Posts by Sara Noble
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Hot ginger tea with honey.
You have a lot of good points which deserve further attention. I'll enjoy teasing out some of the threads later on.
The Vietnam videos are chilling (for want of pages and pages of better words). Presumably they are meant to scare us into recognition of what napalm does in the wrong hands.
I don't know the chemistry or anything, but didn't Buchanan say that at least the ingredients of napalm are common farming stuff?
Also, the evidence in the public arena re napalm thus far is that someone said they'd bring some next time... end of story.
Lets try to keep it real.
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Wow, Creon, your analogy was actually really powerful - I probably read a bit too much SF - but I could see it, and really have a sense how, on a feeling level, it could encapsulate the experience of a colonised culture. Chilling. Reminds me of "The Sparrow" trilogy (or was it only 2 books - whats that? a duology, a binary, a Tarrantinology?). An amazing SF read "about" colonisation and the potential disasters of cultural misunderstanding.
Thanks for the interesting feedback on the research idea. Sadly I think you're spot on about the obstacles, but I do have to believe that mostly it is 2 steps forward and only 1 step back. I will look out for any further thoughts you, or others, might have on this.
Now if I don't get to bed I'm going to be too tired tomorrow to do my reading marathon in the evening, not to mention all the things I'm supposed to do!
Looking forward to the next installments...
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Bob! Yay! Thanx for the tip. (don't worry I fought her for the left-overs)
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Hi ya IO (you know Io is the Maori word for (very loosely) God; more particularly, the great primordial nothingness that being sprang from? Like Wuwei (precursor to Dao) in Chinese. (Sorry.)
I seriously think that if a few weirdos had tacked themselves on to Tame Iti's bush camps and were talking up large about skinning Pakeha, it would be quite possible for tribal elders and/or the younger, more outspoken ideological leaders (coz I think there are both of these in Tuhoe and probably other Iwi) not to know about it. But I think if it looked even a bit scary and the police brought it to their attention they would have "dealt" with it.
I also think that once the police got it all overblown, if they had consulted with the local police and/or Iwi Liaison Unit, they would have talked to the Elders/leaders to get clear about what was happening, and if there was anything scary going on they would have dealt with it.
I think if there was pretty scary stuff going on up there (like people marching round like a mini militia and sounding serious about taking it to the Pakeha, I think the Elders/leaders would find out pretty quickly and would shut it down with a slam.
And I think if there had been really really serious terrorist shit brewing up there, the SG would have allowed charges to be laid under the STA.
My understanding (though piecemeal) is that there are regional Iwi liaison units that have been working on protocols for dealing with a variety of issues specific to policing and Maori. These include things like diversion for family group/marae based hearings, communication protocols, cultural awareness training etc. I think that the Iwi liaison units are supposed to have on-going connections/communications on the ground with local police, particularly in strongly Maori dominated area. My fairly prominent Tuhoe mate says they have a really good relationship with the local coppers who have often called on them (including Tame Iti) to sort out trouble with local youth etc. I understand that (quietly) even they feel affronted by the way this was handled from on high.
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And while we're on the Sara Noble late show, the thing I like about Post-Structuralism (David et al) is that IMO it gives us the tools to undo the power of symbols e.g.
skin colour = particular race = particular behaviours, beliefs, aptitudes
tattoo = scary person = danger
feminine = nurturant = stupid
etcI realise these all seem pretty obtuse nowadays, but we do still embue our symbols (i.e. meanings/understandings) of the world with immense power, as if they are real, natural, and inevitable, and so they (the symbols/meanings) are far more powerful (and potentially oppressive) than they ought to be. Modernism/structuralism was all about revealing the laws of nature that supposedly govern us. Postm/s is about seeing how we are now as an iteration of reality beyond which the potential is open and unknown. Hence we take responsibility for the culture we live in, knowing that we make it, and we give respect to all other cultures knowing that their reality is just as "valid" as ours in every way.
At least that's what I think post-structuralism can be!
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Nah actually I'm quite serious about the question about Rangatiratanga.
I'm planning to embark on a fairly substantial piece of research soon, and one of the things I've been considering is that, despite what? 20 years or so of The Treaty being taught reasonably seriously in schools, despite the Treaty being given direct legal standing since at least 1984, despite so many people throwing up their hands and going "Oh god I'm so sick of all this talk about the Treaty," I suspect that only a very low proportion of us actually know what the treaty means - not in absolute terms (because arguably no one does - hence the beautiful intractibility) but in terms of key issues/principles as we currently understand them.
More importantly again, I think that progress on the Treaty in statute and precedent has gone ahead of public opinion - hence all the Maori bashing politicians on both sides feel obliged to do to keep the electorate happy.
So the intention of the research would be to find out how to effectively inform the pakeha population about what the Treaty really means (because being a fluffy liberal I think that once kiwi's know something is unfair they'll want to fix it). Or if necessary to make the Treaty "sexy" as the marketing crowd would say!
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Oh phooey/fui/whuhi - you got me
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Creon: Kia ora mate!
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BTW I think:
hunting and survival camps + illegal firearms does merit police involvement - using the local Iwi liaison police to bring anyone in to line and out any silliness on the marae. I assure you, Tuhoe leadership would have sorted out any of their own and Tau Iwi who were up to that kind of shit in their rohe. -
AM: No, the point is, there is no proof.
The other side is:
Survival and hunting skills camps with an ideology of self-sufficiency, self protection and tribal mana
+ Idle BS for letting off steam
= Police panic
+ Police and media misconstrued surveillance evidence
= very dangerous storm in a tea cupThe points to support this scenario have also been made repeatedly here (and by the majority I think - sometimes it feels like we're mostly just preaching to the converted).
So it comes down to underlying ideologies which way you are likely to go:
See Maori activism as justified and don't trust the police? You're going to tend to the latter.
Like the status quo and don't want to think that there might be institutional racism and human rights abuses in NZ? Line up for your ice cream and soma.