August 2014
Greetings from
New Zealand, Aotearoa; land of the long white cloud.
Racism,
sexism, and anti-Semitism – or, is it all
just political correctness?
With New
Zealand’s 51st parliamentary elections now a matter of weeks away,
the ritual political mud slinging has begun in earnest. Labour candidate Steve
Gibson has been castigated by his leader David Cunliffe for referring to Prime
Minister John Key as ‘Shylock,’ the unscrupulous loan shark from Shakespeare’s Merchant
of Venice. Gibson attempted to excuse his utterances on the grounds of
ignorance, saying that he did not realise the Shakespearian character was a
Jew. Mr. Key, whose mother is a Jewish immigrant to New Zealand, is a former
currency trader and the country’s richest ever Premier with a cool $50 million
in the bank. Were Gibson’s comments anti-Semitic? If I criticise Israel’s
military aggression in Gaza or the money grubbing policies of Goldman Sachs
does that make me anti-Semitic? I don’t think so.
Unlike Labour
leader Cunliffe, who is insisting on running a ‘clean’ campaign, Prime Minister
Key is also casting aspersions against his political opponents. In a recent
television appearance Key asserted that internet millionaire Kim Dot Com was
Laila Harre’s ‘sugar daddy.’ Ms. Harre is the leader of the newly founded
‘Internet Party,’ bankrolled by the German entrepreneur. Key has been widely
condemned for the sexual connotations implicit in his remarks and accused of
‘blatant sexism.’ Key defended his remarks saying that: “If he (Dot Com) wasn’t
putting up the money, she (Harre) wouldn’t be there.” Sexist? Yes, I think so,
but it says more about Key’s sordid mentality than it does about Ms. Harre’s
relationship with her sponsor. Ms. Harre has since declared her candidacy for
the seat of Hellensville, the seat currently held by, you guessed it, Prime
Minister Key.
New Zealand
First party leader Winston Peters has also come under fire for his ‘racist’
joke in a recent speech. Mr. Peters, whose party is against foreign ownership
of New Zealand’s lands and resources, declared that ‘two wongs don’t make a
white.’ Peters laughed off criticism of his bon mot, insisting the joke
was funny, and that it was told to him by a Chinese man in Beijing. New
Zealand’s Race Relations Commissioner, Dame Susan Devoy, described the joke as
offensive. Dame Susan is a former world squash champion (?). Rascist?
Undoubtedly, but then so is half the material of stand-up comics all over the
world. Maybe Peters should give up the day job.
ACT party leader
Jamie Whyte has also been accused of racism for his call to abolish the four
Maori parliamentary seats. Whyte declared that parliamentary representation
should not be ‘guaranteed on the basis of race.’ Cue Dame Susan who said
Whyte’s comments were ‘grotesque and inflammatory.’ The Maori seats were
established in 1867 in order to provide parliamentary representation for New
Zealand’s ‘indigenous’ peoples. Whyte, who famously stated that he believed
incestuous relationships between consenting adults should not be illegal,
proved himself quite clueless when he admitted in a recent interview he did not
know what ‘Whanau Ora’ was. ‘Whanau Ora’ is a flagship government
policy designed to deliver millions of dollars in social services to the community
with a particular focus on Maori. Not so much racist in this case as downright
ignorant. The ACT party are a truly abysmal lot, and their leader is just
another in a long line of muppets.
Meanwhile, seven years later….
New Zealand Police Comissioner Mike Bush was greeted with a thunderous haka when he arrived at the eastern Bay of Plenty Te Rewarewa marae. Bush formally apologised to the people of Tuhoe for the damage to the iwi’s ‘credibility and mana’ after the 2007 pre-dawn raid by units of heavily armed police. Hundreds of police officers stormed a small settlement in the Urewera mountain range, breaking into the homes of the shell-shocked residents and terrorising their families. Police claimed that months of surveillance proved the settlement was the centre of a ‘para-military style’ terrorist training camp, claims subsequently dismissed by residents as ‘ludicrous’. Two individuals were eventually sentenced by the courts on firearms offences, but this police operation was an overkill of epic proportions, more akin to the actions of a fascist junta than a western style pseudo-democratic plutocracy.
Kim Dot Com on
the other hand, could be waiting some time to receive a similar apology from
the police for the raid on his mansion in 2012. In conjunction, make that
collusion, with FBI agents, New Zealand police launched a full scale assault on
the entrepreneur’s family home with 76 officers armed with semi-automatic
weapons and two helicopters. Dot Com’s pregnant wife and three children were
also in residence at the time of the raid. Dot Com was arrested, assets worth
$17 million were seized, and Dot Com’s bank accounts were frozen. Dot Com was
eventually released, but is still wanted by authorities in the United States on
charges of racketeering, piracy, and money laundering. Dot Com has vigorously
denied the allegations, claiming that the US based Motion Picture Association
is engaged in a vendetta against him.
The High Court of New Zealand subsequently
found that the warrants issued to seize Dot Com’s property were invalid. In a
further development, the GCSB (Government Communications Security Bureau) were
discovered to have illegally spied on Dot Com. An editorial in the Waikato
Times said that the announcement of the illegal spying has ‘heightened
suspicions that this country’s relationship with the United States has become
one of servility rather than friendship.’ (The law regarding surveillance of
New Zealand citizens was quickly amended by parliament to correct the
‘anomaly.’)
A new book by
investigative journalist Nicky Hagar, claims that senior figures within the
ruling National Party leaked SIS (Security Intelligence Service) documents to
right wing bloggers sympathetic to the government. Hagar claims that Prime
Minister Key was directly involved in providing confidential material in order
to smear, and potentially blackmail his political opponents. The book, Dirty
Politics, also alleges the Labour Party’s computers were hacked by members
of Key’s personal staff. Some commentators are already describing the
allegations made in the book as on a par with the historic Watergate
revelations. As politicians and their lackeys reach for their lawyers, the
inevitable fall-out is anticipated, with relish.
Factfile:
New Zealand is a
member of the ‘five eyes’ international spy network along with USA, UK,
Australia and Canada. Satellite ‘listening’ stations at Waihopai and
Tangimoana, intercept and process all phone calls, faxes, emails, and computer
data communications.
Peace activists
broke into the Waihopai base in 2008. The three men, a farmer, a teacher and a
priest, slashed an inflatable plastic dome covering a satellite dish with a
sickle, causing over a million dollars worth of damage. All three were acquitted
on charges of burglary and wilful damage when, for the first time in New
Zealand, a defence of ‘the greater good’ was used by the defendants. The
activists claimed their actions were lawful as information garnered from the
spy base caused worldwide human suffering. In a rare and welcome triumph for
democracy, the jury agreed.
White House to the Bee Hive: “Godammit, can’t you control the jerk-offs
in your pissant country?”
Website: Remarkable Stories from New Zealand and beyond
Read a short story: Ranji and the Price of Fish
Novels:
The last days at White Cloud Air
New
Zealand 1998. As the century draws to a close, the new digital age is reaching
out to the masses. The government is continuing with its fire sale of strategic
assets, mobile ‘phones are all the rage and Vitamin V is the new wonder drug on
the market. In Auckland four dangerous prisoners escape from Paraparemo prison
and in Christchurch a sinister Doctor is sexually assaulting his patients.
Eight
years after eluding the British Police, Mark has a new identity and a quiet
life in a backwater Canterbury town. But when his wife is brutally attacked,
Mark’s new life begins to seriously unravel. Mark sets out for revenge, but he
gets more than he bargained for when the hunt for his wife’s assailants leads
to the discovery of a criminal conspiracy that goes all the way to the top of
the political establishment.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/last-days-White-Cloud-Air/dp/1490560645/
The Black Peacock Club
You might find Kim Dot Com could be more of a threat to NZ's democracy than the GCSB.
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