Kaitakitanga

Back in the UK, my cousin shows me an old news article. "Have you seen this?" I haven't. It's quite interesting.

Triggered by the recent strange events involving 'the Urewera 16' and the armed defenders, the Guardian has published a feature entitled The Maori Resistance. Its a long article, so I'll pull out the bits that leapt out at me:

Though 'much of the very iconography of [NZ's] state is maori', the Waitangi Tribunal is basically overworked and impotent,('it's decisions are non-binding') and the UN is 'unimpressed' with the government's Foreshore and Seabed Act. In the 1960's the NZ government claimed there was no race relations problem at all.

Reading about race relations in my homeland seen through the eyes of a middle class left-leaning Brit is fascinating, like seeing one's own image on closed circuit TV. Familiar, yet bizzare (or zarrebi?). Overall it confirms my conviction that we have a long way to go to harmony in Aotearoa, and it is Pakeha who need to be doing more of the listening and making more of the sacrifices.

This is old news for some, but I've only just found out about the Wellington part to the story. Wellington readers might be interested in seeing the footage of the dawn raid on 128 Abel Smith Street. Terrorism? We fix bikes and read poetry in there. Oh brother.