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| Emerging From The Shadow Kingdom: So devastating was the British victory over the Kingitanga that the movement tacitly foreswore any further assertions of political will. Henceforth, the Kingitanga would represent a shadow kingdom. What also remained unspoken, however, was the Kingitanga’s understanding that if the settler state’s ability to enforce its dominance ever faltered, then the substance of Māori power would return, and the shadow kingdom would turn into something much more solid. |
ONCE AGAIN, the New Zealand state must decide if it should answer a Māori push with a Pakeha shove. The Māori King, Tuheitia, has summoned the leaders of Maoridom to the Kingitanga marae at Turangawaewae to formulate a response to the Coalition Government’s “de-Maorification” agenda. It is doubtful whether most New Zealanders, back at work now and already missing the sunshine and surf, are at all aware of the potential for disaster inherent in the King’s hui of Saturday, 20 January 2024. Not since the early 1860s have Māori and Pakeha risked so much over the meaning and status of te Tiriti o Waitangi.
The big difference this time is that the New Zealand state cannot count on brute military force to enforce its will. In the original stand-off between Māori and the Crown, the settlers were supremely confident that if push came to shove, then they would have access to massive military force. Rather than see their new colony compromised by an indigenous rebellion, the British Government was willing to deploy considerable military resources. Indeed, it was the arrival of approximately 12,000 imperial troops under Lieutenant-General Duncan Cameron that kicked-off the Pakeha invasion of the Waikato in 1863.
So devastating was the British victory over the Kingitanga that the movement tacitly foreswore any further assertions of political will. Henceforth the Kingitanga would represent a shadow kingdom. The kingdom of what might have been if the Pakeha settler government had been willing to keep faith with the letter and spirit of Te Tiriti. What also remained unspoken, however, was the Kingitanga’s understanding that if the settler state’s ability to enforce its dominance ever faltered, then the substance of Māori power would return, and the shadow kingdom would turn into something much more solid.
Small wonder, then, that the Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, is said to be seeking an urgent private audience with King Tuheitia. [It took place on Monday, 15 January 2024. - C.T.] The Coalition Government needs to know just how pushy the Kingitanga and its allies are prepared to get if the National-Act-NZ First de-Maorification agenda is not abandoned. If, as seems likely, the King replies “wait and see” , then Luxon’s and his cabinet’s next step will be to assess the New Zealand state’s current capacity to enforce its will. One thing’s for certain: In 2024 the British will not be sending the New Zealand Government 12,000 troops!
If Luxon hasn’t convened a meeting of the Officials Committee for Domestic and External Security (ODESC) in response to the Kingitanga’s ominous re-entry into New Zealand politics, then he’s not doing his job. Like the rest of the country, Māori leaders would have observed the enormous difficulties experienced by the New Zealand Police in assembling sufficient non-lethal force to clear Parliament Grounds of anti-government protesters in March 2022. Were such occupations and disruptions to be replicated all over the country, the ability of the Police to both keep the peace and enforce the law – without recourse to deadly force – would be seriously compromised.
According to Wikipedia, ODESC “comprises the chief executives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Defence Force, the Ministry of Defence, the Security Intelligence Service, the Government Communications Security Bureau, Police, the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, the Treasury and others. The group is headed by the head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, [Rebecca Kitteridge].”
On paper, at least, this group looks formidable. The presence of the security services and the Police should guarantee a continuous and accurate feed of political intelligence to the politicians. In reality, however, it is most unlikely that the SIS, the GCSB and Police Intelligence personnel have been monitoring the communications of the Māori king, other iwi leaders, Te Pāti Māori and/or Māori activists generally. The political fallout, should such interceptions be exposed, would be politically catastrophic.
Ever since the Christchurch Mosque Massacres of 2019, the eyes of the spies have been firmly fixed upon New Zealand’s tiny community of Far Right extremists. Spying on Muslims and/or Māori would be construed by a large number of New Zealanders as evidence of state-sponsored white supremacism. ODESC’s ability to predict with any confidence the tactics and strategies of the rapidly coalescing Māori resistance movement is, therefore, negligible.
It is also probable that New Zealand’s defence chiefs would urge caution when assessing the capacity of the Military to come to the aid the Civil Power. Morale in the NZDF is said to be at an all-time low. Intense dissatisfaction with successive government’s underfunding of the armed forces is reportedly running very high. Called onto the streets to reimpose civil order through the application of deadly force, the willingness of servicemen and women to open fire on their fellow citizens must be rated as exceedingly doubtful. The great danger would be the soldiers going over to the people – thereby transforming nationwide protests into a full-blown revolution.
The New Zealand state has been here before, of course, back in the 1980s and early-90s, when Māori nationalist activists were tootling off to Libya and Cuba to pick up the rudiments of “freedom-fighting”. Back then, however, there were still plenty of concessions in the state’s briefcase: action on Te Reo, forests and fisheries, Māori health and education, cultural production of all kinds and – most important of all – the Treaty Settlement Process.
Taken together, these concessions bought the state three more decades of peace between Tangata Whenua and Tangata Tiriti. When “indigenisation” and “decolonisation” became the order of the day, however, all bets were off. Should those two projects become entrenched Crown priorities, then the economic, institutional and cultural dividends flowing from the Pakeha victories of the 1860s will be threatened, and the ability of the state to concede its way out of trouble will diminish towards zero.
So, what will Messrs Luxon, Seymour and Peters do to placate the Kingitanga and settle down the angry rangatahi that are Te Pāti Māori’s nation? If they are wise, they will either defer, or scrap altogether, their de-Maorification agenda. Erect those bi-lingual road signs. Keep calling Hamilton “Kirikiriroa”. If necessary, retain the Māori Health Authority. Then, having secured the peace, spend the next five years pouring resources into the Police and the armed forces.
As the bicentenary of the signing of Te Tiriti looms ever nearer, the Pakeha settler state faces two, equally unpalatable choices. It will either have to accede to a Māori-led constitutional revolution, or find its own, twenty-first century equivalent of General Cameron. A Pakeha military leader prepared to shove back harder than the movement for tino rangatiratanga can push.
This essay was originally posted on The Democracy Project of Monday, 15 January 2024.
38 comments:
I'm fairly certain you overestimate the resolve of the man in the street maori. You know, the one working in a fulltime job, raising a well behaved and educated family and building a future for themsleves and their families. These guys are not interested in persuing bilingual street signs and more wealth for the iwi leaders.
You also oversetimate the impact that these elite within maoridom will have on that same "in the street maori" to do their bidding to shore up their entitlements. Sure, these supposedly educated elite make a lot of noise but the old saying, "empty vessels make the most noise" should be at the forefront of your thought processes rather than the "clanging" their racist rhetoric creates.
We are certainly no longer "godzone" but neither are we pitted against each other by race, despite what the tossers in the labour/greens/maori party may want you to believe. There is a world of difference in sucking at the public teat then whining when it is removed and physically taking up a cudgel to enforce an outdated and minority opinion.
Remember the face off between waikato and Auckland maori in January last year and Nga Puhi weren't even in the mix. Your perception of a united maori race is wide of the mark and the assumption that all maori will unite behind Waikato maori would be an insult to the David Rankins of maoridom.
In my opinion.
You paint a febrile and scary scenario Chris.
However the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders are more interested in the mortgage, big screen TVs, reality television, social media parades, property values, keeping their jobs, taking the kids to weekend sport, paying for the groceries and dreaming of a bach and boat somewhere. There is simply not the kindling let alone the timber to fuel some mass ideological crusade. This is the land of shopping for discounts at Farmers, not hunting down reactionaries at the Bay of Pigs.
But to play along with your apocalyptic imaginings for a minute, you omit some counter factuals.
* a direct Mao like appeal by Luxon to ordinary New Zealanders to stand up for their way of life because it is under direct threat could see a massive transformation of the NZ environment inimical to common room commandos and cushioned tribal elites. Cue support from all manner of social, work, business, cultural and sporting bodies.
* Massey's Cossacks could reappear in any number of forms. There are at approximately 100,000 to 200,000 ex-territorial soldiers (of all ages going back to the 1970s) who can still field strip an M16, make a bivouac, put up with rain and place the correct side of a claymore towards the enemy. Last reports say up to a million firearms are still to be registered. A direct threat to home and hearth could release basic impulses among their owners (so far reluctant to cooperate with the authorities)
* Australia would never allow its eastern flank to become unstable and ripe for a naval base for you know who to set up. C130s full of men and supplies would flood in before you could say "strewth cobber". I imagine Uncle Sam could help with logistics.
The young radicals can go on dreaming their dreams but no one can threaten the New Zealand dream, it would interfere with the Rugby Championship.
Gosh the simplistic spiel in the comment of the Hollow Man and Woman. It is so based on appearances, material possessions and style. Such people can adapt to neolib no probs. But the remnants of soul burning low - the ahi ka roa - are there watched zealously by the wise in Maori and their leaders. And there is also one very low but still present in various pakeha hearts with similar aim - to nurture the being of the people despite the mechanistic, efficiency merchants and acolytes. Good if we can be soul mates and connect as in WH Auden poem 1 Sept. 1939.
...Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
https://poets.org/poem/september-1-1939
By convincing the National Party leader that the foreshore and seabed issue is nothing more than a dispute over property law, they have opened the way to a much more radical application of indigenous rights.
For who can dispute that, at one time, the entire geographical entity we call New Zealand was the property of Maori collectivities?
And, if they have a customary right to New Zealand's beaches, then why not its rivers, estuaries, swamps, lakes, forests and everything else?
Seabed makes odd bedmates – Bowalley Road 2008
I think most people get this (Maori and non-Maori) and I suspect Maorification will only satisfy
1. people who think anything is better than a “rotten system” [Sue Bradford]
2. The Maori culture industry
3. Hard-liners.
People like Jim Bolger “the resources belong to Maori” are foolish – he should never have been Prime Minister.
We need to get real about the treaty. A positive narrative served us well but not when the left decided to attack the narrative.
Time to admit we invaded and just say NO.
The great Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle once explained the British Museum - "Gun beats spear". This is of course not statement of morality, but one of immorality. Tainui were illegally invaded. They defended their land and lifestyle and were incorrectly labeled rebels and had land unlawfully confiscated.
The late Queen Elizabeth II in 1995 put her signature to an abject apology to a New Zealand Maori tribe for killings and the seizure of land it suffered under her ancestor, Queen Victoria. As Queen of New Zealand she gave the Royal Assent to an Act of Parliament compensating the Tainui tribe of Waikato province in North Island for its suffering during a war 130 years ago. The apology says the Crown acted unjustly in sending troops to fight the Tainui after unfairly labelling then rebels and offers "profound regret and apologies for the loss of lives because of the hostilities arising from its Invasion and at the devastation of property and social life which resulted".
I am not sure why you continue to maintain a view that New Zealand Crown governs by right of conquest. This is convenient for you as it is reductive history simplified to support a present day prejudice as to the nature of the NZ Parliament. It is clear, however, that no constitutional scholar or credible historian support this view. Neither does the Crown, including those whose actual heads heavily wear it.
The British colonial program in New Zealand was specifically by agreement. The primary document for this was obviously Te Tiriti, indeed, this is explicit in The Treaty as an English version as well as Te Tiriti. This is also explicit in the various settlements the crown has made with Iwi and hapu.
I have noted previously that Te Tiriti is an international bilateral agreement. One party to a bilateral agreement cannot unilaterally break the agreement. This flows through to the various settlements the Crown has made with Iwi and hapu. The Crown is signatory to the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, while the Crown may withdraw unilaterally from this, it has not to date and is still bound. These and many other legal options are always available to those that believe the state is acting unlawfully. No-one is above the law.
The idea of a national emergency to prevent people from acting within the legal framework is fascism. Not only is it possible for Maori Iwi and hapu leaders, and indeed every day Maori, to protest - but it is incumbent upon them to protect that which has been won and is legally bound. Not just for Maori, but for representatives of workers, protectors of education values, health delivery and all matters in which this coalition have signaled that rights and security are under threat.
Chris, you have been amongst those fighting for many of the rights won over the last 50 years. It has been a challenge against the power structure that prevented dissent. Many of the leaders of the movements have passed, others aged. There is an expectation that those still able ensure the next generation that those things that have ben fought for, are things worth fighting to maintain.
You have some posts that have aged well Chris.
The Maori Party, the ACT Party, and (to their shame) the Greens, in calling for the act's repeal, are, in reality, calling for the privatisation of large parts of the New Zealand coastline.
Should Mr Key's latest outreach to some of the most strident advocates of Maori nationalism, therefore, be read as a coded signal to their supporters that National is now ready to join them in privatising the foreshore and seabed?
If this is, indeed, National's intention, Mr Key's new-found allies from the Maori nationalist movement have pulled off an extraordinary political coup.
By convincing the National Party leader that the foreshore and seabed issue is nothing more than a dispute over property law, they have opened the way to a much more radical application of indigenous rights.
For who can dispute that, at one time, the entire geographical entity we call New Zealand was the property of Maori collectivities?
And, if they have a customary right to New Zealand's beaches, then why not its rivers, estuaries, swamps, lakes, forests and everything else?
I suspect National Party voters see things a little differently.
Mr "I have friends with more boats the the NZ Navy" isn't afraid of a little privatisation. In fact he has a house on an Island not far from Obama; enjoys flying helicopters and had a kitchen flown in from Spain.
It hasn't been shown just how much support the "elites, academics, iwi leaders and activists" have. If one takes the Maori Party didn't even get a majority party vote in the Maori electorates and in the General Electorates where about half the maori voters are, their support was insignificant. A lot of your "Waitakere man" are maori. I doubt that many of them support either Kingitanga (who have little influence outside Waikato) or the Maori Party.
But then the maori who support National NZ First or ACT are probably regarded as "not real maori". I suspect this will go down as well as Hillary's "deplorables" or Remainers "low information voters" did.
Gary Peters underestimates how passionate younger Maori feel about these issues. Those who are students, those in state sector employment, especially education and those in creative sector. Altogether probably about 100,000 people. Many older Maori will support them recollecting their own struggles in the 1980's over fisheries, the fiscal envelope, etc.
It would be a serious mistake to think that this is just an issue for the educated elite. Because it goes to identity, Maori will be generally mobilised, even if not directly involved in protest.
In any event, to use Peters characterisation, the "well behaved and educated family" will be among the most passionate. These ones are the most likely to be fluent in te reo. It will be a key subject of choice in the education.
Peters gives every impression of living in the 1970's when assimilation was the norm, and where a whole generation were not fluent in te reo. Those days are long gone.
I can't help but think the demise of the seriously awful grab for power that was 3 Waters has really hurt the potential and fully unjustifiable bottom line for Tainui (and Tuku Morgan) that water fiefdom would have brought. Think about it, it was put together by Tanui via Mahuta Corp, all cloaked in the super vague "co-governance" thing that most of us workers had never heard of until some fantasy rewrite of the treaty appeared. Labour certainly did not want to explain this to voters. It would not surprise me in the least that a decent chunk of their caucus understood it either.
Tuku, the man who fancies boutique underwear, had been appointed the big daddy of the vast northern sector of the water empire, including Auckland, but no one knows how, and he had been arrogantly strutting his stuff. But now it's turned to dust. That must really hurt so queue the tantrum that follows.
I don't get tribal politics but what I do know is that most barely tolerate each other and having one tribe own the rest through water supply and the cash that flowed from it was never ever going to end well. Especially for the rest of us mere non maori.
Labour with their now trademark naivity and idiotic good intentions have really done some damage to this country this time. Linking a basic human necessity like water to murky tribal connections to lord it over the rest of us was and is unforgivable.
Today, the Supreme Court won’t review school transgender bathroom policies, letting stand a lower court ruling allowing transgender students their rights. To read more, go to www.emilysvirtualrocket.blogspot.com. Thank you very much. -- Emily Shorette
I agree that the ' Maori in the streets' have been underestimated. However, I wish their voices would rise to challenge and silence the 'noise' and arrogance some Maori elite hold toward their own people.
"Gary Peters underestimates how passionate younger Maori feel about these issues. Those who are students, those in state sector employment, especially education and those in creative sector. Altogether probably about 100,000 people."
Well Wayne, I guess we move in different circles and yes, like you, I have maori in my family as well, educated, young and passionate but you missed out one word, "some" younger maori would have been more accurate.
Where you get your 100,000 from god only knows but maybe that could be explained by a lack of appreciation of the number 0 and where it fits in a number.
Anyway, we will see who's mired in the 70's and who's mired in reality but the bottom line is that as long as a "them and us" mentality is fostered by some maori with a vested interest we are all well and truly mired in a past with little future. Name me a successful country or economy mired in tribal rule.
My final point remains I believe, calling "maori" as a race is foolish as most of the maori who I do know with activist mentalities seem themselves as a tribal unit long before a unified race.
Hell will be selling icecreams to eskimos long before the maori tribes of New Zealand present a unified face on any issue.
I'm sure you move in the same circles as David Rankin, maybe book a beer or two with him and sound out his views for the future and the path we could/should be on.
@Emily Shorette
I think this refers to the USA not New Zealand/Aotearoa. I see this matter as a serious rancorous attempt to subvert our nation and culture by the twistings in US America of their own peculiar version of modern society.
WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined
to hear an Indiana public school district's defense of a policy barring transgender students from using bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, as the justices steered clear - at least for now - of a contentious issue in the nation's culture wars.
The justices turned away the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville's appeal of a lower court's ruling that a middle school's policy on bathroom access likely violated the rights under the U.S. Constitution and a federal anti-discrimination law of a transgender student who was prohibited from using the boys bathroom.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/us-supreme-court-snubs-fight-over-transgender-student-bathroom-access
Nothing like 12,000 Imperial troops were deployed against the Kingitanga.
" ... the highest number of personnel stationed there was 7,784 officers and men recorded in 1864." "The Furthest Garrison" Adam Davis p.40.
Nevertheless, the Kingitanga were seriously outnumbered and were faced with a force of full time professional soldiers backed with artillery.
Wayne Mapp said...
Peters gives every impression of living in the 1970's when assimilation was the norm, and where a whole generation were not fluent in te reo. Those days are long gone.
....
One thing is absolutely clear, Auckland will grow to 2.5 million in 30 years. Around the town centers there will be increased density. But in areas where the norm is townhouse and traditional housing there will be huge resistance to multilevel apartments. Mayor Len of course knows this, and the plan will be adjusted to take that sting out. Typically in these exercises you put your maximum position out for consultation to give some space to pull back. Of course some planners may not understand this political nuance, and probably not some councillors (i.e. Anne Hartley, judging by her reported comments at the meeting).
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2013/05/roughan_on_auckland_rumblings.html/comment-page-1#comment-1147615
Odd how WM is so attuned to Maori concerns but not Joe Bloggs. Almost as though he has committed to a tradeoff: I'll sell these useless chattel white people to raise Maori value(it feels like that). As Mathew Hooten opinied of A Slice of Heaven "Did Bill English ever say he wants Auckland to have a population of X by XXXX? I've never heard him and if he didn't he should have".
Look what is happening to UK Tories?
It's a pretty clever idea. Water, health, language and The Treaty. All important to Maori, or should I say Maori academics and the elite who are the main benefactors of a push for co governance and three waters imo. Any attempt to water down perceived gains for Maori were always going to attract a bad reaction. A large Labour mandate and key personnel such as Jackson and Mahuta, a new type of radicle Maori party and theres the recipe for a push for more Maori autonomy. The water, health and language can be worked around but the treaty not so easily. Seymour and Maori are eyeing each other down. Seymour knows that if the Te Tiriti isn't clarified the push for co governance will never stop and radicle Maori are very well aware of this also . Luxon has said that there is no guarantee any bill put forward by Seymour would get past a first reading. Regardless of his real thoughts he needs to shout this from the roof tops. He needs to reiterate that Te Reo won't be taken out of signage but will be second to English. He needs to be seen to be putting money into health that will benefit Maori and he needs to let councils access cheaper finance to fix the water. The Maori Kings Hui will consolidate Maori support but that's all it will do. They will then sit back and see what happens with Seymour and his bill and if nothing comes of it the atmosphere will cool. Hopefully.
Chris, are you okay?
Shadow Kingdoms and full blown civil war? Pondering whether the NZDF would fire on a crowd or join them? Saying the only options are state military power or a Māori revolution?
Some of us 'class-first' leftists read stuff like this, and we worry about you. I hope you're doing okay
Gary,
The 100,00 figure that I used relates to all Maori who are motivated by these issues, not just the 10,000 who attended the hui. Given that 10,000 did attend then my figure won't be far wrong.
I am pretty sure National will calibrate its stance. It will certainly be telling Seymour to forget about a referendum.
Seymour's opinion piece in the Herald will only aggravate matters among Maori. His principles utterly ignore the Maori text of the Treaty, and give a sense that Maori have no protected interests other than property. What about language and culture?
The other thing rarely mentioned about the troops in the Land Wars were large numbers were "loyalist" Maori, from tribes opposed to Tainui/ King Country ones - many sub-tribes of Nga Puhi, Arawa, Tuwharetoa, most of the East Coast ones. They were sterling fighters with many decorated and were highly regarded by the colonialists. Their names are often on the older roads in towns. Remember the Motua Gardens monument recognised the local Maori who fought on the town's side in the battle against the upriver invaders.
Those tribal troops have their proud long traditions. Most don't realise Maori Batallion was definitely NOT pan-Maori and there is a lot of stolen valour from those iwi who sat it out. NZ Army still recruits many with those same historic affiliations and it needs to be acknowledged in any debate. Me - I cannot see most of the loyalist tribes wanting anything to do with something driven by Tainui.
Wayne, is it not incumbant on maori themselves to preserve their language and culture or like everything else does it fall on the colonists to provide that as well as the peace and prosperity to which all are entitles.
You may think 100,000 but I very much doubt that many will will quit their jobs to demand more from the already burdened welfare system or are you just counting those that already strain our overburdened state systems, welfare and justice?
Ask yourself a question, how many that attended the hui took a day of work to attend? I think your answer may reveal more about the issue than those attendees realise.
Thomas Sowell asks a very relevant question, "What exactly is your 'fair share' of what 'someone else' has worked for?".
Another Sowell comment seems rather relevant here
"“When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.”"
If Maori want a say they should have approached National for coalition talks. That's MMP.
The Kingitanga is not well led. But that may change. The Kingitanga is not a national movement and will never be. Many ordinary Maori in pa within the notional ‘kingdom’ are fed up with the movements leaders. Which isn’t to say Tainui has failed.
I like many have ancestors and the ancestors of my children served on both sides of the last conflict between 1845 and 1865, one of mine being an Irishman who was a recipient of the New Zealand Cross for rescuing two imperial officers in separate battles in the Wanganui (his picture and medal is on display in the Waiouru military museum). Going further back, other ancestors of mine were killed and maimed in the musket wars. War and violent revolution produce only death and suffering. One merely needs to look at Ukraine and Gaza to see this.
Talk of separatism and fantasies of joint government merely sow division, albeit they may charge the emotions of people who dream of a past that is dead.
Maori are better off than they have ever been. Maori leaders need to focus of ways to lift Tangata Whenua up in the modern world and follow the vision of T W Ratana rather than the nightmare of those, by no means all, in the Kingitanga who have illusions of power that will only lead to further disadvantage for the people.
We as a nation need to continue to work together for a better future for all. Which means finding ways to lift up rather than anger the disadvantaged.
Social Cohesion is breaking down for reasons that seem to be eluding the older generation. The mass society of the 20th century, with its top down spread of ideas via the consensus mechanism of media, academia and government, does not exist anymore. Under 45, no one goes home to watch the 6pm news and the simpsons at 7. The top down generation of culture by the culture industry has slowed to a halt or become deeply individualised. Think of the collectivised term for music from a decade, music of the 80s, 90s, 2000s? Well ask yourself, what was the music of the 2010s or the 2020s? It isn't a coherent point because the media of communication has changed.
The younger generation does not listen to the radio (outside the construction site), they have individualised tastes from these software defined platforms tailored to their individual interests. They read their own news sites whatever their preference. Shows are watched on streaming platforms or pirated with torrents/streaming sites. The individual shares no collective experience of mass consumption. As a child in the 90s/00s, you could talk about the episode of whatever slop was on television the next day. You can not do so now. We talk instead about watching series, binge watching something etc.
Social cohesion is dissolving because of the poor policies of the late 20th century, imposed on us by the Great Satan or by our own foolish elites. It has been known for decades in the language of academic discourse, or for centuries in the wise minds of the historians, that an ethnically diverse society is constantly undermined unless it has a unifying vision and nature. Singapore, the Ottoman Empire or the USSR are examples of these sorts of states which forcefully suppress biological or cultural groupings outside the state. This was possible during the period from the French Revolution until the advent of the Internet due to the organisational complexity and technological difficulty of spreading information, enabling gatekeeping by actors aligned to power. It is not possible now where I can read this blog, read Stuff/RNZ and read a National Socialist blog in the same breath. The monopoly on information and perspective has become completely undermined.
It is also worth saying that the Media has a limited bully pulpit because of this. Huge swathes of the population are unplugged from legacy and establishment media, refuse to read it and despise the journalists who produce it. And who can blame them after the Jacinda Regime effectively imposed a cultural revolution on the country during her reign. The fawning praise of the Regime by the Media for her 'kind and loving' regime became incoherent by February 2022 while they sneered at the dirty proles who could think so wrongly about taking the vaccine; You can't claim to be the regime of love and tolerance while throwing people out of work for refusing to take the vaccine and doxxing dozens of people for leading the wrongthink.
Another example, the writing about the media sanctioned enemy groups (Anti-Vaxxers, Wrongthinkers of various stripes, White Nationalists etc) is this orwellian nightmare speak where people are denounced, doxxed and attacked but you never even hear what these people say in context or a point isn't allowed to be heard. You are simply informed by 'an expert' of why this point is wrong without even talking about the point. It comes across is completely incoherent, where the author of the article and the expert know the subject and are simply spinning it for their audience.
The future is aligned around ethnic, religious and social communities which share common bonds. Maori are creating a condition which is forcing Whites towards ethnic solidarity and ethnonationalism, similar to breakdown of the ottoman empire as its subject populations embraced an ethnonationalism forcing the Turks to create a racial identity outside the identity as Ottomans. We will see what the future holds.
Wayne Mapp seems to think that the overriding consideration - overriding morality, democracy, intellectual rigour - is not "aggravating Maori". He considers that all Maori are operating on a hair trigger, ready to raise hell if "aggravated" by something. He clearly thinks very little of the courageous (Maori) David Seymour, who is selflessly trying to clarify 'the Treaty's'murk so that the country can be governable. The whinge about Seymour mentioning 'property' and not 'language and culture' is inexplicable. Seymours proposed principles are as regards what applies to ALL New Zealanders, not solely Maori. Mapp cannot seriously think that the coalition government - or any New Zealander - would have any wish to destroy the Maori language and culture. Maori people of 2024 have absolute freedom and liberty to speak their language and live their culture, there is no proposal by the coalition government to prevent either from happening. Mapp's bizarre digressions only echo hysteria about "they are trying to destroy us". It is all so dishonest. Mapp is a liberal(self styled) intellectual who looks down his nose at a person like Seymour; he is sanctimonius in the extreme. Mapp was part of a government that played a major role in selling this country down the river on Treaty / indigenous issues, and we will all pay the price.
Well so much for the Alarmists.
Luxon has played the Brown V White shell game ... perfectly.
Seymour's nose might be out of joint but both Ratana and Waitangi will I predict be more talk than patu.
Our PM so far and his private sessions with the Maori King is developing an effective protocol for constructive dialogue.
Much is made of the great migration of Maori from the countryside to the towns.
Yet in The Big Smoke [many] Moari already lived in the towns. Why wouldn't they when towns were based around harbors and on rivers?
[Pattern detection]
Fanon hides nothing: in order to fight against us the former colony must fight against itself: or, rather, the two struggles form part of a whole. In the heat of battle, all internal barriers break down; the puppet bourgeoisie of businessmen and shopkeepers, the urban proletariat, which is always in a privileged position, the lumpen-proletariat of the shanty towns — all fall into line with the stand made by the rural masses, that veritable reservoir of a national revolutionary army; for in those countries where colonialism has deliberately held up development, the peasantry, when it rises, quickly stands out as the revolutionary class. For it knows naked oppression, and suffers far more from it than the workers in the towns, and in order not to die of hunger, it demands no less than a complete demolishing of all existing structures. In order to triumph, the national revolution must be socialist; if its career is cut short, if the native bourgeoisie takes over power, the new State, in spite of its formal sovereignty, remains in the hands of the imperialists. The example of Katanga illustrates this quite well. Thus the unity of the Third World is not yet achieved. It is a work in progress, which begins by the union, in each country, after independence as before, of the whole of the colonized under the command of the peasant class. This is what Fanon explains to his brothers in Africa, Asia and Latin America: we must achieve revolutionary socialism all together everywhere, or else one by one we will be defeated by our former masters.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/1961/preface.htm
Again just pattern detection, but I see two risks.
1. Ranginui Walker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqnhFrRh9S4
2. Michael King
https://newdiscourses.com/2023/10/decolonization-is-violence/
https://youtu.be/pqGnBip9QR0?t=2247
So, there are at least 100,000 ex-territorial soldiers who can still field strip an M16.
That is interesting, given that the New Zealand Army never used the M16.
The few New Zealand soldiers in Vietnam who tried out the M16 derisively referred to it as the "Lincoln toy".
WM: "Given that 10,000 did attend"
That figure has been grossly and willfully exaggerated Wayne; there were less than half that number. You might have to revise your "arithmetic".
New information on the blatant manipulation of discourse emerges. Public Interest Journalism Fund was required to follow. "The publication “A Tiriti Framework For News Media” as produced by a group of left wing academics funded by NZ on Air is nothing less than a series of subjective assertions founded in boilerplate Marxist doctrine shrouded in a cloak of so called Maori cultural consciousness."
https://theredbaiter.com/2024/01/24/shocking-new-document-reveals-outrageous-political-intent-behind-pijf/
Includes PDF link to the full document
Shane,
You are wrong. The NZ Army used the M16 between the phasing out of the SLR and the introduction of the Steyr. For about 10 years from the early 1980's to the early 1990's. I was in the Territorials during all three weapons being in service. Of the three, I preferred the M16.
The Army has now got a new improved version of the M16, which I am informed is hugely preferred to the Steyr which it replaced in 2017.
Anonymous,
It would be helpful to your "analysis" if you actually read the te reo version of the Treaty. You would then know the reason why I say the Seymour's "principles" amount to a unilateral attempt by him to actually rewrite the terms of the treaty. It will never succeed. Even if his Bill did become law (which it won't) such an Act would never survive a change of government. Hardly a sensible approach to dealing with constitutional issues.
A great comment from Warren above.
Unify through advantage not divide to create advantage for a few.
To Shane McDowall.
The M16 has been extensively used by the NZ military. The 7.62 by 51mm L1A1 (SLR) was too heavy and long and wooden for humid Vietnamese jungle. M16s were used extensively by scouts and recon units. Territorial intakes at least from the late 1970s were all instructed on stripping and using the M16 including stoppage drills. The SLR was the primary rifle thereafter in training. The 5.56 by 45 mm NATO round is lethal, despite being fired from a light "toy". I note that the Defence Force's current weapon (the MARS-L) is an M16 derivative with the same round.
"....in the 1970's when assimilation was the norm, and where a whole generation were not fluent in te reo."
In the 1970s, I learned the Maori language to a fair degree of fluency. I was taught by somebody a bit older than me, whose first language it was. There were many more such people around in those days, though to be sure they were brought up mostly in rural areas.
I remember the establishment of the kohanga reo movement. It was driven by largely urban Maori, who could see the gradual loss of those first-language speakers.
But, as a language preservation strategy, it has been a mistake. For survival, any language needs native speakers: people whose first language it is, and who speak it exclusively for the first 4 or 5 years of their lives.
The kohanga produce bilingualism, which, given that the language is endangered, won't help to save it.
Since their establishment, the census stats suggest that the number of native speakers has fallen off a cliff. If there are few or no native speakers left, the language is dead, as is Latin. It will still be spoken for many years to come, but will eventually go extinct.
"His principles utterly ignore the Maori text of the Treaty, and give a sense that Maori have no protected interests other than property. What about language and culture?"
The Maori text of the Treaty is of necessity a translation of the English version: it has no independent existence.
The preservation of language and culture is the job of Maori people themselves. Especially with regard to language, the rest of us cannot help, no matter how much we'd like to see it survive and prosper.
Tsk tsk. Silly me. Should have googled M-16 instead of relying on my dodgy memory.
Anonymous 190.24
Your thoughts seem shallow, spreading out into a flood. We can't get insurance with all the overflow around. We need to put our heads together and make a roof I think. Some people have thick heads so they will come in handy in today's emergencies.
D'Esterre
People are fragile and yet amazingly persistent, same as plants. Just helping get started, and having regular input and learning about the plants'needs to get healthy growth is important. Good culture needs some input or bad culture that is careless and prone to be destructive will be the default. Society shouldn't be overly prescriptive but can set goals and guidelines and we all will benefit from the realisation of them.
greywarbler, if it's language to which you refer, the ineluctable rules of language survival apply to the Maori language, just as they do to all other languages.
For it to survive and thrive, the language needs native (first language) speakers, who learn and speak that language pretty much exclusively for the first 4 or 5 years of their lives. They need to be surrounded by the language, have it used by their parents, relatives and caregivers, hear it in the environment. That's how I became a native speaker of English.
On the other hand, my spouse, having been a migrant, is a native speaker of a language other than English. Not that you'd know it now: my spouse arrived here as a child, and thus speaks English like a NZer.
There's nothing any government can do, which will be efficacious in preserving or promoting the language. Most especially, a bunch of second-language learners/speakers won't save it.
Just ask the Irish: efforts to preserve Irish haven't been successful. I read recently that use of Irish and numbers of native speakers are both falling in the Gaeltacht areas. The language is becoming the second language of urban liberals: the death knell for its long-term survival.
If it is culture to which you refer, again: the government has no role in it. As you acknowledge, culture encompasses a great deal more than just the arts. Cultures develop in all societal groups, regardless of what the rest of us may think about it. A distinctive culture has developed in NZ, which is noticeable to anybody who travels overseas to other Anglophone countries. That's an amalgam of all of the different influences from the multiplicity of ethnic groups here. But all of those groups - including Maori - have their own cultural practices, which may or may not be shared with other groups in society. That's humans for you: we're a groupish species.
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