Beneath Te Papa

A busy time at the moment with assignments due left, right and centre - but I am enjoying the deadlines for some reason, even though I am moving house again. Whew - must be time for a poem.

This poem got 2nd place in BayLit which I was really pleased about. I've decided to leave it unchanged with its flaws intact, although in some ways I'd still like to rework it and make it better.

Beneath Te Papa

My knee clicked loudly like an out of time fingersnapper

as I entered Te Papa. A museum, as am I, both hoarding

treasures deep on this day of my birth.

I am 50 today as I descend below Te Papa, the oversized

lift looming around us like an atrium, my socks slip

on the floor. A slow motion ritual fall to our past.

The doors weep quietly aside and I find them along walls.

Taiaha stacked supine, appearing settled yet expectant,

as poised as hungry white herons staring at faint flickers of fish.

They watch as years slide by. Discarded weapons now relics,

longing for a warm hand, the lightest touch of emotion, we were

forged for our time, as useful as a steady pay packet, or an edge.

A weapon-less warrior watching warrior-less weapons.

Te Papa and I are the cave mouth open everyday, and they enter

to see, to touch, to feel - the museum, but not the man.

I also received news that somehow two poems from the blog have been included within  brief magazine issue 44-45. The editor of that issue was Scott Hamilton aka Maps from Reading the Maps so I believe I have Scott to thank for my inclusion - Kia ora Scott. I am not sure which poems were selected and I'm awaiting a copy to check - the anticipation is intense, I'm loving it!

grief creates grieving

The best thing about this “colourblind NZ campaign” launching soon from ansell, is the comedy it will generate. Ansell is a comedic genius and I like this plan of bringing all these 'like-minded people' together so we can know who they are. That is an important part of nation building. Yeah you bastards come-out, come-out whereeveryouare - just joking - ha ha 

Note the new term “Treaty Grievers” – ansell is usually good on these pithy, racially divisive terms, but this one is a fizzer. Getting too close to grief which is accurate and that must be avoided when ‘othering’ groups.

My favourite for comedy in this one is the reference to Martin Luther King by ansell.  They both share the same dream apparently and ansell is convinced that King would approve of his goals. I would like to see them meet to hear what King thinks of that.

Of course the mention of King is a thinly disguised attempt at showing they are okay with people of colour. It’s pretty ham-fisted though, very iwi/kiwi. ansell has run out of ideas and recycling everything multiple times – sad really but sums up well the campaign and its supporters.

Maps did an accurate dissemination of ansell here.

Update. Oh dear - the  Rotary Club of Remuera have said they don't want ansell there anymore - lol.

Maps has more here.

their swords are sharp

Maps has some awesome posts up at the moment and this one which outlines a discussion between Labour candidate Carmel Sepuloni and Maps, was especially interesting.

Carmel, who had parked a car emblazoned with campaign slogans beside the cafe, was initially very friendly, asking me about myself and about my voting intentions. When I went beyond pleasantries, though, and began to ask some questions about Labour's policies and election strategy, she quickly became defensive. Although Carmel talked with me for five or so minutes, she asked me not to repeat some of the things she said. This request seemed to me very odd: we were talking, after all, about the details of a general election campaign, not about some sensational murder trial or international spy ring.

and for some humour Rob Guyton is constantly exercising his wicked sense of that quality and this post from him, entitled "this man suffers from worms" is a good example. His blog is aways interesting and offers strong green perspectives - plus that sense of humour.

Pitas Dear Don letter

Pita Sharples has written an open letter to don brash. Pita is sad and disturbed by the Act racist divisive tactics but the telling off is pretty weak. It does give us a glimpse of pita's thinking and he is still comfortable in key's team. (Bolditalics = my emphasis)

Dear Dr. Brash,

How sad and disturbing to read your negative ACT party advertisement in the NZ Herald's Weekender - July 9, as you once again bring the Maori peoples aspirations into contempt and ridicule. Your views are not only inaccurate and ill-founded, but are totally out of tune with middle New Zealand's ideals and aspirations for our country.

It is clear that since your exit from Parliament, you have learnt zilch about fostering an inclusive culture to take our nation forward. Your entire article while posing as an advertisement for the Act party, is devoted almost entirely towards discrediting the Maori drive for a measure of equity within our distinctive genre de vie. Your own culture of ‘Maori bashing' is totally designed to appeal to that negative minority within our community (‘for party votes') and has absolutely no place in a modern society.

So, it is with some amazement, that I note the very positive measures that have been achieved through responsible negotiations between the National government and the Maori Party, have been listed and labelled by you, as negative. Surely, co-governance of the country's greatest river, Waikato, reflects and respects our history and our aspiration for the river; and equally, the inclusion of a Maori voice in the EPA and the RMA reflects our bi-cultural origins as a base from which to service all our NZ cultures.

In turn, the establishment of the Auckland Maori Statutory Board, recognises our largest city's unique history while promising a united future for the growth and development of the place that is home to the largest grouping of Maori in the world.

Dr. Brash, your divisive style of leadership that is used to discredit one section of our community, has no place in today's politics. As we emerge somewhat slowly from an economic recession, and give our attention to the revitalisation of Christchurch city and its community, and as we work to reduce our overseas debt, it is clearly a time for our nation to be united and working within an air of positivity.

And ironically Dr. Brash, the measures which you have condemned as negative in your party advertisement, are the very issues for which I am approached and congratulated for (on behalf of the Maori party's efforts in Government) by members of the general public EVERY day - sometimes by as many as 10-12 a day.

In closing, I would like to draw your attention to the various social, health, and human rights reports that summarise what many of us already know - that is, that Maori people are still amongst the most impoverished, the most marginalised, and the most socially at-risk communities in New Zealand. I do not see much evidence of Maori privilege in these statistics. Please do feel free to review such reports at your earliest convenience.

Kati mo tenei wa

Heoi ano

Na Hon Dr Pita R Sharples CBE, MA, Dip Tchg, PhD, TH, JP

Well at least he gave it a go, but not much teeth in there. The 12 general public comments a day must be nice.

I say no deal for The Mana Party on the seats with the maori party

No Mana deals with the racists of Act - they are nutters who believe there were people in this country before Māori as well as their usual racist claptrap.

On another note Maps has written an interesting post on the term kupapa and how it is used willy nilly by people. I never use the term and will not.

 

History from Maps

I enjoy history, learning about the past and this post from Maps is extraordinarily. There is so much to learn - the issuing of maori bank notes and the setting up of a maori parliment. If you enjoy learning then this post from Maps is essential.

As well as hosting Te Peeke o Aotearoa, Rewehetiki became the site, in the early nineties, of Te Kauhanganui, the parliament of the Kingite movement, and of the printing press which produced Te Paki o Matariki (The Girdle of Pleiades), the official newspaper of the movement. The functions of these institutions were carefully connected. Te Kauhanganui passed laws and levied taxes, Te Paki o Matariki made these laws and taxes known to Tawhiao’s still-scattered followers, and Te Peeki o Aotearoa was a place where the income the King received from levies and fines and the like could be stored.

The story of Tawhiao’s restoration of his sovereignty in the northern Maungakawas in the 1880s mocks the old thesis of Maori acceptance of Pakeha hegemony. Decades after the Kingitanga was supposedly irrevocably defeated at Paterangi and Orakau, Tawhiao and his followers emerged from their exile in the south and took up residence in these hills and in other fragments of the old kingdom, establishing a set of institutions – a bank, a currency, a police force, a parliament – which represented, together, a concerted symbolic attack on the authority of the settler state.

Enjoy reading this excellent example of the history that many of us do not know. Thanks Maps.

dargy dags

Maps has identified more Dargaville racism - why they still praise grave-robber hilliam up there is a mystery to me. This was the previous effort from their museum.

A quote from the latest post

"But the antics of Hilliam, and the tendency of some journalists to take those antics seriously, have begun to earn Dargaville a reputation for wackiness and insularity. Your paper contributes to this problem when it reports Hilliam's claims uncritically. At the very least, your article ought to have noted Hilliam's lack of any qualifications, his lack of any support from serious scholars, the series of false claims he has made over the years, the unease his grave-robbing and misappropriation of taonga have caused amongst Maori, and his ties to the One New Zealand Foundation.

Go here for a good read.

three wise lefties

I have been following the peter jackson union bashing debate around the hobbit over the blogs with interest. The debate on the left has shifted to a discussion of unionism and what that actually means in terms of the relationship between unions and their members, unions and other unions, and unions and the state. Mr Trotter has a very good post here. Lew from Kiwipolitico has a great post here and now Maps has put a post up here. We now have three very smart left thinking people debating with each other this very important issue - go to the sites and follow the debates - add in your view and maybe also consider this concept of 'support no matter what because of shared values', in relation to maori struggles for tino rangatiratanga.

Update - Lew has posted a retort.

racesdebatetis

Lots of discussion regarding race and identity (usually people telling maori what to think and who to be) and hone's comments, and trotter's revision of history regarding Tuhoe, and Professor Mutu's 'racism' in defending hone's statements. Enjoy.

lew sorts trotter out here

"These are people who claim to want to ‘move on’ from our colonial history, for Aotearoa to become ‘one nation’. But doing so on the basis of swordright cannot result in a nation of two people joining together as ‘iwi tahi tatou’, but of one people who set the rules and another who live by them; the former wielding the righteous sword of civilisation, the latter’s efforts to work with the former rather than under them cut down by it, and even their efforts to work within the rules viewed with eternal suspicion and distrust. This is beyond misery — it is ignorant, paranoiac hatred and fear of ghosts long passed..."

maps assists kiwiblog here

"The real change over the past fifty years or so, with the development of history as a professional discipline in NZ, is the disappearance of the completely one-sided views of the past which cast Maori as naturally inferior to Pakeha and presented Te Kooti, Te Whiti, and other rebels as nothing but fanatical terrorists with no legitimate grievances.

HORansome codswallops paul here

" This is made especially clear by the fact that the claim "Maori are suspicious of Pakeha" and "Maori form relationships with Pakeha" are in no way mutually exclusive. Both propositions can be true at the same time; the truth of one does not negate the truth of the other. Indeed, in some cases the truth of the former will result in the truth of the latter; Maori who partner up with Pakeha may come to distrust Pakeha for because of the results of such a partnership (for example, some of the land loss Maori suffered under colonial rule was due to Pakeha forming relationships with Maori and then "inheriting" land from hapu when such relationships came to an end (rather than accepting that the hapu granted land use rather than land ownership). There is an awful lot of literature on this.

Good debates - pity not many maori voices being heard but they don't seem like maori debates to me. 

little bits

Life is very busy at the moment, but good-busy. I haven't been able to post as much as usual, but it's swings and roundabouts. I'm enjoying studying, and feeding the chickens and playing with my son.

Bit of a bummer about the light show not turning up.

A facinating post by maps here on hone's latest "I don't want a pakeha inlaw" outburst.

"By implicitly endorsing the view that the children of unions between Maori and non-Maori represent some sort of diminution of Maori identity, Harawira gives a boost to the sort of racism he has spent his career trying to defeat."

The comments, as usual are excellent. I can't be bothered with hone at the moment - less talk more action needed.

collectivist wealth creation for maori

Sometimes we cannot see the woods for the trees. We are caught up in our world and it seems like our world is the only world - but it isn't. The capatilist mode of creating wealth seems like the only way to go - but is it? Are their alternatives and how could they relate to righting the injustices facing Tuhoe and maori in general.

Maps has written on this subject in this post entitled The 'First White Marxists' reach Tuhoe Country and, as usual his analysis is thought-provoking, very high quality and actually makes sense. Reading the Maps is my favorite blog. The comments are also outstanding.

Teaser from the conclusion

"There is no reason why Tuhoe could not retain returned land and resources in collective ownership and develop their land and resources for the benefit of the whole iwi. There are already examples of iwi who are opting for the collectivist 'Polynesian mode of production' model of development over the 'corporate' model."

I really recommend a visit to Reading the Maps.

act act act and art

My call on the ACT party is that the party is just about over. I think the party will not make it in the next election. Low polls, the rodney mistakes have been critical, and the looney side of the party are just digging bigger holes.

For instance muriel neuman's speech about 'one law for all' - Good post on the Standard. And from Russell Brown

Now muriel is one of these people that believe little pale-people were here before maori and taught them everything they know - you know the stuff - maori were dropped off here as slaves, pregnant to their chinese overlords and so on. Utter shit of course but there are a few 'believers' here. So what are the pearls of wisdom from muriel? From her speech. 

"There is enormous support in New Zealand for an end to racial division. That was evident in the overwhelmingly supportive response Don Brash received to his Nationhood speech in 2004. And as we know, in essence, that speech promoted the race relations policies of ACT.

Opposing Maori privilege will require real courage. There are big issues and big challenges ahead: the proposed foreshore and seabed legislation; the United Nations Rights of Indigenous People (which even Labour would not support); the Maori seats in Parliament; Maori seats on councils; Treaty principles being inserted into legislation; the whole Whanau Ora programme, which appears to be underpinned by racist policies. Any proposal based on race should be vigorously opposed."

ACT have every right to be frightened - the signs are written - slippery slope time. And they look at the maori party and think WTF. But the aspect they don't consider is that the maori party is determined to look after maori and they don't care what non-maori think. ACT do not have the same freedom. Of course they say they don't care and with loopies like newman and her theories for getting votes, you could almost believe they don't care - but they do really care - otherwise they wouldn't be in parliment - they would be out there making the big money.

Cactus Kate has a couple of very good posts from inside ACT. Well worth a read.

Maps has an amazing post about an 'art raid' to multi-millionaire Alan Gibbs 'neverland' property. At times hilarious and sad, the post describes the large art works privately owned and asks some great questions about the role of art in political discourse and the intentions of art buyers and the political uses they encumber some art with.

we don't care

I've given up on mr trotter - a while ago actually.


If you are interested in how the real left are handling the weeping sore that is mr trotter go and read lew's brilliant piece at kiwipolitico and also go to read Map's piece at Reading the Maps. The true nature of the struggle is exposed by the rancid stench from mr trotters putrifying carcass of ideas. Check out the comments and really think about the world mr trotter wants and how that fits into our world.


for example, mr trotter's start to a response to keri h in the comments on reading the maps,

"What relationship exists between Pakeha and Maori? It's a fraught question with a simple - but brutal - answer.

The relationship of the conqueror to the conquered."

mr trotter - sad, mad and bad.

some left blogs on goff

watch my poll ratings

This story has a wee way to go but inital reactions are interesting. Thank you.

Good post by Lew at Kiwipolitico on goff here and here

Good post by Danyl at The Dim-post on goff here

Good post by toad at g.blog on goff here

Good post by Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn on goff here and here and here

And when you get to the point of asking "What the hell are we going to do about this?" Go and visit Maps at Reading the Maps - he discusses mr trotter and his likening of the maori party to the nazi party.

Maps shows a way forward instead of the sad old retoric of mr trotter and brash and goff. I cannot recommend Maps's article highly enough - it should be compusory reading for all people of this country.

Reading the Maps: Rosanne Hawarden's balls-up

This is a very interesting blog about racism and bogus history.

Reading the Maps: Rosanne Hawarden's balls-up