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| Bodies On The Line: Unsurprisingly, in the aftermath of the 1981 Springbok Tour, Maori asked their Pakeha friends and comrades to explain why they were willing to get their heads broken for the rights of indigenous Africans, but had yet to put their bodies on the line for the rights of indigenous New Zealanders? |
NATIONAL’S PAUL GOLDSMITH has become the target of considerable criticism for his stance on the impact of colonisation on Maori. Most particularly, he has been attacked for expressing the view that “on balance” the legacy of colonisation must be adjudged positive. Goldsmith’s explicitly historical perspective is, necessarily, a broad one. Politically-speaking, however, his opinions are downright incendiary. If he didn’t anticipate the fierce reaction his words were bound to provoke, then much of the National Party’s tone-deafness on Maori-Pakeha relations is explained.
Certainly, it is hard to fathom how National could have been part of the general political discourse in Aotearoa-New Zealand without grasping the centrality of colonisation to the current debate about the future shape of this country’s institutions. How could the party have missed the way in which the colonisation of Aotearoa-New Zealand has come to play the same role here as slavery plays in the race-driven ideological conflicts currently convulsing the United States?
Is National genuinely unaware of just how many of the ills currently afflicting Maori are attributed to the impact of colonisation? Every set of negative statistics: from consistently low levels of educational attainment, to the grossly disproportionate number of Maori in Aotearoa-New Zealand’s prisons; the whole sad saga of a people’s on-going under-performance has been laid unhesitatingly – and with undeniable justification – at the door of colonisation. How can the country’s largest political party not know this?
Part of the answer, perhaps, lies in the common misconception that “colonisation” is a word to be conjugated exclusively in the past tense. That it relates only to long-dead statesmen wearing wing-collars and staring out at us stiffly from the black-and-white plates reproduced in history books. Something that happened long ago. Something done and dusted. Something about which it is possible (and permissible) for Opposition National MPs to offer considered historical judgements.
Well, it’s not – and it really is astonishing that Paul Goldsmith and his colleagues could possibly believe that it is. The clearing of Bastion Point didn’t happen in the Nineteenth Century, it happened just 43 years ago, in 1978. That’s well within the lifetime of the Baby Boomers – and even of some Generation Xers. Paul Goldsmith, for example, would have been a 7-year-old the last time a pugnacious National Party prime minister staged a full-scale demonstration of the political, legal and military power of the New Zealand colonial state – for the benefit of tangata whenua.
It was that same prime minister, Rob Muldoon, who, just three years later, communicated an equally unmistakeable message to his core supporters – i.e. that the rights of people of colour counted for much less than the rights of White Rugby supporters living in Aotearoa-New Zealand and Apartheid-era South Africa. Unsurprisingly, in the aftermath of the 1981 Springbok Tour, Maori asked their Pakeha friends and comrades to explain why they were willing to get their heads broken for the rights of indigenous Africans, but had yet to put their bodies on the line for the rights of indigenous New Zealanders?
Could it be, they wondered, that fighting for South African Blacks cost them nothing, except a few bruises and a few nights in jail (for which they could claim bragging rights for the next 40 years!) while fighting for the lost lands, language and dignity of the original Maori inhabitants of Aotearoa could end up costing them everything that 140 years of colonisation had bequeathed Pakeha?
That was a hard question – and only a few of the Springbok Tour protesters were willing to give Maori an honest answer.
Forty years later, exactly the same question is being put to all Pakeha – with even greater force. More importantly, it is not just Maori doing the asking. Two generations after the Tour, the same challenges that were once laid at the feet of a relatively small group of left-wing activists are being laid down for the whole nation of Aotearoa-New Zealand to pick up. The children and grandchildren of those Springbok Tour protesters are looking at their elders with a steadfast gaze. As if to say: “It’s time.”
And still, apparently, Paul Goldsmith and his National Party colleagues, do not get it.
Perhaps Abraham Lincoln, who ended slavery in North America, can help them. These words are from his second inaugural address, delivered on 4 March 1865:
Fondly do we hope ─ fervently do we pray ─ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether’.
Paul Goldsmith appears to believe Maori are in some way indebted to Pakeha. In truth, it’s the other way ‘round.
This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 11 June 2021.
32 comments:
Everybody knows just who and what the National party stands for.....everybody knows this is nowhere.....da da da......da da da da
No apologies to Neil Young required....
Is National genuinely unaware of just how many of the ills currently afflicting Maori are attributed to the impact of colonisation?
..........................
This seems to be the node in the argument map where we part ways.
How are the two related?
if you don't accept the assumption you come to different conclusions.
I think I heard Ranginui Walker say something about Maori (in prisons) having Pakeha ancestors and asking "how do you know it wasn't the Pakeha part causing this?"
That is a left-wing thing attributed cause in that way - when pressed the explanations don't satisfy Einstein's "if you can't explain it to a 6 year old it is probably BS" rule.
To paraphrase another retread–“nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come”–which of course can mean critical mass in popular consciousness. Post colonial fall out is where I would place structural racism and a host of other things that have made the Māori road a very difficult one. Settler descendants in the provinces in particular, seem hard wired to remain in denial about how their family and regional circumstances came to be.
2023 will test the Nats baiting approach as the boomer replacement generations enter numerical minority status. Will the left/right divide continue through the ages or will there be substantial realignments? I talk to my sons friends–only one Euro among the Koreans, Tongans, and Māori! and they have no problems with Te Reo or Māori aspiration.
This boomer was incredibly lucky back in 1978 to have attended Auckland WEA (Workers Education Association) sessions on Te Tiriti O Waitangi, which revealed all manner of information never broached during my school years. I was a tour vet and no shame there, devoted the whole winter of 1981 to it from “welcoming” the Boks at the airport to the final test. And have participated in countless hui, hikoi and occupations ever since. The NZ ruling class still fears Māori and Pākehā unity above all else. So NZ National’s “bald head” approach is sad more than anything, but totally in step with its class allegiance.
Chris: [Maori] under-performance has been laid unhesitatingly – and with undeniable justification – at the door of colonisation.
It's straight out unreasonable to make such an assertion simply on the basis of disparity of outcome. In science, and in critical thinking, the fundamental rule is that correlation is not causation. Easy assumptions applied to the almost infinite variability of human interaction are positively dangerous.
The usual amount of re-writing of history here as it is simply assumed that most Maori opposed the 1981 Tour.
That's not my memory of it: most Maori I knew, even at university, were keen to watch the rugby and turned up in droves in the stands, not to mention getting in a fair few punches on demonstrators when they got the chance. Sure, there were the activists - there are always activists, and they were already making the Apartheid-Maori connection - but they were fringe.
And yet Goldsmith might still be right.
For all its faults, New Zealand has one of the world's highest standards of living, a properly functioning democracy, respect for human rights, a liberal political culture, etc.
None of this justifies the actions of colonialists, but it remains a fact. Anyone born in this country has lucked out by world standards, no matter how poor they are. And, we can look at the cautionary examples of comparable countries that threw out their colonisers. How many New Zealanders would prefer to live in those countries?
We must step up for the crimes of the past and provide rectification to those who have been disadvantaged. We don't need to lie about the past to do that.
Cherry picking bits and pieces here and there do not an argument make.
I see you have not attempted to rebut any of Goldsmiths points.
That is surely what true debate is about???
I have yet to read any serious attempt to refute/debate Goldmiths OPINION piece.
The usual players bray racist. Which means they dont have the knowledge or inclination to abandon their ideology to ""have a conversation".
Playing the "read the room" crap is a poor substitute for adult, serious discussion.
IMHO
The debate about colonisation is a pointless distraction and part of the Ardern regime's divide and rule strategy. When Maori and Pakeha stand together to defend our common interests, we can achieve miracles as has been demonstrated by the success of the campaign against the Marxist SNA land confiscation.
At school (in my day) kids sat IQ tests and got put in classes. If parents thought their kid was professional material they went into the P's. Suppose the teacher of 3P3 got chastised because his class wasn't doing as well as 3P1?
Now suppose 3P1 was dominated by Asians or Askenazi Jews.
Jon Haidt talks about that here: "what is your sacred idea" and of course it all comes with qualifications, however the HRC and RNZ hold the view that there is no such thing as populations who differ in various ways having lived for significant periods in different environments. Some on the left equate that view with being a Nazi because "they are inferior".
That's a red herring. Jon Haidt says we have a human need to live in a stable and coherent moral order. That means reliable members of a community (their community). An unreliable member of the community is (for example) Harry the real estate agent who with a partner buys houses, cuts the section up and creates slums of the future. He dreams of living in a canal home on the Gold Coast. Paul Spoonley says amongst Chinese and Koreans there is ethnic nepotism (my words) but not amongst our Indians. What the racists want is people to be absorbed into neighborhoods. What Labour did (and National continued) was carpet bomb the population layering populations on a population with it's own culture which they were quite content with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b86dzTFJbkc&list=PL8qcvjP3CnKNajBL3GpJpaKNpnSmHcVAQ&index=1
Chris, The National Party is that of the landed Europeans(farmers). To them Maori- who use to own, occupy and use the land - are competitors and must be 'kept down'. The same , with the law. Maori must be seen as the 'other'. Back, circa 1971 Patu Hohepa told Brian Edwards, in a TV interview, that race relations would become settled when the Europeans sorted their 'junk out'. He saw it as an 'invader' problem, rather than an 'invaded' one; and why the invaders came to the land, and their 'problems' - the dispossessed dispossessing another. Yes 'Bastion Point' was in 1976, but the Government's reaction was more like 187; Police used to take people from the land. The Political Party representing the landed wanting to use the land for party political purposes (fundraising). That was contempt shown to the people, who had contempt for the people he was mean to lead. The protests of 1981 were not just against the 'Springbok tour'- that was just 'the straw that broke the camel's back', and against racism; it was against all forms of discrimination -racial, sexual, social and political. It was the 'baby boomers' (1946-63)and'Depression/World War 2'(1930-46)with some 'Generation Xer's'(1963-78) wanting reform from the 'World War 1/Twenties' cohort. The 'Depression/World War 2' cohort were too small to take their place when they should have (late 1960's - 1979's) and had to wait till the next cohort gained enough critical mass to take on 'the older generation. Hence the rushed reforms of the later 1980's and 1990's. Hopefully we will never had to fight against 'batons and barbed wire'.
“Every set of negative statistics: from consistently low levels of educational attainment, to the grossly disproportionate number of Maori in Aotearoa-New Zealand’s prisons; the whole sad saga of a people’s on-going under-performance has been laid unhesitatingly – and with undeniable justification – at the door of colonisation”
Still, could be worse. Imagine if it were Germany or Belgium which did the colonising. Or China. Or Indonesia. A resource-rich land-mass unexploited by its natives was never going to last long on its own, and the choice of a colonist better than the British is unlikely.
‘Under-performance’ has a greater cause than mere colonisation, given the freedom Maoris have for self-betterment. The success of “Mozzies’ shows what they can do when free of their cultural bounds in a country just as colonised.
I've just learnt the much-loved home my grandmother came to from Scotland at 14 in 1907 was built by John Bryce, the minister who broke up Parihaka. Bryce built it from materials from all over the world. When a philistine cousin broke it up and built a crass 1960s home much hate was directed at him. Bryce wasn't a deliberate devil but did as much evil. And my grandmother's family, despite their relative innocence, built their new life on those tainted bones, like all of us. Glad the place is gone.
Quite an indictment on we Scots (Bryce was one), always putting 'getting on' far ahead of our other value, the 'fair go'.
Chris. Just two things.
1. Why do Maori do so badly in education? The answer is they dont go to school. 60% of maori in some areas are absent each day. The DOE thinks the solution is to make schools place where students want to go to. We they closed them - they were called charter schools.
2. Prison population. As a student of James Flynn you should know the answer. He showed that in Germany black children whose fathers were US black soldiers grew up with the same social statistics of white Germans.
But back in the US children of those same soldiers grew up with typical US black statistics ie: low socio economic results and high prison numbers. Flynn identifies the local culture as the reason.
I know the current love-fest with blaming colonisation etc will last some years - maybe 20 or 30 years but when that shows no change for maori or pacifica then what. What to blame next.
Ive got a great idea ' lets set up a business called "BLAME Inc". Our motto will be "we will find someone to blame no matter how innocent they are"
If we are going to have a debate about "colonization" and "colonialism", as we should, then before anything else we need to have clear and agreed definitions of those terms. The definitions I use are laid out in the recent post on Te rangatiratanga me te kawanatanga at www.republican.nz.
Some people who should know better confuse cultural contact with colonization. Colonization has cultural repercussions, but definitively it is a political phenomenon involving a nation state's assumption of sovereignty over a foreign territory which is provided with a separate structure of governance to the sovereign power. In New Zealand the process of colonization and the process of cultural contact and exchange have proceeded in tandem since the arrival of Cook's Endeavour, which is the source of confusion, although most of the beneficial aspects of cultural exchange had occurred prior to the final assumption of British sovereignty in 1840.
Once we have sorted our definitions we can turn to particular issues.
For example, is the use of alcohol and other drugs in New Zealand a consequence of colonization or merely a result of cultural contact? There are arguments both ways. Certainly it was a result of contact, but it is equally clear that the British Crown gifted or traded tobacco and rum with Maori in order to secure political advantage. When Maori leaders prohibited the use of these drugs within their own rohe the Crown at best failed to cooperate, and the regime is still extremely supportive of, and supported by, the trade in alcohol. So alcohol and drug use can be attributed to colonization as well as cultural contact.
More generally, the process of colonization explains many things about the Realm of New Zealand, such as why it has a dysfunctional political system which allowed an extremist element to seize control of the state apparatus in the nineteen eighties, and why it continually follows the Five Eyes alliance into wars and conflicts with non-AngloSaxon peoples around the globe.
The history goes some way to explaining why we have a problem, but as the critics argue, it does not provide a solution. The solution has to come from our own actions in the present, not from putting blame where it belongs in the past.
We should not try to deny either the historical origins of New Zealand's problems in colonialism, which is key to understanding, or the acceptance of personal and collective responsibility, which is key to the solution.
We also need to realistically assess the condition of our people. Maori are not all in a depressed condition. I live within a thriving community, with a newly built marae complex, an effective health service and a vibrant kura. Most people are gainfully employed, many have capital invested in profitable local businesses and locals are steadily buying back land that passed from Maori into general title generations back. This may not be the situation across the motu but it shows what is possible under rangatiratanga.
The debate over colonialism needs to be rational, well informed, and unburdened with preconceptions. No question should be off the table, including "Is colonialism really such a bad thing?". Colonialism may have had a devastating impact in my own life, but what about the majority of New Zealanders? Have they suffered or benefited under colonialist rule? I believe that in one way or another they have suffered, and without regard to race. Some would disagree with me, and that is where the discussion becomes important.
We can question whether Paul Goldsmith's contribution was of high quality. We might have hoped for something better. But Paul is a product of a colonialist system which actively discourages serious political debate and we should not expect too much. At least he has come out to say what he thinks, and I for one will not tell him that he should have kept his trap shut.
One thing that may waylay Labour's pandering to the Maori whinge-fest and benefit the more reasonable, centrist position is the influence of disgruntled, and increasingly marginalised, other minority's. The Asians will be getting more than a little disillusioned with being forced down the list for hospital admissions or for a place in med school. Otago medical school now have 61% of their admissions given to the "special" category - Maori and PI mostly.
This trend is now clearly apparent in the UK:
"It seems the identitarian left, which is now so close to Labour, has a rather strained relationship with actual people from minority backgrounds. And this points to one of Labour’s key problems – it often seems interested in ethnic minorities only to the extent that they can be portrayed as victims. But British Indians aren’t victims – they outperform white Brits in the UK job market and in education – and nor do they see themselves as such. Labour, which is interested only in a narrative of racial victimhood, is thus set against successful and socially integrated British Indian communities."
"If the Tories are bold, they too could foster an inclusive inter-ethnic, multi-faith conservatism that increases their parliamentary majority. A reasonably competent Conservative Party, which stands firmly against the modern left’s identity politics, supports the family, reduces regional inequality and provides an optimistic vision of post-Brexit Britain’s place in the post-Covid world, could edge a rudderless and pessimistic Labour Party closer towards the electoral abyss."
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/11/the-rise-of-multi-ethnic-conservativism/
Just a few points Chris:-
Maori are not "indigenous" in the accepted sense of the word as in Australian aborigines, or North American Indians. Maori are settlers who wiped out the Moriori as part of their colonisation process. Also wiped out the Moa.
It is a fallacy to liken the Springbok Tour, anti apartheid protests to the New Zealand situation. The South African indigenous native people were subject to a race based government system which discriminated against them, based upon their race (remember the "Whites Only" signs on beaches ?) This is what we were all fighting against.
The current poor statistics relating to the Part Maori 15% of the population may have many causes. To trot out the cliché that it is due to "colonisation" does nothing to analyse the situation, or to provide any constructive comment. It is just a repeated blame game. I would look forward to reading some specific constructive suggestions to help these poor statistics to improve.
Mr Trotter seems to be saying that Goldsmith is wrong to speak about the benefits colonisation brought to Maori in New Zealand, these being of course the institutions and ideologies developed over millenia to manage the large scale metropolitan societies of the modern world. Are we to deny the advances of civilisation altogether? Numerous Maori with good memories of the bad old days were clear about the advantages of colonisation when they spoke at the Kohimarama Conference in 1860. Can whanaungatanga and whakapapa replace land surveying, title deeds, and the state institutions of police and courts to enforce them in managing problems between businesses, neighbours and families?
The problem with the colonisation hypothesis is that it is basically wrong and the danger is that a false diagnosis will lead to failed solutions. If colonisation is responsible for relatively poorer Maori statistics why do immigrant Pacific populations match them in so many areas? Why do statistics of relative disadvantage among iwi correlate with levels of integration rather than confiscation and land loss?
I find the concept of cultural Marxism a useful one in grouping ideologies which try to analyse all societal phenomena in terms of oppressed and oppressor. It seems that the left has had to give up on the narrative of bloated capitalists and downtrodden workers and is turning in desperation to inflaming ethnic relations, always easier, but with a history of bad outcomes in so many places.
This said, mana motuhake in so many areas has produced massive gains for large sections of the Maori and part Maori population and the kind of fervour for ethnic identity among the young seen historically in Ireland and Croatia among other placee.
I think however there is a definite need for a counter-narrative to the black armband history which focuses on the worst episodes in our history, a counter-Waitangi tribunal perhaps to focus on positive aspects. How many people know that Te Rauparaha's son had tribal lands at Otaki surveyed and divided up among individual tribal members in the 1850s? How many know that title over a huge block of land in Northland was awarded to a named hapu and what happened to hapu ownership in subsequent years? Paul Goldsmith is an accomplished historian and is well placed to play such a role.
This article by John Bishop from stuff April 2021 gives some hard facts about western colonialism over the centuries. When one sees past history stated baldly it joins the dots of incomplete understanding. I wondered why I know longer felt that being English speaking was something to be proud about. https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/124778053/lets-remedy-the-failings-of-our-colonial-past
...Everywhere in the world that European powers went from the 16th to the 20th centuries they destroyed local cultures, wrecked previously functioning civilisations, plundered resources, set indigenous people against each other and imposed their own supposedly superior morality and system of government... and at the end -
What annoys people of good will (and I include myself in that) is the claim from some quarters that to deny any request is “racist”. And that those who don’t accept the ‘’colonialism is destiny’’ approach are ignorant at best and closet racists at worst...
let’s also remember that Pākehā alive today are not personally responsible for the sins of our forebears.
They should have the opportunity to discuss and debate how best to accommodate the aspirations of Māori (and others) in our society. I want to see temperate discussion about ways forward. Labels aren’t helpful. Sensible discussion must prevail.
I think this is from Professor John Bishop. http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/people/jbis016 But the 'provenance' of the Opinion was not given in stuff.
I see a shortform was republished on xinhuanet.com, also in chinadaily.com.cn both on May.27/21.
Everyone is having a go at stirring racism. The USA version of racism seems particularly appalling, but then they seem to be going backward in other ways such as those affecting women and their sexuality and body (fertility) management as well. Is there another 'modern' country so backward in so many ways? I also see the Australian/NZ conversation.com having a go at the Royal Family in March 2021 - https://theconversation.com/the-royal-family-cant-keep-ignoring-its-colonialist-past-and-racist-present-156749.
There is plenty of ammunition that the Chinese can throw back at others!
Anonymous just brought down the government.
Powerful quote from Lincoln. Despite his realpolitik approach. If only he, or anyone, had been as idealistic as his rhetoric. You can't just say this stuff and ...
National is the people who took their privilege for granted and only began thinking about society when it stopped them doing what they wanted.
The Left has idealism in its blood. The less so the less the people, they ostensibly represent, support them.
Tiger, couple of interesting points raised.
The continuity of the Left Right divide over time. Evidence seems to point to there being an even division of conservative and liberal mindsets across a broad population at an individual level. That may be something we are born with, who knows, but if so it could explain why Labour support includes conservative leftism, and National liberal Rightism.
Second, the ruling class fearing Maori Pakeha unity above all else. Seems self evident that all ruling classes divide and conquer. I have eyed the promotion of Treaty settlements with a jaundiced eye. Seems to me that it is creating or maybe reiterating a class division of the spoils. I hope I'm wrong.
Good constructive comments Geoff.
If we, the people, are to have constructive debate blaming every failing on systemic racism and colonisation (AKA It's all whitey's fault) is not helpful in the least, potentially destructive at worst.
I was looking at the stats for wellbeing for countries in our general area; things like life expectancy, infant mortality, availability of electricity and running water, education, general prosperity and so on. The glaring disparity between counties that have been the "victims" of colonisation (a large or significant influx of westerners) is apparent.
French Polynesia and New Caledonia, including the native peoples, are well ahead of their non colonised neighbours. New Zealand (including Maori) miles ahead of Papua New Guinea and so on. In light of that, the unjustified claim that "Maori under-performance is due to colonisation" clearly has some serious qualification required. There is, no doubt, some relative underperformance and you could claim that relative is more important than actual but the PNG people, living much as pre European Maori and "enjoying" one of the lowest wellbeing (and one of the highest deaths by violence) rates on the planet might take a different view.
God Almighty, here we go yet again. The idea that the original inhabitants of New Zealand were Moriori is nonsense and has been known to be nonsense for years, so there's no excuse in bringing back that old calumny.
And yes, they wiped out the moa among other things, but then so did every group of people who left Africa, which was the only place where megafauna was wary of human beings. Asia, North and South America Europe, all lost its megafauna. It's just seems to be a natural consequence of human colonisation of the world.
And you could have found this out Doug, with about 30 seconds of googling. Just remember, 30 seconds of googling makes you appear 60% more intelligent on the Internet.
I see we back to cultural Marxism as well, though why people want to resurrect this essentially Nazi concept used to denigrate Jews, I have no idea. Particularly as they don't seem to know what it means, or just impose their own interpretations on it.
And if you knew anything about Marxism as such you would know that the idea of "bloated capitalists" has not been abandoned, and there are many Marxists who denigrate so-called "identity politics".
Anonymous greywarbler said
Re John Bishop.
Good one Critical Theory doesn't analyse it criticises: like sulphuric acid and having destroyed seeks to build a new beginning.
Tom Hunter
I remember Richards mob called a Maori "Uncle Tom" and he retorted with something about "coming here with other people's wives" -TV
@ Greywarbler
I didn't read the last part of Bishop's piece.
Correction: The website referred to in my comment above should be www.republican.co.nz
It seems to me that good-hearted people should sit down together Maori and Pakeha, and other interested and other NZs not Maori and pakeha, but still honouring Maori and not just their own desires, and if they put aside their theories and who said what and just worked out what would be good for all in the future, and work out plans to make that happen, then action could be taken and we all move forward.
At present it seems a war of words, quotations, past events and opinions and tremendously enervating and amorphous with attitudes hardening and looming that presage outbreaks of hostility that will destroy any good affects already achieved. I have been reading about Ethiopia having warring factions and not being able to achieve sanity. The more incidents that damage cordial and respectful relations the further apart we would get. Let us not wallow in blame, in anger, but honestly admit we have to slowly go forward together and that the years since 1984 have driven poverty of the financial sort and poverty of assimilation of pakeha into Maori understandings and systems that would help the country. Time to enrich ourselves in culture, ahead of money and capitalistic sterility.
Guerilla surgeon
https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-neo-marxism/
Thank you John, you've posted this before, I've read it before, I'm not any more impressed by it this time. It's a place for people who resent being on the wrong side of history. I'm not unsympathetic to those who feel they've been abandoned by politicians and left behind, but you are directing your ire at the wrong targets.
"If we, the people, are to have constructive debate blaming every failing on systemic racism and colonisation (AKA It's all whitey's fault) is not helpful in the least, potentially destructive at worst."
FFS "It's all Whitey's fault" – Christ almighty no one is saying that apart from a few in the fringe as usual. And if we ignore systemic racism and the effects of colonisation it's much more destructive than if we don't. And it exists – even in New Zealand.
'Maori are settlers who wiped out the Maorori'???
Doug it astounds me that you have actually put your name to this display of uneducated ignorance.
I suggest you read books published after 1926.
It does show how the conservatives are not adverse to perpetuate myth to justify prejudice.
Just sad Doug.
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