted this but

Tze Ming Mok
@tzemingdynasty
Just FYI, Prof Linda Tuhiwai Smith whose allegations of structural racism in the academy are being ignored by Waikato University, might be NZ's most cited living academic. VC of Waikato University... not so much...
https://twitter.com/tzemingdynasty/status/1301630051142696962

She seems to have about 36,000 citations whereas in the thread a couple of others are much higher


But even so she states: Scientific Research is Deeply Implicated in the Forms of Colonialism and has to stop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0JaAs8CsuU&t=66s

Tze Ming Mok is in a Pathways presentation; is in with Russel Brown (Mediawatch) and I see in that thread Emma Espiner commenting.

People don't realise what they are up against and the key to all this is read Cynical Theories - How Activist Scholarship made everything about Race, Gender and Identity (and why it hurts everyone).

Jens Meder said...

And would not "peoples capitalism" with no "have nots" among us -

be the most reliable vision to secure constructive and egalitarian unity among us ?

David George said...

Rawiri Waititi, narcissistic buffoon, the Maori Donald Trump or hate filled, racist revolutionary. All three I suspect.
Revolutions fuelled by resentment and hate always turn out badly, be wary of the prospect of Tangata Whenua (Māori) + Tangata Tiriti (all other ethnicities who are committed to a tiriti centric Aotearoa). It's not what you probably think it is.
Rawiri's vision of what that entails isn't about respecting the rights of other cultures and their values, he said it. Your right as a Kiwi dependant on adherence and submission to his ethno nationalist creed. Exact details TBA (to be advised) no doubt.

While it's very difficult to get a clear idea on the long term vision these separatists hold, it does seem to be motivated by toxic resentment (hate?), fueled, at least in part, by a willful distortion of history and the relatively poor performance on quality of life measures for some of the Maori people. Perhaps there's some comfort to be had in blaming everyone else for your failings but it's never been a good long term strategy for the individual or for the group.

“Maybe your misery is the weapon you brandish in your hatred for those who rose upward while you waited and sank. Maybe your misery is your attempt to prove the world's injustice, instead of the evidence of your own sin, your missing of the mark, your conscious refusal to strive and live. Maybe your willingness to suffer in failure is inexhaustible, given what you use that suffering to prove. Maybe it's your revenge on Being. How exactly should I befriend you when you're in such a place? How could I?”
― Jordan B. Peterson,

Guerilla Surgeon said...

Oh God, we're back to quoting Jordan Peterson? The "professor of piffle." The "stupid man's smart person". The man who lives on beef, water, and salt. The addiction expert who took a quack cure in Russia, when he could have had proper, and I might say free treatment in Canada.
Not someone whose advice we should value.

Phil said...

The Maori Party at the last election campaigned for having a separate parliament for Maori with $20 billion a year to fund it. I do not see that as leading to a harmonious future.

John Hurley said...

Blogger Wayne Mapp said...
The difficulty of the Rawiri's final formulation is democracy, or rather everyone having the same fundamental rights of citizenship. It is one thing for New Zealand to be bicultural, it is quite another for it to be co-governed on the basis of iwi Maori and all others. It would fundamentally require an inequality of citizenship. Perhaps prior to the huge rise in immigration from 1990 onward, Rawiri's vision might have been possible. In the late 1980's nearly a third of school children were of Maori descent, and that percentage was growing. That is no longer the case.
..............

near the end of this Paul Spoonley regrets Maori weren't given a role in WELCOMING migrants; Rangiuni Walker says the Treaty was the first immigration agreement with "the Queens people" and we should "pull up the draw bridge"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbkK6Rk3Lr8&t=2437s

Here Ranginui details how the government side stepped Maori
https://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc0402/article_316.shtml

"These two visions are currently accommodated within an increasingly bicultural New Zealand. Maori will become a compulsory school subject. All forms of governance will have an element of kaupapa Maori. However, this is a long way short of the co-governance envisaged by Te Parti Maori, or the type of Jewish/Palestinian state where both groups are more or less equal in number."

Reminds me of someone who killed someones daughter due to driving. They were given the option of time in prison or (?) once a week send a cheque of $1 to the parents. In the end he chose prison?

John Hurley said...

Reading the RNZ article on Mediawatch it appears Bassett committed Heresy.
They don't contradict Bassett just he said this and that.
The first thing he said [I forgot - Maori-ideation?] Is leant support by Brother Number One "Dr Spoonley", saying "Pakeha will loose hegemony" - YouTube.

David George said...

"Oh God, we're back to quoting Jordan Peterson"

Go on Guerilla, admit it, you love a bit of JP; the worlds foremost public intellectual. He's a lot better now, I know you'll be pleased to hear - not being one to rejoice in the suffering of others. He's still suffering from the akathisia but fully recovered from covid and his two near death experiences from pneumonia.

Here's another one for you, kind of follows on from the one above. How do you befriend someone (or group of people) intent on brining you down to make themselves appear better. What should you do.

“If you surround yourself with people who support your upward aim, they will not tolerate your cynicism and destructiveness. They will instead encourage you when you do good for yourself and others and punish you carefully when you do not. This will help you bolster your resolve to do what you should do, in the most appropriate and careful manner. People who are not aiming up will do the opposite. They will become jealous when you succeed, or do something pristine. They will withdraw their presence or support, or actively punish you for it. They will override your accomplishment with a past action, real or imaginary, of their own. Maybe they are trying to test you, to see if your resolve is real, to see if you are genuine. But mostly they are dragging you down because your new improvements cast their faults in an even dimmer light.”
― Jordan B. Peterson

David George said...

John Hurley quoting Linda Tuhiwai Smith" "Scientific Research is Deeply Implicated in the Forms of Colonialism and has to stop"

I don't know if many are aware how pervasive this pile of bullshit has become. My daughter has pulled her boy from his new school, mainly because of the abysmal academic standards but also it's preoccupation with "de-colonising and re-indigenising" the school. Our math science and English standards are now near the bottom of the OECD, carry on like this and the country as a whole will eventually fall out of the wealthy nations club altogether.

He's a bright but not overly exceptional young guy, loves science and maths, with a possible future as an engineer or scientist. They want to fill his head with woo-woo.

greywarbler said...

I'm sick of writing my ideas that seem to fall on stony ground. I'm sick of reading the whines and wisdoms, mostly of men I think, who can't use their little imaginations and look at changing thinking and practices. Instead they listen to the loudest most pompous and prominent speaker around. But Jordan Peterson comes out with something that is true I believe; that young men are feeling that people don't care about them and have no positive thing to say about them (particularly in this flood of debate about sex and society).

If you commenters want a better society, and if your generosity and concern is limited, I think if you just love your boys, be encouraging, set them up with reasonable values and restraints, don't demand excellence from them but support them in what they show proficiency. Ensure they learn a musical instrument, and join groups being creative rather than just doing physical activity, you would be making a better world for all and Jordan would be pleased.

Maori are on the way there, combining both physical activity, higher education, and enjoying kapa haka, carving, making wonderful music. While old stone-faced pakeha sit around drinking alcohol and compare their monetary achievements and possessions while passing judgment on the musicians entertaining them. No soul, little love, lots of put-downs about those who haven't made 'it'. I'm taking an exeat from here.

David George said...

John Hurley, the all out assault (and calculated insult) on science and maths as expressions of colonialism and whiteness need to be understood as part of an attack on western civilisation in general.
The great(est?) depth psychologist Carl Jung spent several years among hunter/gatherer/herder tribespeople in an effort to understand how our scientific thinking differs. He puts his case in his book Modern Man in Search of a Soul, chapter 7 Archaic Man. We (the western mind) have come to accept that the best way to understand material reality is through science and the rational mind, no doubt encouraged by the impossible to ignore bounty of the scientific revolution. Our way of thinking, the separation of the material from the non material, is pinpointed in the extraordinary Jordan Peterson YouTube interview by GQ. He was challenged/criticised for his interest in myth and religion. He replied: "in the material realm science reigns supreme, in the realm of values we have to look elsewhere.

Lacking significant scientific understand Archaic man attempts to explain everything in terms of value or the super natural, things are described not for what they are but for their ethereal value or practical utility. Taonga can mean literally anything that's valued, even ideas and language. The attractions of this way of "thinking" are obvious if you want to justify failure to prosper in the modern world. Everything is up for dispute, thus even the demonstrable correctness of a maths equation being dismissed as expressions of the tyranny of "whiteness".

The absurdity of statements such as "scientific Research is Deeply Implicated in the Forms of Colonialism and has to stop" by the likes of Prof Linda Tuhiwai Smith seem to go unchallenged or dismissed as the ravings of a nutter but make no mistake, she is deadly serious.

Nick J said...

I dont always agree with Peterson but on balance I'd dispute "professor of piffle" and "stupid mans smart person". Compared to his detractors Peterson shows far greater intellect, far more conclusions based upon years of professional observation. He also expresses doubt. On top of that the sheer scale of his book Maps of Meaning places him well above the intellect of his detractors, although I doubt he would make that point. Maybe that is because it doesn't need stating.

Geoff Fischer said...

Kia ora Wayne Mapp
Sir Julius Vogel pursued a policy of mass immigration claiming that it would be more effective at subjugating Maori than a dozen British or Australian regiments, and ever since it has been the colonial regime's preferred response to the rise of nationalist sentiment in Aotearoa.
So immigration has changed the reality confronting Maori. However, mass immigration is not a slam dunk for the regime, for two reasons. First, because Maori can adapt their strategies to the new reality, and second because mass immigration has had unintended consequences which are beginning to destabilize the regime itself.
The question now is not whether there will be a fundamental change in the direction and orientation of the nation, but what form it will take.
The conventional wisdom is that there will be an evolving bicultural or multicultural society in which tikanga Maori and tangata Maori are given a role within the existing institutions of colonial government.
However that will create more tensions than it assuages as we can see in comments on Bowalley Road even before we consider the reaction of immigrant groups of other ethnicities.
Biculturalism and multiculturalism can only be transitional states of development. In the end we will revert to a form of monoculturalism which is grounded in Maoritanga but is open and adaptive as Maoritanga always has been.
The system of government will also change fundamentally. The monolithic unitarian model of government which you are used to, and which many choose to think of as the only possible form of government is failing to deliver here in Aotearoa, as it is failing in many other parts of the western world.
The thing that you seem to fear most is the one thing that will not happen. There will not be an enduring system of government in which people of Maori descent function as a privileged aristocracy. You may see something of the kind as the regime tries to seek some kind of Treaty-based legitimacy for colonialist rule, but it will not endure.
The prime aim of the regime will be to preclude a change in which Maori, and with them Pakeha and people of every ethnicity, have real power in their own lives and in which the concept of "choosing one's own leaders" has real meaning. This change may be resisted by all those in politics (even including Rawiri and the Maori Party) but it will come and it will be unstoppable. We call it rangatiratanga, and it is not just for Maori. It is for everyone, even for those who have spent their whole lives to this point wedded to the doctrines of colonialism.
Nga mihi

Chris Trotter said...

To: Greywarbler.

Take a break, by all means, Greywarbler, but please - don't go.

It is my belief that a great many of Bowalley Road readers both enjoy and value your contributions.

May I share with you one of the favourite sayings of my mother's Great Aunt Maud:

"Empty vessels make the most noise."

The musical call of the Grey Warbler, herald of the rainstorm, is one this site would be much poorer without.

Please, keep singing.

Shane McDowall said...

The Maori Party have two MP's and Jacinda does not need their votes. I suspect this "revolution" is a non-starter.

I wonder why anyone would vote for people who insist on looking like a Goldie painting.

And take your bloody cowboy hat off when you are indoors Rawiri. We all know that you are bald.

Rick said...

Te Rongopai: You know what I see in this hospital? The last gasp of a dying age. Puffed up, privileged Pakeha men drunk on control, terrified of change. And we are the future, Esther, not them. Oh they’ll struggle as they fall but they will fall, and I'm here to make sure the right people take their place, kei te pai?

ref. Shortland Street (2018)
Complaint to BSA: denied; Ref. https://www.bsa.govt.nz/decisions/all-decisions/hall-and-large-and-television-new-zealand-ltd-2018-061-10-october-2018/

Video: https://www.facebook.com/anarchistorynz/posts/2833816706876503

David George said...

On writing:
"Ideas change the world, particularly when they are written. The Romans built
buildings, and the Romans and the buildings are both gone. The Jews wrote a book, and
they are still here, and so is the book. So it turns out that words may well last longer than stone, and have more impact than whole empires.
If you learn to write and to edit, you will also be able to tell the difference between good ideas, intelligently presented, and bad ideas put forth by murky and unskilled thinkers. That means that you will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff (look it up). Then you can be properly influenced by profound and solid ideas instead of falling prey to foolish fads and whims and ideologies, which can range in their danger from trivial to mortal.

Those who can think and communicate are simply more powerful than those who cannot,
and powerful in the good way, the way that means “able to do a wide range of things
competently and efficiently.” Furthermore, the further up the ladder of competence you
climb, with your well-formulated thoughts, the more important thinking and
communicating become. At the very top of the most complex hierarchies (law, medicine,
academia, business, theology, politics) nothing is more necessary and valuable. If you can
think and communicate, you can also defend yourself, and your friends and family, when
that becomes necessary, and it will become necessary at various points in your life.

Finally, it is useful to note that your mind is organized verbally, at the highest and most
abstract levels. Thus, if you learn to think, through writing, then you will develop a well-organized, efficient mind – and one that is well-founded and certain.
This also means that you will be healthier, mentally and physically, as lack of clarity and ignorance means unnecessary stress. Unnecessary stress makes your body react more to what could otherwise be treated as trivial affairs. This makes for excess energy expenditure, and more rapid aging (along with all the negative health-related consequences of aging)."

Jordan Peterson.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"I dont always agree with Peterson but on balance I'd dispute "professor of piffle" and "stupid mans smart person". Compared to his detractors Peterson shows far greater intellect, far more conclusions based upon years of professional observation."

I used to think that Jordan Peterson was only wrong when he went outside his area of expertise, plundered other people's research, misinterpreted it, and used it to prop up his bullshit. And perhaps a little (well more than a little bracket eccentric because he lives on beef salt and water, which will eventually kill him. But since his episode with addiction – in which is supposed to be an expert – I now simply think that he's crazy as a loon.

You must be reading the wrong critics if you think he is intellectually above some of them at least. PJ Meyers for instance who rubbished his nonsense about lobsters is an internationally well-known scientist and researcher. And of course, Peterson hasn't really observed lobsters much at all.:) Apart from Peterson's rather anodyne advice to young men, he's hardly a world-class intellectual. He's pretty much only famous because of his YouTube channel. If we judge academics by their publications, which may or may not be fair bit is usually the gold standard, Peterson has produced very little in comparison to most world-class minds.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

I'd be sorry to see you go permanently also greywarbler. You are often the voice of moderation. But I do sympathise with your need to get away for a while. Every so often I have to take a break from the racism, incoherence, and sometimes outright insults. Going for a holiday in the provinces myself soon where I will take a bit of a break from this interweb thingy.

Nick J said...

Grey, your comments are delivering some deep thinking. Its in short supply. I dont answer some because you have captured the essence. Stay with us.

Nick J said...

Grey, the old saying about idle hands rings true as does the opposite. Theres strength in culture, its strange that whites worldwide are questioning their cultures value whilst here in NZ we watch a Maori cultural revival. Both Maori and Pakeha need pride in their cultures, together what might we achieve?

John Hurley said...

Complaint to BSA (no longer hears complaints about te reo)
Chris Trotter calls it a revolution.
https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-revolution-all-around-us.html

Rawiri Waititi calls it a revolution
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/03/m-ori-party-co-leader-debbie-ngarewa-packer-unsurprised-at-royal-racism-allegations.html

Professor Paul Spoonley says Pakeha will loose hegemony
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKY9IMhnyOY

The incursion of te reo on English broadcast is part of that. Is it your role to support media being used to subvert democracy?

John Hurley

John Hurley said...

Dear John



The role of the Broadcasting Standards Authority is to consider formal complaints about broadcast content, for example, if a news item was inaccurate or unbalanced or if a programme contained coarse language. Te reo Māori is an official language of New Zealand. In a recent BSA decision, (decision number 2020-135) the Authority highlighted that the use of te reo Māori in broadcasts is a matter of the broadcaster’s editorial discretion and does not raise any issues of broadcasting standards.



Kind regards

BSA

John Hurley said...

1. the argument that te reo is an official language means what?
Official means what? Should we be scared of the government or should they be scared of us?
2. Then again it's only a few old white men and a dog who give a stuff: "have to get on the waka"; "this is the way the world is moving" etc But only 10% want to change the name NZ to Aotearoa. I have always been skeptical of polls especially from fronts like Asia NZ Foundation, I mean I believe 89% want to live in a multicultural country but proportions are crucial to that. Did Maori want to be outnumbered in 20 years?
3. The weak link in the chain are the corporates who like (Harry and Meghan) can be rich and morally superior to the battling working class person who like the firmness (coherent moral order) of family/tribe/nation. National (John Key) belongs in the latter. What does "confident outward looking nation mean"? Of course John Campbell the activist is not going to ask.

John Hurley said...

Well I suppose it is just her opinion and RNZ isn't saying it?

..................
Complaint:
Auckland University of Technology communication studies lecturer and former journalist Dr Atakohu Middleton was thrilled.

"It's excellent news, it's another organisation putting a line in the sand and saying, 'we're not pandering to racism anymore'.

"The media are giving us quite a gentle exposure to the first language of our country, it shouldn't be threatening."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/438028/use-of-te-reo-maori-on-radio-tv-shouldn-t-be-threatening

The article treats racism as the reason people object. John McWhorter (black academic) says being called racist is like being called pedophile - there is no defense.

The argument "first language of our country" makes no sense as countries don't have languages, people have languages.

I asked the same question on a previous occasion but got fobbed off. It is a question no one wants to answer.

Standards/principles breached:
Accuracy, Fairness and Balance

greywarbler said...

Thanks for the pleasant comments about my input. I have been spending far too much time on political posts and other things have become pressing. But I am so anxious about the lack of NZ spirit, and awareness of our decline in NZ influenced by the world of course, that I find it hard to pull away. In NZ this interregnum of Labour with some positivity, has to amount to changes or we are finished I consider.

The Greens are so good, and I have voted for Values, the Alliance etc which have evolved into the Greens but their thinking and acting on their version of pure thoughts will still leave many on a lower plane at a loss; the environment isn't all, there are still we sundry humans to consider. The spoiled middle-class think they know everything and have become divisive and then so decisive that each division brings forward neo-dictators and ostracisers which doesn't take us forward together. Wokeness is one example of a bridge too far, and the constant batting of the words 'freedom' and 'truth' can result in misheard and misunderstood talk turned to truthiness, similar to what's heard by children listening to adults through keyholes.

Reading thinking peoples' ideas while looking clearly at our world, and analysing it and the methods being used to maintain it in its obviously unsatisfactory and inadequate form, is essential for me to keep believing we can improve and reach steady ground for a good and fair society. Then to go further and plot out pathways to ameliorate the wrongs and the natural tragedies gives heart. It enables me to keep on enjoying life and community, and not to despair and step into the nothingness that surrounds our physical world, and overwhelms dying brains. So thanks to the 'Just who exchange their messages' and I can continue to 'Show an affirming flame'.