Posts by Tom Semmens
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The ideological divide in New Zealand is as much between those who primarily see N.Z. as a place to do business and those who see N.Z. primarily as a place where they live as anything else. There has always been these two camps, and conflict between them occasionally erupts - 1951, 1981 - into violence. Don Brash sought to poke a dangerous sleeping dog for short term political expediency. I never saw him as "honest Don." I saw him as a technocrat lacking in the broad political and community experience required in a party leader. His hierarchical and autocratic corporate background made him ill-equipped to deal with the multi faceted nuances of modern New Zealand and was the source of his constant gaffes.
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Oh and BTW - my revenge in this case was to go to the bookstore, read the offending article, then HIDE the copies of North and South behind the adult magazines. Immensely satisfying as a piece of petty direct action.
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That article is shameful to me as a New Zealander and appalling in its shoddy (but alas, typical) thinking. But like reading Pravda in the Soviet era, its not the article that is interesting but the fact that it was allowed to be written at all. There seems to be a growing received wisdom amongst those who purposes it suits to serve that some sort of Anglo-Saxon reaction to over mighty wimmin, uppity Maoris, brown PI layabouts and yellow invaders is setting in. North and South sees itself as positioned to serve the perceived prejudices of the semi-provincial "heartland" (How presumptuous is the arrogation of that title to minority of New Zealanders!) and so it will commission the arch-representative of the chattering closed mind to write such a piece.