New Zealand’s equivalent to the Tea Party in the US, the New Zealand Centre for Political Research, has just sent out it’s latest newsletter. I’ll admit that I am signed up to this electronic epistle, if for no other reason than the fact that it’s arrival in my email on a Tuesday morning acts as a weekly reminder of why I believe in equality and social justice.
Of course, the proponents of the NZCPR (a group that tries to pass itself off as a non-partisan think tank, but in reality is somewhere to the right of Marco Rubio, Ted Nugent and Genghis Khan), would say that they too are all about equality and justice.
In their latest newsletter, they ask their loyal readership (myself excepted of course) to forward their timely advert (below) to friends and family so that we, as one nation, can bring an end to race based discrimination. On first glance you might think, what’s wrong with that, but what they are actually saying, and I am paraphrasing their sentiments, not my own, is, “no more special treatment for the cheeky darkies”.
This weeks newsletter begins:
This week, we look at the price New Zealand is paying for Treaty activism, our guest commentator Fiona Mackenzie examines its influence in our schools, and our poll asks whether teachers should be forced to promote the ‘Maori world view’ to their students.
The politics of race is crippling New Zealand. It’s time to take a stand. Below is an ad suitable for sending on to your contacts. With Census forms now being delivered, the message is timely!
Just say no to the NZCPR
The issue that the NZCPR fails to take account of is the fact that, they, for I am assuming that their membership is predominately middle aged, wealthy, European Caucasians (a bit like an ‘A Better Hawke’s Bay’ meeting), are benefactors of the largest immigration scam in world history. Those that trace their heritage back to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and before, were the ethnic minority at the time. Anyone who arrived since is, de facto, an immigrant (and I am the first to say that I am an immigrant in this country and its beholden on me to adapt).
They forget that the treaty guaranteed certain rights and treasures for all Maori people, the indigenous culture. They forget the systematic colonization and degradation of Maori customs and beliefs, rights and even the language, all in contravention of the ‘visa’ (Treaty) that allowed them into the country in the first place.
I also believe in an equal society, free of “the politics of race”, but true equality can only come when wrongs have been reconciled and the playing field has been leveled. It’s a convenient omission to ignore decades of under-investment and abuse of a particular race, and then call for equal treatment for all. It would be akin to under-investing in a vital piece of transport infrastructure (say, a rail line), and then, when it breaks, judging its future on an equal footing with lines that have been maintained and invested in. All rational people would see this for the scam it is.
Right now in New Zealand, Maori occupy the bottom of our socio-economic statistics heap. If there is a negative side to something, child poverty, low level literacy, unemployment, you can bet that a higher proportion of Maori are represented there (higher still if you compare to the percentage of the NZ population who are Maori). It’s no coincidence that this follows from those decades of colonization and degradation.
So, when the statistics show that the Maori prison population is around 11% (the same as the percentage of Maori in the general NZ population) instead of the 47% it currently sits at, then we have the basis for an equal society free of “the politics of race”. Of course, there will be many other issues that need resolving, but that just shows the current inequality in this example.
Until that time, don’t be fooled by the rhetoric of racism and selfishness that the likes of Richard Prosser and the NZCPR espouse.
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