Monday, February 28, 2011

PROPHECIES FROM THE EPICENTRE

06/02/11
"A terrible earthquake is going to hit Wellington. I have seen body bags in the streets of Wellington. I have seen houses on the hills of Wellington – seen them disappear. I have seen the roof of the Beehive lying in the debris of the streets of Wellington." (Anglican minister Gray Theodore at Waitangi’s dawn service)

22/02/11
Kia ora whanau, first chance to post on here! Everyone is safe. After shocks still coming! At work and all the cars in the carpark start hopping up and down like an Ice Cube video. He puna hou i puta mai i a Papatuanuku spewing grey silty water into the gutter outside the Greers Rd substation.

“… with great sadness, and after many hours of deliberation …there did not appear to be any way of resolving the complaint besides cancelling Mr Harawira's membership of the Maori Party." (Orohi Paul – Maori Party Disciplinary Committee Chair)

23/02/11
“… the scale of the destruction in Christchurch reminds us all of the value of life and the importance of whanau in all that we do.” (Hone Harawira – Independent MP for Te Taitokerau)

It helps knowing people are thinking of us. Some people’s entire lives are literally turned upside down. Four kids weren't picked up from the kids’ kura yesterday as their parents perished in the CBD.

24/02/11
“... it is best for me and the party to go our separate ways, and to focus on the issues that are crippling Maori people, and indeed Pasifika and Pakeha people living in poverty throughout this country.” (Harawira)

A dude being refused credit because he had no cash and eftpos was unavailable. A mother walking her two young children in circles up and down the street, going nowhere in particular, comforted by the fact they are not alone in the city.

24/02/11
“[I will] go back to my electorate and to supporters around the country over the next month … because it is their energy and support that has sustained me.” (Harawira)

Tried to contact my cousin yesterday. Glad to hear they got out safely. Might accept their invitation yet. Going to check on aunty today.

25/02/11
“… in the best interests of advancing our people’s future, we [should] focus on the issues rather than the personalities, and … not speak disparagingly of one another.” (Harawira)

Aunty is fine. On the way back saw the most random thing, a pure white dove sitting on the roadside? Stopped and got out and was tame as. No olive branch though. First thought was, he tohu tumanako. Second, there’s a magician nearby with a broken aviary.

26/02/11
“A senior National official … gloated they had lanced the boil of Harawira and the Maori Party was now their long-term, docile and trouble-free coalition partner.” (Matt McCarten – NZ Herald columnist)

We have decided to stay in our own bubble for at least a few days to avoid the stresses of what is happening in our city. Unfortunately ugliness is starting to become more common although on the whole most people remain courteous to each other.

06/02/11
“I won’t be taking much away from that last speaker.” (Prime Minister John Key at Waitangi’s dawn ceremony)

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

THE MISSION BEGINS

This year I have made it my mission to visit a number of online newsfeed sites and see if I can turn around the racists who post their hatred on those sites. My mission statement is simple; stick to the facts, expose the red herrings, be nice.
I’ve boiled the pet issues of the posting racists down to a few essentials and have similarly distilled my responses to the essentials.

ISSUE: Maori are not the indigenous people of this country, instead the Moriori were ... or maybe the Celts. So, because Maori ‘stole’ the land from the Moriori, they can’t and shouldn’t be making claims against white people for stealing it from them. RESPONSE: First, Moriori are Maori, and Maori had no concept of land theft in pre-European times. Second, Maori claims are not about or against a specific racial colour, but about whether or not the Crown has kept or broken its own laws.

ISSUE: Maori are genetically violent thugs and if it weren’t for the “Euros” signing the Treaty with them, they’d still be murdering and eating each other. RESPONSE: “Scratch John Bull and you find the ancient Briton who revels in blood, who loves to dip deep into a murder, and devours the details of a hanging." So said the Pall Mall Gazette in 1887. In any event the Crown’s colonial and contemporary thefts can’t be excused by the amount of blood shed during its own or others’ histories.

ISSUE: Maori are ungrateful wasters who should be thankful for things brought by white people like “Christianity, iron, clothes and education.” RESPONSE: Maori always had clothes and education, so we have never credited anyone else for those things. And the introduction of iron, Christianity or any other thing in no way permitted the Crown to steal from us. In fact Christianity is against theft.

ISSUE: Maori are greedy bludgers, and Treaty settlements are a gravy train that are running the country broke. RESPONSE: To date, it has cost the Crown almost nothing to settle any land claims. It has achieved this through the simple expediency of requiring claimants to use almost every cent of their so-called redress to buy back the lands it stole in the first place. These alleged settlements are almost entirely fiscally neutral for the Crown and the taxpayer. And yet, ironically, Maori are vilified for being greedy.

ISSUE: Pakeha are all honky rapists and should commit an impossible indecency on themselves. RESPONSE: Don’t be a reactionary racist. You can do better than that.

Two months into the mission I’ve turned a couple of posters. They’re still fragile in their new freedom from the fear and ignorance that fed their racism, but they’re getting there.

Other people from many different races, but with similar motives as me, are also posting with compassion and dignity, even humour. None of us are surprised at the levels of ignorance, anger and fear we’ve found.

These things are inevitable when the media delivers headlines rather than facts, political commentators write opinion pieces rather than subjective analyses, and the Crown acts with expediency rather than integrity. If the joint mission of media, commentators and Crown was to keep the population dumb and divided, they’ve been quite successful to date. However they are not going unchallenged.

Inside every racist poster there is an angry, frightened, unhappy human being. The key to turn them is to show love, courage and happiness towards them. It's a mission.

You know, missionaries often get a bad press, but we don’t care. We're on a mission and you’re welcome to join us any time or place.

A STATE OF GRACE

Years ago I and a bunch of mates, all nurses at Kaitaia hospital, were on a night out in Awanui hotel. The large crowd there that night included a small number of out of town gang members – some with local connections, including a cousin of mine. The general mood was sweet.

I’m not sure when that changed, and I have never known what triggered the change, but at some point we heard something was going down outside – so out we went too. There we saw three gangers, including my cousin, punching and booting the publican who was on the ground whimpering. And dozens of locals, men we’d grown up with and knew to be tough sorts, were standing watching it happen.

Without a word we crossed the street, pushed the gangers away, picked the publican up, and helped him back inside past all our local tough guys. Someone called the cops and ambos, while we cleaned the guy up, comforted his distraught wife and berated the few remaining locals. In our eyes their inaction was a disgrace and they knew it. With heads down, none of them could answer our repeated and distressed question, “Why didn’t you stop it?”

Now, years later, and with the perspective of time and experience, I think the answer to their inaction boils down to five basic failings of humanity. Some of them were uncertain (was this a stoush between family, or had the publican started it?), some of them were afraid (they might get a hiding too, or might hurt someone else for the wrong reason), some were weighing up where their best interests lay (a grateful publican later, versus a violent ganger now), some were just too plain drunk to care, and others were a bit of all those things.

Thus it ever has been. When a bad thing unfolds in front of our eyes and we do nothing, it can generally be put down to uncertainty, fear, self-interest, incapacity or callousness.

When the Crown takes money through iniquitous taxes like GST on food – is it uncertainty of what to do that stops you acting? When politicians legislate to allow 10% rises for themselves, while others are legally screwed down to less than 2% – is it self-interest that gags you from speaking out? When government officials intimidate and threaten the very people they are supposed to help – is it fear that freezes you? When the Crown steals land from Maori – is it that you just don’t care?

I pick on the Crown because its government controls most of the institutions and powers of State in the country – police, army, courts, schools, media and infrastructure – and because it’s lead by powerful people who answer to even more powerful people, who are not you and me, and who do not have our interests at heart.

Division is a terrible thing; rich against poor, men against women, young against old, and race against race – yuck! But division amongst us does serve the interests of the powerful because it keeps our eyes off what they are doing and who they are serving.

So here’s the challenge. Can we overcome and master any uncertainty, fear, self-interest, incapacity and callousness in ourselves? Can we get to the point where we ignore the symptoms of that in others and keep our eyes on the real danger? Can we act with grace under fire?

As for those who beat up the Awanui publican all those years ago and those who didn’t move to help – their failing was not one of gender or race, but one of humanity.

Would you cross the road to save another? For sure you would – if you were certain, unafraid, interested, able and caring.