Showing posts with label Racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Racism. Show all posts
10/3/09
Racism- A history part 2: Fatal Impacts
Series looking at how racism impacts on people's lives. Part Two: Looks at Scientific Racism in the 19th century, which drew on now discredited sciences
9/22/09
10/9/07
White Man's Wars, Past and Present
"We must cease collaborating with the engines of death."
We used to call them the "White Man's War's." Now that phraseology is out of favor, but I think it still applies. Racism is the fuel in the engine that drives the popular appeal for the White Man's wars, now centered in the Middle East, previously in Southeast Asia, but...who knows where next? The real motive is profit, but the people who reap the profit are a very small group, who need a much larger polity to support their aggressions around the world.
Our children are told that the last five centuries of European conquest of the planet are the apex of civilization - when, in fact, they have been the nadir of human relations, resulting in structural racism that destroys everything that does not conform to its piratic imperatives. The United States, the superpower, continues the mission, long after the Europeans have been largely exhausted by the game of slaughter and pillage. The Americans - and by this I mean white Americans, the people who support war - are conditioned by their own aggressions throughout their history to expect retaliation, and to blame the victim. Thus, the Indians, the native owners of the land, were demonized as savages who had no right to life. In the same way, the Africans, who were kidnapped and sent into the eternal hell of chattel slavery, were deemed to be animals with no more rights than cows and chickens. On this basis American "civilization" was born.
"The great obstacle in setting the planet right is the United States white public."
The United States has sliced and bayoneted its way through more countries than Hitler ever dreamed of. We hear the echoes of white American Manifest Destiny in every phrase uttered by the ranks of the Democratic Party that are allowed to speak on corporate media. Barack Obama wants 100,000 new troops to protect "American interests" in the world. John Kerry assures folks that America will "be there" to protect "our interests," whatever the cost. Hillary Clinton and the rest affirm the dictum. They all use the same language of imperialism: "our interests," an open-ended phraseology of thievery, that says: I will steal whatever I want, whenever I want.
The Bush regime prescribes eternal war. That's really just an extension of the global war that has gone on for half a millennium, since the European breakout of 1492. However, the world is rolling back on that horrendous offensive, and reclaiming itself. It will take time, and there will be uneven development. The great obstacle in setting the planet right is the United States white public, which thinks it has a mission in a world whose countries they cannot even find on the map. They kill people whose homes have no addresses that they would recognize. This is truly the banality of evil. But the edifice of white racist rule of the planet will crumble - is crumbling - and a new humanity will emerge. In the interest of the human species, we must cease collaborating with the engines of death, as personified by the Republican Party and the "top tier" of the Democratic candidates for president. The genocides must end - and they end, here.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
8/20/07
Life in Samoa - the Muliaga migration
Immigration, obesity, poverty, corporate greed - the Folole Muliaga story raised issues that divided New Zealanders. Tony Wall and photographer David White travelled to Samoa with the Muliaga family to better understand their lives, and Folole's tragic death.
Last week the office of the New Zealand Immigration Service in Apia was crowded with Samoans wanting to go to "Niu Sila".
Outside, the queue stretched for 20m. Two security guards maintained order; chairs were provided for relief from the sticky, 30 heat.
A sheet of paper containing hundreds of numbers was stuck to the front window, representing those who'd been accepted for permanent residency under the immigration quota system. Hopefuls crowded around, looking for their number, like school children jostling for exam results.
This year, 19,000 people - 10 per cent of Samoa's population - applied for one of 1100 available quota spots. But the quota, for those aged 18-45 wanting to work in New Zealand, is usually not filled. Some applicants drop out because they have trouble raising the 1200 tala ($NZ563) for a residency application, not to mention the cost of medical and police checks and airfares.
Others fail to meet criteria such as having a job offer, being able to have a conversation in English or health and character requirements.
For those whose number comes up, it's like winning Lotto, but are they really going to find a better life in New Zealand? This is, after all, a country where one of their own, school teacher Folole Muliaga, went in search of her dream, only to find poverty and an early grave. The victim, as some would have it, of a heartless corporation that put profit before the lives of its customers.
On top of that, there was a backlash against her family. Many New Zealanders believe they brought their troubles on themselves, by not paying their power bill on time or getting help more quickly.
One major newspaper polled its readers on who was to blame for the death: Mercury Energy, which switched off her power despite her needing an oxygen machine and left her family grieving in the dark for hours, or the family itself? Twice as many people said the family.
Hardly the type of community-minded society of which Samoans are so proud. But of course Samoa is not necessarily the Pacific paradise it seems at first glance.
Scratch the surface and you'll find pockets of third- world poverty, a scarcity of well-paid jobs, a lack of infrastructure and services and domestic violence.
The choices are stark for families like the Muliagas.
Stay in Samoa and live a simple, family-focused life in a tropical climate, but with nothing much to do and few educational and career opportunities; or migrate to somewhere like New Zealand, where the schooling is better and there are more jobs, but it's cold, you'll most likely end up in overcrowded, sub-standard housing and your children could fall in with the kind of criminal gangs unheard of in the islands
Folole Muliaga chose to migrate, once she had convinced her husband, Lopaavea (Lopa), who had been to Auckland before and found it too cold.
She wanted out of her family's village of Sogi, an inner-city suburb of Apia, and one of the poorer areas. Her matai (chief) father Lei'ataua Moresi Tokuma, 74, has a nice place there, with its carefully maintained patch of lawn and garden and western-style house.
A government clerk in Apia for almost 40 years, Moresi has family land on the island of Manono, between the main islands of Savai'i and Upolu, and rents his land in Sogi from the government for five tala ($2.35) a fortnight. He is secretary of the Congregational Christian Church next door, which is the centre of the community and takes tithes of around 20 tala per family ($9.40) a week. On top of that, it raised several thousand tala at a dance last weekend.
None of this money appears to be going on improving local housing. Behind Moresi's house is a collection of shanties, like something out of an African slum.
These are home to crab fishermen and their families, and are built in a mangrove swamp. When a king tide arrives, it brings in piles of plastic garbage, making the place look like a tip. People seem happy, but life can be brutal.
Photographer David White heard yelps of pain and turned to see a father holding his small son by the hair with one hand and punching him in the head with the other. "He's being punished," someone explained.
Samoans are perhaps starting to confront the domestic violence problem. The front page of the Samoa Observer on July 12 featured a story about Manu Samoa veteran Brian Lima becoming the only player to attend five consecutive World Cups - page two had a story about the same player appearing in court for assaulting his wife.
The court dropped the charge and Lima later appeared on TV news apologising to "all mothers and women of Samoa".
But old habits die hard and several people described the disbelief here at New Zealand's passing of the anti- smacking bill. "The elders are saying to their relatives in New Zealand, 'send your children to us, we'll discipline them'," one young father said.
When Lopa and Folole Muliaga made the decision in the late 90s to move to New Zealand, the first hurdle was Folole's weight.
The Tokumas are a big family, in numbers and physical size. Moresi Tokuma and his wife Fa'asalafa had seven children of their own and adopted an eighth.
Fa'asalafa, who died a big woman in 2003 of stomach cancer, aged 60, was a teacher. Three of her children followed her into that profession, including Folole's younger sister Suisala and brother Atapana.
Most of the Tokuma siblings are fat, Suisala, 42, particularly so. Her obesity has affected her mobility. In her classroom at Vaigaga Primary School, on the airport road out of Apia, she is rooted to her desk in a corner, from where she gives instructions to her 50 pupils.
"All of our family are fat people," Suisala says. "It's in the genes."
Folole's size and obesity-related health problems became an issue when she applied for the immigration quota. She was told she would have to lose weight before she could go to New Zealand, as she could become a burden on the health system.
It was not easy for her to lose weight at home in Sogi, where last week we were served a typical meal of boiled white rice, tinned corned beef, lamb flaps, baked banana and egg foo yong, washed down with raspberry cordial. Tasty, but hardly nutritious.
Samoa is the sixth most obese nation on earth, according to the World Health Organisation, with 80 per cent of people over the age of 15 having a body mass index (BMI) higher than 30, the clinical definition of obesity.
Obesity's deadly offspring, diabetes and kidney disease, have hit Samoans hard. In the past, the Samoan government has paid for patients to fly to New Zealand for dialysis treatment, but three years ago the national hospital in Apia was supplied with dialysis machines as part of a joint venture between the Samoa and Singapore national kidney foundations. The development has made a big difference to locals, as well as overseas-based Samoan kidney patients who need regular dialysis and had been unable to return home.
The government has also taken initiatives to get people's weight down. Frozen turkey tails are imported from the US and cooked on the barbeque with soy sauce and salt. They are popular with Samoans but are extremely high in fat. From November, they will be outlawed. This follows the banning of chicken backs a couple of years ago.
For Folole, help with her obesity was at hand in the form of her cousin's husband, Auseugaefa Poloma Komiti, who is high up in the Samoan government.
In his office on the fifth floor of the government building in central Apia, with a stunning view of the harbour, Komiti, the head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, remembered the "challenges" facing Folole prior to the family's migration.
Komiti says Folole came to live with him and his wife so she could concentrate on her weight-loss. "We gave her advice and made sure she was taking up the regimen of treatment that the medical people were advising her to do. The bottom line was, she had to lose weight."
The couple put Folole on a fish- based diet and helped her with an exercise programme. She was given a weight goal, and achieved it.
The Muliagas were comparatively well off by Samoan standards. Folole, a primary school teacher for 15 years, would have been on about 24,000 tala ($NZ11,200) a year, while Lopa worked for his family's taxi company.
But Folole hoped that, by moving to New Zealand, her career options would be better and her children would get better schooling. The couple left in 2000, with children Ietitaia, then 13, Ruatesi, 11, Morwenna, 9, and baby Eden in tow.
Life for the Muliagas in Auckland was good for the first few years. There was family nearby: three of Folole's brothers were in New Zealand.
Lopa got a job as a kitchen hand at the Centra Auckland Airport, earning $470 a week after tax, while Folole retrained in early childhood education at Auckland University, gaining a diploma.
She was one of the founders of the Congregational Christian Church childcare centre in Mangere, and loved her job. Her three eldest children were enrolled in one of Auckland's top state schools, Onehunga High. The couple applied several times for a Housing New Zealand home but were disqualified because their combined income was too high.
They ended up renting a basic brick home in Mangere Bridge, an expensive suburb in real estate terms, paying $290 a week, rising to $300, to a private landlord. They received a family benefit, but Lopa says money was always tight. They had about $100 a week to pay for food, petrol and bus fare for the children.
Folole's weight had ballooned again, and her health was suffering. She had heart and lung problems and by February this year, she was no longer able to sit on the mat and read to the children at the childcare centre. She reluctantly agreed to take three months off. Lopa had to cut back on his hours to help look after her and the children.
Folole didn't tell many people about her problems. "I didn't know she was sick," says Orita Sione, a school teacher in Apia and Folole's best friend.
But she confided in her sister, Suisala.
"I talked to Folole on the phone, and she told me to search for help, for traditional Samoan medicine," Suisala says.
The plants and herbs used by traditional doctors could not be taken into New Zealand, she says, but were sometimes boiled into a liquid and smuggled in. But that did not happen.
"We were too busy here. It's hard for us here to prepare things to take to her. She said, 'it's all right, I'm in the hospital now'."
Folole, who spent a month in Middlemore Hospital, was not the first member of her family to receive hospital treatment in New Zealand. Her mother, Fa'asalafa, had three operations for the fatal tumour in her stomach, the first two in Samoa, paid for by the family, and the third at Middlemore, at the expense of the Samoan government.
Lopa says his wife received "very good healthcare" and she was "very strong" when she was released from Middlemore on May 11.
"I said, 'are you all right?' and she said, 'yeah I'm all right'. The doctor said, 'make sure you have your oxygen'."
Doctors had assessed her condition as chronic, in the mildly stressful category, rather than acute and life- threatening, and had given her a mains-powered oxygen machine, with a nose tube fitting, which was supposed to help her breathe rather than keep her alive.
But Folole saw it as her lifeline. Lopa says Folole "never missed her oxygen", using it around the clock.
The family had been getting behind with power and telephone bills. The phone was disconnected about a week before Folole died.
Lopa tried to sort out a payment plan with Mercury Energy, but it was not interested, a call-centre worker telling him they couldn't deal with him because his name was not on the bill.
On May 29, a contractor disconnected the family's power and within a few hours, Folole, who had been home with eldest son Ietitaia, was dead, aged 44.
"That never would have happened here," says Sione, Folole's school teacher friend.
"We can negotiate things with people."
Samoa's Electric Power Corporation provides some of the cheapest electricity in the islands. Householders purchase units of electricity in advance. "Three weeks ago I bought 100 talas' worth ($47) and I still have 40 units left," says Komiti, Folole's relative in the prime minister's department.
Komiti flew to New Zealand for Folole's funeral. "I heard the eulogies and that was the Folole I knew, who would not ask for help even when she was in dire need."
He says there were networks available to her and her family, "but she was a proud person".
Lopa says he and his wife didn't know where to turn for help. One place they could have gone was the Lafitaga welfare centre in Auckland, set up by Fa'amausili Tuilimu Solo Brown, who won a Queen's Service Medal in 2001 for her community work, but returned permanently to Samoa the following year.
Brown, also a justice of the peace in New Zealand, is one of only two women judges at the Land and Titles Court in Apia.
She says Lafitaga, which sees 70,000 people a year, could have helped the Muliagas with their power bill. She was shocked by Folole's experience.
"I can imagine that happening maybe in Papua New Guinea, but not New Zealand. It's appalling."
She believes Samoans who struggle in New Zealand should come home.
"When I was in New Zealand I was advising people to come back to Samoa, especially when they don't have jobs. Being on a benefit is worse, they might as well come home and work the land. It's a beautiful place, we can lead a good life here."
That was a theme common among Samoans who had returned home after many years abroad.
Eileen Taeleipu, who was raised in Christchurch but now runs her own business just out of Apia, says many of her countrymen and women go to New Zealand expecting too much and are shocked by the reality. "They go from a freehold piece of land with a house to staying in a garage in an overcrowded situation."
And many refuse to adapt to the New Zealand way of life. "My dad lived in New Zealand for 40 years and was still living like a Samoan. He would make us all live Samoan inside the house, and palagi outside, only because we had to."
This included a rigid attitude to discipline, Taeleipu says. "What you would call child abuse in New Zealand was just normal Samoan discipline."
She says that while women like Folole had to go to work to help support their families, and women's rights were progressing, "I don't think we're considered equal here. Typical Samoan women are selfless, their children come first."
Brown says too many Samoans rely on remittances from family overseas. "Instead of going to the land and working the land, they are just waiting for the money to arrive."
Despite the problems many of them encounter, a steady stream of Samoans continue to leave behind their homeland in search of opportunities overseas.
At Faleolo Airport, friends and family gather to farewell passengers on a 2am flight to Niu Sila. Two young women in traditional dress are in tears in the departure lounge and on the steps to the plane, turning to wave goodbye to their family.
Two men from rural Samoa who have obviously never flown before wear their anxiety on their faces. Lucia Filipo, 60, from Apia, crosses herself when the plane takes off and clutches rosary beads as it descends into Auckland.
Some of these people are visiting family, others are on work visas, while some are starting a new life. All have big hopes and dreams, some will achieve them. Hopefully, none will end up like Folole Muliaga.
Samoans in Aotearoa
# Samoans are the single largest Pacific ethnic group, comprising 115,000 or 50% of NZ's Pacific population.
# 58% of the total Samoan population in NZ was born here.
# Most Samoans (66%) live in Auckland, or Wellington (17%).
# 90% of Samoans in New Zealand speak English.
# 90% are Christians.
# 30% of Samoans in New Zealand live in an extended family situation, compared to 8% of the NZ population.
# 17% of Samoans hold a post-school qualification, compared to 32% of the total population.
# 56% of Samoan adults are employed, up from 43% in 1991. 16% were unemployed, compared to only 7% of the total population.
# The most common occupation for Samoans is plant and machine operators (19%), clerks (18%) and service and sales workers (16%).
# Samoans born here are more likely than their overseas-born counterparts to be employed in white-collar jobs such as legislators, administrators and managers (7% and 4%), professionals (10% and 7%) and associate professionals (14% and 7%).
# The Samoan adult population has a median annual income of $15,600, compared to $18,500 for the rest of the population.
# 60% of Samoans are in rental housing, compared to 33% of the total population. Of those, 46% are in Housing New Zealand accommodation, down from 60% in the mid-90s.
# 86% of Samoan households have telephones, compared to 96% of the total population.
# Figures are from the 2001 census, the most recently published census figures
#########################################################################
Last week the office of the New Zealand Immigration Service in Apia was crowded with Samoans wanting to go to "Niu Sila".
Outside, the queue stretched for 20m. Two security guards maintained order; chairs were provided for relief from the sticky, 30 heat.
A sheet of paper containing hundreds of numbers was stuck to the front window, representing those who'd been accepted for permanent residency under the immigration quota system. Hopefuls crowded around, looking for their number, like school children jostling for exam results.
This year, 19,000 people - 10 per cent of Samoa's population - applied for one of 1100 available quota spots. But the quota, for those aged 18-45 wanting to work in New Zealand, is usually not filled. Some applicants drop out because they have trouble raising the 1200 tala ($NZ563) for a residency application, not to mention the cost of medical and police checks and airfares.
Others fail to meet criteria such as having a job offer, being able to have a conversation in English or health and character requirements.
For those whose number comes up, it's like winning Lotto, but are they really going to find a better life in New Zealand? This is, after all, a country where one of their own, school teacher Folole Muliaga, went in search of her dream, only to find poverty and an early grave. The victim, as some would have it, of a heartless corporation that put profit before the lives of its customers.
On top of that, there was a backlash against her family. Many New Zealanders believe they brought their troubles on themselves, by not paying their power bill on time or getting help more quickly.
One major newspaper polled its readers on who was to blame for the death: Mercury Energy, which switched off her power despite her needing an oxygen machine and left her family grieving in the dark for hours, or the family itself? Twice as many people said the family.
Hardly the type of community-minded society of which Samoans are so proud. But of course Samoa is not necessarily the Pacific paradise it seems at first glance.
Scratch the surface and you'll find pockets of third- world poverty, a scarcity of well-paid jobs, a lack of infrastructure and services and domestic violence.
The choices are stark for families like the Muliagas.
Stay in Samoa and live a simple, family-focused life in a tropical climate, but with nothing much to do and few educational and career opportunities; or migrate to somewhere like New Zealand, where the schooling is better and there are more jobs, but it's cold, you'll most likely end up in overcrowded, sub-standard housing and your children could fall in with the kind of criminal gangs unheard of in the islands
Folole Muliaga chose to migrate, once she had convinced her husband, Lopaavea (Lopa), who had been to Auckland before and found it too cold.
She wanted out of her family's village of Sogi, an inner-city suburb of Apia, and one of the poorer areas. Her matai (chief) father Lei'ataua Moresi Tokuma, 74, has a nice place there, with its carefully maintained patch of lawn and garden and western-style house.
A government clerk in Apia for almost 40 years, Moresi has family land on the island of Manono, between the main islands of Savai'i and Upolu, and rents his land in Sogi from the government for five tala ($2.35) a fortnight. He is secretary of the Congregational Christian Church next door, which is the centre of the community and takes tithes of around 20 tala per family ($9.40) a week. On top of that, it raised several thousand tala at a dance last weekend.
None of this money appears to be going on improving local housing. Behind Moresi's house is a collection of shanties, like something out of an African slum.
These are home to crab fishermen and their families, and are built in a mangrove swamp. When a king tide arrives, it brings in piles of plastic garbage, making the place look like a tip. People seem happy, but life can be brutal.
Photographer David White heard yelps of pain and turned to see a father holding his small son by the hair with one hand and punching him in the head with the other. "He's being punished," someone explained.
Samoans are perhaps starting to confront the domestic violence problem. The front page of the Samoa Observer on July 12 featured a story about Manu Samoa veteran Brian Lima becoming the only player to attend five consecutive World Cups - page two had a story about the same player appearing in court for assaulting his wife.
The court dropped the charge and Lima later appeared on TV news apologising to "all mothers and women of Samoa".
But old habits die hard and several people described the disbelief here at New Zealand's passing of the anti- smacking bill. "The elders are saying to their relatives in New Zealand, 'send your children to us, we'll discipline them'," one young father said.
When Lopa and Folole Muliaga made the decision in the late 90s to move to New Zealand, the first hurdle was Folole's weight.
The Tokumas are a big family, in numbers and physical size. Moresi Tokuma and his wife Fa'asalafa had seven children of their own and adopted an eighth.
Fa'asalafa, who died a big woman in 2003 of stomach cancer, aged 60, was a teacher. Three of her children followed her into that profession, including Folole's younger sister Suisala and brother Atapana.
Most of the Tokuma siblings are fat, Suisala, 42, particularly so. Her obesity has affected her mobility. In her classroom at Vaigaga Primary School, on the airport road out of Apia, she is rooted to her desk in a corner, from where she gives instructions to her 50 pupils.
"All of our family are fat people," Suisala says. "It's in the genes."
Folole's size and obesity-related health problems became an issue when she applied for the immigration quota. She was told she would have to lose weight before she could go to New Zealand, as she could become a burden on the health system.
It was not easy for her to lose weight at home in Sogi, where last week we were served a typical meal of boiled white rice, tinned corned beef, lamb flaps, baked banana and egg foo yong, washed down with raspberry cordial. Tasty, but hardly nutritious.
Samoa is the sixth most obese nation on earth, according to the World Health Organisation, with 80 per cent of people over the age of 15 having a body mass index (BMI) higher than 30, the clinical definition of obesity.
Obesity's deadly offspring, diabetes and kidney disease, have hit Samoans hard. In the past, the Samoan government has paid for patients to fly to New Zealand for dialysis treatment, but three years ago the national hospital in Apia was supplied with dialysis machines as part of a joint venture between the Samoa and Singapore national kidney foundations. The development has made a big difference to locals, as well as overseas-based Samoan kidney patients who need regular dialysis and had been unable to return home.
The government has also taken initiatives to get people's weight down. Frozen turkey tails are imported from the US and cooked on the barbeque with soy sauce and salt. They are popular with Samoans but are extremely high in fat. From November, they will be outlawed. This follows the banning of chicken backs a couple of years ago.
For Folole, help with her obesity was at hand in the form of her cousin's husband, Auseugaefa Poloma Komiti, who is high up in the Samoan government.
In his office on the fifth floor of the government building in central Apia, with a stunning view of the harbour, Komiti, the head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, remembered the "challenges" facing Folole prior to the family's migration.
Komiti says Folole came to live with him and his wife so she could concentrate on her weight-loss. "We gave her advice and made sure she was taking up the regimen of treatment that the medical people were advising her to do. The bottom line was, she had to lose weight."
The couple put Folole on a fish- based diet and helped her with an exercise programme. She was given a weight goal, and achieved it.
The Muliagas were comparatively well off by Samoan standards. Folole, a primary school teacher for 15 years, would have been on about 24,000 tala ($NZ11,200) a year, while Lopa worked for his family's taxi company.
But Folole hoped that, by moving to New Zealand, her career options would be better and her children would get better schooling. The couple left in 2000, with children Ietitaia, then 13, Ruatesi, 11, Morwenna, 9, and baby Eden in tow.
Life for the Muliagas in Auckland was good for the first few years. There was family nearby: three of Folole's brothers were in New Zealand.
Lopa got a job as a kitchen hand at the Centra Auckland Airport, earning $470 a week after tax, while Folole retrained in early childhood education at Auckland University, gaining a diploma.
She was one of the founders of the Congregational Christian Church childcare centre in Mangere, and loved her job. Her three eldest children were enrolled in one of Auckland's top state schools, Onehunga High. The couple applied several times for a Housing New Zealand home but were disqualified because their combined income was too high.
They ended up renting a basic brick home in Mangere Bridge, an expensive suburb in real estate terms, paying $290 a week, rising to $300, to a private landlord. They received a family benefit, but Lopa says money was always tight. They had about $100 a week to pay for food, petrol and bus fare for the children.
Folole's weight had ballooned again, and her health was suffering. She had heart and lung problems and by February this year, she was no longer able to sit on the mat and read to the children at the childcare centre. She reluctantly agreed to take three months off. Lopa had to cut back on his hours to help look after her and the children.
Folole didn't tell many people about her problems. "I didn't know she was sick," says Orita Sione, a school teacher in Apia and Folole's best friend.
But she confided in her sister, Suisala.
"I talked to Folole on the phone, and she told me to search for help, for traditional Samoan medicine," Suisala says.
The plants and herbs used by traditional doctors could not be taken into New Zealand, she says, but were sometimes boiled into a liquid and smuggled in. But that did not happen.
"We were too busy here. It's hard for us here to prepare things to take to her. She said, 'it's all right, I'm in the hospital now'."
Folole, who spent a month in Middlemore Hospital, was not the first member of her family to receive hospital treatment in New Zealand. Her mother, Fa'asalafa, had three operations for the fatal tumour in her stomach, the first two in Samoa, paid for by the family, and the third at Middlemore, at the expense of the Samoan government.
Lopa says his wife received "very good healthcare" and she was "very strong" when she was released from Middlemore on May 11.
"I said, 'are you all right?' and she said, 'yeah I'm all right'. The doctor said, 'make sure you have your oxygen'."
Doctors had assessed her condition as chronic, in the mildly stressful category, rather than acute and life- threatening, and had given her a mains-powered oxygen machine, with a nose tube fitting, which was supposed to help her breathe rather than keep her alive.
But Folole saw it as her lifeline. Lopa says Folole "never missed her oxygen", using it around the clock.
The family had been getting behind with power and telephone bills. The phone was disconnected about a week before Folole died.
Lopa tried to sort out a payment plan with Mercury Energy, but it was not interested, a call-centre worker telling him they couldn't deal with him because his name was not on the bill.
On May 29, a contractor disconnected the family's power and within a few hours, Folole, who had been home with eldest son Ietitaia, was dead, aged 44.
"That never would have happened here," says Sione, Folole's school teacher friend.
"We can negotiate things with people."
Samoa's Electric Power Corporation provides some of the cheapest electricity in the islands. Householders purchase units of electricity in advance. "Three weeks ago I bought 100 talas' worth ($47) and I still have 40 units left," says Komiti, Folole's relative in the prime minister's department.
Komiti flew to New Zealand for Folole's funeral. "I heard the eulogies and that was the Folole I knew, who would not ask for help even when she was in dire need."
He says there were networks available to her and her family, "but she was a proud person".
Lopa says he and his wife didn't know where to turn for help. One place they could have gone was the Lafitaga welfare centre in Auckland, set up by Fa'amausili Tuilimu Solo Brown, who won a Queen's Service Medal in 2001 for her community work, but returned permanently to Samoa the following year.
Brown, also a justice of the peace in New Zealand, is one of only two women judges at the Land and Titles Court in Apia.
She says Lafitaga, which sees 70,000 people a year, could have helped the Muliagas with their power bill. She was shocked by Folole's experience.
"I can imagine that happening maybe in Papua New Guinea, but not New Zealand. It's appalling."
She believes Samoans who struggle in New Zealand should come home.
"When I was in New Zealand I was advising people to come back to Samoa, especially when they don't have jobs. Being on a benefit is worse, they might as well come home and work the land. It's a beautiful place, we can lead a good life here."
That was a theme common among Samoans who had returned home after many years abroad.
Eileen Taeleipu, who was raised in Christchurch but now runs her own business just out of Apia, says many of her countrymen and women go to New Zealand expecting too much and are shocked by the reality. "They go from a freehold piece of land with a house to staying in a garage in an overcrowded situation."
And many refuse to adapt to the New Zealand way of life. "My dad lived in New Zealand for 40 years and was still living like a Samoan. He would make us all live Samoan inside the house, and palagi outside, only because we had to."
This included a rigid attitude to discipline, Taeleipu says. "What you would call child abuse in New Zealand was just normal Samoan discipline."
She says that while women like Folole had to go to work to help support their families, and women's rights were progressing, "I don't think we're considered equal here. Typical Samoan women are selfless, their children come first."
Brown says too many Samoans rely on remittances from family overseas. "Instead of going to the land and working the land, they are just waiting for the money to arrive."
Despite the problems many of them encounter, a steady stream of Samoans continue to leave behind their homeland in search of opportunities overseas.
At Faleolo Airport, friends and family gather to farewell passengers on a 2am flight to Niu Sila. Two young women in traditional dress are in tears in the departure lounge and on the steps to the plane, turning to wave goodbye to their family.
Two men from rural Samoa who have obviously never flown before wear their anxiety on their faces. Lucia Filipo, 60, from Apia, crosses herself when the plane takes off and clutches rosary beads as it descends into Auckland.
Some of these people are visiting family, others are on work visas, while some are starting a new life. All have big hopes and dreams, some will achieve them. Hopefully, none will end up like Folole Muliaga.
Samoans in Aotearoa
# Samoans are the single largest Pacific ethnic group, comprising 115,000 or 50% of NZ's Pacific population.
# 58% of the total Samoan population in NZ was born here.
# Most Samoans (66%) live in Auckland, or Wellington (17%).
# 90% of Samoans in New Zealand speak English.
# 90% are Christians.
# 30% of Samoans in New Zealand live in an extended family situation, compared to 8% of the NZ population.
# 17% of Samoans hold a post-school qualification, compared to 32% of the total population.
# 56% of Samoan adults are employed, up from 43% in 1991. 16% were unemployed, compared to only 7% of the total population.
# The most common occupation for Samoans is plant and machine operators (19%), clerks (18%) and service and sales workers (16%).
# Samoans born here are more likely than their overseas-born counterparts to be employed in white-collar jobs such as legislators, administrators and managers (7% and 4%), professionals (10% and 7%) and associate professionals (14% and 7%).
# The Samoan adult population has a median annual income of $15,600, compared to $18,500 for the rest of the population.
# 60% of Samoans are in rental housing, compared to 33% of the total population. Of those, 46% are in Housing New Zealand accommodation, down from 60% in the mid-90s.
# 86% of Samoan households have telephones, compared to 96% of the total population.
# Figures are from the 2001 census, the most recently published census figures
#########################################################################
The report found the following, that the major impacts of globalization in the Pacific were, number one, rapid increase in extreme poverty; and number two, destabilization of governments. After decades of failed economic development and stagnant private investment, we see now the rapid rise of extreme poverty in the Pacific. 40% of the peoples of Vanuatu live in poverty. 48% in Samoa. Over 50% in Kiribati. “The Island of Hope” documented that the primary cause of poverty in the Pacific relates to globalization, and that this rise in poverty is interlinked with the adoption by national governments of liberal policies promoting investment and competition, and this has operated to the detriment of social services, including health, education, housing, and social welfare.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/23/1446238&mode;=thread&tid;=25#transcript
8/4/07
Pasifika - Identity or illusion?
When I was growing up in Mangere I saw the old divisions whenever the pathetically self-aggrandising Samoan-dominated Coconut Chicanos and Tongan Mafia staged an all-in bash. It's no secret South Auckland was an unstable, often violent, place to be from the early 70s to mid-80s. Mushrooming housing developments were filled by the constant flow of young families eager to swap fales for factories, who seemed completely unprepared for the culture shock lying in wait most fundamentally the shift from the tight community-based welfare state to western DIY individualism. Toss in dawn raids, crime, language barriers and vast lifestyle differences, and it's hard not to think it was some monstrous social experiment.
5:00PM Saturday August 04, 2007
By Alan Perrott
You are New Zealand-born, perhaps your parents are, too, but your ancestral home is a dot in the Pacific. How do you describe yourself?
It doesn't feel right to see renaissance and decline within the same beatific smiles, but there they are staring out from a string of toothy photographs. We're inside a new entrants' class at Ponsonby's Richmond Road School and these particular knee-high year-ones are midway through their first year at the Samoan bilingual unit.
Most of these 24 faces belong to second- or third-generation New Zealand-born Samoans, only four are what their teacher calls "full-blooded". The remainder reflect this country's increasingly muddled gene pool; there's Lilly's pale features (her parents are Samoan and Danish) and closer to the window is Kalden, his face a fascinating blend of Samoan, European and Vietnamese. All have been enrolled in this class because their parents believe early exposure to Samoan language, values and spirituality will help the children unravel who they are, where they come from, and how they fit in.
For some among their influential, inner-city parents, it's also about local bragging rights and giving something back to their culture, even if, for some, that culture has become rather distant.
But the kids ... If there is such a thing as a developing Pasifika culture, these will be its faces.
Pasifika is an odd term, and one gaining increasing currency outside the annual festival at Western Springs. Essentially, its the samoanisation of a Portuguese nod to the Latin phrase Mare Pacificum, or peaceful sea, so named by navigator Ferdinand Magellan. In this country it has become an umbrella term for everyone living here with traceable Pacific island heritage. You'll find it touted enthusiastically by governmental social ministries and schools. Once were islanders, Polynesians, PIs, Pacific peoples and so on, now are Pasifika.
But it is also the label given to what some believe is a new indigenous culture emerging among New Zealand-born Pacific Islanders. As evidence, they point to our rapidly browning popular culture - think shows like bro'Town, groups such as Nesian Mystik, most of the All Black backline, tapa cloths on the lounge wall, established artists like John Pule, and the Otara flea markets tourist-destination status.
It's all vaguely interesting stuff to many palagi/pakeha New Zealanders such as me, but look beyond the surface trappings and you'll find the notion of Pasifika has sparked a vigorous, if softly spoken, debate within the communities it is reputedly uniting.
When I was growing up in Mangere I saw the old divisions whenever the pathetically self-aggrandising Samoan-dominated Coconut Chicanos and Tongan Mafia staged an all-in bash. It's no secret South Auckland was an unstable, often violent, place to be from the early 70s to mid-80s. Mushrooming housing developments were filled by the constant flow of young families eager to swap fales for factories, who seemed completely unprepared for the culture shock lying in wait most fundamentally the shift from the tight community-based welfare state to western DIY individualism. Toss in dawn raids, crime, language barriers and vast lifestyle differences, and it's hard not to think it was some monstrous social experiment.
Now, for all those excitedly anticipating the arrival of something fresh and free of Polynesian conservatism, just as many mourn the passing of what made those eager immigrants who they were, and warn of yet another round of colonialisation. Except this time, the colonisers will most likely be their neighbours.
So, with these ideas in mind, the 5-year-olds of Richmond Road Schools Mua i Malae unit can be seen as both the potential continuance and conclusion of old ways. Their teacher, Ramona Tuai, hopes for the former, but fears the latter is inevitable. She was a student at the unit herself through to intermediate level and was coaxed back to teach instead of heading off to try her luck in the United States.
Her immediate worry is that most of her pupils are being raised by first-generation New Zealand Samoans whose parents arrived here with high hopes and a desire for their children to fit in and succeed. This was achieved by setting aside their own language and encouraging English at all times.
"I know that most, if not all, the parents in my class are trying to find themselves and root themselves in the Samoan culture," says Tuai. "Because they've lost touch with the culture from when they were younger ... the majority of the parents in my class cannot speak or hold an everyday conversation in Samoan, and if this is the case, how hard is it for the child to maintain the language and culture if it's not fluent at home?"
Despite her own bilingual education, Tuai abandoned her language during her teens. "At high school I never spoke a single word in Samoan to my parents and was ashamed to do fa'aSamoa [traditional] chores when it came to family gatherings. I lost interest in the culture and tried to fit into another culture, the American culture as seen on TV and through the radio. It wasn't until seventh form where my attitude changed and I was proud to be Samoan. I became fluent again because it was never lost. It was still in me but I was ashamed to use it."
Tuai says Census results showing that a steady 67 per cent of Samoans in this country can hold a casual conversation in the language is "wishful thinking". "I have friends who think if they can understand and answer in broken Samoan then they can hold an everyday conversation in Samoan, which is not the case."
Then there is the issue of numbers. Census figures show this country's population of New Zealand Pacific people is about 260,000, of whom about half are Samoan, a total predicted to reach 520,000 by 2021, a faster rate of increase than that anticipated for Maori. Critics like to direct attention to the Samoans recruited into the All Blacks, but few mention that at the last world cup more than half of the Samoan national team were born in New Zealand.
However, as Tuai's class shows, the old ethnic lines have been seriously breached within only two or three generations. Among the general population they remain an easily identifiable minority, so even though they and their parents are likely to have been born in this country, they still face the old question: Where are you from? Identity becomes a highly personal issue when it's pushed in your face this way, especially when you've lost the language connection, and it is raising unexpected dilemmas for multi-ethnic families.
One of Tuai's relatives is married to a Tongan and they have two children. They both want their children to retain some connection to their heritage so one is with a Samoan bilingual class, the other with a Tongan class. Making the best of both worlds? Maybe, but encouraging such fractured identities risks problems. Perhaps a new Pasifika blend may emerge as an all-embracing convenience.
These inter-connections are raising big questions for Nesian Mystik rapper Feleti Strickson-Pua, who has Samoan, Chinese and English heritage. "It's already becoming a big question for my son [Cheden] as well, and he's only 4. We were at preschool and he came up to me: 'This person is American, that person is a Chinaman ... what am I?' I said, 'Actually, you were born here and so was I. This is home. But where our people come from, that's different.'
"I get asked the question myself and say I'm Samoan-Chinese and English. Then I get the 'Well, where were you born?' question. I say here and they say, then, you're a Kiwi. I didn't think people would be offended by that. But I think it's quite funny because wherever I go in the world, where my passport says I was born and who I am will always be different things."
Yet, even Strickson-Puas self-determined criteria can raise more questions than answers. The 23-year-old has been to Samoa twice and spent time at his grandparents' village, but felt there was a connection missing which went beyond language. "It was really weird, as much as it felt like home, it felt really distant as well." And he was still being asked what he was, how he fitted in: "So I told them I was afakasi, a half-caste."
How many identities does he need? Feleti has also visited England to see his mother's family but found the vibe there even more alien despite an equal genetic connection. It's so far away and the notion of family seemed far more diffuse.
Reactions to his music also differ. Although Nesian Mystik got major community kudos for their first album because it featured strong Pacific flavours, Feleti says they had a lot of criticism for not "representing" again on their second. Too bad, he says, all they wanted to do was "represent" themselves. Figuring out that one is clearly a work in progress. Feleti's father the Rev. Mua Strickson-Pua says it's a small-scale example of what is occurring at a generational level: "I think New Zealand is starting to have its true growing pains."
Ruth Talo, 25, is another with multiple cultural personalities. She was raised by her Maori mother after her Samoan father left and moved to Australia. She is a Pacific Liaison Officer at Auckland University where she is completing a Masters in Geography, roles that are making her increasingly conscious of her internal blending. She refers to herself as "Samaori": "Otherwise, I don't know what I am really. I acknowledge both sides, but just from being at university I've started to learn how to embrace my cultures a lot better."
Even so, she says she still finds herself adopting different personae depending on to whom she is talking. "It's almost like acting", she says. "I like to think I've got the best of both worlds, but sometimes I find myself torn between what to do and what to say. I don't speak either [Samoan or Maori] and the music I listen to isn't what PIs are supposed to listen to; I love stuff like [dour English group] Portishead. So I find sometimes I have to basically become someone else to fit in. But I'm in catch-up mode, I want to learn more about who I am. My best friend is Tongan, and she helps me out with the cultural side. So sometimes it's like I feel like I'm Tongan because I really enjoy hanging out with her. All those lines are being crossed now."
Personal evolution is one thing, but Dr Melani Anae, a senior lecturer at Auckland University's Centre for Pacific Studies and member of 70s activists the Tama Toa Brown Panthers, is one who believes Pasifika has become a label of convenience, a new administrative stereotype that enables different Pacific cultures to be lumped within one easily tickable box. She is also unsurprised the recent New Zealand-born generations are flapping for an identity as they have no relevant leaders or role models to look up to apart from musicians, artists and sports figures.
Their lifestyle cues now come from American hip-hop videos and a naive notion of gangster glamour, so if there is something new rising, she worries it will lack the traditional concepts of spirituality, and the paired principles of tautua (to serve) and fa'aaloalo (respect) that are considered the foundations of the ideal Samoan character. "Maintaining those traditions are still what it takes to succeed in a New Zealand context, but other factors and issues have come up for the new generations which are not the same, and they account for the appalling position of our youth today," says Anae.
A Ministry of Justice conference last month heard that although Pacific people make up 7 per cent of the New Zealand population, they provide 11 per cent of our prison population and 13 per cent of convicted violent offenders. Anae directs much of the blame at the Pacific Island leadership in this country: "Too many of our so-called leaders are just in it for a job, I'm talking about politicians from the highest level down."
She says no one is listening to the New Zealand-born generations: advisory committees drawn from the old establishment and new arrivals from the islands write piles of reports while the growing middle-class of non-fluent professionals remain sidelined, she says. "It's somehow assumed we New Zealand-born have become part of the mainstream." Even in the church, she says, the 20 or so ministers who have come through the system here have ended up with non-Samoan congregations because Pacific churches get ministers from the islands trained in dated "hellfire and brimstone" theology.
How does Pasifika look from other parts of the Pacific? Dr Okusitino Mahina is Tongan-born, lectures in social anthropology at the University of Auckland, and is "feasting" on the rapid cultural shifts happening on his doorstep. But although it's providing plenty of academic fodder, he considers Pasifika as something of a Trojan horse, as well as a defensive reaction to this country's official biculturalism.
Standing separately, the various Pacific communities are easily lost in the bicultural debating, but together they can shout: "Oi, don't forget us, were here, too."
Mahina's concern, however, is that increasing reference to Pasifika is homogenising the Pacific. "It's becoming a reality that whenever something is considered Pasifika, in reality it is Samoan, and by being seen as Pasifika, we are being seen as Samoan. So there is some antagonism, because we all hold different views, we all have different histories, we have different cultures, and we speak different languages."
As noted, Pasifika is a Samoan version of Pacific. Tongans would say it as Pasifiki. "So, who created the label?" asks Mahina. "The Samoans. And why? Because they have the most numbers in New Zealand and they have the most power ... the irony of the matter, and we may not even be conscious of it, is that we are doing to ourselves exactly what we don't like other people doing to us. It's like we have a set a trap and caught ourselves ... we are becoming sucked into becoming Samoan."
Herald columnist Tapu Misa, who came from Samoa as an 8-year-old, prefers a more optimistic and inclusive view. "[Pasifika] is pan-Pacific ... and the reason I say that, is that the idea of being a Pacific Islander - rather than a Samoan - is one that's evolved here as well. Despite the ructions between different Pacific groups in the early days, most second- or third-generation PIs have more in common with each other than they do with their own ethnic group in the islands. What connects us as PIs are the common experiences of being PI in New Zealand."
"In the same way, you will find that Pacific identity forging, or reforging, connections with Maori. For example, some urban Maori who don't have a strong Maori cultural base, more readily identify with their urban Pacific brothers and sisters than with the members of their own tribe. It's about common experiences plus the fact that Pacific culture is more accessible to them. The interesting thing is that it is also more accessible to Pakeha/Palagi.
"I think Pacific culture is the glue, the unifying, connective tissue between Maori and Pakeha culture. You don't have to be Pasifika/PI to claim it as your own; it offers a New Zealand/Pacific identity that it is inclusive of everyone, including Pakeha New Zealanders and potentially Asian New Zealanders, too, but not so much for new arrivals because they still have a strong connection to their home cultures."
But if Pasifika is destined to pull everyone together here, it may push them apart back in the islands. Reports from those who attended the premiere of Sione's Wedding in Apia last year suggest members of the Samoan elite are keen to follow the lead of their New Zealand counterparts. Albert Refiti, head of spatial design at Auckland University of Technology, noted one incident. "There was an old guy there, a classic guy in his lavalava. In the middle of the movie he loudly said: 'How come these people go to New Zealand and come back and they still look ugly?' About 40 per cent of the audience laughed, but the other 60 were very uneasy - they were the people who want to embrace this flash new Pasifika culture; it embodies who they aspire to be. They can identify with all the exciting things the culture here has to give, which remain frowned upon over there.
"You have to remember that [the people behind Sione's Wedding] are young guys. Over in Samoa they wouldn't be running around like they do in the movie. First and foremost they would have to serve the village and the family, but here they were doing all this stuff that denigrated all those traditional protocols."
Back at Richmond Road School, Ramona Tuai is aware of the difficulty fitting traditional values into modern life. Those raised with unfettered internet access and cell-phones, feel the old ways stultifying and demanding. Most women in her family have tertiary qualifications and are making their own way in life, yet they are still expected to obediently submit to the decisions of elders and chiefs. Her pupils' parents belong to her generation, and where traditionalists see tried and true protocols, they see only "headaches".
"There's the money-giving for funerals and to the church, bringing families across and ensuring that the family is catered for back in Samoa, all that stuff," Tuai says. "It's an imposition ... You're working long hours and you've made a success of yourself in your own right, then you're still being told what to do by your father or an elder. So we've almost gone 360, from our parents dropping the language for us to be successful, to now being expected to retain all those 'sharing and giving' values of being Samoan and still be successful. That's so hard these days; they are not notions these kids relate to now."
But these kids at the Samoan bilingual unit don't seem remotely worried about keeping any cultural torches burning. The only future on their minds is the imminent lunchtime bell.
Brotha D, Danny Leaosavaii
Co-founder of Dawn Raid Entertainment
The old traditionalists and the New Zealand-born both argue that they are Pasifika and that's all there is to it. I'm staunch in the old ways as well, but at the same time you have to recognise where we are now and where this country is heading. Every new generation brings its own twist to everything - you have to move forward. Now I'm about to have a baby and I'm looking back at my own experience of watching everything change. But my baby's experience will be different again and probably even faster. That's great, but I believe strongly that we should not abandon our old ways. We know the experience of Maori, almost losing their language - that's one thing I never want to see happen. I know some people think it's a waste of time, but I want to start teaching my child Samoan from day one. Children must understand that culture is alive and vital so that they can instill it in their kids. I was born in Samoa and came here when I was 1, but it wasn't until 1999, when I went back, that I understood who I am. To hear those old stories: "This is the house you were born in". It was this little shack and I was like, 'wow'. "And that's the plantation your mum and dad worked." I thought, "How the hell did they get us to New Zealand? How did they just up and leave this?" And I remember how hard they were living when they arrived here. From that day on I understood who I am as a Samoan living in New Zealand.
Luamanuvao Winnie Laban
New Zealands first female Pacific Island MP
Pasifika has come to represent anything of Pacific origin - whether it be music, fashion, art, design, style - in New Zealand. I am of Pasifika origin, but labels like that don't have much meaning for me. It's a modern label, a short-cut way of identifying people or things from the Pacific, but in reality there are as many differences, as there are similarities, between all the different Pacific peoples and things. Such fashions and labels come and go. Once "Coconut" was a term of abuse, now some Pacific people are happy to say they are "proud Coconuts". New Zealand's Pacific population is growing, most of those living here were born here, are under 20, and English is their first language. So New Zealand's future is as a Pacific nation. I was made in Samoa, born in New Zealand, and have Samoan, European, and Jewish ancestors. This is a Pacific nation, it is my place of belonging. I am a proud New Zealander and a Woman of the Pacific.
Teuila Blakely
Actor
It's a living thing, it's something here in the present. A lot of [Pacific island] kids may not go to the islands in their lifetime and they can't say they've had the experience of living and growing up there. We're Pacific kids in New Zealand and that's a great thing. The environment here is completely different, so our culture is going to have to evolve ... my mum's from Samoa and my dad's from Central Otago. My mum is very traditional, I was bought up with a lot of Samoan culture, so going to Samoa was amazing. I actually did have a connection with the place and I know it sounds really cliched, but it was a spiritual connection. I thought, "Yeah, wow, this is the land where my ancestors lived." I loved that, and I felt like I understood my mum a lot more. Growing up with a Samoan mum here can be very confusing, so to see the place where she came from and the homes she lived in, I thought, "Oh my God, I so get it now." So, yeah, it was a beautiful place, but it's not my home, it's the home of my ancestors and so is New Zealand. I love it that people hold on to their cultures here and still live together. New Zealand is an island in the Pacific, so when you talk about Pasifika, we are all part of it.
David Fane
Actor and comedian
It exists, but it's just the changing of the guard. Because the islanders you see today were born and bred here and they don't share that affinity with the homelands, they've become a subculture. In New Zealand when people ask me where I'm from, I say Samoa, that's where my gene pools from. But if I go to Samoa, I'm always from New Zealand, and that's fine, too. With Pasifika, I think it's the young ones getting all het up - "where's my place to stand? My turangawaewae?" You just stand where you feel happy, you know? If its causing you that much grief, do yourself a service and stop breathing. There has to be cultural change, there are things that will be stripped down and you always need to lose the chaff in anything - the stuff that isn't important or causes harm. That stuff will go, but the essence will remain. My wife's European, we've got two kids, and they are asking "what's my culture?" To me they'll always be Samoan and to my wife they're European, so I say just take the best from everything. If you try to get all finicky about it, people will just get hurt and [cultures] will suffer; they only survive because of what they give to people and fa'aSamoa has given to thousands people for 3000 years. Let's wait and see where its at in this country in another thousand.
6/24/07
Terrorist Attack on Aborigines The Act Of Terror That Initiated The Aboriginal Holocaust
dont forget to check out Tyson Yunkaporta's excellent and elucidate site:
http://aboriginalrights.suite101.com/
© Tyson Yunkaporta
May 29, 2006
Was Australia's first Governor, by empirical definition and his own admission, a terrorist? And how does our current government compare?
Acknowledging The Thin Ice
Firstly I should say that I am not making arbitrary judgements and opinionated claims here. I am aware that painting the "early settlers" and "brave old pioneers" of colonial mythology as terrorists - the ultimate 21st century bogeyman - is tantamount to treason and strikes at the heart of dominant cultural identity. I really don't need to be lynched right now, so I will just stick to the facts, quotes and definitions. I apologise for any offense, but I am not changing history here - merely quoting it as it is recorded.
"Universal Terror" Statement
The quote (1790) from Governor Phillip that drew my attention and inspired this article is as follows:
"...strike a decisive blow, in order, at once to convince them of our superiority, and to infuse an universal terror."
Now, if I hadn't already situated this quote in an historical context, you may have imagined the words to be from some stereotypical fanatical Middle Eastern despot hiding out in a cave. You may have felt outrage, and immediately felt protective or supportive towards the intended victims of this "universal terror". But if you know that this quote is from the first British Governor of Australia, and is referring to the first planned military attack on Aboriginal people, do you still feel the same way? Surely you must.
Terrorism, By Definition
Keeping this feeling in mind, consider also that terrorism is generally accepted as the use of violence, or the threat of violence, in a civilian community to force political or religious change. Could Governor Phillip's statement and actions fit this definition? Could his orders to capture two Aborigines and decapitate ten more randomly from a targeted tribe be construed as an act of violence against a civilian community to force political change? Arguably, yes.
British Humanitarian Guidelines
But wasn't he just following orders? Not necessarily. The British Government repeatedly insisted that the colony be founded based on mutual agreement between natives and settlers as to areas of settlement, and continually stressed that force was not to be used. Even Captain Cook's first voyage included the following guidelines:
* "To have it still in view that shedding the blood of those (Aboriginal) people is a crime of the highest nature."
* "They are the natural, and in the strictest sense of the word, the legal possessors of the several Regions they inhabit."
* "No European nation has a right to occupy any part of their country, or settle among them without their voluntary consent."
* "Conquest over such people can never give just title..."
* "They may naturally and justly attempt to repel intruders..."
If this was indeed the attitude of the British administration that sent the colonists to Australian shores, then why the subsequent genocide? Why the Governor's blatant refusal to follow policy and instead decide to "infuse an universal terror"? Well, I don't speak for these people, so it's not my place to answer these questions.
But the fact remains that, as the systematic annihilation of Indigenous peoples on this continent was not sanctioned by the invaders' Government, then by definition the colony was built on, at worst, murder, or at best, war crimes.
Australian Survival
It is possible that, at some level, everybody is aware of this. This might explain the fanatical and often violent opposition that still occurs towards any suggestion of Aboriginal Rights and Native Title. The stain of guilt is there, just below the surface, and to reveal it would be to destroy the nation's identity. Opposing Indigenous rights is therefore seen as a matter of ethnic survival for the dominant culture, and as such, violent or fanatical opposition is to be expected. But does any of this opposition these days still take the form of terrorism?
Scenarios For Discussion
We would have to examine individual cases of political actions in Indigenous communities to discover that. I will give a sample scenario below, for you to practise on. Compare the scenario to the definition of terrorism in the 5th paragraph, or even substitute an alternative definition. Please feel free to post your analysis or opinion in the discussion section below. Also feel free to post other scenarios for analysis, from anywhere around the world where suspected acts of terrorism are being committed against Indigenous people.
Scenario One
An Indigenous community is pressured by Australian government representatives to give approval for a tavern to be built in what is currently a dry town. Three referendums are held on the question, and the unanimous community response each time is "no!", despite a lot of pro-alcohol campaigning. Eventually the tavern is built anyway, against the wishes of the community. A few years later the government decides to take what it calls "tough measures" against the same community with regard to welfare and crime, in response to horrific problems caused by chronic alcoholism. Graphic reports of individual cases of child abuse by Indigenous alcoholics are presented in the media to shock the wider community into accepting the "tough measures" as the preferred solution. Could any element of this scenario be described as an act of terror?
http://aboriginalrights.suite101.com/
© Tyson Yunkaporta
May 29, 2006
Was Australia's first Governor, by empirical definition and his own admission, a terrorist? And how does our current government compare?
Acknowledging The Thin Ice
Firstly I should say that I am not making arbitrary judgements and opinionated claims here. I am aware that painting the "early settlers" and "brave old pioneers" of colonial mythology as terrorists - the ultimate 21st century bogeyman - is tantamount to treason and strikes at the heart of dominant cultural identity. I really don't need to be lynched right now, so I will just stick to the facts, quotes and definitions. I apologise for any offense, but I am not changing history here - merely quoting it as it is recorded.
"Universal Terror" Statement
The quote (1790) from Governor Phillip that drew my attention and inspired this article is as follows:
"...strike a decisive blow, in order, at once to convince them of our superiority, and to infuse an universal terror."
Now, if I hadn't already situated this quote in an historical context, you may have imagined the words to be from some stereotypical fanatical Middle Eastern despot hiding out in a cave. You may have felt outrage, and immediately felt protective or supportive towards the intended victims of this "universal terror". But if you know that this quote is from the first British Governor of Australia, and is referring to the first planned military attack on Aboriginal people, do you still feel the same way? Surely you must.
Terrorism, By Definition
Keeping this feeling in mind, consider also that terrorism is generally accepted as the use of violence, or the threat of violence, in a civilian community to force political or religious change. Could Governor Phillip's statement and actions fit this definition? Could his orders to capture two Aborigines and decapitate ten more randomly from a targeted tribe be construed as an act of violence against a civilian community to force political change? Arguably, yes.
British Humanitarian Guidelines
But wasn't he just following orders? Not necessarily. The British Government repeatedly insisted that the colony be founded based on mutual agreement between natives and settlers as to areas of settlement, and continually stressed that force was not to be used. Even Captain Cook's first voyage included the following guidelines:
* "To have it still in view that shedding the blood of those (Aboriginal) people is a crime of the highest nature."
* "They are the natural, and in the strictest sense of the word, the legal possessors of the several Regions they inhabit."
* "No European nation has a right to occupy any part of their country, or settle among them without their voluntary consent."
* "Conquest over such people can never give just title..."
* "They may naturally and justly attempt to repel intruders..."
If this was indeed the attitude of the British administration that sent the colonists to Australian shores, then why the subsequent genocide? Why the Governor's blatant refusal to follow policy and instead decide to "infuse an universal terror"? Well, I don't speak for these people, so it's not my place to answer these questions.
But the fact remains that, as the systematic annihilation of Indigenous peoples on this continent was not sanctioned by the invaders' Government, then by definition the colony was built on, at worst, murder, or at best, war crimes.
Australian Survival
It is possible that, at some level, everybody is aware of this. This might explain the fanatical and often violent opposition that still occurs towards any suggestion of Aboriginal Rights and Native Title. The stain of guilt is there, just below the surface, and to reveal it would be to destroy the nation's identity. Opposing Indigenous rights is therefore seen as a matter of ethnic survival for the dominant culture, and as such, violent or fanatical opposition is to be expected. But does any of this opposition these days still take the form of terrorism?
Scenarios For Discussion
We would have to examine individual cases of political actions in Indigenous communities to discover that. I will give a sample scenario below, for you to practise on. Compare the scenario to the definition of terrorism in the 5th paragraph, or even substitute an alternative definition. Please feel free to post your analysis or opinion in the discussion section below. Also feel free to post other scenarios for analysis, from anywhere around the world where suspected acts of terrorism are being committed against Indigenous people.
Scenario One
An Indigenous community is pressured by Australian government representatives to give approval for a tavern to be built in what is currently a dry town. Three referendums are held on the question, and the unanimous community response each time is "no!", despite a lot of pro-alcohol campaigning. Eventually the tavern is built anyway, against the wishes of the community. A few years later the government decides to take what it calls "tough measures" against the same community with regard to welfare and crime, in response to horrific problems caused by chronic alcoholism. Graphic reports of individual cases of child abuse by Indigenous alcoholics are presented in the media to shock the wider community into accepting the "tough measures" as the preferred solution. Could any element of this scenario be described as an act of terror?
5/25/07
No hope of assimilation without English: Racist Arse Wipe-Howard
25may07
INDIGENOUS Australians have no hope of being part of mainstream society unless they can speak English, Prime Minister John Howard said today.
Mr Howard today backed a proposal by Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough to ensure indigenous children in remote communities learn English.
“He's absolutely right,” Mr Howard told Southern Cross Broadcasting.
“Indigenous people have no hope of being part of the mainstream of this country unless they can speak the language of this country.”
Mr Howard said the best way to ensure indigenous children became proficient in English was to send them to school.
“If you require them to go to school they'll have to learn English,” he said.
The children of non-English speaking immigrants learnt English through their contact with the school system and so should indigenous children, Mr Howard said.
“In the case of indigenous people, none of them come to Australia as mature-aged people. They were all born in this country, in that sense they're different from migrants,” he said.
“The children of Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants are forced to learn English because they go to school. Equally, Aboriginal children should learn English because they should be required to go to school.”
- AAP
An Australian Aboriginal activist has labelled the Government's push to force Indigenous children to learn English as "racist".
Australia's Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough says Aboriginal children should learn English so they can get jobs and have more options in life.
He says he is considering quarantining welfare payments to ensure Aboriginal parents send their children to school.
Activist Sam Watson says the government is pinning the blame on the victims instead of helping them.
"I'm absolutely infuriated by this," he said.
"The Howard government seems to be inventing new ways and means of perpetually blaming Aboriginal people and showing cultural disrespect to Aboriginal people."
Tauto Sansbury from the Aboriginal Justice Advocacy Committee says the government proposal will take attitudes to Aborigines back 60 years.
He says it is insulting and reinforces old-fashioned stereotypes.
"They still want to treat Aboriginal people back in the 30s and 40s, where they're the master and we're the servant and our attitude is 'yes boss, we'll do what you want'," he said.
Central Australian Native Title holder Rosalie Kunoth-Monks says Mr Brough needs a reminder that he is not God.
She says Mr Brough should stop putting Aboriginal people down.
"To have the freedom in an affluent democratic country to speak your language as well as access that which is outside that will enable you to get jobs and so forth, we're well and truly aware of that," she said.
4/23/07
IMF plutocracy condemns developing world to misery
the paternalists who run the IMF — who are fixated on creating safe havens for foreign capital — cannot help micro-managing the economies of the poor nations, without reference to the needs of the people who live there
Published: Sunday, 22 April, 2007, 09:13 AM Doha Time
By George Monbiot
LONDON: The disease that afflicts all British governments is an inability to let go. Unable to accept the end of empire, they cling to past glories. However much they speak of modernity and democracy, they cannot help managing other people’s lives, preserving foreigners — often at gunpoint — from the mistakes they would make if they were allowed to govern themselves.
I was going to call this an imperial delusion, but Britain has been remarkably successful at defending its powers. The UK government has retained a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Its membership of the G8 is unchallenged. Most important, it has preserved its unwarranted share of the vote on the boards of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. And it has no intention of giving this up.
In advance of the IMF’s spring meeting (just concluded in Washington), France and Britain rejected any political reform to the organisation, which is charged with maintaining global financial stability.
It is true that the fund’s proposals are feeble. It is true that even after far more ambitious reforms the IMF would remain the wrong body, constitutionally destined to fail. But this is not why the British government is holding out. It is resisting change because it wants to preserve its imperial rank.
Britain, with 1% of the world’s population, has 5% of the IMF’s votes. Sub-Saharan Africa, with 12% of the population, has 4.6%. Britain’s share equals that of China and India put together. It is five times as big as Argentina’s, 19 times Bangladesh’s, 35 times Kenya’s, 124 times bigger than Malawi’s.
The G7 nations — Britain, the US, Japan, Germany, France, Canada and Italy — together possess 45% of the vote. The other 177 members are left to squabble over the remainder.
Even these numbers tell only half the story. The five countries with the biggest quotas — the US, Britain, Japan, Germany and France — are each allowed to appoint their own executive director to the IMF’s board. The rest must submit their candidates for election. Because poor nations don’t know what’s good for them, they are assigned to the tutelage of richer ones.
The votes of the English- speaking Caribbean countries are given to Canada. Mongolia is represented by Australia, Kazakhstan by Belgium. The reason that Britain and France are resisting even the most timid reforms is that these would tip them below the threshold for automatic election: like the other countries, they would be represented on the board as part of a bloc.
Power is distributed like this because the IMF is a plutocracy. A country’s vote represents its ‘quota’, which is allocated according to its gross domestic product. In theory, the quota reflects countries’ financial contributions to the fund. But this is no longer the case, as the IMF receives much of its income from loan repayments from poorer nations.
But the old formula has resisted 60 years of complaints. The result is that governments that are never made subject to the IMF’s strictures control it, while those whose countries have been reduced to an IMF franchise have no say in the way it is run. The allocation of votes is a perfect inversion of democracy.
A new report by ActionAid gives us a glimpse of how this unfair distribution of power affects the poor. After years of protest by poor countries and their supporters in the rich world, the IMF and the World Bank at last permitted the provision of healthcare and education without charge.
The rich nations also promised, in 2000, to ensure that by 2015 every child in the world would have primary education. It looked like a great victory for the global justice movement. But the IMF is ensuring that the promise won’t be met. It has, in effect, forbidden the poorest nations to hire sufficient teachers.
No one disputes that public-sector wage rises can contribute to inflation. No one denies that governments have to exercise some degree of restraint. But the paternalists who run the IMF — who are fixated on creating safe havens for foreign capital — cannot help micro-managing the economies of the poor nations, without reference to the needs of the people who live there. The limits they have imposed on the bill for public-sector pay ensure that schooling can’t be improved.
ActionAid studied three very poor countries with major education problems: Malawi, Mozambique and Sierra Leone. After fees were abolished (and when the civil war ended in Sierra Leone), vast numbers of pupils enrolled. But a combination of the rich nations’ failure to provide the foreign aid they had promised and the restrictions imposed by the IMF has prevented these countries meeting the new demand.
As a result, the pupil to teacher ratio in Sierra Leone is 57:1; in Malawi 72:1 and in Mozambique 74:1. That’s the average; in rural areas it can be much higher. Many of the teachers are untrained, and many give up because they cannot survive on their wages. In Malawi, the goods required for the most basic level of subsistence cost $107 a month. A trained teacher receives $55.
So crowds of pupils strain to hear a scarcely literate teacher somewhere in the middle distance seeking to instruct them without books, chalk, paper or pens. We should not be surprised to discover that 40% of children fail to complete primary school in Sierra Leone and Mozambique, and 70% in Malawi. Most of the drop-outs are girls.
As a result, these countries are stuck in a vicious circle of misery. Until education improves, GDP remains low. Until GDP rises, there is little money for education. As one of the agencies charged with rescuing countries from poverty, the IMF should be seeking to break this circle.
But the conditions it attaches to its loans keep these countries in their place. In Malawi the IMF sets the ceiling for public-sector wages directly; in Sierra Leone and Mozambique the broader macro-economic rules it imposes have the same effect.
ActionAid argues that these fiscal targets are outdated and unnecessary: all these countries have now achieved sufficient stability to start raising teachers’ pay. But in no case did the IMF consult either the public or the state’s own ministry of education before laying down the law.
The amount of money a teacher in rural Malawi is paid is decided by the men in London and Washington. Except for the district commissioners in pith helmets, little has changed since the country was called Nyasaland.
Last year Tony Blair acknowledged that the IMF “must become more representative of emerging economic powers and give greater voice to developing countries.”
But he just can’t let go. The proposed reforms do nothing to democratise the IMF: by linking the quota to purchasing power parity rather than raw GDP, they simply turn it into a more sophisticated plutocracy. But they could have the effect of very slightly empowering some middle-income countries while taking a few votes away from some of the rich ones. And even that is too much for the Emperor of Africa.
If the British government wants to help the poor, it must first give up its power to tell them how to live. Until that happens, everything the prime minister says about “partnership” and “solidarity” with the world’s oppressed is humbug. – The Guardian News & Media
3/27/07
Girls accept compensation for wrongful imprisonment
Cushla Fuataha, Lucy Akatere and Tania
Kavi were jailed for a crime they did not
commit
Girls accept compensation for wrongful imprisonment
11.40am Tuesday October 10, 2006
Three young girls jailed for a crime they did not commit have accepted an offer of compensation from the government. Tania Vini, Lucy Akatere and McCushla Fuataha have accepted compensation ranging between $162,000 and $176,000 each after a long battle for an increase on the initial amount offered.
Ms Vini will receive $176,621.36, Ms Akatere will receive $162,830.36, and Ms Fuataha will receive $165,330, Justice Minister Mark Burton said today.
The trio, then teenagers, were convicted in August 1999 for the aggravated robbery of a 16-year-old girl in Mt Roskill.
They served eight months in prison and were unable to finish school after being convicted of the gang attack and robbery of the teenage girl in Three Kings in August 1999.
They were acquitted in 2001, when the witness admitted she had lied, and the three were proven to have been nowhere near the scene.
After they were acquitted the government recommended compensation of $135,000 for Ms Vini and Ms Akatere and $137,500 for Ms Fuataha and a Government statement confirming their innocence. Later that month the Cabinet policy committee agreed to make an ex gratia payment in terms of the recommendation, on condition that the girls take no further legal action against the Crown. The trio turned down the offer.
- NZHERALD STAFF
_________________
Nau te rakau, naku te rakau, ka mate te hoariri
"Patience is a virtue of a revolution."
Tuiki said:
Go to this site and listen to the girls on the radio: http://www.radionz.co.nz/__data/assets/audio_item/624561/mnr-20061011-0707-Payout_Not_Enough_Claim_Lawyers-wmbr.asx
The money won't even buy them a house in Auckland. Yet this was an improvement on what they were offered earlier, which as their lawyer, Gary Gotlieb, said, would've been gobbled up in legal fees and costs (etc).
Backwards and forwards for packing boxes from the supermarket, I was busting for the loo, (I was moving out of Mt Roskill at the time) when the 3 Kings toilets area were cordoned off by the cops. Obviously they'd had their "culprits" and that was all they needed (bugger checking out the facts eh?) Prior to this, we'd had burglaries and I had a home invasion by girls roughly fitting their description.
Anyway, one of the girls was in her school uniform getting ready to go to class, when the cops knocked on the door and arrested her. She protested her innocence as did the others but never got to finish her education, (suspended from school because of the charges) so being Polynesian, without school quals, doesn't help get jobs. She says she's hoping to use the money for her children's future schooling, maybe to get the education she was denied.
If Tania Vini's father hadn't pushed it and Gotlieb hadn't seen the sincerity of the father and got the PI got involved, none of this would've come to light. Thank goodness she had a father's support, or they'd have been stuck in prison for the full sentence! Cops stuffed up those girls future.
Humiliated, these poor kids had had to strip naked in front of screws and made to use the toilet with mirrors in the toiltes and screws watching them. Imagine that for polynesian girls to go through.
I don't know if the complainant will be done for her filing false statement or perjury. We haven't been privy to what has happened with that girl. Who knows, maybe she's a psychiatric case?
Anyway the chief cop went to the wrongfully accused later, to formally apologise for the police not having done their job properly.
Quote:
Wrongly jailed women 'mistreated because young and brown', say lawyers [+audio] http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid;=10405371
Wednesday October 11, 2006
Lawyers claim three wrongly jailed women did not get higher compensation because of their age, race and social background.
Yesterday it was announced that Lucy Akatere, Tania Vini and McCushla Fuataha are to get payments ranging between $162,000 and $176,00.
Their lawyer Gary Gotlieb has said the compensation is not enough and he believed the girls had been "mucked around" because they were young and Polynesian.
Another lawyer, Peter Williams QC, who is also president of the Howard League for penal reform, said today there was "no doubt the colour of their skin" was a factor and if the women were people of high status their compensation would have been far greater.
Mr Williams told National Radio this morning: "I think there is a prejudice against people in what you may call the lower economic strata, I also think there is a prejudice against Maori people -- I think there is also a prejudice in this country against anyone who is a minority group."
The women each served seven months in prison after being falsely convicted of the aggravated robbery of a 16-year-old girl in an Auckland shopping mall in August 1999, before being cleared in 2001.
Mr Williams said an additional payment should be made because the amount was "very shabby".
Three previous legal opinions said the women should get at least $250,000 each and considering the length of time the payouts had taken with no interest the payout was inadequate, he said. However, he wasn't surprised by the outcome.
The women had been in prison as girls and suffered degradation and humiliation of imprisonment.
"I won't go into detail but some of it apparently was pretty awful, they'll have nightmares for the rest of their lives and this paltry sum that's been paid out is really very insignificant," he said.
'No evidence'
However, Justice Minister Mark Burton said there was no evidence of racism and the final figure was determined by an independent QC.
Mr Burton said independently appointed QC Kristy McDonald had looked at all facts of the case in 2003, made a recommendation that the Government accepted, and the offer was made. Subsequent court action caused the ongoing delays.
Ms Vini and Ms Fuataha were 14 at the time of their imprisonment and Ms Akatere was 15.
In October 2001 the Court of Appeal quashed the trio's convictions, offering them the court's sympathy saying they had been "let down by the system".
The women in 2003 rejected offers of between $135,000 and $137,500 in compensation, but decided to stop fighting for a higher figure in March.
The final payouts of $176,600 for Ms Vini, $162,800 for Ms Akatere and $165,330 for Ms Fuataha included pecuniary losses.
Mr Burton said the claims of racism were "generalistic" and a fair process was followed.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid;=10405371
_________________
"If you tremble of indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine."
Che Guevara
Kia Ora Tuiki
Yeah this has been a sorry saga indeed. Many of us here would know of many instances of police witnesses lying for the police so that the police can gain convictions....as to a percentage fitted up by the cops, I wouldnt hazard a guess.
The parents of the girls are awesome for standing by their daughters. They were 14 & 15 when this happened. I would agree with the comment from their lawyers about embedded institutional racism within the pakeha judical system.
Quote:
Their lawyer Gary Gotlieb has said the compensation is not enough and he believed the girls had been "mucked around" because they were young and Polynesian.
Another lawyer, Peter Williams QC, who is also president of the Howard League for penal reform, said today there was "no doubt the colour of their skin" was a factor and if the women were people of high status their compensation would have been far greater.
Mr Williams told National Radio this morning: "I think there is a prejudice against people in what you may call the lower economic strata, I also think there is a prejudice against Maori people -- I think there is also a prejudice in this country against anyone who is a minority group."
This is a country that is still in settler denial. Every institution that hides behind so called 'democracry' in NZ is just a front for fuckn white supremacy...Racist Land theiving, Genocidal Colonising bastards
_________________
Nau te rakau, naku te rakau, ka mate te hoariri
"Patience is a virtue of a revolution."
The worst thing about this kind of racism, is that Maori and civil libertarian lawyers who work with "offenders" know the police culture is racist and sexist. Civil Libertarians will tell you about the cops who spot Maori /Pacficans on the main Auckland city street (Queen St) will turn around to persue and 'question' those Polyesians.
The difference between the racism of the South and the discrimination here is that it is no longer as blatant as it was, when we took to the roads in the Land March of '75.
Even so, 30 years ago, a seafaring uncle (his mum a pom and father a rangatira) wasn't black enough for the black pubs in Apartheid Sth Africa. He also got kicked out of the whites pub for being coloured. He wasn't white enough. However he said Sth Africa was better than NZ, in that respect, simply because the racism was in his face, readily identifiable, unlike the more masked (hypocritical as you say) discrimination here!
http://www.police.govt.nz/resources/1998/maori-perceptions-of-police/maori-perceptions-of-police.pdf
"White supremists' as Uriohau says...
Tiuki wrote:
Civil Libertarians and lawyers such as Peter Williams know it's only too true, your korero ehoa. I saw Peter at the gas station on Tues but was too distracted to go over and say hello. He was once my father's lawyer and I liked his arguments this week on John Campbell's Crime & Punishment series on TV3 http://tv3.co.nz/News/tabid/67/articleID/14122/Default.aspx as well as his recent comments about the racism against the 3 Polynesian girls, wrongfully jailed for a crime they never did.
Aye cuzz
I watched these last night. All bar Peter are apologists for the system. Ron Mark goes down like "cold cup of sick'" and just writes off those of us at the bottom of the heap who are subject racist cops & their racist judical system. Is his mention of a "three strikes" policy part of his and that hukery mole helens solution to "youth crime". Im sure our Aocaf members from the US could tell us about the impact of that(policy) in non pakeha communities.
The other wahine advocated "intervention" (surveillence)from pregnancy. No korero at all about giving tautoko and empowering mothers and familes, no talk at all about useless (mainstream) schools where for years & years our tamariki have fallen out the other end. No talk at all about how generational welfare dependancy was created when Roger Doglas and the Slave labour party "restructured the economy". No talk at all about the ongoing genocide (cultural or otherwise).
You right Tuiki Peter for years has defended many Maori on "criminal" charges. His knowledge and experience of how Police and the judical system exercise their powers against Maori & PI is informed by his long advocacy on their behalf and his long time calls to reform the Pakeha Prison system.
The time has come though for whanau to speak directley about their suffering and living under endemic racism, and for us to stand up for our rights and Independence as Maori.
_________________
3/25/07
Number of Aborigines in prison stuns activist-Angela Davis
Number of Aborigines in prison stuns activist
Date: July 22 2005
By Liz Gooch
the Age
Despite spending 16 months in jail after being on the FBI's 10 most-wanted list, American civil rights activist Angela Davis was shocked when she first visited an Australian women's prison.
She was stunned by the high number of Aborigines in prison, which she likened to the high proportion of African-American prisoners in her homeland.
"As someone who spent a small portion of my life behind bars, I was reminded of the experiences I had over 30 years ago... and reminded of the fact that things have not really gotten any better. As a matter of fact, they are far worse," she said.
Now a professor of philosophy at the University of California Santa Cruz, she became synonymous with the American civil rights movement when she was arrested for murder in 1970. Professor Davis was accused of planning the kidnapping of three San Quentin prisoners from a courthouse and supplying the gun that killed four people during the incident.
She gained notoriety for her affiliation with the militant Black Panthers and membership of the Communist Party. Professor Davis spent two months in hiding before she was arrested and held in custody pending trial for murder, kidnapping and conspiracy. After a worldwide campaign, she was acquitted.
Racism may have become less overt in the 30 years since Professor Davis took up the fight for social justice, but racial barriers remain, she says.
"One can say people are equal before the law . . . but at the same time racism is inscribed in the very structures of the institutions, the structures of the prison, the structures of the university, so that race still matters a great deal," she said. In California, there were five times as many African-Americans in prison as attended university, she said.
Professor Davis is in Melbourne for a conference organised by lobby group Sisters Inside. She said prisons had become "dumping grounds" for people with mental health problems after psychiatric institutions were closed.
"You could argue that prisons serve as a dumping ground for people with all kinds of problems - health problems, housing problems, employment problems..." she said. "What the prison does is to shut away those people who have those problems so that the larger society no longer has to address the social problems."
While lamenting today's injustices, Professor Davis, says much progress has been made.
"I certainly have no regrets," she said. "I think the work that those of us did 30 years ago has had a profound impact on the way people think today. It may not have changed the structures and the institutions, it may not have revolutionised the entire globe, but you can see enormous changes."
http://www.sistersinside.com.au/
Prisons attract lawbreaking families to city
Quote:
As the poor & 'criminal' know, we are already living in a police state. With their (NZ pigs) long running campaign to vilify poor whanau (& this one) in particular. This provides the platform for them to ride roughshod of these and other whanau, purposely building (with the settler govt) a climate of fear within marginalized communities, and an excuse for applying over policing & excessive state force against communities already under siege, in some bald head report I read recently, there is a forecast, 25% increase in the prison population in Aotearoa in the next 4 years. State Oppression is big business alright.
Prisons attract lawbreaking families to city
Saturday November 4, 2006
Prisons on the outskirts of Christchurch are drawing families with criminal connections to the city and causing headaches for police.
They say there is a worrying trend of families with entrenched criminal behaviour and out-of-control children moving to Christchurch because of the men's, women's and youth prisons near Rolleston.
"A lot of people come to Christchurch from out of town," Inspector John Price told the Press. "They arrive, they don't have infrastructure and they're not accountable to other members of the family who might be a good influence."
The problem was typified by the gang-connected Kara family from Taranaki, he said.
The family moved to Christchurch after 14-year-old Renee Kara O'Brien was transferred to Christchurch Women's Prison to serve a life sentence for the murder of Waitara truck driver Ken Pigott.
Three years later, her younger brother, Ray Kara, 16, was involved with the unprovoked murder of Christchurch accountant Trevor Clague as he walked home.
"The Kara family is a classic case," Mr Price said. "At least up in Taranaki they had a support network. In Christchurch they don't."
He said Christchurch police were targeting the 10 worst families in the city with intensive monitoring and involving government agencies.
"We have very young children from the age of 10 who have learned behaviour about crime from their parents and older siblings. They have no clearly defined boundaries being set at home. Crime is seen as a viable option."
- NZPA
_________________
Nau te rakau, naku te rakau, ka mate te hoariri
"Patience is a virtue of a revolution."
He said Christchurch police were targeting the 10 worst families in the city with intensive monitoring and involving government agencies
As the poor & 'criminal' know, we are already living in a police state. With their (NZ pigs) long running campaign to vilify poor whanau (& this one) in particular. This provides the platform for them to ride roughshod of these and other whanau, purposely building (with the settler govt) a climate of fear within marginalized communities, and an excuse for applying over policing & excessive state force against communities already under siege, in some bald head report I read recently, there is a forecast, 25% increase in the prison population in Aotearoa in the next 4 years. State Oppression is big business alright.
Prisons attract lawbreaking families to city
Saturday November 4, 2006
Prisons on the outskirts of Christchurch are drawing families with criminal connections to the city and causing headaches for police.
They say there is a worrying trend of families with entrenched criminal behaviour and out-of-control children moving to Christchurch because of the men's, women's and youth prisons near Rolleston.
"A lot of people come to Christchurch from out of town," Inspector John Price told the Press. "They arrive, they don't have infrastructure and they're not accountable to other members of the family who might be a good influence."
The problem was typified by the gang-connected Kara family from Taranaki, he said.
The family moved to Christchurch after 14-year-old Renee Kara O'Brien was transferred to Christchurch Women's Prison to serve a life sentence for the murder of Waitara truck driver Ken Pigott.
Three years later, her younger brother, Ray Kara, 16, was involved with the unprovoked murder of Christchurch accountant Trevor Clague as he walked home.
"The Kara family is a classic case," Mr Price said. "At least up in Taranaki they had a support network. In Christchurch they don't."
He said Christchurch police were targeting the 10 worst families in the city with intensive monitoring and involving government agencies.
"We have very young children from the age of 10 who have learned behaviour about crime from their parents and older siblings. They have no clearly defined boundaries being set at home. Crime is seen as a viable option."
- NZPA
_________________
Nau te rakau, naku te rakau, ka mate te hoariri
"Patience is a virtue of a revolution."
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