When Worlds Collide
THE COALITION GOVERNMENT’S new “Culturally Arranged Marriage Visitors Visa” offers a powerful demonstration of multiculturalism at work. It signals to all those persons intending to settle in New Zealand that their traditional cultural practices will not be forbidden or discouraged by the authorities of their prospective new home. Regardless of how jarring those practices might be to the native-born population, official tolerance is guaranteed.
The cultural phenomenon of arranged marriages is widespread in the Developing World – with good reason. In traditional cultures, the extended family and its resources – both social and economic – has for centuries been the most important means of protecting and advancing its members’ interests. In circumstances of crippling poverty and inequality, the institution of marriage not only regularises procreation, it also offers multiple opportunities for increasing family wealth and prestige. The personal desires of the man and the woman involved are secondary to the advantages accruing to both sets of parents (the groom’s especially) from these carefully arranged and fiercely negotiated family alliances.
Westerners find it difficult to accept the level of individual self-sacrifice which arranged marriages require of the young men and women involved. Our own culture long ago abandoned the notion that parents are entitled to expect the unquestioning obedience of their offspring. In traditional cultures, however, such expectations remain extremely strong. Defiance of parental wishes is not just frowned upon, it can lead to the offender’s expulsion from the family home; withdrawal of financial and emotional support; and, in the worst cases, to their complete disinheritance.
Historically, immigrant children broke free from the strictures of their parents’ cultural traditions by taking advantage of the host nation’s more liberal legal and cultural regimes to seek partners and establish families independently. One or two generations was usually all it took for the cultural traditions of immigrant communities to become more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
Crucial to this process of assimilation was the host nation’s unashamed assumption of cultural superiority. Immigrants were told that they were joining a “modern” society founded on the principles of personal liberty, private property and human equality. Clinging to the ideas and practices of the “old country” was not the way to make “progress” in the new.
This “Melting Pot” approach to resolving the cultural tensions inherent in mass immigration worked relatively well in the age of “scientific racism”. This was because the diverse cultural practices of European ethnicities could be subsumed, in the racist ideology of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, by lumping them all under the broad category of “Caucasian”. In essence, the Melting Pot “worked” because the only peoples thrown into it were white. The populations constructed in this way – especially that of the USA – are, therefore, best described as multi-ethnic, rather than multicultural, societies.
It is significant that the assimilation processes which transformed Europe’s “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” into “Hyphenated Americans” – as in Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, German-Americans, Polish-Americans and, more grudgingly, Jewish-Americans – were simply not equal to the task of assimilating either the descendants of former slaves or, until quite recently, immigrants from Asia. In this regard, New Zealand and the USA have much in common. In both countries the hatred for Asian immigrants – the Chinese in particular – was so intense that their respective governments were obliged to pass legislation which viciously restricted Asian immigration.
The scientific racism of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries also accounts for the dramatic difference between the way Australians treated “their” indigenous peoples as compared to the way Pakeha New Zealanders treated the Maori. According to leading New Zealand historian, James Belich, a small monograph entitled The Aryan Maori goes a long way to explaining the difference in treatment.
Penned by Edward Tregear, a senior and well-respected public servant, The Aryan Maori purported to prove that the Maori were a far-flung offshoot of the Caucasian (or, as they preferred to say in those days, “Aryan”) race. Whether Tregear truly believed this claim, or whether he made it up for the express purpose of bringing the races together, is difficult to establish. The important point is that it worked. The idea that Maori and Pakeha were racially kindred was reiterated everywhere: in political speeches, newspaper articles and school textbooks. In Belich’s own words, The Aryan Maori“arguably ranks with the Treaty of Waitangi as a key text of Maori-Pakeha relations.”
Alas the Australian Aborigines had no Edward Tregear to soften the extreme racial prejudice of Australian settler society.
Influential monographs aside, the driving conviction of European settler societies was that they represented the distillation of all that was most admirable in the “old world’s” civilisation. In these far-flung outposts of the West, the “pioneers” asserted, all that was rotten in Europe had been discarded, leaving only its most wholesome influences in play. New Zealand’s national anthem asks God to “guide her in the nations’ van/preaching love and truth to man”, all in the name of “working out [the Almighty’s] glorious plan”. Or, to quote the Louisianan populist, Huey Long, in these “new worlds” it was a case of “Every man a king – no one wears a crown”.
Who wouldn’t want to assimilate themselves into the very point of civilisation’s spear? That’s the question a great many Pakeha still (very quietly) ask themselves. Scratch the descendant of a New Zealand settler, and the dull gleam of assimilationism, with all its vices and virtues, remains the most likely result. Much less common, outside the universities’ sociology and anthropology departments, is the deep cultural pessimism born out of twentieth-century Europe’s horrific self-immolation.
In the ears of post-war intellectuals, Europe’s claim to global moral leadership sounded obscene. What sort of civilisation could produce Auschwitz?
The First World War had raised all manner of questions about the moral endurance of the West – and the Second World War settled them. European “civilisation” had turned the world into a charnel house. And it refused to stop. In Vietnam, the New World appeared to have decided to carry on from where the Old World left off. Post-war Americans may have looked upon their country as a “shining city set upon a hill”, but non-European eyes saw only cities burning under American bombs.
The central moral question of the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries thus became: by what right do Europeans pronounce upon who is, and who is not, “civilised”? After Auschwitz, and the Gulag; after My Lai and Srebrenica; who dares assert cultural hierarchies in which killers and colonialists occupy all the topmost places? And right up until the moment when the “wretched of the earth” started flying airliners into tall buildings and posting beheadings on Facebook, these were good – and fair – questions.
Here are some others.
In a world where no culture or ethnic group can credibly lay claim to moral superiority, is it not permissible for the citizens of a nation to demand that their government take particular care to nurture and defend its unique traditions and values?
If a multicultural immigration policy imposes no obligation on immigrant communities to acknowledge and ultimately embrace their host nation’s most cherished traditions and values, then how is that nation to prevent itself from being reduced to a collection of inward-looking and self-replicating ethnic and cultural enclaves?
Though the ashes of our fathers be scattered and dispersed; and the temples of our gods stand cracked and blackened; should not the voices crying out to save such treasures as still remain within – be heeded?
“The cultural phenomenon of arranged marriages is widespread in the Developing World – with good reason. In traditional cultures, the extended family and its resources – both social and economic – has for centuries been the most important means of protecting and advancing its members’ interests. In circumstances of crippling poverty and inequality, the institution of marriage not only regularises procreation, it also offers multiple opportunities for increasing family wealth and prestige. The personal desires of the man and the woman involved are secondary to the advantages accruing to both sets of parents (the groom’s especially) from these carefully arranged and fiercely negotiated family alliances.”
Adding to the list of social and financial resources the prise of becoming a NZ citizen can only greatly enhance and expand that tradition. In fact I would think it would in most cases outstrip any other.
D J S
All you need to do is simply look at Fiji who was an early example of the settling of legions of Indians settling in Fiji with their ‘cultural phenomenon of arranged marriages, in the Developing World’
Of course we have since seen the rise of the push back to this ‘arranged marriage phenomenon’ by the Fijian government.
NZ is in line for the same push-back it appears, especially when considering the past history of these Indian arranged marriages model immigration settling in other parts of the world.
no clean green all you need to do is to see that an awful lot of those indians in Fiji .
were taken over there as indented labour, slaves actually by the colonial British .
push back ? we have had Indians and chinese and Irish and scottish and all kinds of people as part of our countries make up for ages my dentist in Auckland was a fourth generation Indian woman .
bloody good people if you ask me .
the arranged marriages ? lots of them work and lots of them are happy .They would be saying they are a lot happier than we are I wouldnt doubt them .
what was Shane Jones thinking when he came up with this tawdry little thing and looks like to have lost the plot .on our need to stop all immigration Indian ,chinese, English , American ,French, south African south American . you name it . our Waka is full and over loaded.
and yes Jacinda is right these buddhists, hindus, Muslims ,and who ever , are us and have been for a very long time .be good if we stopped attempting to tear ourselves apart and got on with the real job at hand . getting on and getting along with each other and saving the planet.
Got it Chris, arranged marriage is like medieval tinder where achingly cool Millenials programming matches are replaced by two old capitalist men pimping out their offspring, and instead of the entire world as a possible pool of compatibility between two consenting adults (with a chance that someone you meet online could cause you harm) arranged horse trading proposes a child/adult must live forever with one person (which has been known to cause self harm).
+ 1 Popeye
“arranged marriage is like medieval tinder where achingly cool Millenials programming matches are replaced by two old capitalist men pimping out their offspring”
(that’s not all, a free TV and silverware along with the bride, no returns!)
Well the worst of all possible immigration policies in the event of a surprise birthday party would be pineapple pizza.
Sad but true, looks like Our Party comments are now being censored on TDB. Probably far to radical & common sense orientated for TDB, so much for free speech eh!
Not surprising really as blogs on TDB are sometimes very similar to those on stuff news (which can’t be commented on). It just goes to show how closely related old & new liberalism are & how they work together to uphold the globalisation elites stranglehold on our nation.
No wonder then that genuinely radical & alternative views have no chance of being heard.
Anyway, TDB is firmly in the liberal/new-liberal globalisation establishment camp, so I suspect they’ll go down with the ship when the war heats up.
This will not be published but it’s quite therapeutic.
Comment posted, what a refreshing surprise, but my recent comments have still not been published so TDB continues to censor Our Party views, a big boo hoo you ratbags.
I know you’re not the only one to complain it’s just not that conserving really. In Bomber we trust.
Kia ora Chris
If you are the upper caste parents of a beautiful young woman with a PhD in engineering from Harvard, you are not going to arrange for her to marry a young Maori chap from Murupara who works in a logging gang, spends his weekend hunting deer, sings waiata and plays the guitar with skill and passion.
It would be unconscionable for you to do so, because cross cultural relationships can be extraordinarily difficult and challenging. Even if no racial prejudice is at work, the safe option is to marry another of one’s own class, caste and race.
But is it? Think about the wider and long-term consequences of such “safe” cultural practices. Races and cultures remain separate from each other living in a state of mutual ignorance, distrusting and privately disparaging each other, always seeking their own racial interests and advantage, and ultimately descending into open conflict.
The question is not whether the state should tolerate arranged marriage (no one can prohibit arranged marriages, and we should not even try to do so) but whether, in full knowledge of the adverse consequences for race harmony in this country, the state will facilitate and encourage the practice. Clearly, Ms Ardern’s government has decided that it will.
The government has tweaked its immigration settings, assuming that a change of a mere “Two degrees can’t be that wrong”. It can be tragically wrong of course, and the New Zealand government has put this country firmly on course to a social Erebus. In the first class cabin the champagne flows, the hors d’oeuvre are passed around, the atmosphere in the cabin is one of anticipation and excitement, yet we are headed towards a catastrophe.
Multi-culturalism is a disaster in the making for all our ethnic groups. New Zealanders are told that the Al Noor massacre was an anomaly not to be repeated, and they are led to believe that something close to a police state will keep them all safe. The policeman’s daughter may believe that to be true but nothing could be further from the truth.
+1 Multi-culturalism is a disaster in the making for all our ethnic groups. New Zealanders are told that the Al Noor massacre was an anomaly not to be repeated, and they are led to believe that something close to a police state will keep them all safe. The policeman’s daughter may believe that to be true but nothing could be further from the truth.
I think while multiculturalism could be possible in principal, but that possibility is killed with the gung-ho NZ deregulated market led immigration policy @ 300,000 per year which means close to 1 million can potentially come within 4 years to a country that used to be 4 million! That’s truely crazy!!!
In a decade The Guardian will be publishing articles on how NZ fell from being one of the richest, least corrupt in the world, with close to zero homelessness, to a basket case full of Meth, murder and people trafficking visas and massive inequality!
maybe not even taking 10 years!
Meanwhile blithely Labour and Greens pop the Champagne and self congratulate, Simon’s been to China for money for the dirty politics to start and broadly it seems all the parties are in agreement that nothing can go wrong with NZ’s mass immigration policy from all the parties in full agreement on it, every social ill is the Boomers fault!
Sadly this view is being echoed by left commentators who fell for the lovely sounding multicultural fallacy hook-line-and-sinker just like they fell for trickle down!
Brilliant.
It’s now obvious that TDB does not support free speech or alternative views. TDB & all associated with it will now be put in the enablers of the liberal/neo-liberal globalisation dictatorship & traitorous enemies of the NZ people basket by Our Party. Let’s hope the wokie TDB crew has a plan B when to tide turns, as things will get messy. Post this, yer right.
well then youve had your couple of bobs worth said what youve wanted to say
so now prove your point make it real and bugger off .go on ..go and play in the traffic or some thing .
Its all very well pointing ones fingers at other cultures finding fault .
but perhaps effort would be better spent getting our own dirty act sorted out first.
according to united nations surveys we are bottom of their lists for family violence .
true , domestic violence has become normalised here in gods own .
one in three woman woman will experiance some form of abuse within their relationships .
its one of new zealands most serious issues .
not to take away from that but bet your bottem dollar poverty has a lot to do with it .
that and the stress of having to conform to the pakeha middle classes way of doing things as seen on the tv .
the middle classes that dont seem to have learnt from what I can see that back in the sixties woman went mad by the hundreds in their attempts to be happy polishing the floor and wearing aprons in the kitchen .
Historically, all Kiwis are migrants.
Reliable estimates indicate progression of world population from 350 million (year 1400) to 1.6 billion (year 1900) to 6.1 billion (year 2000) to a forecast of 10-13 billion by 2100 (Source: UN 2015, medium population growth path).
While most scenarios still predict continued growth into the 22nd century, there is a roughly 27% chance that the total population could stabilize or begin to fall before 2100.
Not assuming a serious incident (which could happen, obviously, e.g. related to climatic variations, geo-hazards, wars) affecting these overall figures, the human population in 2100 would roughly be the double that it was in 2000.
Linked with exploitation or exhaustion of natural resources, this will most probably have a serious constraining effect on most people’s lives and livelihoods.
What will these global compatriots, including affected fellow Kiwis, eventually do?
These humans will try to migrate, as we always did and do in history; otherwise we would not be in New Zealand right now, or in Australia, or anywhere else.
Such is the upcoming situation that can to be expected; with a clear mind, alert consciousness and a heart full of empathy.
Get yourself and your kids ready for this. Forget this meaningless talk about arranged marriages and cultural displacement and cater for the real challenges.
quote
…let him who is without sin cast the first stone…
unquote
“After Auschwitz, and the Gulag; after My Lai and Srebrenica…”
Srebrenica doesn’t belong in that list (nor do the gulags); we were comprehensively propagandised over the Serbia situation. See this:
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/08/24/the-bogus-humanitarian-war-on-serbia/
“The exoneration of a man accused of the worst of crimes, genocide, made no headlines. Neither the BBC nor CNN covered it. The Guardian allowed a brief commentary. Such a rare official admission was buried or suppressed, understandably. It would explain too much about how the rulers of the world rule.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague has quietly cleared the late Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, of war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, including the massacre at Srebrenica.
……….
Milosevic died of a heart attack in 2006, alone in his cell in The Hague, during what amounted to a bogus trial by an American-invented “international tribunal.” Denied heart surgery that might have saved his life, his condition worsened and was monitored and kept secret by U.S. officials, as WikiLeaks has since revealed.”
And this:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/more-evidence-srebrenica-numbers-game/5684686
“The figure of “8.000 victims” is repeated mantra-like without much interest in the origins of this figure. This is particularly worrying, since no evidence of 8,000 execution victims has been found, yet everyone continues to use this figure.
…………
Over the past two and a half decades, there have been few who have been interested enough to look deeper into what happened in Srebrenica in July 1995. Some, who question the “genocide” verdict, assume that the figure of “8,000” is merely an arbitrary “guesstimate.”
On the other hand, research of media and eyewitness reports of the period gives a different picture, one of deliberate falsification. These “guesstimates” actually had their origins in concrete numbers, which were then inflated.
One thing should be clear – contrary to what the media would have us believe – the Serb troops, who walked into Srebrenica, were not an “invading force,” but rather Srebrenica, along with Zepa and Gorazde, was being handed over to the Serb side in exchange for Serb enclaves in predominantly Muslim or Croat regions, in preparation of imminent peace negotiations.”
Some years back, I was alerted by a family member to the fabrications with which we’d been regaled regarding this story. I was as creulous as the next person: it was what we were hearing and seeing on the news every day. I believed it: I should have known better. So should everybody who uncritically accepts that egregious piece of propaganda.
And – given what we now know about how western narratives have been constructed – the claims made regarding the numbers of deaths in the gulags have been wildly exaggerated. Were the figures asserted by western commentators correct, there’d have been bugger-all people left in the USSR, even to fight in WW2, let alone to die in such appalling numbers in the conflict. Or to repopulate after the war. Note that the population increased in all the Stalin years except one. Western claims frequently have Stalin killing more people than actually lived in the USSR.
I’ve seen more authoritative figures. The number of deaths was around 600,000, and that’s from all causes, bearing in mind that most inmates were bandits, murderers and the like. Contrary to what westerners believe, the gulags were, in fact, prisons. Labour camps, yes, but indisputably prisons. For criminals. There were political prisoners, but not many; probably no more than were in western prisons at that time. Solzhenitsyn was a fiction writer and not very good with numbers.
And this has to do with immigration into new zealand and arranged marriages how ?
Retired working man: “And this has to do with immigration into new zealand and arranged marriages how ?”
Did you actually read Chris Trotter’s post? I’m guessing not: if you had, you’d immediately see the relevance of it.
Follow your own advice why don’t you D Esteregg ,,, up thread when I wrote about tailoring our immigration needs And bringing in 20,000 builders ,,, most normal people could understand you could do both and still cut our immigration in half or more …. Do you see the problem with your lack of comprehension and ability to think…. D thick E ?
Also previously you have advised me to read Nicky Hager ( which I already had) ,,,, and then you disagreed with Hagers obvious true and valid points ,,, and you did so in favor of the national partys dishonest right wing racist clap trap that National ran as their Don Brash electioneering campaign.
Finally,Angry Andrew has promoted Ben Shapiro ,,, and you smear AntiFa ,,,,
World war II was anti fascist ,,, you do know which side we were on ?.
heres a link which reveals a sub-premacist like the Christchurch one,,, lapping up the hate speech of Shapiro before going on a killing spree of ‘the others’. 10 mins 50 secs https://youtu.be/iEoa9IyVxoA
reason: “Also previously you have advised me to read Nicky Hager ( which I already had) ,,,, and then you disagreed with Hagers obvious true and valid points ,,, and you did so in favor of the national partys dishonest right wing racist clap trap that National ran as their Don Brash electioneering campaign.”
I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about here. I haven’t mentioned Nicky Hager at all in this comment thread; there’s no reason why I would. I haven’t advised you personally to read Hager at all here – or anywhere else that I know of.
“Finally,Angry Andrew has promoted Ben Shapiro ,,, and you smear AntiFa…”
Oh my goodness me. You are harking back a ways here, aren’t you! That wasn’t on this thread of course: in fact, I’ve forgotten which post it was. I can’t speak for Andrew, though I don’t recall him “promoting” Shapiro.
I’ve certainly commented sceptically about Antifa: anyone would, who’d done any reading about them and their antics, or seen any YouTube footage of their modus operandi. Though as I recall, I was responding to someone else entirely, not to you.
D Erghee, you poor old thing ,,,, is your memory going ,,, anyway,,quoting you at me
D Egg; ” If you haven’t read it, I recommend Hager’s book “The Hollow Men” , for an insight into the Byzantine nature of the politics surrounding that issue.” https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2019/10/11/fighting-monsters/
In the same thread you disagreed and argued against Hagers truth telling which I had linked too.
Why do you recommend people to read authors you argue against ?? ,,,, with your don brash racist viewpoints.
So do you have schizophrenia as well as memory loss ?.
or perhaps you quote insincere junk and cant remember it all .
and heres a link to AntiFa info
In western societies women used to be property and children had no rights, we evolved.
The governments of India and China have tried to get rid of certain practise that subjugate women and children, but with populations of over 1 billion, it’s pretty hard going to go against cultural practises full of corruption.
Now we have opened the path for those that believe all sorts of patriarchal practises to come here and not only that, make money from it, for visas.
If you don’t like the culture of NZ and don’t believe in our laws, don’t come here, it should be as simple as that!
That way we can avoid NZ jails and justice systems and labour inspectorates being run off their feet with all the crimes being committed as ‘good character’ seems to have less influence in people coming here than money for visas!
well save New Zealand . it may come as a suprise to you but most of these that come to make a home and join us here love the culture and believe in our laws .
they are proud to be kiwi , thats why they come .
so please be a good kiwi do your mind a favour , get away from the computer screen out into the light of day , shake their hands and say hello , find out for yourself .
Are these people ‘good kiwis’ ? Nope! Increasingly with our pathetic rules people are not here to become Kiwis, but live in NZ and make money, leave relatives on NZ benefits and go off to a country that pays better wages than NZ like OZ. And the statistics prove it. AKA Up to 30% of adult children sponsoring aged migrant parents, left them alone in NZ and went abroad to work themselves. It’s called Granny dumping. And that is just the start of it the problem – which has got worse now that the ponzi has the new residents sponsoring in other residents with jobs, marriages and relatives.
The so called ‘kiwi values’
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12254105
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/13/asia/nz-christchurch-shooting-suspect-intl-hnk/index.html
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/114976886/west-auckland-stabbing-man-remanded-in-custody-after-been-charged-with-murder
Sikh temple to pay $100k for breaching employment laws
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/117040153/sikh-temple-to-pay-100k-for-breaching-employment-laws
22 restaurants, 120 staff – and now a $40,000 fine
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12014023
The Big Scam: ‘Marriages for sale’ in alleged visa rort
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/108067804/the-big-scam-marriages-for-sale-in-alleged-visa-rort
Indian restaurant bosses fined for exploitation
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/287183/indian-restaurant-bosses-fined-for-exploitation
Indian businesses ‘sell’ jobs for visas to students
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/336687/indian-businesses-sell-jobs-for-visas-to-students
The Indian women paying for a NZ education with their freedom
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/voices/audio/2018636396/the-indian-women-paying-for-a-nz-education-with-their-freedom
Immigration marriage and dowry scams on the rise, says charity
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12123831
Even after being caught, our rules give criminals new to our shores, permanent residency and citizenship!
Child abuser wins right to stay in New Zealand for humanitarian reasons
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/84891031/child-abuser-wins-right-to-stay-in-new-zealand-for-humanitarian-reasons
Child abuse dad avoids deportation on humanitarian grounds to stay with family
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/76059417/
Iain Lees-Galloway chose ‘lazy’ option granting residency to drink-driver – Simon Bridges
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/10/iain-lees-galloway-chose-lazy-option-granting-residency-to-drink-driver-simon-bridges.html
New resident convicted of sex offending twice, won’t be deported
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11837608
Judge’s difficult sentencing of a former refugee who won’t stop offending
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/111480343/judges-difficult-sentencing-of-a-refugee-who-wont-stop-offending
Rapist wins case to be allowed to stay in NZ
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/327784/rapist-wins-case-to-be-allowed-to-stay-in-nz
Rich building boss guilty of immigration fraud after residency granted, loses court battle with Herald
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12171615
there are good and bad kiwis no matter the race .
go and count up the European crime thats made the news in the same time frame ,
go on , but bet you wont . you are only interested in barrow pushing .
and not a very wholesome barrow many good thinking people would find it ugly .
I do . ugly and ignorant .
and as we all know ignorance is no excuse .
any way I am over entertaining you . I need to have a shower .
toodles .