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| Prime Minister Key |
Hopefully everyone had a good Waitangi weekend. Happy Waitangi Day in regards to Saturday, or happy 'New
Zealand day' if you're a moron with the
mental processing power of a manual toothbrush. I say that as an
introduction to a post I have no idea which direction it will head
in. I like to have a few encompassing 'themes', with two or three
primary arguments to drive its content. All I know is that I have a
good feeling about this blog more than my other failed attempts. For
one reason, I feel inclined to write a draft for a post almost every
day (except Sundays) and so, I am saturated with ideas. I've only
released three posts prior, and they give a small taste of the kinds
of subjects we will be covering. Yet I haven't delved into my most
radical political ideas and I am unsure if this post will do so. I
chose Waitangi, because keeping a blog alive is easier if you keep up
with current events. I am not like these pundits who feel the need to
comment daily, stretching (or snapping) the truth wherever necessary
in order to keep a viewer base satisfied. But I will discuss current
events whenever I get the chance, and the most recent local event has
been our national holiday. When it comes to the subject of Waitangi,
I tend to think historically, as I have often done, but these days I
am much more forward thinking. I am still in some ways conflicted
about Waitangi day, and perhaps I try to soften the blows of these
conflicting feelings by adopting a more diplomatic and detached
approach. I think many Kiwis do this. We try to find common ground in
Waitangi, which is why a holiday that should be seen as remembering
the past, and understanding the cultural divisions of this country,
these days is usually just celebrated in the way we best know how –
gather friends and family at get drunk! Historically, we may be a
nation of complex cultural divides and a colonist/native relationship
unlike that seen anywhere else in the world, but today we are trying
to find things we have in common – but this is not feasible
anymore. As we globalise, we are becoming more and more divided. We
aren't an egalitarian agricultural society any more than the U.S is a nation of cowboys and Indians.
But I like to find
common ground amongst fellow countrymen! Come gather all ye for I believe there are things
we all should be willing to agree on, without necessitating the Mike Hosking 'forget it ever happened' approach to Waitangi day. For those who don't know, Hosking is 'the man with the face', also the man who profoundly asserted that Waitangi day is 'too much
history', because we all know that one day per year devoted to
drinking and eating is more history than Kiwis can handle.
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| Mike's Minute, referring to the amount of time you're allowed to think backwards - everything beforehand becomes irrelevant. |
'Hey
now, you're oversimplifying his argument'. Okay, whatever, but we can all
agree, for example, that the Treaty of Waitangi was deceitful. Whether it was
deceitful in its nature, by design or by accident, it doesn't matter
– but we should agree that it was deceitful. I'm not saying us
Pakeha now need to surrender ourselves as slaves to the Maori, or go
back to England. I'm not saying we need to expand the Maori
electorate or instill new Waitangi Tribunal Powers. What I'm asking
is a lot easier – just that we admit to ourselves that the treaty
was unfair, which sounds easy but is more difficult than we think. Just ask a
neo-nazi about the holocaust ('I get that a lot,' he'll say), and how they often minimize the death
toll. There is no reason for them to do so – it doesn't add any
weight to their argument, nor does it make the Third Reich look any
more angelic. In my opinion, the Nazi's could have killed 6 million,
600,000 or 6,000, but they are still equally evil in their capacity
to cause suffering for such a dystopian cause. I'm not for one second
comparing New Zealand colonialism to the Third Reich, but I am saying
that you don't need to give up your integrity as a 'New Zealander' by
admitting that we were founded on an unfair piece of legislation.
This is nothing surprising – the British were masters at this shit,
right up to the 1920's – just study how they imposed a mandate in Iraq.
Now, how the hell am I? Well, I am an almost
entirely Anglo-Saxon (for lack of a better word, it arguably sounds the coolest) New Zealander, descended from English, Scottish
and Scandinavian families. I have some Maori in me, but I cannot
connect it with any Iwi therefore I do not consider myself the least
bit Maori. When we were kids in school we hear a lot of insulting
Maori jokes uttered by white kids, under the justification that 'I'm
got Maori in me'. Yeah, no, you've got Maori in you, but you're 98%
white, you're 2% Maori, and 100% twat. That being said, I
consider myself primarily British, I adore English culture, but like
the best of us, we have no trouble being self-critical - just watch any old British sitcom. I don't deny
that the British Empire inflicted untold amounts of suffering on the
world, probably at a 2:1 ratio for the good they accomplished, and if
you can't embrace that as a possibility, then maybe this is 'too much
history' for you. But please don't take it that way - we're not asking you
to admit to what whites in the United States or Australia did, that
is, full on genocide against the indigenous people. If we feel
awkward discussing the historical baggage of Waitangi, think what
it's like as an Australian asked about their treatment of Aborigines.
At that point I concede that stories about white committing infanticide against natives is too much
history for even
me. Yet we talk about 'pulling ourselves up from our bootstraps' and
wonder why natives don't listen to us – probably because we don't
make an effort to relate to their situation. It is understandable in on sense, because we've never experienced their situation, but If we did make an effort, maybe they'll
return the favour and try see things from our view. Is it really
that hard to do? Apparently it is.
But that gets me to
my next point: Australians. Not too long before Waitangi, they
celebrate 'Australia day', a day devoted to the glorious, triumphant
moment in which a bunch of ships landed on a port to start a prison, something
which Australians can surely look back on with tear-filling pride.
But evidently, they don't, and instead they tend to do the exact same
shit we do – BBQ's, Beers, and in some cases, getting angry at anybody who
questions the meaning behind their precious day, like the case of this cafe owner, exercising Australia's famous
'self-mocking' humour, which even the government itself admits to on its website.
Nowadays, you're
getting some New Zealanders inspired by the Australian model, in that we should change the name to 'New Zealand day' and turn it strictly
into a celebration of our country as a whole, rather than the divisions that created it. There are so many
reasons this idea sucks, but to put it simply, we must understand the
essential difference between the Australia and Waitangi days. The
former is a day of recognition of the first white men to arrive in
Australia. The latter is a day of recognition of New Zealand's single
most important piece of historic legislature – one that tied us to
Britain's constitution and established the very rocky framework for
cultural relations between Pakeha and Maori. It is devoted to
acknowledging these very real conditions that formulate parts of New
Zealand's political and social framework whether you like it or not.
The goal is not to divide, or to incite terror, hatred or antagonism
anymore than Easter is a day to encourage grave-digging. The purpose
of the holiday is, once again, to just fucking acknowledge what
happened. But instead, we have people like Mike Hosking encouraging
us to forget about the whole damn thin. Oh, and books like this:
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| blood splatter effects always help |
On the back if you can't read that small writing, it
actually warns us of the 'National-Maori party coalition's plan to
hijack our constitution and so as to turn all non-Maoris into second
class citizens.'
I am concerned about many things in this country's future, but the Maori undertaking a secretive Bilderberg-like mission to turn me into a slave is not one of them, yet I have friends reading this book, and the message gathered from it is not the message they should be gathering: that is, the dangers of corporate interests, like that of Ngai Tahu, influencing politics to give special treatment to Iwi, a point that I still find of little relevance to the big picture of our society, after all, why focus on just the Iwi, and not infinitely more powerful corporations like Apple's shady expenditures within the country? I don't like these kinds of books because they are divisive. Not just in the sense that it encourages people to fear Iwi, but it manages to avoid looking at the bigger picture of corporate influence. That's why Americans are voting for Donald Trump because of 'job stealing illegal immigrants', despite the fact that pragmatic businessmen like Donald Trump are the reason jobs get outsourced to overseas. Books like this and people like Trump have one thing in common: playing into people's fears in order to avoid the bigger picture.
But friends who read this book do not walk away with anti-corporate feelings, instead bashing Maori Iwi for their feelings of entitlement. Coming back with this view is like being asked to write an essay on the causes of World War 2 and just writing 'The French Were Pussies'. Once again, we're missing the bigger picture.
Part of the big picture goes back
to our failure to understand a fundamental rule of human nature: that some people see things differently
than we do, and we can criticise their views, we can point out the
endless flaws in their logic, but there's one thing we can't do: and
that is to stop people from feeling marginalised just by telling them they shouldn't. If some Maori activist
starts up a whole new era of Waitangi-oriented criticism, if we see the rise of a charismatic, gaffe-free Hone Harewira type, there may be bucketloads of content for pundits to criticise, but in the end, that won't matter. If the 2016 U.S presidential election has taught us one thing so far, it's that a truly populist leader is immune to criticism, as long as they have a sizeable part of the nation agreeing with them. John Key has dominated the opinion polls despite no shortage of criticism about his political and personal character, and under the volatile politics of Waitangi, it would be foolish for them to assume the same can't happen on the other end of the spectrum.
First there was
White Man's Burden, then there was White Man's Guilt. Now there is
White Man's Folly: oblivious to the notion of the first step to helping
people: make an effort to understand their pain – not
necessarily to concede to their point of view - but to admit that
they have the right, as human beings, to actually feel that pain. It
takes a Tory to say 'you don't have the right to feel undermined'.
Whether or not you think people should feel undermined doesn't matter
as long as they feel they are. You can have pundits belching out
talking points every day, but you will still have a population filled
with dissatisfied people. It's like a Youtube comment war, in
which witty comebacks and insults and exchanged like stock on Wall
Street, but you know
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| the face of guiding light |
nobody's changing anyone's view. People go into
debates not to convince other people, because they know they won't.
People go into debates to win. Likewise, pundits don't broadcast their
opinionated faces across mainstream television to
convince the masses who are just waiting for a guiding light to show them
the way. I assure you, if there is anyone on this earth that actually fucking knows
what the hell the human race should be doing, that person is not being paid
by advertisement-fueled media companies to appear on mainstream
television. Ask a scientist or some shit. He'll tell you. In fact, just ask your neighbours, your friends and
colleagues. We don't do that enough these days, and I think that's why pundits reign supreme. People don't talk to each other about what a wanker Bill O'Reilly clearly is, instead we express that in comment pages for videos and articles, thus increasing the amount of times has name has been mentioned on the internet. If there's one thing that guy wants, it's people sharing his name on the internet - and buying his Killing books.
Because democracy isn't just the right to vote every
three years, or the right to listen to rich twats on TV. Rather, it is the right to voice your opinion to anyone and
everyone. Instead we delegate that power to people like Paul Henry,
of whom there is a consensus that nobody wants to hear speak. That's
why we get books like 'Twisting The Treaty', because some part of us
want to believe there is some illuminati-like conspiracy theory by
the Iwi's to take over this country and turn us into slaves. That
shit sells, but that does not make it truth. The whole truth is quite boring
in some regards, and if a hundred years from now, if we have effectively
ended celebrations of Waitangi day, let it happen only because most
of us effectively find history boring, not because a bunch of shitty
old white men told us to, or because some right-wing proportion of
the population, the same kind who preach the horrors of political
correctness, campaign to change the holiday to the most politically
correct bullshit name ever: 'New Zealand Day'. We can't have our cake and
eat it too. If we're going to simplify this nation's history in an
attempt to ease the divisions of the past, we better be prepared to
break a few eggs before we can create that omelet.
Or we could always
just go to war with terrorists. That works too.
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