Posts by Manakura

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  • Yellow Peril: the identity game,

    No Chris in Aotearoa, non-Maori can't claim indigeneity, simply by being here is not what its all about. It is not being present that counts in deciding indigeneity, it is your relationship to land.

    Leaving aside the the patronising aspects of pre-history as a term, I repeat it is not about who was here first, where ever here is. Indigeneity is about being able to look up at a mountain and say that mountain is my ancestor, my great-great-great ... great grandfather or mother. Indigeneity is literally being born OF the land, not born ON the land.

    There is no contradiction in my opening statement - I was saying there is no project to deny indigenous satus to non-Maori simply because non-Maori are not indigenous, by the definition twice outlined above. And if there is a project of this kind then it is a spectacularly redundant one, for the same reason.

    Therefore I implore all Maori radicals, hater, wreckers, insane bloggers and octopi that may be trying to undermine the non-indigeneity of non-indigenes to please stop. Please donate your time and efforts to something that makes sense.

    Whaingāroa • Since Nov 2006 • 134 posts Report

  • Yellow Peril: the identity game,

    It is such a shame that so many Maori buy into the whole Asian invasion bollocks peddled to us by the MSM - now if you want an example of a 'project' involving ethnic relations the long running attempt to drive a wedge between Chinese and Maori utilising mass media would be a good place to start. The government issued Maori language newspapers of the 19th and early 20th century are full of xenophobia regarding Chinese.

    A more recent contribution to this project would be Deborah Coddington's fractured retort to criticism over her North and South article:

    Statistics NZ projections put the Asian population at 860,000 in 20 years, just 10,000 fewer than Maori. Is this what the tangata whenua envisage?

    This basically mirrors what Tahu, the Maori demographer, had to say about the census figures, and both comments demonstrate exactly why lumping people into broad categories like Asian, European, or Maori is a problem: in devious and/or ignorant hands those particular distortions of reality can be used as a weapon.

    Even labelling Tahu as a 'Maori demographer' creates an issue - such as it implies that she speaks for a considerable section, if not all of some imaginary Maori community, myself included, and clearly she does not.

    Like i posted earlier, rather than reactionary scare mongering, most are concerned with important issues - such as how to unite the octopoid centralised hive mind DDR asian invasion controllor machine thingy with ummm... Tame Iti to create a octo-taniwha-dragon weildy a mighty PC patu. With Wayne Mapp no longer the nations official PC Eradicator, who will save you now?

    Run while you still can.

    Whaingāroa • Since Nov 2006 • 134 posts Report

  • Flying Nun Moments,

    Favourite Flying Nun moment:

    Sneaking a copy of The Skeptics 'AFFCO' music vid into a conference presentation organised and attended by Meat industry bigwigs. A small revenge for making half my whanau redundant in 1986 at Whakatu, and the other half redundant in '94 at Tomoana. It was 1996, so I must've been about 15 I think.

    Whaingāroa • Since Nov 2006 • 134 posts Report

  • Yellow Peril: the identity game,

    Chris, there is no "project" to deny indigeneity to non-Maori, thats crazy talk. Trust me when i say we are far more concerned with things that matter, like the fact Maori die 8 years before Pakeha, and are much more likely to suffer ill-health than any other ethnic group in their considerably shorter lives. Why would there be are co-ordinated effort to deny something to a group of people that don't have it in the first place?

    See, 'indigenous' denotes a certain kind of relationship to place, land or whenua. It is a Germanic word literally meaning "born of the land", indicating a familial or whakapapa relationship to a specific landscape. Now, it doesn't matter when your ancestors got here, unless they/you have whakapapa that leads directly back to the various mountains, rivers, lakes etc of Aotearoa (i.e. unless you can claim, and prove your descent from the land here) then you are not, and never will be indigenous to Aotearoa.

    This is not to deny tauiwi (non-Maori) there NZ citizenship, or general right to be here,get sunburnt at Piha, or whatever. Its just that tauiwi have an entirely different relationship to the land, being that they identify to a very different cultural milieu. The relationship Pakeha have to Aotearoa may be heavily influenced by Maori, but nonetheless it is different, not based on kinship, and therefore not indigenous. Of course, this may change over a very long time, and I hope it does, as nothing could be better for the land than all peoples of Aotearoa treating it as a cherised ancestor rather than a resource to be exploited.

    Indigenous peoples get a pretty fucking rough deal at the moment, so it is confusing why any non-indigenous person would want to claim this? And unless you are prepared to take on the responsibilities- being Maori is much more about responsibilities than rights, despite what the MSM would have us believe - that come with being indigenous (for example ensuring our values and knowledge is passed across generations which is no easy task when you languish at the shite end of every social indicator imaginable) then I would suggest that claiming the identity is a bit empty.

    Whaingāroa • Since Nov 2006 • 134 posts Report

  • Hard News: Citizen Key II: The High…,

    I shouldn't, but I can't help myself...

    How about one of those red|blue billboards worded thusly:

    Honest | Don

    Heh... except what politician would you put on the honest side? Certainly couldnt be Helen Clark.

    Whaingāroa • Since Nov 2006 • 134 posts Report

  • Hard News: Maxim-ising the vote,

    Hey as a born n bred Westie, whats your thoughts on Outrageous Fortune? More or less accurate/insulting than umm... Savage Honeymoon?

    Whaingāroa • Since Nov 2006 • 134 posts Report

  • Island Life: I have aspirations going,

    Perhaps we should try out that bull-whip idea in parliament, they didn't get sweet FA done this year.

    Whaingāroa • Since Nov 2006 • 134 posts Report

  • Island Life: Citizen Key With A Vengeance,

    I don't necessarily think it's a flaw for someone to respond to a question with "I don't know" or even (shock! horror!) "You know, I thought I knew and I was wrong."

    It seems like almost everyone agrees with the above, I would go even further and say the esteem in which I hold someone (esp. a powerful someone) is likely to increase if they got the ability to admit fallibility.

    So, whydon't our evil robot overlords (or ERO for short -aka MPs) ever seem to do this? I did a quick trawl thru the net and couldn't find a single clear admission of being wrong or ignorant.

    Found a LOT of "to the best of recollection" memory failure. Maybe that is ERO speak for "I am guilty"?

    Whaingāroa • Since Nov 2006 • 134 posts Report

  • Yellow Peril: There is a better way.,

    I was probaby more concerned with perfecting my lip synch to Bone Thugs N Harmony's 'Tha Crossroads'.

    Shite, did I say that out loud!? Shame on my *ndies!

    Whaingāroa • Since Nov 2006 • 134 posts Report

  • Yellow Peril: There is a better way.,

    Just got around to listening to the NatRad interview... like the somment that identity is context, is very much the way many Maori see identity, for example how we mihi (i.e. formally acknowledge our ancestry and kinship net) can change depending on what marae we are speaking on. However, the idea generally is to establish and emphasise your connection to that place, rather than your separateness.

    Also, DC's article was astonishingly retro, but should we not take heart that the response was not? I don't remember the circa '96 media beat up on the imaginary asian invasion allowing intelligent and comprehensive rebuttal from the erstwhile 'invaders', at least certainly not in the MSM.

    Hmm, not sure, was a long time ago and I was probaby more concerned with perfecting my lip synch to Bone Thugs N Harmony's 'Tha Crossroads'.

    Whaingāroa • Since Nov 2006 • 134 posts Report

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