Can Judith Collins Make Don Brash’s ‘Nationhood Soufflé’ Rise Twice?

Can She Raise It A Second Time? The question is: Can National’s current leader, Judith Collins, rely upon Don Brash’s Nationhood Soufflé recipe to produce an equally dramatic rise in her party’s fortunes? Or, in the intervening years, has the ideology of “Treatyism” persuaded enough New Zealanders to renounce the ideas which, in 2004, transformed National overnight from a party of the walking wounded into a serious electoral contender?

SEVENTEEN YEARS HAVE PASSED since Don Brash gave his in/famous “Nationhood” speech to the Orewa Rotary Club. On the strength of the sentiments communicated in that address, the Brash-led National Party leapt from a risible 28 percent in the polls to 45 percent. In a single 17-point bound, National was free of the clutches of its crushing 2002 election defeat. Had National’s chief strategist, Steven Joyce, not played silly-buggers with the Exclusive Brethren Church, there was every chance that 18 months later Brash would have become prime minister.

The question is: Can National’s current leader, Judith Collins, rely upon Brash’s Nationhood Soufflé recipe to produce an equally dramatic rise in her party’s fortunes? Or, in the intervening years, has the ideology of “Treatyism” persuaded enough New Zealanders to renounce the ideas which, in 2004, transformed National overnight from a party of the walking wounded into a serious electoral contender? More to the point, does Collins share Brash’s unwavering moral commitment to the ”single standard of citizenship” principle at the heart of his “Nationhood” address.

This is not an idle question. If Collins is unable to convince those voters who are either doubtful of, or openly hostile to, the Labour Government’s radical Treatyist agenda, that her opposition is authentic, then she is most unlikely to emulate Brash’s success. Love him or hate him, only the most rabid of his opponents doubted Brash’s sincerity on the “race issue”. Those who voted for him were absolutely certain that, if elected, he would fulfil his promise to remove all references to the Treaty of Waitangi and its ex post facto “principles” from the statute books; and that the Maori seats would, indeed, be abolished. Collins, if she is to capture the support National so desperately needs, must convince both her party, and the public, that the “separatism” she decries must – and will – be stopped in its tracks.

The slightest equivocation on this matter will convince even those who agree with Collins’ basic proposition that she cannot be trusted to see it through. Anything other than a rock-solid guarantee to uphold the core principles of liberal, colour-blind, democracy will only convince her potential supporters that her brave words are hollow: that, when push comes to shove, she, like all the others, will retreat before the relentless criticism of practically the entire political class. Does Collins have what it takes to hold her ground on the “race issue”? Does her caucus? We shall see.

The feeling that National needs to exploit, if it is to return to office in 2023, is the feeling shared by a great many voters that, no matter which party they vote for, the core settings of New Zealand society will not be changed. That the people “in charge” have absolutely no regard for, or interest in, the opinions of what Richard Nixon called “the great silent majority”. Indeed, many Kiwis are now uncertain whether or not their opinions are any longer shared by a majority of their fellow citizens, or whether they – and people who think like them – now constitute a minority of the New Zealand population.

On the “race issue” and “Treatyism”, this sense of being shut out of the debate is very far from being a figment of their imaginations. The politician most responsible for inserting “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” into legislation is the former constitutional law professor-turned-Labour-politician, Sir Geoffrey Palmer. In a paper entitled “Māori, the Treaty and the Constitution” delivered to a Maori Law Review symposium on 12 June 2013, he observed:

“These [legal] developments, and indeed later developments, have meant that substantial grievances of the Māori minority have a good chance of being handled in a principled fashion. Insulation from the ravages of extreme opinion has been achieved. The settlements have become mainstream.”

“The ravages of extreme opinion”. It is difficult to conceive of a phrase that more vividly sums up the way the New Zealand elites view the thoughts and feelings of their less elevated citizens. It would be equally difficult to locate a clearer confirmation of the widely held conviction that nothing ordinary Pakeha New Zealanders might say in relation to the “race issue”, or the Treaty’s place (if any) in this country’s constitutional arrangements, is likely to have the slightest effect upon the conduct of the powers-that-be.

Palmer, himself, confirmed as much in the same address when he stated: “My mail about the Treaty was always adverse and voluminous, but I was not deterred by it.”

What produced that extraordinary 17-point jump in National’s poll-ratings following Brash’s “Nationhood” speech was the electrifying collective conviction that Brash had listened to the opponents of Treatyism, heard their grievances, and was determined to give effect to their wishes.

Nothing mobilises voters faster or more effectively than the belief that, for once, their vote might actually count. Whether it be Dominic Cumming’s invitation to “Take Back Control”, or Donald Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again”, the idea that a visit to the ballot-box just might make a difference, almost always makes one helluva difference.

Collins’ predicament would be made a great deal easier if she and her team could avail themselves of solid data on New Zealanders’ views about the Treaty of Waitangi and the “race issue” generally. Twenty years ago this was a relatively straightforward process. In the 1990s, for example, one could turn to the reports of the New Zealand Study of Values (NZSV) for a very precise take on the public’s attitude to a whole host of economic, social and political issues.

In a little book entitled New Zealand Politics At The Turn Of The Millennium by Paul Perry and Alan Webster, which was based on these reports, New Zealanders attitudes towards the Treaty of Waitangi were set out very clearly.

In 1998 only 5.4 percent of those questioned believed that the Treaty should be strengthened and given the force of law. A quarter believed that Treaty claims should be dealt with through the Waitangi Tribunal “as it is at present”. Nearly 30 percent believed there needed to be greater limits on Maori claims under the Treaty. And 33.8 percent believed the Treaty should be abolished. Only 16.3 percent of those questioned responded positively to the idea of giving Maori special land and fishing rights to make up for past injustices.

When Don Brash delivered his “Nationhood” speech to those Orewa Rotarians in January 2004, his ideas fell upon fertile ground. We cannot be so sure that Collins’ views on separatism will be equally well-received. The NZSV ceased in 1998. For reasons one can only speculate about, academic interest in acquiring and publishing data on inconvenient public attitudes appears to have declined in the new millennium.

A great many of the New Zealanders who participated in those NZSV surveys more than two decades ago are no longer alive. Judith Collins must, therefore, make a big political bet. Have the numbers relating to the status of the Treaty of Waitangi, and to the “race issue” generally, become more favourable to the Treatyists – or more unfavourable? How many New Zealanders have changed their minds? More importantly, how many of them are willing to bet that National’s leader won’t change hers?

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Friday, 30 April 2021.

John Key's Kermadec Options.

Choices, Choices, Choices: Abandoning the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary would inflame the already raw feelings of National Party’s more conservative supporters. Not because they are the world’s most strident environmentalists, but because they would interpret Key’s “surrender” as proof that the Treaty of Waitangi now constituted “superior law” – i.e. capable of preventing the Crown from over-riding its provisions.

 

JOHN KEY’S OPTIONS in relation to the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary are many and varied. He could step away from the enabling legislation, postponing its final resolution until he’s safely re-elected. He could drive the legislation through Parliament with the support of the Greens and NZ First. He could waft a cheque in front of the noses of Te Ohu Kaimoana (TOKM) and watch their “non-negotiable” position melt into air. Or, he could simply abandon the Sanctuary altogether.

 

The latter option would be a gift to the Greens, NZ First and (to a lesser degree) Labour. James Shaw and Metiria Turei would characterise Key’s decision as a betrayal of New Zealand’s international commitment to protect at least 10 percent of its Exclusive Economic Zone from commercial exploitation. Winston Peters would condemn Key for surrendering in the most abject fashion to the Iwi interests behind TOKM. Labour, sensitive to its exposed position in the Maori seats, would attempt to persuade voters that National lacked both the will and the skill to negotiate a fair settlement of the Sanctuary dispute.

 

Abandoning the Sanctuary would also inflame the already raw feelings of National Party’s more conservative supporters. Not because they are the world’s most strident environmentalists, but because they would interpret Key’s “surrender” as proof that the Treaty of Waitangi now constituted “superior law” – i.e. capable of preventing the Crown from over-riding its provisions.

 

Quite rightly, this would be viewed as a radical recasting of New Zealand’s unwritten constitution. Rather than ultimate sovereignty being vested in the “Crown in Parliament”, as is presently the case, Key’s back down would be taken as proof that ultimate sovereignty now resided in the Treaty of Waitangi – as interpreted by the unelected judges of the New Zealand Judiciary.

 

Right-wing intellectuals, including such outspoken critics of the Treaty as Don Brash, Hugh Barr and David Round, would go further. Their question would be: What persuaded John Key to undertake such a radical recasting of New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements? Their answer, in all probability, would be that the Prime Minister was convinced that anything less was bound to provoke an unquellable Maori backlash.

 

Were this to become generally understood by the Pakeha electorate, an unquellable Maori backlash would instantly be relegated to the second biggest problem Key had to face. The extraordinary response to the then National Party leader, Don Brash’s, speech to the Orewa Rotary Club in January 2004 (National’s poll-rating surged 17 percentage points) still stands as the most telling evidence of latent Pakeha hostility towards the Treaty-based “Maori Renaissance”. Indeed, it is arguable that National’s easy dominance of twenty-first century New Zealand politics is traceable to Brash’s in/famous “Orewa Speech”.

 

Elite opinion in New Zealand airily dismisses the potential for a devastating Pakeha backlash. On this matter Sir Geoffrey Palmer, the politician most responsible for bringing the Treaty back from the dead in the 1980s, is unequivocal. In a speech to the Māori Law Review symposium on the Treaty of Waitangi and the constitution, held on 12 June 2013, Sir Geoffrey stated bluntly that:

 

“Insulation from the ravages of extreme opinion has been achieved. The settlements have become mainstream. We have travelled a long distance with the Treaty, and much of what was proposed by making the Treaty part of an entrenched Bill of Rights has been achieved. Yet the current position with the Treaty does not seem to me to be sustainable long term. It is half in and half out of the legal system. From a constitutional point of view the developments have been significant, because in many situations the courts are empowered to rule on treaty issues as to whether requirements have been met. The courts are better protectors of “discrete and insular minorities” than the majoritarian legislature, even under MMP.”

 

It is unclear if Sir Geoffrey is linking the democratically elected Parliament of New Zealand with “the ravages of extreme opinion”. What is very clear, however, is that the posture of New Zealand’s political elites has more than a little in common with the posture of the British elites in the run-up to the Brexit referendum. They, too, believed they were defending a “mainstream” position.

 

A failure to appreciate just how deeply Pakeha hostility to “Treaty issues” is imbedded in provincial electorates is what drove the liberal Mayor of New Plymouth from office. Perhaps Key should ponder Andrew Judd’s fate before goading his supporters into a similar electoral rejection.

 

Then again, this Prime Minister is almost certainly also pondering the likely electoral consequences of tapping into, rather than over-riding, anti-Maori prejudice. The likelihood of National emerging the loser from a “Kiwi versus Iwi” themed snap-election is not high.

 

That is the option TOKM should consider most carefully before reiterating its “non-negotiable” stance on the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary. Some fish are best left uncaught.

 

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 20 September 2016.

Drowning In Lattés: Why Labour’s Future Must Not Be Dictated By The “Metropolitan Elite”.

Latte Sipping, Mac Using, Prius Driving, Liberal Elitists Need Not Apply: So long as Labour's policies are framed according to the priorities of the metropolitan elite, its chances of reclaiming the 150,000 to 200,000 suburban and provincial votes it needs to once again become a "40 percent party" are negligible.

 

WHETHER THE UNITED KINGDOM has a Labour Prime Minister by the end of this week remains to be seen. What cannot be disputed, however, is that among Labour’s traditional working-class constituency, much of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Government’s programme remains surprisingly popular.

 

Four out of five trade union members, for example, told pollsters that they thought the £26,000 cap on benefits was a good idea. Indeed, Matt Ridley, Member of the House of Lords and author of the bestselling book, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, reports that “Tory candidates out canvassing tell me they are finding that welfare reform, while horrifying the metropolitan elite, is most popular in the meanest streets — where people are well aware of neighbours who play the system.”

 

If this wasn’t true, it is hard to explain how, after five years of swingeing austerity, the Conservative Party is polling neck-and-neck with Ed Miliband’s Labour Party.

 

To hear the British Left tell it, the last five years have been an unmitigated social disaster. It’s a claim which, if true, would be propelling Labour towards a landslide electoral victory. But, if the experts are agreed on anything about the 7 May election, it’s that, outside of Scotland (where the Scottish National Party are poised to win every one of Scotland’s Westminster seats) it’s not going to be anyone’s sort of landslide.

 

What horrifies “metropolitan elites” has, however, come to dominate the policies of both the British and New Zealand Labour Parties. Highly educated and socially liberal, the party activists of both countries would rather see their parties split in two than endorse the “reactionary” views of their working-class supporters. That these views might be shared by sufficient voters to materially boost Labour’s chances of winning general elections deters them not one bit.

 

Take, for example, Phil Goff’s “Nationhood” speech of December 2009. Designed to undermine the Maori Party by driving a wedge between its elite backers in the Iwi Leadership Group and ordinary working-class Maori, Goff’s speech immediately drew sharp internal criticism from his party president, Andrew Little, and the new MP for Wellington Central, Grant Robertson. Rather than see the Labour Party flare into open factional warfare over its leader’s alleged appeal to the redneck vote, Goff’s strategy was quietly abandoned.

 

And yet, six years later, Andrew Little is being advised to woo precisely the same redneck vote which he and his current finance spokesperson were so quick to disavow back in 2009. Not in so many words, of course, but under the oft-quoted objective of restoring the Labour Party to its former status as a “forty percent party”.

 

To lift Labour from its shattering 2014 result (604,534 votes or 25.1 percent of the popular vote) to the 41.1 percent it received in 2005, Little will have to locate an additional 375,000 votes. In other words, he needs to lift Labour’s game by at least 15 percentage points.

 

Now, 15 percentage points is a very large gap to make up, but it’s not impossible. In July 2002, the National Party’s vote fell to just 20.9 percent, and yet, on 17 September 2005, led by Don Brash, National polled 39.1 percent – an 18.2 percentage point recovery in just 38 months! It can be done.

 

But, if Labour believes it can haul itself back into electoral contention without, as a vital part of that process, playing to the “reactionary” views of the 150,000 – 200,000 voters who have, in the nine years since Labour last won a General Election, crossed over to National, then they’re dreaming. And if they were to convince themselves that such massive losses could be made good without offering these “reactionary” turncoats a full-blooded “Orewa Moment”, then they would be even more misguided.

 

At Orewa, Brash spoke over the heads of the “metropolitan elite” to National’s angry electoral base, reassuring them that their instincts about the country were sound and would be heeded. Andrew Little, at a place of equal symbolic resonance (the Michael Joseph Savage memorial?) needs to do the same. Labour must reassure its remaining – and potential – voters that it is determined to be guided, once again, by the needs and aspirations of ordinary, hard-working, law-abiding provincial and suburban New Zealanders.

 

For this to work, the fundamental power of decision must be returned to the communities in which the problems of social and economic deprivation manifest themselves. In matters relating to employment, welfare, education, health, policing and justice, local citizens must be given much greater choice; a much louder voice; and much more security.

 

Labour needs to stop seeing the existing state bureaucracy as the answer to all of society’s problems. Instead, it must convince the ordinary voter that his/her problems can only be addressed effectively by equipping society with a new kind of state.

 

And if that horrifies the “metropolitan elite” – too bad.

 

This essay was originally published by The Press of Tuesday, 5 May 2015.

The Case Manager

Gearing Down: To preserve the machinery of capitalism sacrifices will be made - but not by those who own it.

"A MENACING and Punitive Environment". As I watched the YouTube clip of mounted policemen charging student protesters in the streets of London, I couldn’t help thinking how accurately these words describe our present predicament.

From Athens to Dublin; from Lisbon to London; from Washington to Wellington; everywhere; you can hear the sound of political gears shifting down. For the first time in eighty years, the largest, slowest cogs of the state apparatus, its prime drivers, are being engaged.

At this, their most basic level, the relentless and implacable processes of government have only one purpose: keep the state machinery functioning. By any means necessary and without reckoning the human cost, keep the wheels turning. Under no circumstances should the machine be permitted to stop.

Those at the bottom of our society feel the downward shift first. "In all our public meetings, and in many of the written submissions," writes the Alternative Welfare Working Group, "there was a consistent message that Work & Income as an institution has become more intimidating."

The policy has yet be openly acknowledged, but it is already in effect: Get as many people as possible off the Invalids and onto the Sickness Benefit. Get them "work ready". Get them off the books.

What does that mean in practice? One of the beneficiaries who made a submission to the Alternative Welfare Working Group explains: "I have to explain my medical conditions to a different case manager every three months, who is a complete stranger. It is totally humiliating."

But its not only those at the bottom of society who are feeling the effects of the downward shift.

Last Saturday evening, the former leader of the National Party, Dr Don Brash, returned to the popular seaside resort of Orewa, north of Auckland, to deliver a speech. (Orewa was, of course, the scene of Dr Brash’s extraordinary "Nationhood" speech – the message which caused National’s poll-rating to surge an unprecedented 17 points in January 2004.)

On this occasion, however, it wasn’t Maori "privilege" in Dr Brash’s gunsights. This time his target was the National Party’s present leader and Prime Minister, John Key. The lanky economist’s natural civility precluded a direct assault upon his former colleague, but no one in the Orewa Branch of the National Party could’ve been in any doubt as to whom the following sentences were addressed:

"New Zealand is a great country, and we in the National Party are proud and passionate New Zealanders. But our great country is perhaps more at risk today than at any time since the Second World War. I believe it’s safe to say that our relative decline – both in terms of our economy and in terms of racial harmony – will never be reversed if our political leaders allow themselves to be driven entirely by political polls."

As the former Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Dr Brash is, naturally, familiar with this country’s precarious financial situation. He knows, too, that the global capitalist system will require a whole generation – maybe two – to absorb the economic, social and political consequences of the catastrophic financial collapse of 2008.

New Zealand’s experience of the Global Financial Crisis has, so far, been considerably less harrowing than that of Iceland, Greece or Ireland. But, as any economic historian will tell you, this country was also slow to feel the full effects of the Great Depression. Dr Brash must know that, in spite of one or two encouraging swallows, the summer of economic recovery is still a very long way off.

Indeed, it is probable that the winter of New Zealand’s fiscal discontent is only just beginning. When it finally takes hold, the political downshift will begin in earnest.

Stripped of their flummery, societies like ours stand revealed as the private property of a tiny elite. To protect that property, and to preserve their access to the capital that makes it a going concern, they will not hesitate to make the lives of the rest of us considerably poorer and more precarious. That’s what has happened in the United States, That’s what is happening in the United Kingdom. And that is what Dr Brash is not-so-subtly telling Mr Key must soon happen here.

A capitalist society in low gear is never a happy place. Governments struggle to retain office and individual politicians become extremely unpopular – as the Irish Prime Minister, Brian Cowen, has discovered. It is precisely at such critical historical junctures, however, that the ability to make unpopular (meaning undemocratic) decisions becomes all-important. Indeed, it is probably the most important duty in a Prime Minister’s job description.

With Dr Brash playing the role of Mr Key’s Work & Income case manager, the Prime Minister may soon discover that he has more in common with invalid and sickness beneficiaries than he could possibly have imagined.

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 30 November 2010.

Mulholland's Answer Answered

I HAVE to confess to being a little disappointed by the response to my column (‘Them & Us’, Sunday Star-Times, 16/11/08) attacking the Maori Party’s decision to throw in its lot with John Key and the National Party.

By branding the Maori Party kupapa (collaborators) I’d hoped to draw some of the leading Maori nationalist theorists and writers into the debate. It was not to be. As usual, those who manufacture the ideological ammunition used by Tariana Turia, Pita Sharples and Hone Harawira – thinkers like Moana Jackson, Eddie Durie and Maria Bargh – prefer to operate quietly behind the walls of the academy, popping-up only occasionally to cast the odd, oracular, contribution into the public sphere.

Instead, I had to make do with someone called Malcolm Mulholland, from the Maori Studies Department of Massey University.

Mr Mulholland alleges that my column "provoked such a reaction among Maori communities, some believed it would be best to write this column to set the record straight."

A worthy objective, but unfortunately, not one Mr Mulholland was capable of achieving.

Let us begin with the uncomfortable historical reality of the kupapa Maori themselves: the undeniable fact that some hapu and iwi opted to ally themselves with the Pakeha colonialists, and against other Maori. This behaviour not only signals a considerably more complex political equation at work in mid-19th Century New Zealand than a simple reading of our history might suggest; but it also undermines the romantic Maori nationalist scenario of a beleaguered – but united – people heroically resisting the onward rush of British imperialism.

That the term kupapa retains its capacity to inflict pain is precisely because it touches upon matters that threaten to expose the most sensitive political realities of the Maori/Pakeha relationship.

I touch upon the nature of this deeply ambivalent relationship in the second chapter of my book No Left Turn:

The coming of the Pakeha had opened the way to a new world of undreamed of opportunity and abundance. For the bold and the intelligent, immersion in the ways of the newcomers promised a new life in which the traditional considerations of lineage and rank counted for very little. Imagination and effort brought rewards that were far beyond the generosity of chiefs – or the maledictions of wizards – to constrain. All that was required to escape the nexus of aristocratic politics and priestly magic was Pakeha gold. Money was the solvent that dissolved the age-old ties linking family, clan and tribe: money the tool with which the individual could carve himself a new identity. And the fastest way to acquire money, and all the transformations it wrought, was to sell land.

A deep and abiding cleavage was opening up in Maori society between those who believed that it was possible to have the best of both worlds – and those who did not. The modernisers believed the traditional collectivism of the tribe could be preserved – even as Pakeha religion, science and technology freed its members from the social and economic constraints of a culture grounded in scarcity. For the traditionalists, however, the best of both worlds was an unachievable mirage. When it came to tikanga Pakeha, Maori did not have the luxury of picking and choosing. The British were a proud people, who equated the technological inferiority of Maori as proof of their inadequacy in every other aspect of human achievement. As far as the British settlers were concerned, "natives" had only two choices: become like them, or be swallowed by them. They did not believe in two worlds: Maori would either acknowledge the superiority of European civilisation, or it would sweep them away.

Mr Mulholland was either unable, or unwilling, to engage in the deeper issues underpinning Maori development in the post-colonial era, preferring instead to concentrate on the party political manoeuvrings of the last four years. But, even here, his analysis is, to put it kindly, feeble.

The Labour Government’s passage of the Foreshore & Seabed Act was accomplished with maximum dispatch for one very simple reason: to forestall the growing Pakeha backlash against not simply one iwi’s victory in the Court of Appeal, but against the whole Maori renaissance. What on earth does Mr Mulholland think lay behind the unprecedented 17 percentage point jump in National Party support that followed Don Brash’s Orewa Speech?

The sleeping dogs of Pakeha racism, having been kicked into snarling wakefulness by the Court of Appeal decision and National, had to be lulled back to sleep. That was Labour’s paramount concern, and, steadfastly supported by all but one of its Maori MPs, that is what it achieved.

Has Mr Mulholland ever given a moment’s thought to the counterfactual? That Labour backed the Court of Appeal decision, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with iwi who asserted their customary rights? What does he think would have happened? Does he not believe that National’s "Iwi/Kiwi" Pakeha nationalist dichotomy would’ve swept it to an historic election victory? Does he not understand that such a government, elected with a frankly racist mandate, would have moved decisively to remove all the remaining constraints upon National’s assimilationist project: the Waitangi Tribunal; the Maori Seats; Maori broadcasting; all the institutions of Maori education in te reo; the Treaty of Waitangi itself?

Mr Mulholland’s superficial nationalism, uninformed by even the smallest amount of structural analysis, is simply not equal to the task of grasping the crucial significance of Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana’s key prophetic insight. That only by linking the fortunes of the dispossessed of both the Maori and Pakeha communities, and joining them in an unbreakable political alliance, could the quest for equity and equality, common to both peoples, be achieved. Only an alliance based upon class could ever amass the political force required to negate the colossal racial advantage enjoyed by the inheritors of Britain’s imperial victory.

It was that alliance, with all its faults, disappointments and betrayals, which kept the promise of the Treaty of Waitangi alive. And only that alliance – or something like it – can hope to secure the Treaty’s ultimate fulfilment.

Tariana Turia and her colleagues will soon discover what all the hapu and iwi who turned kupapa discovered: that fighting on the Pakeha’s terms, and for the Pakeha’s objectives, only ever brings the briefest of respites.

Because, when all is said and done, once you have helped the men of power destroy all the centres of resistance to their rule, who shall you summon to defend the paltry rewards your collaboration has won?

Now that the new colonialists have mastered "divide" – can "conquer" be far behind?