Showing posts with label Maori. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maori. Show all posts
4/8/11
Haere Atu Petrobras
This Ngeri was written at the request of Ani Pahuru-Huriwai in protest of the PETROBRAS hui called at Hinerupe marae. It was completed on the 6th of April 2011. It focuses on the power of unity in challenging times and in times of hardship. It calls for all people to unite and together, overcome adversity.
Here are the kupu and whakapākeha.
Kekē-pōhatu... kekē tī kekē!
Kekē-pōhatu... kekē tī kekē!
Kekē tī Kekē-pōhatu hurihuri, hau-kauangaroa,
Katakata te Raukūmara ā haha!
Aha, Hiti tā-hiti... kekē tī kekē!
Hiti tā-hiti... kekē tī kekē!
Hi!!!
The stones rattle,
The stones rattle,
The stones rattle and turn, coming together to create crossings through vast waters
With a rumbling that echos through the Raukūmara
Build the stones high, let them rattle,
Build the stones high, let them rattle!
Na Robert Ruha i tito.
Callout for global support and solidarity : Maori communities face off with Petrobras over drilling permit
Source
Your support and solidarity is urgently needed!
Tino Rangatiratanga Flag : symbol of Maori self determination which embraces the spiritual link Māori have with Papatuanuku (Earthmother) and is a part of the international drive by indigenous people for self determination.
1. Contact media in your country, write a press release supporting the communities in New Zealand that are threatened by mining activities and supporting their efforts to defend themselves. International media coverage is needed to put pressure on Petrobras and the New Zealand government NOW.2. Use this information to alert your colleagues, networks and members of your organisation to what is happening in New Zealand through email lists, newsletters, magazines, bulletins etc.3. Send a message of global support and solidarity to nodrillnz@gmail.com. Let these communities know that they are not alone, and that they are a part of a global movement for climate justice.4. Consider taking action against Petrobras in your own country as a way of supporting what is happening here, and building links between your organisation or community fighting Petrobras [or other extractive companies] and the communities of Aotearoa threatened by fossil fuel exploration projects.PETROBRAS AND THE CO2LONISATION OF AOTEAROA
On the 1st June 2010, just 42 days after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and 44 days before the well was capped, Brazilian company Petrobras was awarded by The New Zealand Government a five year exploratory license for oil and gas in the Raukumara Basin, situated in the East Cape / Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of Aotearoa (New Zealand). The license starts from a mere 4 kilometres offshore and goes out to 110 km. The granted permit area is 12,330 sq km. The New Zealand government sees just 6% of the profit Petrobras makes. If the project goes ahead, Petrobras will bring in their own workforce and maybe offer a few short term jobs.
The area for exploration is the traditional fishing grounds of indigenous peoples from the tribes and sub-tribes of Te Whānau-a-Apanui and Ngāti Porou. There was no prior consultation with these communities whatsoever.
The New Zealand National Party was elected in 2008 to lead a coalition government that has been committed to opening up the land and sea around the country for oil, gas and other minerals extraction in the interests of national economic development. A policy to mine pristine conservation lands was abandoned in 2010 when huge public opposition, supported by many environmental organisations, expressed widespread opposition to the plan, however, the areas remaining open to exploitation cover an area 42 times greater than that which is currently being mined, across most of Aotearoa.
A visit from a vessel contracted to Petrobras is expected to arrive off the East Cape on the weekend of the 2nd-3rd of April 2011. In response to a call to oppose deep sea oil drilling from East Cape iwi (tribe) Te Whanau a Apanui, a flotilla of ships is to set sail from Auckland, for the East Cape to confront the exploration vessel. People are being asked to light fires on the beaches and hui (meetings) are being called along the coast to mobilise the communities on land.
LOCAL IMPACTSBP Deepwater Horizon oil spill superimposed on to the Raukumera permit zone
The Raukumara Basin sits on a major and active fault line. In a high seismic activity area such as the Raukumara Basin there is an extremely high possibility that there would be damage to any sub-sea installations (wells, pipe lines) in the probable event of an earth quake. The exploration area regularly experiences +4 or +5 magnitude quakes and lies on the same faultline as the one that recently devastated the South Island city of Christchurch.
The massive oil and gas spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which took three months to cap and spilled millions of barrels of oil, was an exploratory drill. The depth of the exploratory drill
in the Gulf of Mexico was 1500 metres. In the Raukumara Basin proposed depths range from 1500 metres to 3000 metres, yet NZ has almost no capacity to deal with a major spill and has no adequate or enforceable means of compensation. It is entirely unknown what impacts the 240db sonic booms shot from the exploration vessel during the 2d seismic exploration phase will have on aquatic life, particularly regarding marine mammals. The area is at the heart of a well documented whale migration route.
The region’s history revolves around the moana (sea) and the Iwi (Maori tribes) have many stories that speak of the cultural and spiritual significance of the sea. It holds some of the most central and important history of the iwi threatened by Petrobras’s search for hydrocarbons and profit on behalf of its shareholders.
For as long as the Maori communities of the East Cape can remember, their daily lives, tikanga (customs) and whakapapa (ancestry) have been connected to the sea. “The sea is forever in our lives” says coastal community member Ora Barlow of Te Whānau-ā-Apanui.
PETROBRAS THE GIANTThe CO2lonisation of Aotearoa
Petrobras has recently become the third biggest petroleum company in the world after implementing the largest share offer in the history of capitalism, specifically to raise funds for offshore oil exploration at a time when the world stands on the brink of runaway climate change and global oil reserves are peaking. Increasingly dan
gerous extraction projects are becoming more commonplace in an industry desperate to maintain its grip on the world’s energy systems. As a result, communities most directly affected by the exploitation of fossil fuel reserves are facing unprecedented levels of risk as these companies target what they call ‘unconventional’ fossil fuel reserves.
The New Zealand government has given permission to a foreign company, with an abhorrent social and environmental record the permission to threaten these coastal communities without any prior consultation whatsoever. An oil spill will mean nothing less than cultural genocide for a region that has managed to maintain a great deal of its traditionally cared for land and traditional knowledge of environmental management against all odds. Toka Tū Moana is their renowned phrase (whakatauakii) that declares steadfastness and resilience, standing firm and unshakeable, despite adversity. A great deal of effort is made within these communities to maintain knowledge of traditional environmental management and many programmes are underway to transition these communities back towards states of true community resilience. “Our tipuna (ancestors) practised sustainable living, we can do it too, they relied on whanaungatanga (collective living), and so do we.” – Ani Pahuru-Huriwai, Ngati Porou
However, an oil spill, and climate change itself may well wipe out the entire coastal community’s ability to maintain whatever level of traditional food sovereignty and self sufficiency they have left.
COMMUNITY REACTION
When the government announced their awarding of this permit to Petrobras, local Maori symbolised their opposition to the plans of Petrobras and the New Zealand government by lighting fires along their coastline. Ms Pahuru-Huriwai of Ngati Porou (one of the closest communities to the permit area) said. “This is the way we all informed each other, signalled each other way back – through fire. In this case we’re saying that it’s Petrobras that we’re all against.”.“It’s a serious threat to us and our kapata kai (food cupboard). It’s not just a Maori thing either – we think every Kiwi (New Zealander) has an issue with it. Everyone who is scared of what’s happening, they need to be here.”
Several months later and with no sign of Petrobras or the New Zealand government changing their plans, a music festival under the banner of ‘Stop The Drilling!’ was held in Te Kaha, a region adjacent to the permit area. One and a half thousand people showed up to show their support, dwarfing the resident population of that particular tribal
area. Crowds shouted ‘Stop the Drilling!!’ and spoke of defending their community from attack by sea.
Petrobras have approached local runanga (tribal leaders) and have entered into a process of communication with them. The runanga have communicated to Petrobras the position of the communities that no consent will be given to Petrobras to follow through with the project. Preparations have been made by Iwi leadership to apply for a judicial review of the decision made to grant the permit, and for communication with the United Nations while local Maori have, with support from environmentalists, fishermen and others, established the Ahi Ka Action Group to campaign for a revocation of the permit and a decision not to explore the area.
The Ahi Ka Action Group have distributed 20,000 flyers to raise public awareness of the situation, they have established a basic website and have lobbied local authorities to throw their weight behind efforts to prevent exploration and extraction activities in the permit area. The group has been linking up with individuals and groups in other parts of Aotearoa and overseas who are under threat from mining in their area. A national networking and information sharing website is under development at: www.nodrilling.org.nz
Petrobras has contracted a vessel to undertake the first stage of seismic testing in the Raukumara permit area and this work is due to start in March 2011.
A MOVEMENT IS FORMING
With such a massive proportion of land and sea being opened up to mining companies, communities across the country are getting ready to defend themselves.
On the West coast of the North Island communities of Taranaki are also under attack from land and sea with 13 new onshore/coastal permits and 15 new offshore permits being handed out by the government. Parihaka, a settlement of huge cultural and historical significance which In the 1870s and 1880s became the centre of a major campaign of non-violent resistance to European occupation of confiscated land in the area is already surrounded by oil and gas exploration projects and is now facing even more. The company Greymouth Petroleum is focussing on northern to central Taranaki while companies Kea Petroleum, TAG Oil, Green Gate, L&M Energy and Todd Energy are targeting the rest of inland eastern and southern Taranaki. There is a great deal of concern surrounding the increased use of hydraulic fracturing to access oil and gas reserves in this area, a highly dangerous extraction process recently banned in some places in of the United States.
Down South, government-owned Solid Energy and other coal companies want to mine massive quantities of lignite, a low-quality brown coal, that lies under Southland farmland. They plan to turn it into briquettes, urea fertiliser, and synthetic diesel. At least 6.2 billion tonnes of lignite is technically and economically recoverable in 10 major deposits in Otago and Southland. The in-ground lignite resource is approximately 11 billion tonnes. A wide range of local and national groups are gearing up to stop these developments.
Up North, permits for a wide range of minerals, including gold are spurring communities into defensive action and communities are linking up with one another and a national level movement is coalescing to stop the drilling across the country.
CLIMATE JUSTICE
Of course, this isn’t exactly a new phenomenon, Petrobras and the fossil fuel industry in general has a long and bloody history of threatening the very existence of communities in order to access fossil fuel reserves. “it’s an international issue and we have to make sure our local support is strong and then globalise” – Ora Barlow, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui
While politicians fiddle around in flailing international negotiations to halt runaway climate change, their hands tied behind their backs by the most powerful consortium of companies the world has ever known, these communities, and others directly impacted by the root causes and impacts of the climate crisis are successfully standing together and defeating them in their own back yards.
“We must stand united with other hapu, other iwi, other New Zealanders who care about the environment. We must keep pressure on our government to wake up and show some long-term leadership, make Aotearoa a Renewable Energy Country, no longer reliant on Fossil Fuels like oil & gas, that the human race is quickly exhausting. We are a nuclear free country; we need to be a fossil fuel free country too!” – Ani Pahuru-Huriwai, Ngati Porou
“We must support those who carry this kaupapa for us to the international stage. We must unite with other indigenous peoples and learn from their experiences.” – Ani Pahuru-Huriwai, Ngati Porou
As the case of the BP oil spill and those lower income communities hit hardest by hurricane Katrina illustrates, the communities most vulnerable to environmental destruction are also those most
susceptible to the climate crises. Those hit first and worst are most often the least responsible for the crisis yet are actively leading the fight against major climate polluters. They require globalised support and solidarity in defending their answers to an ecological crisis which they have not caused or reaped untold profits from.
Te Whanau a Apanui spokeswoman Dayle Takutimu has called on the whole country to support their stand, at a time when seismic surveying by Brazilian oil giant Petrobras is expected to begin off the Cape.
“We are resolute in our defence of our ancestral lands and waters from the destructive practice of deep sea oil drilling. This is an issue for all peoples of New Zealand and we call on those who support our opposition to stand with us in defence of what we all treasure,” she says.
LinksContact : climatejusticeaotearoa@riseup.net for global climate justice movement related contact on the situation
3/30/11
Tainui supports privately managed prisons
What a bunch of Maori $ellouts. Serco are serial human rights abusers. Clearly Tuku has no scruples or ethics going into business with dogs like Serco. This is NOT a gain for Maori, this is a money making opportunity for Serco & Tainui Inc. It ushers in the expansion of the prison industrial complex in Aotearoa.
Is it to much to ask Maori commentators & the Maori media need to stop being so sycophantic and start asking some hard questions and start giving some rigorous analysis like . I dont recall one article from a Maori journalist questioning the corporate iwi support for the privitisation of prisons, when the excesses and human rights abuses of the transnationals the want to go into joint partnership with is easy to find.
See Also :
SERCO Sharples Corporate Kupapa
As more and more Western governments use the services of Serco – the British multinational with an unhealthy hold on prisons and detention centres – it’s worth remembering the gross human rights abuses under its watch http://antonyloewenstein.com/tag/serco/
Serco Rap Sheet:
• Serco staff bullied & inappropriately used excessive violence to restrain a mentally ill 14yo boy, lead to his suicide -- the youngest UK death in custody, in a Serco-run detention... facility
• Serco staff refused to address pleas for medical assistance of a meningitis-affected prisoner for four days, dismissing it saying he was “at it” again and “he was probably suffering from the flu and was only looking for tablets”, despite knowing the potential consequences of this in light of his medical history (he had previously slipped into a coma previously from the illness prior to his prison term). Guards told him to take Panadol, their inaction and stalling resulted in his death. He had previously lodged a complaint about his lack of access to medical care for his condition in the Serco centre
• Kilmarnock, the only privatised prison run by Serco in Scotland, has a higher than the national average number of deaths in custody
• High levels of self-harm & suicide in Serco-run centres. Australia’s detention facilities have seen a fourfold increase in self-harm rates in the past year, coinciding with the awarding of Serco’s contract to run Australia’s facilities. Self-harm behaviour has “spread among adolescents” according to Dr. Louise Newman, head of the Detention Health Advisory Group
• People in Serco facilities in the UK are sleeping in toilets to deal with overcrowding, with a “worrying” deterioration in access to GPs and health care and increases in violence and self-harm, following an unannounced visit by independent UK chief inspector of prisons, Anne Owers
• ‘Squalid’ conditions with ‘institutional meanness’ with Serco denying detainees pillows and toilet seats – Owers
• Suicide attempt and subsequent death of asylum seeker detained at Serco-run UK Colbrook Immigration Reception Centre. This followed obfuscation from Serco staff & the denial of help for his ongoing mental illness, including the removal of his anti-depressants upon his arrival in detention during a high at risk time for his mental stability
• Similarities between desperate protests in Serco-run immigration centres and prisons in UK and Australia. In the past six months in Australia, we have seen recurring hunger strikes at Darwin and Villawood IDC, public protests involving self-harm at Villawood, and regular breakouts at Darwin IDC.
• A death in custody at Serco-run Curtin IDC due to unspecified ‘health condition’ after being found unconscious, unofficially reported to be a heart attack from a congenital past condition. This raises questions as to the provision of health care at Curtin – if staff were aware of his apparent condition, what measures were taken to prevent an incident like this occurring? If they were taken, why did they not prevent his death?
• The suicide of detainee at Villawood IDC followed Serco staff dismissing attempts from refugee advocates becoming involved in dissuading the detainee from the roof. This included a Serco staff member hanging up on a phone call from a concerned friend. The detainee jumped to his death a short time later. Following his death, Serco staff cancelled a previously planned memorial service for the deceased by detainees at midnight the morning of the service. No reason was given for this.
• The next day, a group of asylum seekers took to the roof while a hunger strike continued inside Villawood. After they publicly self-harmed and were denied water and food until their return to the ground a day and a half later, a second group of detainees took to the roof. A member of this group also self-harmed, slipping into unconsciousness. Following their return to the ground, their advocate has said Serco staff have punished their protest with separation detention.
• Allegations of sexual abuse of children at Serco-run Leonora Alternative Place of Detention, with Serco staff unable to prevent the alleged abuse occurring.
• Disturbing sexualisation of children in UK Serco immigration detention centres: “One parent spontaneously complained that he had found his daughter in the [UK Yarl’s Wood Immigration Detention] centre without any clothes on. His child explained that she had been encouraged to undress and play “sex games” instigated by another detained child. This father felt that there was inadequate supervision of the children within the center and after this incident he no longer allowed his children to play with the other children. Another mother spontaneously commented on the sexualized behavior of children within the center.”
• Illness outbreaks of viruses and skin-based diseases affecting children in overcrowded UK Serco immigration detention centres
• Serco combines violent prisoner populations with asylum seekers, resulting in “dangerous” environments (Owers) at UK immigration detention centres
• Violent force from Serco staff ‘high’ (Owers) at UK’s Colnbrook IDC
• Serco use separation detention for long periods to manage difficult detainees in UK immigration detention, including separating mothers from children
• Quality and quantity for meaningful education and training for detainees ‘insufficient’ (Owers) for long periods in UK immigration detention facilities
• Excessive control & violent restraints used by Serco staff at UK Yarl’s Wood IDC on women and children. Generally aggressive and rude temperament of staff disrespectful of detainee human dignity
• Yarl’s Wood IDC women detainees have taken Serco to the High Court in March 2010, questioning their inhumane treatment from guards. Some have stripped naked to protest “being treated like animals”
• On 8 February 2010, their peaceful protest was met by attacks from Serco staff and forced confinement in a locked corridor without access to water, food or medication
• Detainee allegations of ongoing racist abuse from Serco staff in UK IDCs
• Requests for medical assistance and welfare of children ignored, denied and/or substantially delayed by Serco staff at Yarl’s Wood IDC
• Meetings between government agencies and Serco to consider the implications for women and children’s welfare of prolonged detention focused on public relations management and potential counter-legal concerns, instead of ongoing independent accountability for detainee health and dignity
• Serco continues to refuse to be interviewed on its activities in running Australia’s immigration detention facilities. Why?
References:
A. Owers, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons, ‘COLNBROOK IMMIGRATION REMOVAL CENTRE – SIGNIFICANTLY LESS SAFE’, Press Release, November 2007, <http://www.justice.gov.uk/inspectorates/hmi-prisons/docs/colnbrook_pn-rps.pdf>
M. Wainwright, ‘Report into death of boy, 14, calls for reform of youth custody’, The Guardian, September 3, 2007, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/sep/03/ukcrime.prisonsandprobation/print>.
Associated Press, “New inquest ordered into teenage boy's death in custody”, The Guardian, 22 January 2009, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jan/22/youngpeople-deathsincustody/print>.
A. Lorek, K. Ehntholt, A. Nesbitt, E. Wey, C. Githinji, E. Rossor, R. Wickramasinghe, ‘The mental and physical health difficulties of children held within a British immigration detention center: A pilot study’, Child Abuse and Neglect, vol. 33, 2009, pp. 573-585 <http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/resources/documents/Campaigns/19432_full.pdf>
K. Smith, “Inmate’s pleas for aid overlooked four days before death”, The Sunday Herald (Scotland), July 20, 2008, <http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2403695.0.inmates_pleas_for_aid_overlooked_four_days_before_death.php>S. Gaines, “Inmates sleep in toilets at overcrowded prison”, Sunday Guardian, July 22, 2008, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jul/22/doncaster.prison/print>Institute of Race Relations, “Kenny Peter's inquest points to asylum failures”, 5 October 2006, <http://www.irr.org.uk/2006/october/ha000013.html>E. Dugan, ‘Mothers detained in immigration centre hold 'naked' protest’, The Telegraph, April 11, 2008, <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/mothers-detained-in-immigration-centre-hold-naked-protest-807802.html>Y. Narushima, ‘Self-harm rates increase fourfold’, The Age, October 4, 2010, <http://www.theage.com.au/national/selfharm-rates-increase-fourfold-20101003-162r8.html>L. Marshall, ‘Detained refugee dies in Perth hospital’, 31 August 2010, Independent Media Centre Australia, <http://indymedia.org.au/2010/08/31/detainee-dies-at-curtin-detention-centre>
1/6/11
Capitalist Punishment:
Prison Privatization and Human Rights
edited by Andrew Coyle, Allison Campbell and Rodney Neufeld
Zed Books (2003), London,
ISBN: 1 84277 291 0
Reviewed by:ISBN: 1 84277 291 0
Jon Yorke
PhD Candidate
School of Law,University of Warwick
Jon.Yorke@warwick.ac.uk
1. Introduction
Capitalist Punishment: Prison Privatization and Human Rights is a response to the hegemonic practices, which have led to human rights violations caused by the prison privatisation industry. Indeed, this volume offers a timely circumspect dialogue on the debates surrounding the privatisation of prisons around the world. Currently the privatisation prison industry is under the spotlight, and after the events of 11 September 2001, the world is watching to see how effectively the industry will play its part in the incarceration of criminals in the 'war against terrorism'.
Capitalist Punishment is an introduction to the issues of how the industry infringes upon prisoners' human rights par excellence, and offers an inter-disciplinary overview of the issues. The aim of the book is to highlight not only a socio-political discourse on prison privatisation, but a legal one too. Hence, all people involved within the prison industry, both academically, and professionally, will benefit from the information presented.
Turning the pages, readers may be shocked by the pernicious human rights violations, which occur within privatised prisons. Shocked, perhaps, because most violations are not brought to the public's attention by the media; as they are shrouded within the confines of the panoptical prison. Furthermore, the reader will notice a limited number of privatisation companies cited by the different authors. This is because there are only a limited number of key corporations, which advance the industry. A reader will quickly become familiar with the two world leaders in prison privatisation - Corrections Corporations of America, and Wakenhut Corrections.
In essence, this book is about the dwindling of the state's monopoly on incarceration, and the effects of the subjugation of prisoners, under the watch of corporations. The corporations advise the governments that privatisation is the only viable option under a burgeoning prison population. But is privatisation the only rhetoric to be considered, with the incarceration of a prison populace? Coyle et al think not.
2. The Growth of the Privatisation of Prisons
The modern phenomenon of prison privatisation derives from the United States, and the first three chapters of the book reflect this. The proceeding chapters detail specific violations of human (and People's) rights within privatised prisons, both in the US and selected countries around the world. The United States is a melting-pot for the advancement of the privatization prisons ideology, and so the book primarily focuses on the situation in the US.
In the 1980s, and continuing today, the US criminal justice system adopted a hard-lined view with the sentencing of offenders. This 'get tough on crime approach' has led to zero-tolerance, 'three strikes legislation' and mandatory minimum sentences, which have overwhelmed the prison services. Such practices were instigated through neoliberal policies formulated by the Reagan Presidency, and to a certain extent, within the United Kingdom. What results is a politically 'claimed' fiscal deficiency, which leads the governments to look to the private industry to solve the problems of the burgeoning prison population.
In the first three chapters of the book this scene is set, with the authors describing the resultant, 'prison industrial complex'. The prison industrial complex is an industry created by severe sentencing policies and a sustained prison populace, which is then governed by private corporations. The public sector is removed by the neoliberal ideology of the free market. Hence economics determine prison governance, which is antipathetically set against the protection of prisoners' human rights. How is this allowed to happen? Chapters Four to 17, detail the reasons for this egregious praxis.
3. Human1 Rights Violations
This volume illustrates that the denial of human rights is endemic within privatised prisons. An intractable amount of deaths have occurred in private prisons, so too have rapes and other physical and mental torture. Medical care is restricted by the corporations, and inmates have died as a result of the guards refusing to allow the prisoners to see medical staff. Minorities are marginalised; racism is systemic; women are subjugated in many private prisons; and juveniles do not receive effective rehabilitation, resulting in a high recidivism rate. The human rights violations caused by the privatised industry is alarming.
Even with a growing body of legal decisions, condemning the practices of the privatised industry in the US, UK and Australia, privatised corporations still obtain contracts to govern prisons. The political and legal mechanism, which allows this status quo, is achieved by a practical immunity from democratic accountability. Katherine van Wormer illuminates in Chapter Nine:
…private prisons tend to distract public officials from responsibility for the way private prisons are run. Under privatization, the internal mechanisms of punishment are cloaked in a veil of secrecy. When a scandal occurs, journalists and other observers will focus on the performance, efficiency, and services of the private prison, rather than on public officials for allowing the conditions to persist. Accordingly, the government is conveniently let off the hook2.
The authors argue that the corporate structure of the prison industrial complex, allows politicians to separate themselves from responsibility when a private prison does not ensure the observance of human rights. Furthermore, the corporations themselves have enjoyed a substantial amount of immunity. In the landmark US Supreme Court decision in Correctional Services Corporation v Malesko, 122 SC 515 (2001) it was held that in the area of offering health care provisions, private corporations who run 'prisons under contract with the federal government are protected from suit for their constitutional violations3. Hence, there is a hegemonic rhetoric created, which drastically diminishes the accountability of the prison industrial complex for human rights violations.
Racial issues are at the forefront when considering the human rights violations. Chapter Eight deals with the arrested development of African Americans. Monique Morris talks about the 'legalized apartheid (segregation)'4within the history of American law, and she discusses the wider, social, ramifications and issues surrounding racism; firstly within society, then within the judicial sentencing structure and prison populations. In Chapter 10, Frank Smith discusses the engendered issues resulting in the violations of the human and cultural rights of the Native Americans. He offers a short, enlightened, discourse on the historical perspective of slavery and the repugnant US Supreme Court decision in Plessy v Fergeson, 163 US 537 (1896), which introduced the egregious 'separate but equal' doctrine. Plessy was overruled in the two Brown v Board of Education cases5.
Katherine van Wormer argues that women are treated unfairly and that there is a 'backlash against …women's creeping equality'6. Wormer states that the law is anti-feminist. Also, that through the 'war on drugs', women are singled-out because many will be given up by their junkie husbands. Furthermore, up to 40 percent of incarcerated women were for drug offences7. Indeed, Wormer acutely emphasis the plight of many incarcerated women. In Chapter 178, Amanda George reveals the harrowing experiences many women face within the Australian Metropolitan Women's Correctional Center.
In Chapter Seven, Mark Erik Hecht and Donna Habsha outline the privatisation of juvenile prisons, and the monitoring of juvenile prisons through international law9. The authors include a case study on Canada and the United Kingdom. It is argued that within the UK, juvenile crime rates have decreased, but the juvenile prison population has increased. A reason is suggested:
… numerous highly publicised acts of violence have distorted the reality of youth involved in crime and have led to intense public debate on the matter. Politicians have been driven to introduce harsher sentencing policies and legislation as a result of public pressure to 'get tough on crime'10.
The authors also highlight the failure of the Canadian adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, stating that the juvenile human rights paradigm is thwarted by the practices of the privatisation industry.
4. Selling the US 'Prison Industrial Complex' to the world
One area that is briefly touched upon by this volume (and possibly should/could have been developed further), is the 'threat' of the US prison industrial complex being imposed on other countries. This is a serious point which Stephen Nathan investigates in Chapter 1611. He begins his chapter with a letter penning an earnest worldwide plea by Mr C L Siimane, the Director General of the Lesotho Prison Service. Mr Siimane wrote an open letter to the international criminal justice community asking for help, he begins his letter, 'We wish to inform you that we are under terrible pressure to have the entire Lesotho Prison Service privatized by Group 4 from the UK …' and he goes on to say, '… do anything in your power and means to frustrate the wishes and efforts of Group 4 and its proponents'12.
Why such a desperate plea? The subject matter and detailed examples of this volume make it clear. Many human rights violations are caused by the privatised prison industry, and each government should beware of adopting such a repugnant capitalist model. Certainly, the US privatisation companies are of the view that they can 'make a significant impact on the global corrections market'13. Julie Berg, in Chapter 15, highlights the concerns with the development of the privatisation of prisons within South Africa. She is of the opinion that the modernised 'prison industrial complex' will not satisfactorily cope with the intricate cultural distinctions that exist the South Africa, and hence, Africa as a whole.
It also cannot be stated with any authority that the US model has worked in the UK, and the authors seem to suggest that this is why the industry is moving away from the developed world and focusing their claws on the emerging economies, as stated in chapter sixteen. Disturbingly, when the UK considered how to deal with its burgeoning prison population, the government only considered the rhetorical 'spin' from the US, and did not consider other country's models; such as the French, semi-private model. Hence the US corporations gained contracts within the UK, and brought with them their egregious practices. The author's collective message to the global criminal justice systems is 'stay public'.
5. Conclusion
The authors of the articles within Capitalist Punishment: Prison Privatization and Human Rights have produced a sound discourse urging governments to monitor and condemn the illegal practices of the prison privatisation industry, and also a sound portfolio warning prospective governments against blindly handing over their prisons to the corporations. The words of the corporations appear to bring bright futures, but governments should wait to hear both sides of the story. This volume brings the hitherto untold story of those who have suffered behind the panoptical protection of the privately owned prison walls.
Endnotes
1. Within the specific African, and other indigenous human rights rhetoric, 'people's' and 'cultural' rights are recognised. This volume details and argues such 'people's' and 'cultural' rights. See, Chapter Eight: Prison Privatization: The Arrested Development of African Americans, by Monique Morris; Chapter 10: Incarceration of Native Americans and Private Prisons, by Frank Smith; Chapter 11: The Use of Privatized Detention Centers for Asylum Seekers in Australia and the UK, by Bente Molenaar and Rodney Neufeld; Chapter 15: Prison Privatization Development in South Africa, by Julie Berg; and Chapter 16: Private Prisons: Emerging and Transformative Economies, by Stephen Nathan.
2. Chapter Nine: Prison Privatization and Women, by Katherine van Wormer, p 108.
3. Chapter Six: Private Prisons and Health Care: The HMO From Hell, by Alexander, E, p 67.
4.Chapter Eight, supra, note 1, p 87.
5.Brown v Board of Education 347 US 483 (1954) Brown 1, the Constitutional ruling; Brown v Board of Education 349 US 294 (1955) Brown 2, the implementation decision. These cases abolished segregation within schools.
6. Chapter Nine, supra, note 2, p 103.
7. As a legal intern for the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, in 1996, I visited an Oklahoman women's correctional facility to interview the wife of an inmate on death row in Oklahoma. The woman was handed over to the police by her husband, for drug offences.
8. Chapter 17: Women Prisoners as Customers: Counting the Costs of the Privately Managed Metropolitan Women's Correctional Center: Australia, by Amanda George.
9. Chapter Seven: International Law and the Privatization of Juvenile Justice, by Mark Erik Hecht and Donna Habsha.
10. ibid, p 81.
11. Chapter 16: Private Prisons: Emerging and Transformative Economies, by Stephen Nathan.
12. ibid, p 189.
13. ibid, p 190.
2. Chapter Nine: Prison Privatization and Women, by Katherine van Wormer, p 108.
3. Chapter Six: Private Prisons and Health Care: The HMO From Hell, by Alexander, E, p 67.
4.Chapter Eight, supra, note 1, p 87.
5.Brown v Board of Education 347 US 483 (1954) Brown 1, the Constitutional ruling; Brown v Board of Education 349 US 294 (1955) Brown 2, the implementation decision. These cases abolished segregation within schools.
6. Chapter Nine, supra, note 2, p 103.
7. As a legal intern for the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, in 1996, I visited an Oklahoman women's correctional facility to interview the wife of an inmate on death row in Oklahoma. The woman was handed over to the police by her husband, for drug offences.
8. Chapter 17: Women Prisoners as Customers: Counting the Costs of the Privately Managed Metropolitan Women's Correctional Center: Australia, by Amanda George.
9. Chapter Seven: International Law and the Privatization of Juvenile Justice, by Mark Erik Hecht and Donna Habsha.
10. ibid, p 81.
11. Chapter 16: Private Prisons: Emerging and Transformative Economies, by Stephen Nathan.
12. ibid, p 189.
13. ibid, p 190.
This is a book review published on 20 January 2004.
Citation: Yorke, J, 'Capitalist Punishment: Prison Privatization adn Human Rights' edited by Andrew Coyle, Allison Campbell and Rodney Neufeld, Book Review, Law, Social Justice & Global Development Journal (LGD) 2003 (2) 4/16/10
Whanau ora
Source
The Maori Party has been a huge disappointment and Whanau ora will likely be its biggest failure.
The party was formed amid well justified anger and frustration at the Labour government’s panicky move to legislate across Maori rights to have claims to the foreshore and seabed heard in the Maori Land Court.
The break with Labour had happened before. Back in the 1990s Maori voters sided briefly with Winston Peters before his New Zealand First party was decimated under coalition pressure from National.
The Maori Party injected fresh energy into Maori aspirations via MPs with no previous parliamentary baggage such as Pita Sharples, Hone Harawira and Te Ururoa Flavell. However for such a race-based party the danger was always there that they would lose sight of the wood for the trees. And so they have. The party is fixated on improving things for Maori but at the same time endangering provision of services for people in low income communities who themselves are disproportionately Maori.
This approach was highlighted in the bizarre story last month of the Maori Party signing up to an ACT-driven working group report which is asking the government to consider extending so-called education “choice” for children from low income communities. This would increase opportunities for a tiny number of children at the expense of the majority who would suffer by further reduced state responsibility for the quality of education in our schools.
With Whanau Ora we have a similar approach with the aim to benefit struggling Maori families which National will use to undermine state provision of social services and open the sector for the damages and ravages of privatisation. Maori will be the predominant losers.
Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia sees Whanau Ora as her own and the Maori Party’s crowning achievement in coalition in this parliamentary term. She seems content to fossick around at the bottom of the cliff picking up the pieces of dysfunctional families while even more victims of government policies pile up around her.
Feeling good at the bottom of the cliff is no substitute for tackling the hard stuff at the top where free-market economic policies create the carnage.
Maori families don’t need big state intervention in their lives. Neither does anyone in a low-income community. I have huge faith in all families to be able to make their own way in the world without big government or a welfare system designed not so much as a safety net but as a minimalist drip-feed to take the heat out of opposition to the catastrophic failure of 30 years of neo-liberal economic policies.
Instead of quality jobs, self respect and self reliance, the free market has delivered to low income communities thousands of pokie machines, endless liquor outlets, loan sharks on every corner and fast-food joints by the bucketful alongside social devastation and destroyed families. Whanau Ora aims to ease the negative effects of the market on families without having the insight to address the problems at their source.
What the party has failed to grasp is that economic policies drive communities. Once a government has decided its economic direction what follows in health, education, welfare or employment is essentially predetermined.
And so instead of tackling the big issues – government policies to provide jobs for everyone while abolishing the dole for example – the Maori Party is content to play Florence Nightingale to the victims of Labour and National policies.
Why on earth would a party set their sights so low?
Even in its lady-of-the-lamp role the Maori Party will struggle to make any meaningful difference. It will bring a few benefits to some families by helping rationalize social services but basing welfare provision for Maori families on Maori concepts will mean little change for anyone until economic policy is based on the same principles. As it stands the best we can hope for from Whanau Ora will be in helping some families devise bunkers to help weather economic storms.
There will also be many families within Maoridom who will resist Whanau Ora. Expect to see welfare refugees seeking respite from attempts by well-meaning Whanau Ora advocates trying to patch up deeply fractured families.
I’ve seen similar attitudes many times working in schools in low income areas where many Maori families see themselves as having greater common cause with their European, Pacific and migrant neighbours and friends than with a distant iwi to which they have no connection.
The Maori Party engagement with National was never going to end in happiness.
It won’t be till the party engages in a serious economic challenge to National and Labour that it will make a significant difference for Maori families.
3/11/10
Imprisonment rate internationally indefensible
As the Government looks at measures to lock up more people for longer sentences, the Race Relations Commissioner is warning the current imprisonment rate for Maori is putting New Zealand in a bad light internationally.
In his annual report released today, Joris de Bres highlights 50 percent of prison inmates are Maori.
He says it's a long term pattern which was raised at last year's United Nations periodical review and by the Committee on the Elimination of racial Discrimination, and it's likely to feature again this month in another UN review of New Zealand's civil and political rights.
“What this report is recommending that we do have long term targets and set specific targets to reduce that rate of imprisonment. It’s absolutely unsustainable. It’s internationally indefensible and we really do have to come to grips with it. We cannot sustain this,” Mr de Bres says.
The economic recession has increased the disparities between Maori and pacific workers and others, with 30 percent of young Maori now unemployed.
Corporate Iwi: Doing business with human rights abusers
G4S, another private prison operator, was criticised by the W.A. Deaths in Custody Watch Committee over the death of prominent Aboriginal elder, Mr Ward. Mr Ward died in January 2008 after being transferred across the West Australian outback, from Laverton to Kalgoorlie, in a private prison van in temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius.
The Coronial Inquest was told temperatures in the back of the van would have been 47 degrees. Mr Ward had been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. The Coronial Inquest was told the van’s air conditioning was not working and staff in charge of the 46-year-old did not check on him during the four-hour journey.
In their special report of the findings, the W.A. Deaths in Custody Watch Committee condemned the actions of those responsible for Mr Ward’s death. The report stated:
“Mr Ward’s death…cumulatively demonstrate the institutional failure and incapacity of the State and successive Ministers for Corrections to discharge their non-delegable duties of care and to ensure that the State’s contractor GSL/G4S complied with its contractual, statutory and human rights obligations and the failure to have procedures and practices in place to ensure that this occurred.
The findings of the State Coroner that the State and GSL/G4S contributed to Mr Ward’s death are the most serious findings a coroner is empowered to make. These findings further emphasise that the contracting out of prisoner transportation as practised in Western Australia in unsustainable.”
GSL/G4S has in Australia alone been found by coroners to have contributed to the death of at least six people in custody, including Mr Ward in less than nine years. It has also been subject to severely critical findings in relation to its operational compliance and duty of care capacity and for violations of the human rights of people in its care and custody. The demonstrated unfitness of GSL/G4S is further evidenced by the following events:
• 15 February 1994 – The findings of a North Humberside Coroners Jury inquiring into the death of Mr Ernest Hogg who died due to “lack of care” while being transported by Group 4 (now G4S) in May 1993.
• 26 April 2000 – State Coroner of Victoria finds Group 4 (G4S) contributed the hanging deaths of four men at their Port Phillip Prison through the failure to provide a safe environment.
• 2005 – Serious adverse duty of care and operational findings made by Knowledge Consulting Report into the transportation of five immigration detainees by GSL from the Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre to the Baxter Immigration Detention Centre on 17/18 September 2004.
• July 2006 – the Victorian Ombudsman and Office of Police Integrity issued a joint report, entitled Conditions for Persons in Custody, which included a review of prisoner transportation provided by GSL. The Report relevantly concluded that insufficient attention is given to the conditions under which prisoners are transported, often without basic amenities for long trips.
The report also referred to the findings of a 2005 report by the Victorian Corrections Inspectorate which had previously outlined deficiencies in prisoner transport provided by GSL in the areas of:
Incomplete staff refresher training, poor record keeping, no regular reviews or updating of emergency management procedures, little adherence to servicing and maintenance requirements for the vehicle fleet, high breakdown levels of electronic surveillance equipment in the vans compounded by poor quality vision, broken lights and “blind spots”, inoperative communications equipment which prevent prisoners from speaking with the driver and an inadequate emergency duress monitoring system.
• 4 December 2007 – The President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission brought down serious and adverse findings of human rights violations against GSL in relation to the infliction of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and treatment that violates basic human dignity of detainees transported by GSL from the Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre to the Baxter Immigration Detention Centre on 17/18 September 2004.
• On 9 July 2007 Victorian Coroner Audrey Jamieson’s report on the inquest into the death in GSL custody of Ian Thomas Westcott found that the failure of GSL to maintain and comply with procedures to ensure the operability of intercom systems in place to ensure the safety and survival of prisoners effectively contributed to Mr Westcott’s death and that his death was preventable.
The West Australian Coroner’s report of Mr Ward’s death was damning and it recommended that there is an imperative public interest in the State to terminate the contract of GSL/G4S as soon as possible and not wait until the contract period ends in 2011.
The report concluded: “GSL/G4S has shown through its own conduct and especially in relation to prisoner and detainee transportation that it is incapable of discharging its most basic statutory, contractual, procedural, duty of care and human rights obligations owed to people in its care and custody as well as to the WA and broader public.”
The West Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter ruled out terminating the contract of G4S.
GEO Group which will be in charge of Parklea prison is the second largest prison company in the USA and listed on the New York stock exchange. GEO Group also operates a migrant detention centre under contract to the USA government alongside the notorious Guantanamo Bay military facility in Cuba.
In Australia GEO Group runs the Junee Correctional Centre, the Fulham Correctional Centre in Victoria, and the Arthur Gorrie Remand and Reception Centre in Queensland.
GEO has been involved in a number of controversial incidents in American prisons. In 2001, a prison inmate at a GEO facility in New Mexico, Gregorio de la Rosa, was killed in dubious circumstances. In 2006 a civil jury found GEO liable for the death, and ordered the company to pay compensation of $47.5 million to the Mr de la Rosa’s family. Last year a grand jury indicted GEO Group to stand trial for the murder of de la Rosa, accusing guards of beating the prisoner to death with padlocks stuffed into socks.
GEO Group is also being sued in regard to an incident were seven prisoners were kept locked in a cold shower room for five hours wearing little or no clothing. In 2007, GEO Group also settled a lawsuit with the family of a woman who was allegedly raped and beaten after being locked in the same cellblock as male inmates. The woman committed suicide shortly after the incident.
GEO Group had its contract to house prisoners from Idaho at its Bill Clayton Detention Centre terminated in November 2008. The Idaho Department of Correction stated that GEO Group’s chronic understaffing of the facility put offenders safety at risk. An audit of the facility had also found that guards routinely falsified reports that they were checking on offenders, despite being away from their posts for hours at a time.
The Minister for Corrective Services stated that Parklea would have oversight from ICAC, the ombudsman, and a whole range of other organisations including the NSW Government’s official visitor program. Minister, we hold you to keep your word.
References: WA Deaths in Custody Watch Committee, The Ward Case and Lessons for the WA Government, September 2009; Public Service Association, Privatisation of Parklea, July 2009.
6/23/08
New life after and against colonisation - East Coast tribe going autonomous!
Te Whānau-a-Takimoana was an autonomous tribe of the independent northern East Coast territory of Aotearoa, which held complete sovereignty over the rohe before 1840. The Te Tiriti o Waitangi ki Te Tai Rawhiti (Maori version not English translation) signed at Rangitukia on June 1, 1840 was the prevailing treaty between Takimoana and Queen Victoria and Article 2 of the Tiriti did not cede sovereignty.
"It is about exercising our constitutional and sovereign rights, to attain a full measure of government over our territories including our foreshore, seabed, inland waterways, territorial seas, fisheries and airspace, to promote our own wellbeing, to put an end to the crimes and abuses committed against us by the New Zealand government, marginalisation of our human and property rights, the exploitation of our natural resources, to promote authentic biculturalism, social progress and better standards of life for all New Zealanders" said Tamati Reid of Rangitukia
"This kaupapa has been years in the planning. It's about our fundamental rights and freedoms to control our own destiny as promised to us in our treaty" said Tamati Reid. Kaumatua and Justice of the Peace Bob Kaa said he believed their initiative was sanctioned by the UN and could be the catalyst for a major shake-up of New Zealand's constitutional arrangements. One of the first priorities of the proposed government would be governance capability-building through strategies aimed at restoring the tribe's economic base. "Policy development on repossessing our foreshore and seabed and other lands unlawfully taken by successive settler governments will be a priority area for the Takimoana government," said Mr Kaa.
"It may take a long time for our people to do a U-turn of course — it took them 100 years to be colonised. This is not an anti-Pakeha movement — they are most welcome to come to the meeting. It doesn't discredit any Pakeha, nor does it aim to take away any of their rights — 99 percent of us have a significant amount of that ancestry ourselves."
Indymedia Aotearoa
Links: Gisborne Herald Article | Tino Rangatiratanga email list
8/14/07
White Settler Colonialism and the Political Economy of Labour Migration
The restructuring of the economy has been a disaster for working class Maori, Pakeha and women, welfare beneficiaries and users of public health and education who have had to face the prospects of increased poverty, falling real incomes, mass unemployment, deteriorating employment conditions and job security, social welfare cuts and user-charges for education and health services. The position of the majority of Maori whanau within the working class has meant that Maori have borne the brunt of the economic restructuring (Te Puni Kokiri, 1992). Indeed, in the two years between March 1987 to March 1989, one-fifth of the Maori working-age population was made redundant (Te Puni Kokiri, 1993, p. 41).
by Te Ahu
Introduction
The Age of Revolution
Primitive Accumulation
Proletarianisation
The Long Boom
Contemporary Maori nationalism and the Economic Crisis
Essential in explaining the emergence and present state of Maori inequality in capitalist society, are the processes of white settler colonialism and labour migration (see Miles, 1984, 1989 and 1993; Miles and Spoonley, 1985; Pearson, 1984 and 1990; Spoonley, 1993). These are two distinct, though interlocking, processes, the first of which concerns the colonial land grab which dispossessed Maori, the second of which concerns the Maori labour migration, recruitment and settlement, necessary to provide a workforce for an emerging capitalist society.
It is important to place the white settlement of Aotearoa within its historical context as part of a global process of capitalist expansionism based on the destruction of the territorial and cultural integrity of the indigenous populations by the expropriation and commodification of their lands and human resources. As Marx noted in regard to the process of capitalist development, ‘[i]n actual history, it is a notorious fact that conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, in short, force, plays the greatest part’ (Marx, 1976, p. 874).
The Age of Revolution
The period between 1789 and 1848 in European history was characterised by tremendous social, economic and political upheaval. The political turbulence created in the wake of the industrial revolution and the French revolution, had enormous implications for the social and economic relations which were to emerge in the European colonies around the world. This period is significant in the study of the political economy of Maori inequality because it corresponds with the transition from the first phase of contact which saw the establishment of commercial relations between European traders and iwi, to the relentless process of land alienation that underpinned the systematic colonisation of Aotearoa.
The colonisation of Aotearoa took place at a time when British capitalism was reeling from prolonged economic depression and declining prosperity. The cyclic bouts of capitalist crises had entrenched serious economic and social inequality which in turn had generated growing working class discontent (Hobsbawm, 1975).
In the wake of the widespread working class rebellion that rocked Europe from the 1830s there was the very real possibility of revolutionary upheaval in Britain itself. Indeed, the widespread working class resentment found its political expression in the Chartist movement which flourished throughout England, Scotland and Wales in the period from 1838 to 1850. For the first time in British history the ruling class came face-to-face with a mass working class movement at a time when there was no known means of reviving economic prosperity.
Throughout the late eighteenth century, imperialist ventures based on the establishment of extractive colonies which supplied Britain with cheap raw materials and export markets were used in order to combat declining economic growth and social discontent (see Chapter 2). However, official British enterprises in South Africa, Australia, Canada, India and the West Indies had proven extremely costly. The British state was under such severe financial constraint it could no longer afford to get embroiled in another official colonial venture which required increased taxation of the British ruling class. This, in part, explains why the official British policy towards New Zealand until the late 1830s was characterised by a general reluctance to intervene formally (Adams, 1977, p. 52). Indeed, for the British state, it was far more preferable to see British interests advanced through non-official agents, such as traders, missionaries and explorers who moved beyond the empire’s frontiers at their own risk and at no expense to the British government (Orange, 1987, p. 8).
The exportation of the working class population which had become ‘surplus’ to the requirements of British capital gradually emerged as the solution for Britain’s economic crisis. However, emigration on the desired scale required some form of subsidy, a subsidy which the British ruling class could not afford (Steven, 1989, p. 23).
The systematic colonisation of Aotearoa however was premised on the discovery that if the British Crown sold land in the colonies to prospective settlers, subsidised emigration would be possible without any cost to the British tax-paying class. This is precisely why the complete control over all Maori land transactions formed such an integral part of the Colonial Office plans to acquire sovereignty over New Zealand. Indeed, the annexation of Aotearoa was only an attractive proposition in so far as a land fund would allow the colonial administration to become financially self-sufficient while any surplus capital would be used to finance further British emigration. The fact that the exclusive right of pre-emption over Maori land was such a major feature of the Treaty of Waitangi is testament to its significance.
In order to entice emigration from Britain in the first place, Aotearoa had to offer the material conditions necessary for the rapid accumulation of capital. The most distinctive economic characteristic was high quality land which required few resources to produce profit. Acquiring this land proved the driving force behind settler society (Steven, 1989, p. 26). This in turn involved the systematic expropriation of Maori land.
Primitive Accumulation
The capitalist mode of production differs historically from other modes of production in terms of the essential social relations which constitute it. Unlike other forms of society, capitalist society is defined by the unique and antagonistic relationship between the ‘owners of money, means of production, means of subsistence’ on the one hand, and the ‘owners’ of labour-power on the other. The critical factor in the establishment of these social relations of production in Aotearoa was the existence of the means of production (including labour-power) in commodity form.
Although the capitalist’s monopoly of property and access to the means of production is a necessary precondition for the production of surplus-value because it prevents the working class from producing its own livelihood in an independent way, it is only the labour-power of living labour that actually produces additional value including surplus-value (Mandel, 1976, p.33.). The ‘secret’ of surplus-value, the essential feature of capitalism, therefore lies in the existence of labour-power as a commodity (Fine, 1975, p.41.; McNally, 1993, p.7.). In Aotearoa the systematic commodification of labour-power required the separation of a growing proportion of the Maori population from the land, which had for centuries provided them with an adequate subsistence, thereby giving them no alternative but to sell their labour-power for a wage. This process was not just a unique feature of capitalist development in Aotearoa. Indeed, the development of capitalism in Europe centrally involved, ‘...the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production’ (Marx, 1976, pp. 874–5).
Like the process of capitalist development on a global scale, the emergence of a propertyless class of Maori wage labourers was not gradual or harmonious, rather it involved brutal dispossession, violence and destruction (McNally, 1993, pp. 6–7). However, Aotearoa contained a Maori population that was relatively large and militarily organised enough to provide powerful resistance to the commodification of Maori land. At this time the British state was unwilling to meet the costs of the military power required to neutralise this resistance. In this context the Treaty of Waitangi provided an inexpensive means of ensuring that Maori would not obstruct this process, at least not until the number of settlers constituted a greater threat to Maori military dominance (Steven, 1989, p. 26).
The discovery of pastoral wealth which yielded greater profits than the moderate incomes earned in the production of foodstuffs was a turning point in the relations between Maori and the settlers. Profitable pastoralism required huge land-holdings and their acquisition at not too great a cost. The insatiable drive for greater profits manifested itself in the rampant expropriation of Maori land that took place in the period 1840 to 1870. The fierce and sustained resistance that characterised the New Zealand Wars revealed that iwi were not passive respondents to this expansion (Walker, 1990; Belich, 1986).The resistance by Maori gave the state the opportunity to confiscate further Maori land to satisfy the requirements of an expanding pastoral industry. On the pretence of pacifying ‘rebellion’, the colonial state brought about by force the commodification of millions of acres of Maori land that was so central for capitalist development (Bedggood, 1978, p. 287).
State legislation which aimed to decisively ‘free up’ Maori land such as the Suppression of Rebellion Act 1863, New Zealand Settlement Act 1863, and the Native Reserves Act 1864 resulted in the transfer of millions of acres of fertile farm land into the hands of large landowners. With the removal of British imperial support and the move to self-government more subtle and less expensive measures had to be found to expropriate the remaining Maori land. In particular, the Native Land Act 1865 prepared the way by individualising the ownership titles of communally held Maori land.
In 1875 the provincial system of government was abolished. Maori were disenfranchised politically in the development of a centralised state and a national administrative infrastructure suitable for capitalist expansion. The territorial and regional separation of the Maori population contributed to the maintenance of traditional elements of Maori society and capitalist social relations that remained relatively insulated from the developing settler institutions. Together with the exclusion of the vast majority of Maori from orthodox political processes, this relative isolation allowed state and foreign investment to contribute to the development of a national economic infrastructure without formidable opposition.
The transition from large-scale farming towards relatively small family farm production, the urban processing of the rural product, and the emergence of a manufacturing sector resulted in the erosion of state control by the landed oligarchy (Wilkes, 1993, p. 196). From 1890, the state sought freer land policies and even developed strategies for breaking up the large estates. The Native Land Validation Act 1892, West Coast Settlement Reserves Act 1892, Native Land Purchase and Acquisition Act 1893, Advances to Settlers Act 1894 were among the more overt measures introduced to hasten the process of Maori land alienation. By the turn of the century most Maori were relegated to a precarious existence on the edge of a rapidly expanding capitalist society dominated by a Pakeha ruling class and state (Pearson, 1984, p. 209).
For the first part of the twentieth century the process of land alienation continued unabated. Maori land holdings were reduced further from 7,137,025 acres in 1911 to 4,787,686 acres in 1920. By the late 1930s, Maori retained less than one-sixth of the land. The fact that most of the remaining land was unsuitable for development, meant that iwi no longer possessed the acreage to feed themselves. Although Maori continued to have only a marginal relationship with the capitalist mode of production, this relationship was becoming increasingly more important for the Maori economy. Indeed, as the pace of land alienation increased, so did the Maori reliance on seasonal labour as a means to supplement their declining resource base. Thus many Maori, increasingly found themselves as a source of cheap and replaceable labour, primarily in the agricultural sector.
The world recession of the early 1930s had an enormous impact on New Zealand’s economy which was dominated by agricultural capital. The crisis of profitability characterised amongst other things by low levels of foreign and domestic investment decimated the employment base in the agricultural sector. This had a disproportionate impact on the Maori population which was overwhelmingly rural. As a casual, reserve army of labour, Maori agricultural labourers were among the first to be laid-off. Indeed, it is estimated that Maori made up some 40 per cent of the unemployed, with three-quarters of adult Maori men registered as unemployed by 1933 (King, 1992, p. 293).
Proletarianisation
Whereas the first phase in the establishment of capitalism in Aotearoa involved the destruction of the subsistence economy and the partial exclusion of Maori from the developing capitalist society; the second phase in capitalist development was the systematic incorporation of Maori into an emerging working class. This is because the development of capitalist production in Aotearoa necessitated the geographical concentration of the means of production and hence the process of proletarianisation (Miles and Spoonley, 1985, p. 15).
TOP
The Long Boom
The period 1945 to 1973 was one of sustained economic growth coupled with a gradual rise in the standards of living in most advanced capitalist countries. In Aotearoa, the long boom was a product of historically high levels of profitability and productive investment, accompanied by full employment, low inflation, rising real wages, and the absence of prolonged balance of payment difficulties due to the historically favourable terms of trade (see Chapter 1). From 1945, there was a significant expansion of the manufacturing sector which generated an absolute and relative increase in size of the working class. The prolonged period of economic expansion further accelerated the centralisation of industrial production in the larger cities, particularly the greater region of Auckland.
The compulsion for Maori to sell their labour power for a wage (induced by the destruction of the traditional economy) combined with the demand for labour from the expanding manufacturing sector and led to a massive rural to urban migration of Maori. Acute Maori overpopulation in relation to limited economic and natural resources, and high rural unemployment reinforced this rural exodus (Butterworth, 1967, p. 19). Indeed, the process of proletarianisation was rapid: in 1926, 8 per cent of the total Maori population were located in the ‘defined urban areas’. By 1966 the figure had risen to 41.1 per cent. The occupational structure of the Maori population actively engaged in the workforce is also revealing.
TOP
Contemporary Maori nationalism and the Economic Crisis
In the mid-1970s the long boom that had fuelled the rapid labour migration collapsed. The collapse of the long boom was a product of steadily worsening conditions of economic decline and fiscal instability brought on by the inherent tendency in capitalist systems for the general rate of profit to fall which inhibits investment and undermines profitable capital accumulation. This economic crisis generated the politicisation of ethnic and gender inequalities, and an upsurge in class struggle. From the mid-1970s governments struggled to manage the deepening economic and political crisis. In particular, the political turbulence created in the wake of a dramatic upsurge in Maori protest and discontent from the early 1970s forced governments to respond to the overwhelming evidence of racism and Maori inequality which characterised New Zealand society.
Such struggles embraced a considerable variety of political strategies, campaigns, and participants (see Greenland, 1984; Poata-Smith, 1996b; Sharp, 1990). Over-simplifying for the sake of exposition, from the late 1960s Maori activists tended to reject strategies that placed the sole emphasis on orthodox political processes in order to reform the worst excesses of racism and Maori inequality. However confused such strategies were, the only basis for Maori liberation was through a fundamental transformation of the system, that was both racist and capitalist. This strategy co-existed with the Brown power philosophies of the more militant wing of Nga Tamatoa which urged Maori to unite, to recognise their common history, and build a new sense of solidarity and community.
The influence of such nationalist strategies attenuated as more conservative middle class elements came to dominate the movement and this development was reflected in the proliferation of strategies which emphasised constitutional change through electoral politics and the systematic reform of existing institutions. Such strategies rested on the expectation that the state would make significant concessions to Maori. However, the failure of the third Labour government (1972-1975) to stem the tide of land alienation and secure Maori rights led frustrated activists to look at more direct tactics that represented a fundamental challenge to the state.
From 1975 to 1984 the third National Government had to respond to a dual crisis of economic decline and a crisis of political legitimation created in the wake of the Maori land rights movement. National fumbled through the 1975 land march on parliament, the occupations of Bastion point and Raglan and the regular protests at Waitangi, with a mixture of coercive state force and legal measures.
The restructuring of New Zealand economy since the mid-1970s saw the financial fraction of capital grow dramatically relative to the industrial and commercial fractions of capital (Roper, 1991b). This had dramatic implications for the employment prospects of working class Maori who were over-represented in the manufacturing sector. It forced the third National Government attempted to respond to the economic crisis which had such a disproportionate impact on employment prospects in Maori communities with an inconsistent set of policies based on Keynesian forms of economic management which inturn generated a fiscal crisis of the state (see Chapter 14).
Amidst a deepening economic and political crisis, the fourth Labour Government (1984-1990) embarked on an economic restructuring programme to restore levels of profitability in the New Zealand economy in order to encourage investment and growth by promoting those conditions most conducive to profitable capital accumulation. Labour’s restructuring was underpinned by a theoretical agenda based almost exclusively on the analytical assumptions, ideological values and policy prescriptions of the schools of economic thought associated with the New Right.
Since 1984, Labour had attempted to appease the rising level of Maori protest in two major ways. The first involved extending the jurisdiction of the Waitangi Tribunal retrospective to 1840 and the second involved adopting the policy of ‘biculturalism’ which was based on the selective incorporation of Maori cultural symbolism within the institutions of the state (Barber 1989). As Maori demands became more strident, a contradiction emerged between the Labour’s economic programme and the treaty settlement policy (Kelsey, 1990; 1993).
The fourth Labour Government’s attempt to appease Maori discontent was made easier by a qualitative change in the direction of the Maori protest movement itself with the proliferation of ‘identity politics’. In the absence of mass struggles against oppression with the decline of the working class movement internationally and the rise of the New Right, many of the assumptions of identity politics were reflected in the New Zealand context with an emphasis on cultural identity as the determining factor in Maori oppression. The inherent traits of Pakeha were seen as the basic causes of an oppressive and unequal society, while the traditional and egalitarian virtues of the Maori community were critical for their resolution. Such a ‘cultural’ explanation for Maori inequality was easily accommodated by the State because unlike the demands of the earlier movement, cultural nationalism did not represent a fundamental threat to the underlying social relations of capitalism.
While the policies of biculturalism represented a advance for middle class Maori professionals with the expansion of employment opportunities in the state apparatus, the emphasis on identity alone as the determining factor in Maori oppression has been counter-productive for working class Maori whanau with successive governments shifting the costs of the economic crisis on to the weakest sections of the community. The restructuring of the economy has been a disaster for working class Maori, Pakeha and women, welfare beneficiaries and users of public health and education who have had to face the prospects of increased poverty, falling real incomes, mass unemployment, deteriorating employment conditions and job security, social welfare cuts and user-charges for education and health services. The position of the majority of Maori whanau within the working class has meant that Maori have borne the brunt of the economic restructuring (Te Puni Kokiri, 1992). Indeed, in the two years between March 1987 to March 1989, one-fifth of the Maori working-age population was made redundant (Te Puni Kokiri, 1993, p. 41).
The upsurge in Maori protest and anger in the wake of the fourth National Government’s attempt to evoke a full and final settlement of treaty grievances following secret negotiations with tribal executive and corporate warriors has generated intense anger and resentment at the lack of real options available to ordinary Maori within the system.
http://aotearoa.wellington.net.nz/back/tumoana/tumoana2.html
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