What does it say about us as a country when a 21 year old Māori woman has her home attacked multiple times as an intimidation tactic against her standing for the Māori Party this election?
What does it say about us as a country that the story fades so quickly in the mainstream media?
What does it say about us as a country when there are those on the Right who question this egregious attack and claim it’s a scam?
What does it say about us as a country that such intimidation can occur alongside three Political Parties openly race baiting and making Māori the punching bag this election?
We have told ourselves that our Colonization of Māori was a shining example of race relations so often that we’ve smugly believed it.
There is a grotesque level of racism in this election that should shame us all.
Watching the right claim that their malice and spite IS NOT racist is almost comical.
Whoever wins this election, the racist wounds caused during the fighting for it will not heal and will cause enormous social backlash for whoever benefits from it at the ballot box.
First published on Waatea News.
Heh–IMAGINE–just fucking imagine–if even one of Baldrick’s seven luxury pads had been home invaded, some one left a turd and a nasty threatening note…that would be a media channel spectacle would it not?
Which party has said it is a scam ?
The comment by “Just Some Troll” illustrates perfectly the reactionary attitudes that are being emboldened and encouraged currently. Completely lacking any empathy, “Just Some Troll” claims that it is a “backlash against racism”. As if, somehow, attacking and intimidating a 21 year old woman who is courageously participating in the electoral process is somehow justified because of …., what, exactly? Too many Maaaaaaris?
Yes, the political illiteracy can be astounding to some of us that were around before Rogernomics and post modernism. And frankly it is much more than that–it is blatant racism–MAGA, NZ style.
Wondering if Troll may have mis-typed because surely it would have said a backlash against ANTI-racism? I admit to being confused but I do agree with the sentiment that there is a backlash happening – not saying I agree with it – just that it’s there.
I do think we on the liberal/left can get all judgy at people for not being on board with our views and we shouldn’t be surprised at the backlash – I mean we’ve basically been shaming people in the name of racial equality and this was only ever going to get people to be quiet. It didn’t change their mind and they’ve just been stoking their anger in silence for a couple of decades. All it took was someone like Trump to give them permission to be openly racist again and it’s burst back out.
I also think we need to fess up to the fact that there is an element of class prejudice here because it often seems to be university educated people shaming working class people for getting it wrong – like has always been the case.
Yeah I did wonder about a mis-type, but then we also have people such as David Seymour, Julian Batchelor, Damien De Ment all claiming that co-governance is racism…. and I think that is what JSTroll’s comment is referring to.
Hana is purely exercising her democratic right, standing as a Candidate for TMP.
It shows that:
1.) Settler colonial societies by their very nature create a ticking time bomb at their moment of birth. And nobody knows when it will go off.
2.) That heroic attempts to defuse the time bomb – as we have been doing for the last 30-odd years since the first Waitangi Tribunal decisions – are also very fraught with danger. But they are ultimately the lesser risk, the right thing to do, and must be successful
3.) That the founding myths of settler colonial societies run very deep, i.e. that ‘superior’ cultures naturally displace ‘inferior’ ones to the benefit of both (Or that the notions of inferior and superior apply to whole cultures at all, rather than merely to technology)
4.) That the problems noted under point 3 are infinitely harder to solve if everybody lives inside a brutally competitive economic system where financial and physical survival is guaranteed to only a small sliver of people at the top, and everyone else is racked with stress and suspicion and hatred
Agree
+1
Well put AB.
I’m voting for the Maori party for the first time this election. I looked at all the policies and theirs are the most progressive. People say (Trotter says) there is no anti-neoliberal party, but I think the Maori parties 10% wealth tax on over $10million would wipe out the billionaire class. I would say that if this isn’t anti-neoliberal, it comes very close.
On top of that, they have several other progressive taxes.
Can’t stand TMP but any attack or intimidation of any of their people is a discrace and not where we want to be headed as a country.
I am very sorry to hear what happened to this young woman candidate. I hope the police find the culprits and they receive suitable penalties.
Political violence by whomever against whomever should attract a harsh penalty. Need to nip it in the bud and stop the trend.
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