I don't need to write much about Waitangi Day, as Peter Cresswell has done such an excellent job of expressing most of my views on the day and the issues it raises. Looking from afar it is remarkable how petty, narrow and constricting the views of those are who base their judgement on race and history, rather than achievement and ability. The single biggest negative about New Zealand is the isolation from the world, from history and from being confronted first hand with the destructiveness of chauvinistic nationalism of the kind that is mainstream political thought in Maori circles.
Take one simple point. Where else in the free developed world would a thug of a woman, who is a convicted violent criminal, who assaulted a psychiatric patient in her own little house of horrors, would still be treated as someone with standing, status and be worthy of being associated with? Titewhai Harawira is a vicious, vindictive, vile entity, who should be shunned by anyone with basic morals. For what sort of person abuses and assaults psychiatric patients, particularly in a Maori unit which is meant to provide special care?
Tony Veitch has, rightly in my mind, been ostracised for his own violent behaviour. He has paid his dues, and clearly has regrets, but will forever be tainted by his deeds. Harawira by contrast, has paid her dues, but her deeds are never raised by the same people who excoriate Veitch.
So why do feminists and those who claim to put Maori first give the time of day to a violent women who has no regrets about beating up some of the most vulnerable Maori when she had power?
What does that really say about their claims to "peace" and "non-violence"?
No comments:
Post a Comment