A windy spring day, post election gives me time to mull. It’s certainly been a year for NZ. While it’s encouraging to see Te Pati Māori get so many MPs in parliament, and Greens accrue a few more, it’s still a time to worry. An Act National NZ First coalition is certain to repeal many … More 2023
“Every culture has a right and responsibility to present its own culture to its own people. That responsibility is so fundamental it cannot be left in the hands of outsiders nor be usurped by them”. (Barry Barclay “A way of talking” in Te Ao Maori Il Mondo Della Luce , 1989). By chance today I … More perspective
“Oranga Tamariki and the question of leadership (very long post) It’s not usually appropriate for politicians to call out public servants because they can’t answer back, and while public servants are responsible for the implementation of policy they are not responsible for the policies themselves. Ministers cannot sack public service CEOs, but the responsible Minister … More Jan Logie, Green MP NZ
News has been full lately of stories about abusive behaviour in a women’s prison, appalling behaviour in Oranga Tamariki and, ongoingly, suicide rates of young Māori men. Let me be clear. The women in Auckland Region Women’s Corrections Facility (ARWCF) are Māori. Reports say that these women, despite being asthmatic, are gassed with pepper spray in order to … More New Zealand: We have a problem
Looking in at a country is different from looking from within. A stark memory of the USA was being in black areas and being white. In Washington I walked through a black area on the way to the children’s museum and saw the graffiti ‘whitey is the root of all evil’. Across the road from … More being white
It’s been a while…. One of the recent thoughts have been along two themes: what is The Handmaid’s Tale telling us and what can we do about white tears? Like many women I have been captivated by THT but this article gave me pause: the-handmaids-tale-and-the-reproductive-rights. Sherronda J Brown argues that while white women may be alarmed at … More Catching up: Being white
Occurring at roughly the same time as the introduction of sub-Saharan Africans into Iberia, the concept of “purity of blood” and ancestry became increasingly important to Europeans. RACE AND RACISM (Western Colonialism) n.d.n.author. I have had the misfortune to view on Facebook a couple of posts that espouse the value of ‘good’ Maori vs ‘neotribal whingers’ … More It’s a race
One of the exercises in Treaty workshops used to be to have a volunteer sit on a chair while group members crowded around in a sequence. The person on the chair symbolised tangata whenua, while the chair surounders were in sequence: sailors, sealers and whalers, missionaries, settlers….and so on. The person on the chair feels … More sitting on the chair
So the peace march has occurred. This is a walk between New Plymouth and Parihaka marae in Taranaki It’s a walk I totally support and applaud. I am impressed with the outpouring of support and sharing. On both sides. I truly hope that bit by tiny bit we can overturn the racism in this country. But. Of course there is a but. We … More let not my cynicism deter you
Is it a coincidence that it is in Taranaki that there is a campaign celebrating the local mayor for admitting he was a racist? That people are discussing racism? Online? On Facebook? In Taranaki where the Land Wars of the 1880s began at Bell Block, where Te Tohu and Te Whiti o Rongomai were arrested at Parihaka and where Titokowaru fought tooth … More Taranaki
thebiculturalist 