Wiring Problems: What makes it so difficult for the Liberal Intelligentsia to see what is happening to their country; to its people; to its assets; when it is all unfolding before their very eyes? Is it possible that the answer really is, as they insist, racism?
THE OUTCRY precipitated by Labour’s critique of overseas
Chinese investment in the Auckland housing market is profoundly disturbing. The
“Liberal Intelligentsia” (to use Steven Joyce’s term) has reacted to Phil
Twyford’s and Rob Salmond’s data as if this is 1915, not 2015.
China’s revolutionary self-emancipation and her
transformation into a global economic superpower – a process spanning the whole
of the twentieth century – appears to have passed the Liberal Intelligentsia by
entirely. It’s as though they are still living in the days when most Chinese
New Zealanders were green-grocers and market-gardeners. When Pakeha children intoned
racist rhymes about “Ching-Chong-Chinaman”, and their parents openly parroted
the prejudices of those earlier generations of New Zealanders who had erected a
viciously discriminatory legislative cage to contain the “Yellow Peril”.
The liberals seem blissfully unaware that the period in
which tens-of-thousands of economic refugees poured out of a China in search of
safety and the chance to build a better life ended more than half-a-century
ago. The Chinese immigrant of today arrives with capital to invest, a factory
to build and/or a business to run. And the New Zealand government is only too eager
to assist. Indeed, in 2015, it’s the Kiwi exporter heading north who travels in
hope of a better deal. And his destination is a hundred years distant from the
China laid low by the superior firepower of Western imperialism. We are the
supplicants now.
Carve Up: In this turn-of-the-19th-Century cartoon, a helpless China protests the imperial powers' carve up of its territory and resources. A century later China's position in the world has changed dramatically.
The failure of the liberals’ historical imagination is even
more astonishing when one considers how very loudly they have proclaimed their
support for tino rangatiratanga.
Their outrage at the thought of the indigenous Maori people of New Zealand
being relieved of their lands, forests and fisheries by rapacious British
colonists was awesome to behold. And it mattered to them not at all that most
of these real estate transactions were without legal blemish. How quick the
Liberals of the 1970s and 80s were to remind us of the words of the Lakota War
Chief, Red Cloud: “The white man made us many promises – more than I can remember, but he never kept but
one: he promised to take our land – and he took it.”
All of which raises a very interesting question: what makes
it so difficult for the Liberal Intelligentsia to see what is happening to
their country; to its people; to its assets; when it is all unfolding before
their very eyes? Is it possible that the answer really is, as they insist,
racism?
If racism is at work in this matter, then it is not in the
Labour Party. No, the racism at work here is born of the towering arrogance and
ignorance of the Liberal Intelligentsia itself. So sure are these people of
their own superiority that they simply cannot accept that in this little corner
of the world, at least, the power of the West is waning. That white,
well-educated, urban professionals, like themselves, are no longer calling the
shots in New Zealand. That, for some time now, the future of this country has
been decided thousands of miles from these shores – where New Zealanders don’t
get a vote. These blissfully unconscious racists still see Chinese New
Zealanders in terms of a helpless minority to which they, with infinite
condescension, are duty-bound to extend their protection – as if the “victims”
are still green-grocers and market-gardeners. The idea that it might be the
Chinese who, increasingly, are calling the shots in New Zealand, is beyond
their comprehension.
Raybon Kan’s brilliant essay in this morning’s Herald said it all. We Kiwis have become
so smug, so insular, so convinced that we have all the answers, that we have
failed to notice how very large and dangerous the world has grown. Land will
always end up in the hands of those who best appreciate its value. If we are
unwilling to assign a credible price to our little paradise at the bottom of
the world, then there are millions of other human beings out there who will
happily do it for us.
That is all Labour’s politicians are trying to say. It is a
fact of real political importance that the Liberal Intelligentsia can no longer
hear them.
This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Wednesday, 15 July 2015.
56 comments:
Chris , it is not all Labour is trying to say, they are picking and accusing one ethnic race as the cause of the problems that we have. It was the Labour party that signed the FTA with the Chinese government which included articles 138 and 141, which gave the Chinese the unfettered legal right to purchase property. Now if the Labour party wants to re-negotiate the FTA when they and if they get into power, then that is what they should state. To identify "Chinese" in their objections to property sales, instead of "rich people or rich immigrants" is setting up for discrimination or even violence to happen against people who are exercising their legal rights. Are they really that bereft of policy that they would lower themselves to Winston Peters level ?.Chris ,you should stop protecting Labour on this matter, they have created a mess.
The Auckland intelligentsia has been pursuing the same causes and blinkered vision since the 1930's that rail commuter services are the answer to Auckland social and transport needs, that China is the future pacific power that New Zealand must centre its future around and that the United States is somesort or predatory economic and military dictator.
The same tendencies existed even in the 1930s with Rewi Allen and Robin Hyde. The problem with the rail system is that the existing corridors do not serve the main middle class areas and the current routes run thru low socio economic routes making train travel uncomfortable and the security risk and cost high at night.
Great article Chris. NZ will be a colony of China in a decade or two, but our overlords don't want the sheeple waking up to what is happening, and the dimwitted liberal left are just playing into their hands by yelling racism and helping to shut down any discussion.
I reckon the push to change the flag is coming from those who would like to see the major symbol of our British past gone, so it is easier for us to be made a Chinese state. Our elite are selling us out just like the Maori leaders sold their people out, pity some on the left can't see the big picture.
It makes me laugh that the people who are calling racism are also the same people fighting for Maori rights, can't they see that NZ is on the brink of being colonized by superpower China much like NZ was colonized by a then superpower Britain? It would be much better to stop the takeover now than to try and pick up the pieces afterwards, and to stop it we need to be able to discuss it. I would like to see the voting system in NZ changed so that only citizens can vote, like in Australia and virtually every other country, and then a referendum on the future of NZ held.
I agree with your second to last paragraph: Kan has it right, but I think both of you mistake a bad bubble for a soundly priced asset and so in due course people buying little old wooden villas in ordinary Auckland suburbs for $1.5m are going to take a cold bath. House supply will increase significantly; new house costs will decrease once they are built largely in factories which is already underway. We have a lot of land producing just milk powder .....
China has serious property and stock market bubbles which may already be bursting and so smart money that can is leaving flat out. Their government looks increasingly out of touch with the weird economy it has created but now lost control of. As Thatcher, that great sage said: 'You can't buck the market'. She was referring to currency exchange rates but it surely applies to the stock exchange too.
The rich & or money leaving is a huge vote of no confidence in China which some economists believe has already peaked and will decline relatively from now on to never become much more than a bigger Japan at best, with wealth but serious demographic and resource constraints, complicated by major cultural isolationist issues. Remember the panic in the US back around 1980 when Japan was buying up 'everything'? They weren't really and they later sold plenty at a loss and since then their property prices have lost about 80%. Their government debt is the highest in the world, but China is closing in fast.
So I don't think for a minute the future is Chinese anywhere except China, even their perhaps. They are Westernising. Look at Singapore and even Hong Kong still. Are they Chinese or Western? Western Chinese may be a best fit, like the many excellent new citizens in NZ who have had the good sense to start a new life in what surely will remain one of the best Western places on the planet. I look forward to more Kiwis who look like Kan in my hood. Those who don't like it should go live in Alabama. Real cheap houses there.
"Not racist to target Chinese housing investors"
MARTIN VAN BEYNEN July 16 2015 The Press
"....Racism – it always helps to check the dictionary – is suggesting that people are inferior because of their race. Saying that rich Chinese buyers are inflating the NZ housing market does not suggest Chinese are inferior in some way....."
With respect Chris , this isn't what the Labour politicians have said. Had they articulated it as you have they may have been having a different conversation, they simply said " look Chinese people are buying Auckland houses " and then left a gap to wait for people to fill it with their own agenda(s).
Regarding "foreign investment": Has anyone ever been able to show how and why it's good for a host country?
Surely the whole idea of investment is to get more out of it than you put in, so surely, ultimately, at some point, more incomes and profits will get expatriated back to other countries than will come in from them, resulting in a net loos for the host country.
Is it the hope that incoming "foreign investment" will keep growing faster than the outgoing expatriations forever? That sounds like a Ponzi scheme.
What do you mean "liberal intelligensia"? If you mean the Greens, they are still trying to tell people they are NOT Labour. A lot of the other resposnes I have seen has been Tory trolling, using the "look, they're racist" fingerpointing to deflect attention form teir Government's failings. You're right though. China is a fascist state (state power and capital melded to a single purpose), and there are a lot of people looking to crystallise the gains they have made on the Shanghai stockmarket casino.
Unfortunately the overseas investor issue has been interpreted as racially based. See this piece about media comment in China:
http://auckland.scoop.co.nz/2015/07/strong-response-in-china-to-property-investment-claims/
You praise Raybon's analysis, but much of his article indirectly addresses racism against Asians, and the racism of Labour's actions ("It's the headline. If I was in that auction room, I'd be lumped among them").
Asians are to become the new Jews. A not-so-new scapegoat for New Zealand's problems. The yellow peril is back. "Why can't young people get homes?" - "The Chinese of course!"
Labour could have gone about this the right way and forced the government's hand into getting foreign investment data, but they chose the crude, populist way. Shame on them.
with this debate about "Chinese" buying up large in the NZ (Auckland) property market and its detrimental impact oit seems to me that most commentators are conveniently neglecting to ad the pertinent rider...non resident chinese investors....the problems it causes are not exclusive to the Chinese (though currently they are extremely active) and nor are they new....take a trip to the Queenstown Lakes district and enjoy an overseas break.
This is so illuminating in a puzzling way. I didn't know we still had any Liberal Intelligensia - perhaps they are all in Auckland. I thought that the people screeching the term "racist", were all National Party people trying to shut up a discussion, but they cannot be the Liberal Intelligensia as I have seen no sign of intelligence there. So here I am in Dunedin wondering about Auckland as NASA has wondered about Pluto. Nor can I understand how, when we know so much of what colonizing looks like, that we don't see it happening all over again - though I always thought it was the US colonizing us. Now it seems we're just a scrap of pretty dirt to be scooped up while many NZer's will sit smiling over their lattes and feeling sophisticated. I am glad that Labour has put its feet in the mud of reality. Our interminable game of pretend terrifies me.
Up until today, I knew stuff all about the so-called "Liberal Intelligentsia" but after wading through 19 pages of comments from a PA Blog that I linked to from the latest Bryce Edwards NZ Herald piece, well - fark me days!! So many incredibly intelligent folk unable to get past the racial undercurrent of this whole property price - slash - government burying their heads in the sand over it all... saga. Process, aka, playing the man (messenger) trumps the ball (the message) to so many of these people. If only this issue was 'framed" this way I often saw mentioned followed by a barrage of attacks towards Labour because it wasn't 'framed' to their liking. It was like crikey, who needs enemies from the right when it appears there's a more than sufficient amount running around within the left's ranks. Have they forgotten what the end goal (for the left) is - do they even care! Anyway, one 'toaster' spoke my language - the individual frames these arguments for themselves, thus some people can get to the heart of the matter while others are forever stuck on the peripheries.
Oh, and I got to this piece courtesy of a link from there in a far from flattering post on Mr Trotter's (or Col Trotter in their case) latest work.
@Wendy K and AO: I couldn't agree more. I've been astonished at the shrill persistence of those shouting about racism, and their apparent inability to see what the issue really is. Although if they're relying on TV news reportage for their information, they'll be getting a cock-eyed idea of what Phil Twyford's actually said.
But I'm all for Twyford' - and the rest of us - staring down the racism furphy, and continuing to pursue the story. There is a real problem, and everyone needs to calm down and debate it instead of attempting to shut down the debate by yelling racism.
This, among other things, is a freedom of speech issue; we are all entitled to speak our minds without others attempting to shut us up.
And, as Brendon Harre has pointed out above, questioning the extent of overseas Chinese investment in property here doesn't meet the racism test. Moreover, racism entails power: governments can be racist, individuals cannot. At the individual level, the characterisation is properly prejudice or xenophobia - although neither is apposite in this case.
Sean is correct. This was the most idiotic ham-fisted way of raising this topic. Which does in fact deserve to be raised, and we as prospective homebuyers perhaps deserve to have it raised. But to raise it in the way that it was, leaves it open for every anti-Chinese whack job in the country to start screeching about being blah blah in our own country, and I can hear the sighs of relief from national as they start screeching racism. All of which pretty much obscures the fact that we are entitled to know who's buying property in New Zealand and why they are allowed to. And I don't care about the reciprocity or lack of it, because the people I care about can't afford to buy property overseas. The question is now being sidelined by other people's agendas. Chris you talked about Len Brown's minders failing yesterday, I think head should roll somewhere amongst the Labour Party PR people very soon. How could they not have said "how is this going to look in the papers?" :-)
Pete George posted this on his blog: “Dad, why don’t Kiwis like us Chinese?”
Shane Te Pou wants an apology from from Andrew Little and Phil Twyford. He feels embarrassed for the Labour Party and sad for his boy who is part Maori, part Chinese and asked “Dad, why don’t Kiwis like us Chinese?”
because
1. unmandated our top social scientists and politicians decided “the infusion of new elements” would be of “immense value” to “the country”. But they weren't just thinking of some, they were thinking of a lot as in make the majority culture a minority and obliterate national identity. People can only absorb so much and it depends on other circumstances as well.
2. It was assumed that population increase would “increase the wealth” that hasn’t happened (20 years on). Instead we have an economy driven by immigration, the Christchurch rebuild and commodities. GDP has been increasing but so has population so GDP per capita is flat.
3. A real estate economy has winners and losers. Migrants are pricing Kiwis out of the quarter acre section and Kiwis are increasingly having to rent or be channelled into a (basic) apartment. It has also lead to a concentration of the wealth. Chinese migrants are perceived as dominant.
4. They are “taking over” the tourist industry.
So ethnic Chinese are the meat in the sandwich. A situation caused by left-wing zealots and a government dominated by property interests.
Labour may be very embarrassed when we get the actual data
July 17th, 2015 at 10:00 am by David Farrar
The Herald reports:
About 50 Chinese buyers packed a real estate agency office in Epsom, and snapped up 23 sections within minutes of release yesterday. …
Mr Law said all were either New Zealand citizens or permanent residents.
....
I'm sorry but that only makes it worse. Non Chinese need somewhere to live too.
Years ago a close relative had some nice Chinese neighbours. They got into N.Z. because the wife had an uncle living here. She twice arrived in New Zealand to visit uncle just before a baby was due and had the babies in an Auckland hospital. In those days this service was free to all comers and the babies were then New Zealand citizens so this was an obvious and simple way to go. Even though the husband was very nice he did suggest that my relative cooperate in a scheme whereby she would guarantee employment to someone still in China who had already paid paid money for 'immigration services.' She declined. One day he remarked airily to her that in fifty years time the whole of New Zealand would be Chinese because “there are not many of you but there are millions of us.”
My relative had a series of flatmates and borders to help with expenses. All very nice. One well educated lady from Beijing had a good job and her focus was on acquiring a prosperous kiwi husband. European of course, not surprisingly, because one day she regaled my relative on the superiority, culturally and in every way possible of people from Beijing and the North generally compared with those from the South and especially those from Guangzhou. These Cantonese she said were not really human. In fact they were more like animals. As my relative knew quite a few people from Guangzhou she was relieved when this lady finally nabbed a paleface and left.
Then my relative's son found himself at the end of his five year relationship with a lady from Guangzhou because he wasn't quite what she was looking for. She had found a more well to do chap in a smarter suburb and clung on to him, even though he wrote her a long letter telling her what was wrong with her and didn't actually want her or her daughter living in the same house with him and his kids. She had managed to get her daughter out of China much to the fury of a previous husband who later came to NZ and tracked down my relative who gave him as much news as she could together with a collection of photos of his daughter since her arrival in N.Z.
Then, being partial to Asian ladies the son went online to find another. A very smart miss from Beijing told him that he had better not mention that he had had a five year relationship with someone from Guangzhou because he would be permanently tainted in the eyes of superior people from the North. If someone from Beijing was worth $100.00 then someone from Guangzhou was worth no more than $1.00. He was also told not to reveal his feelings or hopes because this would make him despicable in the eyes of Chinese. Fortunately he at last found the right person and they are happy. If, though, any Chinese ever called me racist I would say, “Pull the other pigtail darling.”
http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/features.php?searchterm=027_queue.inc&issue=027
this is basically a riff on the prejudice plus power trope
Trotter must then think it is also OK to shit on the Jews.
"European of course, not surprisingly, because one day she regaled my relative on the superiority, culturally and in every way possible of people from Beijing and the North generally compared with those from the South and especially those from Guangzhou. These Cantonese she said were not really human. In fact they were more like animals......If someone from Beijing was worth $100.00 then someone from Guangzhou was worth no more than $1.00"
What a load of bollocks ---regional differences are played upon in a way similar to English making jokes about the Germans and French, or jokes about the Irish etc....no real animosity there, and certainly nothing you could call racism. Regionalism, yes, chauvinism, perhaps,but nothing you could remotely call racist.
In fact the founding father of modern China, revered by both Nationalists and Communists, Dr Sun Yatsen was himself of Cantonese extraction and spoke Mandarin with a heavy accent. If there was any serious sort of intra-Chinese racism, that would have been simply impossible ---as impossible as someone called Barack Obama winning the 1912 presidential election.
Your anecdote is mostly if not entirely fabricated, and it fits whatever agenda you are driving at.
Anonymous, if you think the Chinese aren't bigoted and/or racist, try being black and getting on a train in China. People will fight not to sit next to you. Some of them aren't that keen on sitting next to Gweilo either, even though they regard them as superior to people of colour. And in Hong Kong, I was once or twice, seriously warned not to go over the border, because the people there were all criminals. So don't bullshit about things you know very little about.
Anecdotes are never reliable nor are stereotypes. However not all poulations of people are the same either. I know NZ society has changed; I can remember pre property investment mania. I recall someone talking about doing up houses and selling them and someone was quite condemning of "that sort of thing". Why was that not done? -- Because community was more important--. So the person of those times was on average different from the person of these times (as I recall). A person raised in China's economic furnace will be different again.
Tze Ming Mok writes on Public Address:
Man, for Chinese immigrants in the West, buying houses is almost on a par culturally with food. It’s like you’re giving us shit for eating..
Should we non Chinese celebrate that diversity? Personally I can't stand those types. I remember going to a Dolf de Roos seminar and seeing people walking about with glazed eyes as though they had just found Jesus. Then you meet them in the neighborhood with a certain on the make sleazy way about them as they find a one divide in to two (etc) especially in the "tacky" (Olly Newland) end of the market.
A good example of positive stereotyping is the syrup from the Asia NZ Foundation.
And in Hong Kong, I was once or twice, seriously warned not to go over the border, because the people there were all criminals.
FFS - that is no different from someone telling you not to visit the more dangerous parts of a town. Hong Kong has a more developed civil society than mainland China, and the people view their mainland cousins as a bit bumpkinish and crime prone ---hardly racial supremacist though --after all they are only one or two generations out of the place. Most make the visit home to their ancestral villages once or twice a year.
Gotta learn some context dude.
Blacks they are not used to, but there is no real hostility ---no different than a Chinese or white person suddenly appearing in some African village. Whites are a problem ---but in a weird way ---they put whites a bit on a pedestal and will treat whites with deference.
Of course the Chinese are not colour blind---but they are not informed or guided by any racial supremacist ideology or 'science' - hate crimes are unheard of in most of Asia.
Personally I can't stand those types. I remember going to a Dolf de Roos seminar and seeing people walking about with glazed eyes as though they had just found Jesus.
Yeah but the Chinese person who buys houses for security because they have experienced real poverty, war, and revolution, may be of a completely different type altogether from the typical european kiwi you find at those seminars, and may in fact not be sleazy at all in the same way.
You can't put people in the same boxes based on the same actions if they are from quite different cultures and have experienced different things in life.
@Anonymous: I have no need to fabricate stories and no agenda to push. I simply know what I have heard and experienced. Amusing to read that Europeans bad mouthing other Europeans are "only joking."
Also amused that high politics and power struggles somehow reflect the realities and desires of the masses. Recent events in Europe give the lie to this.
Writers like Peter Hessler who wrote 'River Town.Two Years on the Yangtse' or Jack Womack who wrote 'Random acts of Senseless Violence' will tell you about real people as compared with posturing twerps with political agendas spouting politically correct schmaltz about the human condition.
Wow, context eh? No real hostility? Well, there is certainly a certain amount of fear, which is the wellspring of racism. And yes, in bumpkin villages may be it's just sheer curiosity, but more sophisticated people do regard Africans or people of colour as inferior. There is certainly a racial animus in many Chinese, similar to what you find in other groups no doubt – but I do remember a Chinese columnist once writing something like "I was 16 before I realised that non-Chinese people were just as intelligent as Chinese people."
And if you think there are no hate crimes in Asia – dammit I'm running out of bridges again.
http://www.ucanews.com/news/hate-crime-racism-on-the-rise-in-southeast-asia/71321
http://www.minorityrights.org/12516/press-releases/asian-governments-must-combat-hate-crime-towards-minorities-and-indigenous-peoples-says-annual-survey.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2014/02/outcry-india-after-hate-crime-incident-20142195232434750.html
Perhaps it's you that should learn something about context. (I'd call you dude but it's totally fucking pretentious.)
This is a comment on
Reporting Superdiversity. The
Mass Media and Immigration
in New Zealand
Paul Spoonley & Andrew Butcher
Liu and Mills use two examples to explore plausible deniability in relation to political commentaries and events in New Zealand, including the way in which the media covered these events. In the case of the New Zealand First leader, Winston Peters, they note that two themes are repeatedly used in his public statements: an affirmation of the majority group’s status and values (the irony is that Peters is Maori) and a denial of any racist intent (Liu and Mills 90). They point out that: While a single, vivid instance is used to illustrate the need for a general policy or principle, the speaker explicitly denies any categorical dislike for the minority group as a whole. (Liu and Mills 91)
In summary, we argue that there are three distinct possibilities in terms of the
contemporary media portrayal of immigrants. The first is that there continues to be
examples of explicit racism. This is most associated with a period of New Zealand
that was dominated by British and Irish immigration, in which there were hegemonic views about the nature of the nation-state (that it would assume a singular citizenship and a loyalty based on a homogeneity) and that this was very apparent until the politics of biculturalism challenged such assumptions through the 1970s and 1980s.
http://newsettlers.massey.ac.nz/publications_pdfs/JIS%20Spoonley%20and%20Butcher.pdf
There are two major assumptions taken for granted here:
1.Who said it was not o.k to have “ a singular citizenship
and a loyalty based on a homogeneity”? That is a political stance. NZ wasn't given a say in that change of policy and it's “deliberate strategy”.
2. “the speaker explicitly denies any categorical dislike for the minority
group as a whole.”
So why is it not o.k to - “dislike” - [the arrival of large numbers of] the minority? For example I have seen racism against foreign tourists in NZ (especially the early days and I have experienced it in Japan as a visitor) but the case of tourists is different. They aren't coming here to change a whole way of life and identity (a feeling of ownership and inalienable belonging by blood)? Is it wrong to value that identity?
Spoonley's $5.6m “Superdiversity study” is mining for gold. It is trying to sprinkle sparklers over Auckland. Since he has argued that resitance is racist (based on negative perception), he has to show that the effects aren't negative or his whole thesis breaks down?
"Yeah but the Chinese person who buys houses for security because they have experienced real poverty, war, and revolution, may be of a completely different type altogether from the typical european kiwi you find at those seminars, and may in fact not be sleazy at all in the same way."
------
yes but they are still an ethnic group whose numbers have increased dramatically through immigration who (on the face of it) at 9% are buying 39.5% of the houses. And for all the "Chinese are family oriented and hard working" they are clannish and have the earned(?) their money in China's dog eat dog commercial environment and the crest of the property investor fraternity features a person swinging in a hammock while tenants and first home buyers do the heavy lifting.
Who owns over one thousand houses in Christchurch?
Of course the Chinese are not colour blind---but they are not informed or guided by any racial supremacist ideology or 'science' - hate crimes are unheard of in most of Asia.
.....
“Oxytocin creates intergroup bias primarily because it motivates in-group favoritism and because it motivates out-group derogation,” they write."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3029708/
Too much Standard Social Science Model huh?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_social_science_model
A white supremacist has "Anglo Saxon Germany" and a swastika tattooed on the back of his neck.
While there are people with a pathological hatred of individuals of a different race, these people could be helped, but they are denied standing room; they are denied any quarter. They are lost boys trying to say "help us we are part of your family".
Skin colour does not matter, and it is no more a fit subject for debate than the average religion or political affiliation of potential immigrants. These things are properly the domain of the individual, not of society as a whole. It is no-one's business at all what race other people are. The only metrics we should be looking at to decide among those who want to live here are merit and need; th emoment we start looking at the colour of their skin, we're no better than the National Front.
Idiot Savant Mr Brown *Hug* Public Address
Professor Spoonley has studied far right groups and is baffled by them. He thinks it has something to do with criminality. Professor Spoonley also believes racism arrived in NZ with European colonization. He is misinformed?
Evolutionary psychology (sociobiology) holds that humans are not designed to slip into a multicultural world having evolved in smallish groups during the Pleistocene. Studies on the effects of oxytocin appear to confirm this. Also on a genetic basis two co ethnics from whatever continent are as related genetically as a Grandparent and child. Either way psychological tests show people prefer people like themselves. "But it is not alright" is the standard reaction. When a dog is brought to another dogs home they should meet first down the street and walk along together. You don't just walk up with the foreign dog and chastise your own dog. He's just being a dog after all?
And if you think there are no hate crimes in Asia – dammit I'm running out of bridges again.
You knew I meant East Asia ---don't know much about stuff between Hindus and Muslims etc
Now try to find some from East Asia ---say China, Hong Kong, Singapore etc ----i.e. of East Asians beating up people because of their race or sexual orientation ---that stuff is unheard of.
Xenophobia, prejudice ---yes common to all groups. But the white supremacist genocidal thing is quite unique to Western Europeans. And any person of colour will tell you that.
"Chinese are family oriented and hard working" they are clannish and have the earned(?) their money in China's dog eat dog commercial environment and the crest of the property investor fraternity features a person swinging in a hammock while tenants and first home buyers do the heavy lifting.
You really think that is a fair characterization of our Chinese migrants? Or is it just in your own fevered imagination.
Tell you what is true though, know a couple of coloured South African migrants---they tell me racism runs deep within the white South African community here, and he is basically shunned by what should be his compatriotrs. These white south Africans had the highest standard of living in the world, and they ran here to get away from black rule, but they bring their racist views with them. One I knew at work openly referred to Chester Williams as a kaffir.
They also buy up big on the shore..
Now do you have a problem with them as well Jh?
Evolutionary psychology (sociobiology) holds that humans are not designed to slip into a multicultural world having evolved in smallish groups during the Pleistocene
Well then, since you are part of the problem, you should go back to Europe.
If Europeans had stayed in Europe they would not have got multiculturalism.
Don't blame non-whites for your problem ----the non-whites have hardly killed stacks of whites---it has always been whites klling whites and in some cases carrying out outright genocide.
That happened in a continent with almost zero non-whites.
Yet you seem to blame non-whites for the problems of the world?
but I do remember a Chinese columnist once writing something like "I was 16 before I realised that non-Chinese people were just as intelligent as Chinese people."
Really? If it is true, then all sorts of people say shit at different times. And it would hardly be a prevailing thought.
Google "Most whites say blacks are lazier or less intelligent than whites"
But real vicious racism is the preserve of North West European whites. That is why you had events such as the Holocaust, Jim Crow in the US, Apartheid South Africa.
In fact the only three polities in history to found their societies on race hate and racial discrimination are the aforementioned.
They aren't coming here to change a whole way of life and identity (a feeling of ownership and inalienable belonging by blood)? Is it wrong to value that identity?
How has your life changed? Come on. Some examples.
Anonymous
Well then, since you are part of the problem, you should go back to Europe.
........
In the new edition of Being Pakeha, I go on to say that, as another indication of how far Pakeha culture has become indigenous, it is only right to see the macrocarpa and the wooden church as being as much emblematic of the New Zealand landscape and human occupation of it, as the meeting house and the cabbage tree.
Michael King
"the non-whites have hardly killed stacks of whites"
Gengis Khan had an empire as big as Africa. He filled moats with dead bodies and rode over them - so they say.
"Yet you seem to blame non-whites for the problems of the world?"
No I blame social scientists who believe human nature can be over ridden and polices that are blind to ecological/population issues and politicians/media who suppress voices such as Michael Reddell, Dr Greg Clydesdale, The Australian Productivity Commision, The Savings Working Group.
Ranganui Walker
In March 1991 the Government Working Party on Immigration reported to Mr Birch, the Minister of Immigration. The report recommended the adoption of a points system for the selection of immigrants with skills and money for business investment in New Zealand. The Minister called meetings with a limited selection of 13 Maori leaders in Auckland and 14 in Wellington to consider the report. They were mainly leaders of voluntary organisations. Few of them represented tribal groups. Although many speakers spoke against the immigration proposals, they were ignored. When the Minister was questioned in Parliament during the debate on the Immigration Amendment Bill, he cited all those in attendance at the Maori meetings as being ‘broadly positive’ towards his immigration scheme. This glossing over of Maori opposition is consistent with the procedure of elites generating policy from above and imposing it on the people below. The report was a fait accompli, and the Minister’s restricted discourse with Maori leaders after the fact, gave an illusion of democratic consultation. The select committee hearings on the Bill were also a charade. Of the 75 submissions made to the committee, 73 opposed the Bill. The two submissions in favour were made by immigration consultants, the people who earned substantial fees from processing immigration papers for clients wanting to get into New Zealand.
Anonymous Anonymous said...
They aren't coming here to change a whole way of life and identity (a feeling of ownership and inalienable belonging by blood [common history and ancestry])? Is it wrong to value that identity?
How has your life changed? Come on. Some examples.
........
When I grew up a New Zealander would head overseas but they could always come back "home" without being seen as part of a housing problem.
You could trust the politicians to hold your interests at heart: the guns faced outwards (you knew who you were, you knew who a New Zealander was and you knew it was your country).
The property market was an internal one, slow and relaxed. Poor people had a bolt hole (retire by the sea) Now the beautiful hills I roamed as are kid are for sale in Hong Kong. We go to zoning meetings to learn that "oh well, we have immigration and you have to have population increase to increase the wealth [of real estate developers]"
You didn't battle for a bus stop with a driver born in China.
But real vicious racism is the preserve of North West European whites. That is why you had events such as the Holocaust, Jim Crow in the US, Apartheid South Africa.
In fact the only three polities in history to found their societies on race hate and racial discrimination are the aforementioned.
....
only because it was their turn first?
The statement was made as part of a column that suggested that Chinese kids were brought up to feel superior to everyone else. It certainly was meant to illustrate prevailing thought. This is much the same as the animus which drives Chinese policy towards their minorities today. You can argue all you like, but this is racism. And it's many of those northern European whites who are now pressing for inclusive policies in the US. So you can't just sheet it home to one particular ethnic group. You should visit some of the websites that allow comments on the treatment of Chinese minorities. People say what they think, rather than what the government propagandists tell them to say. And that is racist to the core.
Not to mention you have ignored one of the biggest, and certainly the quickest massacre ever on record – in Rwanda. I suggest you look a little at the history of that country, where an ethnic group was pretty much invented so they could massacre them. Sorry, your ideas are – I was going to say crap, but let's say uninformed.
The statement was made as part of a column that suggested that Chinese kids were brought up to feel superior to everyone else. It certainly was meant to illustrate prevailing thought.
Well its sheer and utter bollocks ----can you find the link?
This is much the same as the animus which drives Chinese policy towards their minorities today.
What animus? China is actually far in advance of Western countries when it comes to affirmative action.
Furthermore minorities in China have typically preserved their folkways and traditions far more so than indigenous peoples in the Americas and Australia and even New Zealand (until more recently).
And there was never the sort of genocide that happened to Native Americans etc.
You should visit some of the websites that allow comments on the treatment of Chinese minorities. People say what they think, rather than what the government propagandists tell them to say. And that is racist to the core.
Really? Links please....and even then you can find bloggers saying all sorts of stuff on anything.
".... Rwanda. I suggest you look a little at the history of that country, where an ethnic group was pretty much invented so they could massacre them"
I was referring, if you could read properly, to the founding of entire countries and polities on racist policies and codified laws based on race, the systematic and sustained over decades or longer.
Not to localised massacres, terrible that they might be. One could also mention Croats slaughtering Serbs, Ukrainians slaughtering Poles etc during the war. But why is the Holocaust mentioned as a unique event? Because of something similar to what I have said above.
When I grew up a New Zealander would head overseas but they could always come back "home" without being seen as part of a housing problem...blah blah blah blah blah blah....You didn't battle for a bus stop with a driver born in China.
So JH... it seems it is all about overpopulation---you have not mentioned anything specific to the Chinese and the problems you mention, real or perceived, are created surely just as much by white migrants from South African and the UK, the aggregate number of which would outnumber Chinese.
Surely one Englishman contributes to overpopulation as much as one Chinese?
And you conveniently ignored this one, so I'll copy and paste below:
Tell you what is true though, know a couple of coloured South African migrants---they tell me racism runs deep within the white South African community here, and he is basically shunned by what should be his compatriotrs. These white south Africans had the highest standard of living in the world, and they ran here to get away from black rule, but they bring their racist views with them. One I knew at work openly referred to Chester Williams as a kaffir.
They also buy up big on the shore..
Now do you have a problem with them as well Jh?
Anonymous:
1.As far as I remember it was a listener column. I doubt if it's on the net, I read it long before the Internet existed.
2. On the second point you sound like a Chinese troll. If you want to accept the Chinese government propaganda on the way it treats its minorities fine. I will have nothing else to say on that. If you read what the actual minority say about the Chinese treatment of them you might learn something.
3. There are plenty of non-Western societies that have had laws based on race. A simple Google search comes up with dozens of examples. Try Malaysia for a start. And of course most of the castes in India are based on race. And don't tell me that the laws in India now forbid discrimination on the basis of caste, they do, but it still exists.
I believe you can't just dismiss 'local massacres' they are often the results of deep seated racism... so... You could consider the Armenian Greek and Assyrian massacres by Turkey in the early part of the 20th century. And perhaps some of Stalin's genocidal actions. Unless you regard Turks and Russians as West Europeans. Not to mention the Dzungar genocide by the Ming emperor in the middle of the 18th century.And then of course there's the massacres of the Ibo in Nigeria. I could go on but google is your friend right.
Sorry, computer problems. I also find it somewhat intriguing that you find that a country that bases its laws on race seemingly less reprehensible in a country that kills off people so that it doesn't have to have its laws based on race. Just sayin'.
I also find it somewhat intriguing that you find that a country that bases its laws on race seemingly less reprehensible in a country that kills off people so that it doesn't have to have its laws based on race.
What country you referring to ....that 'kills off people so that it doesnt have to have its laws based on race'?
Laws based on ancestry are different from ones based on racial supremacism.
Many countries have laws based on ancestry --if you have a british grandparent you get a UK passport, if not you do not----thats not racist. If you are born in certain European countries you have to have ancestors there to be a citizen jus sanguinis and not jus soli ----harsh ---yes, racist? Not necessarily.
As far as I remember it was a listener column. I doubt if it's on the net, I read it long before the Internet existed.
How convenient.
If you want to accept the Chinese government propaganda on the way it treats its minorities fine. I will have nothing else to say on that. If you read what the actual minority say about the Chinese treatment of them you might learn something.
Affirmative action in China:
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19970826&slug=2556773
Hardly comparable to Apartheid South Africa or Nazi Germany.
And you cannot compare 'treatment' where there is a threat to national sovereignty and real insurrection (i.e. like in Northern Ireland in the past, Russia and Chechyna, China, British in Malaya etc) with treatment of minorities in a peaceful society where the indigenous are a tiny tiny percent of the population.
Look at what happened in the Ureweras several years ago ----just a sniff that something was happening and the cops went into overkill to say the least. Not saying right or wrong either way, but it does show that most governemtns are sensitive to independence movements etc.
The only governments that don't have much to fear are where the indigenous have been basically slaughtered off.
"What country you referring to ....that 'kills off people so that it doesn't have to have its laws based on race'?"
Fuck me you are so literal minded. And you accuse me of lying as well. AND I have to correct your spelling.
I have read all the shit about affirmative action in China. It is purely for propaganda purposes, so they can show them off to tourists usually.
http://www.minorityrights.org/5324/china/china-overview.html
And for every link you can post showing how they treat them so very well, I can find at least half a dozen that show the opposite.
When I mentioned Malaysia's laws I was not referring to the British in Malaya, but the laws which discriminate against Chinese living there. You don't seem to realise that these exist. How convenient.
"And you cannot compare 'treatment' where there is a threat to national sovereignty and real insurrection "
"real" insurrection does not happen for trivial reasons. It usually the result of long periods of discrimination and racial animus. So yes I can compare these treatments, because there is very little threat to national sovereignty in China from a few minorities gaining independence for instance. And even if there was – so what? Why should the Han Chinese basically determine the fate of non-Han? Why for instance, are they flooding Tibet with millions of Han Chinese settlers? Somewhat reminiscent of Israel settling parts of Palestine they don't own.
I'm beginning to think you're a Chinese government troll.
You say: "So yes I can compare these treatments, because there is very little threat to national sovereignty in China from a few minorities gaining independence for instance"
Your linked article contradicts this claim
The largest non-Han minorities are the Uyghurs, Mongols and Tibetans, and the territories inhabited by these three minorities occupy a huge proportion of China's land mass along its western and northern borders, territories which in recent times have become increasingly strategically important in terms of resources and location.
The difference is the Chinese have not massacred, killed off the indigenous, as was the case in Anglo Saxon settled places. Australia and the US do not fear this type of thing because they slaughtered the indigenous and what few are remaiming are demoralised and in reservations.
Minority populations have actually increased under the PRC, including Tibetans ---minorites are not restricted to one child, as are the Hans. The PRC officially recognises the principle of autonomy for national minorities.
This is the exact opposite of the US, Australia, and even NZ until very recently.
Unlike the US (the highest incarceration rate by far in the world), where minorities are hugely overrepresented in the prison population, minorities in China are actually underrrepresnted ---refer research by New Zealander Barry Sautman.
real" insurrection does not happen for trivial reasons. It usually the result of long periods of discrimination and racial animus.
Or it can be provoked and stirred up by hostile powers. Again refer to the Ureweras ---just a sniff of Maori playing with firearms has the whole force of the state come crashing down.
"I'm beginning to think you're a Chinese government troll."
People that resort to name calling typically do so because they know they are losing the argument.
Why for instance, are they flooding Tibet with millions of Han Chinese settlers?
That's actually been shown to be a load of bs - you do some serious research about it.
The Tibetans are about 80% the population of Tibet -- slightly more than the 1 or 2% indigenous in the US or Australia or the 15%? in NZ.
Every Western govt, including NZ and US supports and recognises China's sovereignt over Tibet.
So Tibet is a legitimate part of CHina. Given that, TIbetans have the right to move to any part of China, as do Han and other minorities.
The Chinese govt would be wrong to prevent Han from moving to Tibet in the same way the NZ govt would be wrong to prevent Pakeha moving to say Northland (with a large Maori population).
As far as the settlers goes, this is a matter of some dispute. And I don't believe the Chinese government's side of it.
Recognition by other countries is meaningless. I have no particular feelings either way about Tibetan independence, except to say that they are probably entitled to it if they wish it.
The very fact that you cite outside influences in the various disturbances within China, shows that you are true believer. That's the excuse every colonial power users when there are rebellions against its authority. The very excuse the Americans used in Vietnam. But even if it were true, you can't stir up outright rebellion where there are no grievances.
You go on about Western massacres, but seem to forget about the Chinese one I mentioned. I could have cited others. You forget that most of the Western "massacres" took place in the 19th century. And in fact recent research has shown that most of the indigenous population of the Americas died off through disease, caught from Westerners perhaps, but they died long before Westerners were even common on the continent.
I said you were a troll simply because you ignore any evidence against the Chinese as regards racism and/or bad governance of their minorities. Whether they actually pay you are not I don't know :-). But I don't think I'm losing the argument somehow.
As far as the settlers goes, this is a matter of some dispute.
What is not a matter of dispute is the far higher percentage of the indigenous populations of China, compared to the US (where indigenous are only 1% or so of the population).
What is not a matter of dispute is minorities in China have few of the problems that beset say American Indians and Australian aborigines have (high imprisonment rates, alcoholism etc) and their languages are intact and bilingualism even encouraged and funded by the Chinese government. Most Tibetans and Uighurs and Mongols use their own language in everyday conversation --few Maori do anymore. Their cultural vibrancy can be seen by any visitor to the places.
In most minority areas of China, including Tibet, local languages are used in grade schools, with putonghua used as a second language. Claims that primary schools in Tibet now teach in putonghua are in error. Tibetan is the main language of instruction in 98 percent of TAR primary schools, while putonghua is introduced in the early grades only in urban schools
Article by Barry Sautman, who provides an objective and nuanced look
http://www.marxmail.org/tibet.pdf
You forget that most of the Western "massacres" took place in the 19th century
Western massacres include the destruction of the Herero in the early 20th Century, the genocidal actions of King Leopold in the Congo, colonial massacres in Madagascare and Vietnam by French authorities, British massacres in Kenya in the 1950s ---refer Caroline Elkins excellent Imperial Reckoning the Untold Story of Britain's Gulag. That's just to start you off with.
And your point is we killed everyone off in the 19th century so there was no one left to kill off later on---all nice and happy and peaceful now because those troublesome people are gone?
But I don't think I'm losing the argument somehow.
I think you are.....
" According to Beijing, 19 people were killed and more than 600 wounded in Tibet. Tibet’s government in-exile placed the number of dead at more that 200. Thousands may have been arrested, and in April 2008, the Chinese government sentenced 30 Tibetans to lengthy prison sentences for their alleged roles in rioting."
2008. Protests against Chinese rule in Tibet. Is 200 a massacre?
"Tens of thousands of Uighurs were killed by Wang's troops in communist China's conquest of East Turkestan. "
1949. "Pacification" of Turkestan. Does tens of thousands equal a massacre?
"transferred millions of loyal Chinese settlers into East Turkestan, providing them with jobs, housing, bank loans and economic opportunities denied to Uighurs. "
I could go on, I won't. You are a lost cause.
Protests against Chinese rule in Tibet. Is 200 a massacre?
1949. "Pacification" of Turkestan. Does tens of thousands equal a massacre?
Depends ---soldiers legally suppression rebellion and restoring peace is different from killing people for simply being in a place you want, or because they look different.
Wartime deaths are different from genocide massacre:
Google American atrocities in Phillipines ---makes the Chinese look like choir boys
Also 2 million or so Vietnamese killed by US bombing
half a million Iraqis killed by war and sanctions
Huge difference ---both in terms of morality, and absolute numbers
I could go on, I won't. You are a lost cause.
Name calling again?
Jesus, I must be blind as a bat. Perhaps you could explain how you distinguish between the legitimacy of a government massacring Uighurs, who happen to be included in China against their will, and the legitimacy of the British government legally suppressing an uprising by massacring Indians in Amritsar? Because fuck me I can't see the difference.
Big difference Guerilla Surgeon. One group was unarmed. The other violent armed secessionists.
Is that a big enough difference for you?
Having grown up with many Chinese NZers who have been in this country a bloody long time in the great old province of Otago I found that their enterprise and character something to be admired in the fact that they are equal if not more of movers and shakers when it came to the development of business of that province and the present so called racist stance of Labour is a sad realisation of a continuing problem in this country albeit minor in comparison to Australia and its racial attitude but since RD Muldoon and the Dawn Raids there has been an unshakable precedence created in this country that rears it head over the years and now it damages another group of people making their home here
We really need to keep a check on ourselves more reason to seriously think about becoming a republic and get everyone to become full citizens and make this their first country maybe that will bite the racist bug in the arse
So if the Indians had been armed, it would have been perfectly legit? I think your logic leaves much to be desired.
So if the Indians had been armed, it would have been perfectly legit?
You inserted the word 'perfectly' ----thats a little sly
If one shoots down violent armed people that is legitimate under international law during wartime ---regardless the overall morality of the cause one is fighting for.
Case A. US soldiers killing Viet Cong in battle
US soliders fighting for dishonarable cause, but not committing a war crime.
Case B. US soldiers klling at My Lai
US soildiers fighting for dishonarouble cause, and kill unarmed civilians. That is a war crime
Case C. PLA soliders kill Japanese invaders in battle
Honorable cause, legitimate killing
Case D. GIs shooting surrendering Germans during DDay (if Private Ryan can be believed.)
Honorable cause, illegal killing - a war crime.
Now lets rank Cases A to D in ascending order of wickedness - i.e. top is wicked end of spectrum, bottom of list is honorable end
Case B
Case D
Case A
Case C
China's pacification of Xinjiang falls under Case C (in my view), or Case D (probably in your view). The Armritsar slaughter is definitely a case B.
Thus the British action worse than the Chinese pacification of Xinjiang, whichever way you wish to slice or dice it.
When I do the dishes (or cook) I relieve the burden with a TED talk. Last night I watched " shaming": John Ronson and the Justine Sacco twitter case (which I hadn't heard of). At the end he said "there seem to be two types of people in the world "those who put human's before ideology and those who put ideology before humans. I put humans before ideology but right now the ideologues are winning and you are either a "hero or a sickening villain"
http://www.ted.com/talks/jon_ronson_what_happens_when_online_shaming_spirals_out_of_control#t-813068
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