Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
Green Left Weekly should be speaking out for the interests of Maori and Pakeha workers, not for Tariana Turia and Tuku Morgan!
YES TO THE HIKOI, NO TO THE MAORI PARTY
Occupy the Foreshore, not Cabinet!
An Open Letter to the editors of Green Left Weekly
Dear comrades,
We are writing to you about an article called ‘Maori Unite in New Party’, written by Jesse Butler and published in the July the 28th issue of your paper. Writing from Aotearoa for an Australian readership, Butler presents the Maori Party as a new progressive organisation which is uniting the radical left in the aftermath of the great hikoi (march) against Labour government attempts to steal the seabed and foreshore
from Maori.
The hikoi of 2004 has already taken its place alongside the anti-colonial wars of the nineteenth century, the General Strike of 1913, the great Waterfront Lockout of 1951 and the Great Land March of 1975 in the history of struggle against capitalism and imperialism in Aotearoa.
Desperate to court US imperialism and win a ‘free’ trade deal, Helen Clark’s Labour government has rushed legislation through parliament that guts Maori legal rights and opens the way to user-pays tourism and long-term seabed leases to multinational companies.
Supported by a minority of Pakeha and a few trade unions, Maori responded to Labour’s plans with a march on parliament that drew 45,000 protesters and shocked the political establishment and mass media.
But the Maori Party’s ‘hikoi to the ballot box’ is a betrayal rather than a continuation of the great march on Wellington. That march was only necessary in the first place because Maori members of parliament were unable to stop the continued globalisation of Aotearoa by Labour and its US imperialist friends.
As the workers of South America and Iraq are showing, it is the direct action of ordinary people which has the ability to stop imperialism in its tracks. The Maori Party will do nothing to build that sort of direct action, because it is dedicated to parliamentary politics and to capitalism.
‘ANTI-NEOLIBERAL' PARTY COULD WORK WITH BRASH
Jesse Butler repeatedly calls the Maori Party 'anti-neoliberal', but the party's senior leaders include Tuku Morgan, a former member of the neoliberal National administration of Jim Bolger. Tuku earned the contempt of many Maori and Pakeha workers when he was caught spending money meant for a Maori TV station on expensive clothes, including a $95 pair of undies. Tuku was thrown out of parliament by a massive swing in his Maori seat, yet today he is one of the movers and shakers in the Maori Party.
Tuku’s not the only Tory in the Maori Party leadership. The collection of the 500 signatures required to register the party was spearheaded by Sir Graham Latimer, a wealthy businessman with close links to the National Party and New Zealand's Pakeha capitalist elite. Party leader Tariana Turia has repeatedly reached out to National MP Georgina te Heuheu, asking her to stand as a Maori Party candidate and saluting the work she has done in parliament. On the 12th of June the New Zealand Herald quoted Tariana
calling te Heuheu ‘a role model of huge expertise’ and claiming that ‘I don’t think anyone would turn down someone of her value’.
Even worse, the Maori Party has said that it might put ultra-neoliberal National Party leader Don Brash into power after next year's elections. On the 10th of June, for instance, the Herald reported Tariana as justifying a possible coalition with National with the words ‘You can work alongside anybody if the cards are on the table in front of you’. Tariana and other leading Maori Party politicians have made dozens of similar statements to the media.
Don Brash's policies include the privatisation of key state assets, a cut in the top rates of income and company tax, cuts in social welfare benefits, and the privatisation by stealth of health and education services through measures like public-private funding of health and bulk funding of schools. Brash supports the US war in Iraq and favours the re-entry of New Zealand into ANZUS.
Jesse Butler claims that the ‘neo-liberal establishment is shaking in its boots’ at the sight of the Maori Party, but why should the ruling class be afraid of an outfit that includes the likes of Latimer and Tuku Morgan in its leadership, and offers the prospect of a coalition partner for National after next year’s election?
Butler writes that ‘Once the general public realise that the Maori Party offers an opposite pole to neoliberalism, its support will increase’. We think that the Maori Party will lose support, once Maori realise the journey the party leadership is making. As Jesse’s article points out, Don Brash's Maori-bashing was a big reason for the size and strength of the hikoi. Working class Maori who have broken with Labour over Labour’s seabed and foreshore legislation will surely be alarmed to see that ‘their’ new party considers Brash a possible political partner!
CAPITALISTS PART OF THE FAMILY?
It’s not as though the leaders of the Maori Party have made an effort to disguise their identification with capitalism. Speaking a couple of months ago to the Whanganui Maori Business Network, Tariana Turia introduced herself with the words:
"I’m really pleased to come back here to the Whanganui Mâori Business network and share some time with you. There’s nothing like your own to relax with, to negotiate ideas, to be challenged, to have a laugh, and just to be. That’s what being whânau is all about. It’s also just following the rules of being in business – knowing our connections, our relationships, our alliances formed with each other."
Tariana’s speech was promptly posted on the Maori Party website. Like the other leaders of her party, Tariana equates the interests of Maori capitalists with the interests of all Maori. Workers and bosses are bound together in one big happy whanau (family). The Maori Party’s overtures to the National Party are just an extension of its leadership’s overtures to Maori business.
UNITING THE LEFT?
Butler claims that the Maori Party offers 'anti-neoliberal groups’ in Aotearoa an ‘anchor’ to unite around, but he provides no evidence to back up his words.
Butler mentions that Alliance leader Matt McCarten headed Turia's by-election campaign, but he doesn’t mention that McCarten has defended the Maori Party’s overtures to National. In a letter to Alliance members justifying his decision to manage Tariana’s by-election campaign McCarten wrote that:
"...the Alliance has always taken the position that we will work with other parties if we think such activity supports our objectives and principles...In the past the Alliance also endorsed and helped a non-Alliance candidate in another by-election. In 1992 the Alliance supported the only other MP who resigned and went to their electorate for a new mandate - Winston Peters."
Many Green Left Weekly readers will know Winston Peters to be one of New Zealand’s most reactionary politicians, a National MP who left that party to form New Zealand First, an outfit which has fought successive elections on an anti-Asian, anti-immigration platform, and which formed a government with National in 1996. Not for nothing has Peters been called ‘the Pauline Hanson of New Zealand politics’. For most Alliance members, the by-election of 1992 is a black chapter in the party’s history. For McCarten, though, the 1992 campaign is a positive argument for involvement with the Maori Party today!
In the same letter McCarten writes that:
'You will remember that in the early days of the Alliance we never declared who our preferred coalition party would be...the Alliance was fatally compromised when it became taken for granted by Labour and consequently lost electoral support and the leverage to make sufficient policy wins. So strategically I can understand the position of the Maori Party.'
The Alliance split over the rightward trajectory of the government it had formed with Labour in 1999, and in particular over that government’s support for the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. For many Alliance members, the decision to go into government at the end of the 90s has become a lesson in the dangers of compromise with the capitalist state. For McCarten, though, the Alliance failed in the 90s because it was not ‘independent’ enough to make ‘strategic’ accommodations with the National Party!
McCarten’s involvement with the Maori Party has led to a crisis in the Alliance. Party President Jill Ovens has resigned, pointing out that the Maori Party's willingness to form a government with Brash is incompatible with the ‘Socialist Platform’ that the Alliance recently adopted. Many other members are deeply unhappy about the prospect of joining a party that may help put Don Brash into power next year.
Far from uniting us, the Maori Party is ripping one of the left’s larger organisations apart, at the very time when it had been reorganising itself and moving leftwards.
Green Left Weekly is published by the Democratic Socialist Platform/Party, which has had many informal ties with the Alliance over the years. McCarten has been a long-time member of the editorial board of the DSP’s theoretical journal, Links, and has appeared at a number of DSP conferences.
Given all this history, wouldn’t Green Left Weekly readers be interested in knowing about the ructions that McCarten’s involvement with the Maori Party has created in the Alliance? Surely you should be giving voice to the critics of McCarten and the Maori Party, who are arguing against the betrayal of basic left-wing principles?
AS 'DEMOCRATIC' AS THE LABOUR PARTY
Jesse Butler presents the Maori Party as a radically democratic organisation that will enfranchise Maori who are excluded by the structures as well as the policies of mainstream political parties. But a look at the rules adopted by the party at its recent founding hui (meeting) at Wanganui throws doubt on such claims.
The rules define the party’s objectives as nothing more than ‘the election of competent persons as parliamentary representatives’. No mention is made of encouraging or facilitating extra- parliamentary protest action, and a section on the ‘Resolution of differences’ states that ‘Disciplinary action may be brought against a member who wilfully undermines the party’s objectives’.
Under these rules it seems that members who didn’t believe in prioritising parliamentary campaigning could be suspended or expelled from the party. So much for any socialist faction of the Maori Party!
The rules state that the party will be run by an Executive Council made up of the President, two co-leaders, a secretary, a treasurer, a representative from each Rohe (electorate) committee, and ‘Other persons co-opted by the Council’.
The independence of each Rohe committee will be limited by the demand that its ‘activities and business’ must ‘at all times be consistent with the Party’s objectives’, i.e. the winning of seats in parliament. Each Rohe committee can elect one representative to the Executive Council, but the Council will be able to counteract any challenge they might pose to party policy and leadership by ‘co-opting’ unelected and thus unaccountable members.
Rohe will hold their own hui to elect potential parliamentary candidates, but the Executive Council reserves the right to stop any candidates it dislikes from standing. Rohe committees and individual party members have the right to nominate potential list candidates, but the Council has complete control over the selection and placement of these candidates. Despite all the rhetoric about radical democracy, the Maori Party’s structure appears no more democratic than that of the Labour Party Tariana has just left behind.
For socialists, real democracy is rooted in the working class, and in the unions which organise workers against their bosses. A socialist party is a workers’ party. But the Maori Party has nothing to say about workers, let alone workers’ democracy, and no role for unions in its structure.
WE NEED SOLIDARITY, NOT SELL-OUTS!
It is very unfortunate that Jesse Butler has written such an inaccurate article about the Maori Party for an overseas publication. Many readers of Green Left Weekly will believe the claims that he has made, simply because they have no other source of information about the Maori Party. We think that your paper should give space in its next issue to an accurate account of the policies of the Maori Party and their impact on the left.
Jesse Butler covered the hikoi as a journalist, and must have talked to many of the participants in that great event. How many of them told him they were marching for a Brash government and for Tuku Morgan and Georgina te Heuheu to become MPs? The truth is that the Maori Party is a betrayal of the hikoi, not a continuation of it.
Instead of hikoiing to hell with the National Party, we should be building on the great seabed and foreshore march by organising occupations of threatened parts of the foreshore, occupations that can draw in the trade union movement and unite ordinary Maori and Pakeha against capitalists of all colours.
Matt McCarten boasted that he had mobilised four hundred volunteer workers for Tariana’s by-election campaign. Imagine if those four hundred Maori Party supporters had gotten together their friends and contacts and launched an occupation of a section of the foreshore! Imagine if the Kiwi left had thrown itself behind this occupation, and built on the support that several important unions gave to the hikoi!
We can be sure that as the globalisation of Aotearoa continues ordinary Maori and an increased number of ordinary Pakeha will take the path of direct action again.
Whether they occupy threatened sections of their foreshore or factories slated for closure by multinational companies, working class Maori and their Pakeha allies will need solidarity from their neighbours in Australia, in the same way that the wharfies and their supporters needed your solidarity during the great Waterfront Lockout of 1951, and the Red Federation of Labour needed the solidarity it got from Australian workers during the General Strike of 1913.
Green Left Weekly should show its solidarity with the struggles to come by exposing and condemning the betrayal of the great seabed and foreshore hikoi by the leadership of the Maori Party. You should be speaking out for the interests of Maori and Pakeha workers, not for Tariana Turia and Tuku Morgan!
Comradely Greetings,
Communist Workers Group
P.O. Box 6595 Auckland
email: cwgnz@pl.net
Comments
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
Given Turia's and Sharples statement's of a willingness to work with the National Party the solution for Maori clearly doesn't lie with the Maori Party.
It seems that history will repeat itself in the same manner as the 'tight-fives' experience in New Zealand First and Mauri Pacific. Shoring up the right-wing in New Zealand
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
So the only party that the Maori Party should work with is Labour, the only other viable choice?
What good would it do them if Labour loses the next election? A Maori Party in opposition will wither and die. This is an activist party with a specified pro-maori agenda, they need to be doing something to justify their existence.
But obviously pairing up with National, which is a racist and so obviously anti-Maori political entity, will mean that the new Maori Party will have sold out, they will shrug off their agenda and simply Uncle Tom along by the whims of their neo-con fascist overlords!
Does it occur to you that only by being PART of any coalition will the new Maori Party get any concessions and have ANY control over legislation?
Wake up to political reality. You dont always get what you want and you often have to make concessions. You cant say that you will never work with either National or Labour, because when it comes right down to it, the choice is between being in the coalition and having some influence and being in opposition and having none.
Kyle I expect you are one of those people who said that DB is a racist because of what he said at Orewa, but have never actually listened to what was actually said. Every NZer should be treated equally, regardless of race. Isnt that fair and just?
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
"Wake up to political reality. You dont always get what you want and you often have to make concessions. You cant say that you will never work with either National or Labour, because when it comes right down to it, the choice is between being in the coalition and having some influence and being in opposition and having none."
By political reality, I think you meant 'political nightmare'.
I disagree with your statement so wholehearadly.
If I was a solid reformist, I would say they don't have to work with national or labour.
If I was a firm reformist, I would say they didn't have to work with national.
If I was a reformist, I would say they should work with the Greens or other left wing group.
If I was a reformist socialist, I would say they should only work with Socialist parties.
If I was a soft reformist socialist, I would say there should be a grassroots movement which we could then co-op and channel through working only with Socialist parties.
If I was a authoritarian revolutionary, I would say there should be militant grassroots direct action movements which we could then co-op and channel through our dictatorship of the proletariat.
I could only dream of what an anarchist would do!
If I were me, which I am, I would go and read a little bit more about the other options next to working with labour and national - focusing most importantly on the fact that we don't even need political parties to get what we want. In fact, nothing has ever been gained by political parties. The only thing ever gained was the legalisation and formalisation of struggles already won by direct action!
Fuck the hikoi to the ballot box unless its to burn it!
Question for Wootle
So Wootle, which 'concessions' would you be prepared to make to a Brash government in return for some pro-Maori legislation?
I'd say National's main aims if elected would be to cut corporate and top income tax rates, restart state asset sales, cut welfare benefits, reinstate the Employment Contracts Act, and bring NZ fully in line with US foreign policy vis a vis Iraq and nuke ships.
I don't see how a party with 7 or 8 seats could get National to abandon its core agenda. It might be able to soften a few edges, but that'd be about all.
I can imagine that, for the sake of temporarily defusing the Maori protest 'timebomb' and getting its core programme through, National might be prepared to give the Maori Party some of what it wants - more money for te reo, the retention of the Maori seats, an upping of the fish farming license quota from 20% to 30%...
But are any minor benefits you might squeeze out of National going to be worth the 'concessions' you are going to have to give to National? Nothing since the nineteenth century has devastated Maori as much as the neoliberal reforms of the 80s and 90s, and Brash is sworn to continue these 'reforms'.
Workers will suffer terribly if the ECA is reinstated and unions collapse again; beneficiaries will suffer terribly when Brash extends the Job Jolt; the standards of social services like health and education will nosedive as cuts in tax cause a revenue decline.
The vast majority of Maori are workers, a significant number are beneficiaries of one sort or another, and nearly all rely on the state for health and education sevices. In other words, ordinary Maori share the interests of ordinary Pakeha, even though they also have a few problems Pakeha don't have to face.
As far as I can see you must either believe that a) the Maori Party can make sure National doesn't pursue its stated neo-liberal agenda or b) the Maori Party can win some pro-Maori policies which will offset the effects of the 'concessions' it'll have to make to National's neo-liberal agenda. Both arguments are bankrupt.
And they are still bankrupt if we subsitute Labour as a possible alternative coalition partner for National, because Labour is offering a programme which might be called 'Brash lite'.
But what do I know - I'm just a raving commie, right? Well, maybe, but the point is that the strategy you are advancing hasn't fallen from the sky - it has been tried, again and again, by the ancestors of the Maori Party. It was tried by the 'tight five' of NZ First and then Mauri Pacific from 1996-99. It was tried by Mana Motuhake when they were part of the Labour-Alliance government from 1999-2002. It was tried by Tariana, from 1999-2004. It is still being pursued by Nainaia, who has worked out a de facto Tainui-Labour coalition deal. Concessions, concessions: but where are the gains?
That's why it's time to return to the tradition of direct action that won back Bastion Point and the Raglan land, and which influenced the hikoi.
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
Once again we are bombarded with the out-dated rhetoric of the communist party, now focusing on Tariana's reasonable comment to work with anyone, including National, to obtain equality and justice in Aotearoa.
Where is the alternative system of the communist party. I hear alot of bullshit from the sidelines yet very little in the way of an alternative gameplan.
Your not still waiting for your 'revolution' are you? Do you mean to say that the vast majority of the masses would rise up against the system that supplies them security, income and a future to your unarticulated communist system?
Surely, you are not suggesting another failed communist experiment experienced in Russia, China and North Korea to happen here in Aotearoa?
Communist dictators make Donald Brash look like a lollipop. And you want the New Zealand public to take you seriously?
No, Im afraid your ramblings are blinded by ideology and obviously flawed in the political reality of this country.
My advice to you is to wake up and get off the sidelines, and have a real go at the opposition like we are. Basically put up or shut up.
We need all hands on deck against the neo liberal onslaught, and sometimes that involves getting inside next to them so we can beat them at their own game.
I will be writing another article on this site next week concerning the pros and cons of the electoral system and the problem with those who dont participate in it yet put down those who do.
Hey Jesse
I know probably most of the commies in the North Island. We vary. Some of us are smaller or bigger,some are gay some are straight,some have got more clues than others about stuff. At times, all of us stuff up.
We've got one other thing in common, always have had.
We don't wait, and we don't wait on the sidelines.
We're always there into stuff, often to the annoyance and discomfort of union officials and mps and others who don't agree with our take on shit.
I don't buy all the CWG line by a long shot, but i know they are not just idle speculators.
Jesse, why don't you take on the CWG's actual arguments instead of wasting space with tired old cliches that were never really true.
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
"Every NZer should be treated equally, regardless of race. Isnt that fair and just?",,,,,,,
Whoa! wow this wootle charachter and the OBVIOUS. question, what if one class/race/type/species of "NZer" was Grossly Mistreated for color ful reasons for ages? Like in Aotearoa? Righting a WRONG requires sudden "equality"? what a laugh. African Americans have a good saying, "Payback is a Bitch", and I don't think they mean a white lesbian. Maybe they should give back the Taranaki so there is No Payback to worry about?
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
sorry, CWG, but your article is SO full of factual errors that it would be waste of time to go into it. do your homework next time you talk to grown-ups and leave out your sectarian poison in your mudslinging games. maybe someone would talk to you then. but you need to convince us of your worthyness.
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
OT - How can anybody stomach calling themselves communists given communisms entire track record? It would be like someone calling themselves the "Vanilla Ice fan club".
"the standards of social services like health and education will nosedive as cuts in tax cause a revenue decline."
Ill take this one first. OK, explain to me how falling revenues (revenues mind) will lead to falling standards? Given the almightly surplus the Democratic Socialist Party is running at the moment, it would take a huge reduction in revenue before any current programs will have to be cut back. (I am of course ignoring here the idea that a reduction in taxes would increase non-government economic activity, increased investment, greater productive capacity and greater economic growth. Assuming of course that the money is invested in NZ, which would require a major change to the tax structure...)
Scott, in you post you have essentially said that a minor party will never recieve enough concessions to make being in a coalition worthwhile. So that would include the communist party? Oh wait I forgot, communism is not about majority rules, in fact it doesnt matter what the vast majority of the public actually thinks. Communism is about enforcing upon the masses, the ideals of a few much smarter individuals. An elite if you will. Of course, people are too stupid to give these elite the power they need voluntarily, so the elite must take it, perhaps even by force. Then in order to hold onto power the elite will need to suppress any group that tries to get stronger. This may require some drastic measures, such as limitation on free speech, removal of freedom of movement, direct elimination of opponents. But in the end the people (the workers) will be grateful for all that the elite have been able to provide them with. Many people may die in this transition, but it is for the greater good of society, and therefore justifiable. This may take a while because generally people enjoy their freedom, but give it maybe ten or twenty generations and the trouble makers will be weeded out.
Communism shrouds itself in the support for "the worker" against the oppressors, but ultimately the communists goal is to be the new oppressors. They use the temporary dissatisfaction of "the workers" (ie consisting of enough people who are willing to use violence to change society to actually steal power) to facilitate a power shift in their favour. For shame if you desire to be known as one of these sharlatans!
Where are the 'factual errors'?
If the CWG's article is 'SO full of factual errors', then it should be easy for the Green Left Weekly's representative to point them out, because our article relies not on hearsay or guesswork but on publically-available texts.
I'll list the different claims in the article here, to make it easier for you to point out the ones which you think are false:
1. We say that Tuku Morgan is one of the leaders of the Maori Party, and we point out that Tuku was a member of the National governments from 1996-99, when he was caught up in a scandal after spending public money on expensive clothes.
2. We say that Graham Latimer, Maori businessman and former National Party supporter, spearheaded the drive to get the 500 signatures required to register the Maori Party.
3. We point out that Tariana Turia has attempted to persuade National MP Georgina te Heuheu to stand for the Maori Party in next year's elections, praising her fulsomely.
4. We point out that Tariana Turia along with other senior members of the Maori Party have repeatedly signalled their willingness to entertain the National party as a potential partner in government.
4. We point out that National's programme is ultra-neoliberal and without any progressive features.
5. We quote a text on the Maori Party website, a speech to the Whanganui Maori Business Asociation, where Tariana identifies herself completely with Maori capitalism.
6. We quote the Maori Party rules, available on the party website, which define the Party's mission solely in terms of winning parliamentary seats, provide for disciplinary action for those who depart from the party mission, allow for the party's Executive Council to undemocratically co-opt members, to reject local electorate organisation choices for candidates, and to unilaterally determine the members of the party list and placement of candidates on that list.
7. We point out that the question of whether to join the Maori Party has divided the Alliance, with the party's President resigning over the issue and many ordinary members being angry about the possibility of working closely with a party that holds open the possibility of putting Brash into power.
8. We quote from McCarten's letter to Alliance members defending his decision to work on Tariana's by-election campaign. This letter has been circulated throughout the left by Alliance dissidents, and most of the people reading this thread are probably already familiar with it.
9. We point out that the politics that the Green Left Weekly and the Democratic Socialist Party/Platform espouses are contradict the politics represented by the leaders of the Maori Party, and that GLW should be encouraging direct workers' action over the theft of the seabed and foreshore, not right-wing electoralism.
So which one of these claims is wrong?
If you indicate which you think is mistaken, I can provide you with evidence for it from sources like the Herald archives and the Maori Party website. If we have made a mistake, then we will withdraw it and apologise, but I think everything in the article is accurate.
In fact, I think that some of the comments in this thread amply confirm our argument - Jesse's open support for a possible coalition government with National and his McCarthyite redbaiting show that a commie paper like the Green Left Weekly should not have been taking his account of the Maori Party as kosher.
Are we being sectarian and engaging in mudslinging? Not at all. We address the GLW as comrades and avoid any personal attacks, and we hope that you'll do the same.
We want to unite the left by turning the hikoi into occupations of the foreshore. Our members have a history of involvement in Maori struggle against oppression dating back (at least) to Bastion Pt, and we marched on the hikoi all the way to Wellington.
We've worked with the Democratic Socialist Party before - in 2001/02, we were both involved in the Afghan Workers Solidarity campaign, which distributed food and other aid in Afghanistan independently of the US occupiers and the UN - and we'd love to work with you again.
Some come on, GLW, how about sticking to your socialist principles and joining those of us who are arguing for the occupation of the foreshore, not the occupation of Brash's cabinet!
Communism is Maori
It's sad to see some supporters of the Maori Party engaging in a redbaiting that belongs to the days the Cold War, when Maori were regularly asked to go abroad and die in the US's wars against 'communist tyranny'.
But Vietnam and Korea weren't the first wars that New Zealand fought against 'the communist menace'. The Waikato and Taranaki Wars were wars against communism - wars fought by settler capitalists who were infuriated by the Maori refusal to sell collectively-owned land.
Te Whiti was targeted by the warmongers not because he worse feathers in his hair but because he praised 'the miracle of collective labour'.
Rangiaohiwa was destroyed not because of simple racism but because its inhabitants were using collective land ownership and labour to harness the wealth of the Waikato and feed the fortress city of Auckland, where would-be landgrabbers fulminated against 'the socialistic natives'.
The CWG remembers the communism of Te Whiti, as well as the communism of Marx and the communism of the occupied factories movement in today's Argentina. We want to see the foreshore and the whole of Aotearoa run collectively.
Here's a quote from the latest issue of our paper:
"We do not have to get stuck on the parliamentary road. The bosses' parliament and not lickspittle Labour is the real problem. Labour is scared of their US bosses spitting, not Tame Iti. Elections are only held for us to vote our oppressors back into power every three years. Every time we fall for this, the bosses laugh all the way to the Citibank. We have to replace our faith in bosses' elections with a belief in the power of workers' occupations.
In every iwi or hapu, there is a piece of foreshore and related seabed, river or lake, which is the traditional source of kaimoana. This customary right should be asserted by occupations backed by the unions. The leaders of the iwi or hapu who see these claims as mere pawns in some larger political or legal game should be replaced by flax roots leaders.
The traditional concept of occupation-for- use can today become revived as the basis of property rights. This practical assertion of common ownership and use of resources to meet the needs of iwi, hapu and all workers living in the area, will create support from Pakeha, Pacifica, Asian and other workers.
New Occupations, Old 'communism'
Such occupations will prove to be very popular and not at all outdated. Rightwing politicians will say that this is a return to stone-age economics or 'primitive communism' against the market. These are the age-old racist objections to the Maori 'land-league' in the Waikato that refused to sell land to settlers in the 1860s, now being recycled again.
What these racist apologists do not say is that the real challenge back then, and what they fear most today, is Maori producing all the food and produce the settlers needed to survive, independently of private property, by adapting 'iron-age' technology to their 'stone-age' collective property rights!
In the same way, the now fashionable-among-liberals struggle of Te Whiti of Parihaka in the 1880s is remembered for its 'pacifism' and not for Te Whiti's defence of common ownership of land and the 'miracle' of collective labour.
These 'communist' traditions were rejected by land-hungry Pakeha settlers in the 1800s. But today they can be revived and supported by Pakeha, Pacifica and Asian workers who have no interest to dispossess Maori by force, and a common interest to re-possess capitalist property and resources as the class allies of Maori workers."
http://www.geocities.com/communistworker/cs56.html
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
> If the CWG's article is 'SO full of factual errors', then it should be easy for the Green Left Weekly's representative to point them out
easy, but tedious work. just to quickly point point your slackness: you write "the GLW rep". so please EXPLAIN: where did i ever claim to be a rep? i said GLW+MP *supporter*. this indicates how you deal with the info you HAVE.
1. leaders is a very vague term
2. so what do you derive from that? you don't explain anything.
3. and why did Georgina te Heuheu NOT join? tariana is not THE mp (just the MP ;-)
4. wrong - she only reponded to superficial media questions
4 again? hardly any news
5. it's very cheap to dig up plenty of shit about what people say and write about a new broad party - don't you feel dirty and stinky?
6. wait until you see the first democratically adopted policies - there'S hundrets of maori activists (and pakeha supporters) working on all sorts of issues...
7. wait until the alliance democartically decides about their future. it's very HEALTHY to have a huge debate about the mp - who else is thouroughly and seriously discussing the mp IN PRICIPLED SOLIDARITY? certainly not shit-diggers like you who indulge in their utter sectarianism
8. CWG complains: "We quote from McCarten's letter to Alliance members defending his decision to work on Tariana's by-election campaign."
SHOCK, HORROR. OF COURSE HE DOES - IT WAS GREAT WORK!!! A STAUNCH LEFTY FIGHTING AGINST IDIOTS LIKE YOU FOR CREDIBILITY OF LEFT ORGANISATIONS.
9. CWG: "Democratic Socialist Party/Platform"
REALLY, MAN, DO YOUR HOMEWORK. WHO?
"right-wing electoralism"? EXPLAIN...
> So which one of these claims is wrong?
certainly not the claim, that matt defended his great campaign, for which he earned standing ovations from 1300 members and supporters at the maori party launch...
> If we have made a mistake, then we will withdraw it and apologise
who gives a fuck? your whole attitude is disgraceful and unhelpful. you are just defending your abstentionism.
> Jesse's open support for a possible coalition government with National
what a bullshit... even you know him better... you are so fucking dishonest - why am wasting my time here. stupid me!
> Are we being sectarian and engaging in mudslinging?
absolutely. against the comrades who are doing a great job pulling the maori party to the left and ensuring that it stays as far left of labour as should be. left of labour parties are mushrooming around the world because of the neoterrorist "war on terror".
> We want to unite the left
you only want to unite the ultraleft. but even the ACA doesn't like you're infantile sectarianism.
> by turning the hikoi into occupations of the foreshore.
you're only constructive point. yes, this is the task of the day for the activist part of the whole maori party project.
> We've worked with the Democratic Socialist Party before
i don't think so. just suporting the same campaign is hardly WORKING together.
> and we'd love to work with you again.
you better engage in contructive movement building then. we won't work with sectarians.
> Some come on, GLW,
you better talk to GLW then...
> how about sticking to your socialist principles and joining those of us who are arguing for the occupation of the foreshore, not the occupation of Brash's cabinet!
we would organise actions, if we would have activists in aotearoa. and then you'd be welcome to join in if you agree to stick to democratic decision-making. but - and you don't seem to even know that - we are aussies, so we are happy not to have to put up with you guys :)
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
no rep (?) Scott has asked you to point out some errors you claimed to see in the article.
You havent. "leaders is a very vague term"? You accuse him of not doing his homework and then THIS is what you come up with as the glaring mistake? If his statement is wrong, shouldnt you prove that Tuku was not a member of a national lead coalition, from which he was dumped because of theft?
Scott gave concrete examples of the nature of Tariana's links to capitalists and her willingness to be lead by the National party. Your answer... "she only responded to superficial media questions" Shouldnt you have proven that she did NOT make these overtures if Scott was wrong?
Apart from calling people sectarian all the time, why dont you do as the article has challenged you, and join them and help them push the line of occupation of the foreshore? You wont work with them even though you agree with them because... they are sectarian?
Get real.
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
Communism is a failed experiment that created a more evil system to that of capitalism! And the Maori Party is some how judged by its brainwashed adherents who have achieved nothing to date?
Tell me something. Do you communists enjoy receiving money from a capitalist system, driving the cars made from a captalist system on roads built by a capitalist sytem?
Do you not see the contradiction? Surely, by your own actions you can see that people have no choice but work in the present system?
So why is it one rule for you and another for Maori? I will tell you why.
The agenda of putting down the Maori Party is because it represents Maori first and then Pakeha second, and includes all the other cultures in this country.
Racist cant stand that, can they.
I could make a list of the failure of communism world wide and the inabilities of the present rabble calling themselves communists, but there isnt enough room.
Says it all does it.
Communism...yeah right
get real, shazam - i don't have disproof IRRELEVANT points
...and waste even more time on the CWG.
you arrogantly say: "why dont you [..] join them and help them push the line of occupation of the foreshore? You wont work with them even though you agree with them because... they are sectarian?"
apart from not undestadning your strange conclusions, i actually did attend meetings where for example an auckland hui was on the agenda, and i did advocate direct action as the next step on the seabed and foreshore campaign. now, maori party organising obviously took a lot of comrades' time, and now i'm not in NZ any more (you too can't read: we are aussies, and to make it clear for you: that means Australians, and australia is that big island across the tasman, which is to the west of NZ, NZ meaning new zealand - geez sometimes you just have to go to lenghts...). i will still pushing that line, but there's a whole lot of other political issues in regard to maori party campaigning, in regard to NZ, and there's heaps more politics in australia, which sees federal elections within the next weeks. and then, there's also a life, that waits to be lived, so don't bother me more with stupid demands to disproof straw puppet arguments that have nothing to do with trying to pull the maori party to the left - pro-actively, not by talking to just a few listeners...
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
You can find the original article here. GLW publishes letters of 200 word or less, so if you have a sensible comment, email them in with your name and town (and country).
Norm.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2004/591/591p19.htm
Maori unite in new party
Jesse Butler
In 2003, a court decision upheld the right of eight Maori tribes of the Marlborough Sands to pursue their claim that certain areas of the foreshore and seabed in the Sounds were customary Maori land.
In response, the NZ government announced that it would override the decision and vest full ownership title of the foreshore and seabed to the Crown. This was to avoid the imagined prevention of public access to the beach and the privatisation of the area, which the government claimed would happen under Maori ownership.
A media frenzy followed that whipped up fear and outrage against the Maori people. The seven Labour MPs who represented the seven Maori seats refused to follow the directions of their constituencies to vote against this perceived confiscation, creating a deep sense of betrayal and anger. Opposition National Party leader Donald Brash fuelled the tension when he made a speech attacking Maori and the Treaty of Waitangi (which guaranteed Maori use of their traditional lands and resources).
Following the release of the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004, the hikoi in May captured the attention of the country and the world in direct protest against the legislation and the betrayal of the Maori MPs. Starting from the top of the North Island, it snowballed all the way to Wellington, resulting in the biggest protest ever on parliament grounds.
The hikoi had achieved what everyone had thought impossible — it had united a fragmented Maoridom into one entity and moved one of the seven Maori MPs, Tariana Turia, to resign from the Labour Party. The country was stunned at the massive turnout and the prime minister refused to come out and face the people. In front of this mass gathering, Tariana Turia became the leader of the new Maori Party.
The task of organising a national Maori party was a daunting and enormous challenge. However, despite the differences and divisions within Maoridom, the process of getting everyone together was made easier by the months and months of daily anti-Maori sentiment and comments. This created a common threat that everyone could unite against, which encouraged rather than discouraged our merger as a political party.
The second leader of the Maori Party is an urban Maori leader from Auckland, Pita Sharples, who battled for decades to successfully increase the services for, and status of, Maori in NZ society.
The Maori Party’s constitution reaffirms and regenerates the main principles of Maoridom. The first principle is Manaakitanga, which respects the integrity and dignity of others and ourselves. The second is Rangatiratanga, our ancestral right to determine our own lives and futures. Kotahitanga is the principle of unity, both internally and externally. Whanaungatanga is the cultivation of community and togetherness. Mana Whenua is the statement that Maori have ancestral authority to Aotearoa as indigenous people.
Kaitiakitanga means that Maori are the rightful guardians of this country. Wairuatanga is the spiritual aspect of the party, which connects the physical world with the spirit world. Whakapapa is our genealogical connection to the land and our ancestors, and Te Reo is the cornerstone that combines everything into our language.
Membership is open to anyone above the age of 13 — the legal age of political membership in NZ — who pays the $2 membership fee and is willing to abide by the party rules and processes. Many of the Maori tribes had made it clear that they would not support any Maori party that was exclusive or separatist. In spite of all the racism and discrimination, the Maori Party was clear in opening its membership to people of all races, sexuality and creeds. This created an avalanche of interest and signatures.
At present there are seven Maori electorates (called rohe within the Maori Party). The Maori seats are geographically the largest in the country — the Te Tai Tonga seat, for example, covers the entire South Island and a portion of Wellington. Because there are a large number of Maori tribes living within each seat, there will be more than one set of opinions and interests. To accommodate this, the Maori Party has reverted to the traditional system of Maoridom which allowed the tribes to develop their own processes and selections, free from a central executive body.
Basic rules require each rohe to have an equal amount of delegates, who represent their respective rohe at an annual national conference. The task of delegates is to conduct all Maori Party business and interests within their rohe according to their agreed processes. This gives all the Maori tribes in all the seats the space and ability to determine their own frameworks according to their own local and tribal variations and customs.
Before colonisation, Maori society was governed and organised in such a manner, where every tribe had the autonomy to express a variation of the common Maori culture and manage their own affairs within their own territory. The Maori Party’s constitution and rohe system are a modern political expression of an ancient traditional system.
The resignation of Tariana Turia from the Labour Party required that there be a by-election of the seat that she represented, Te Tai Hauauru. To ensure that Turia would stand in the by-election on July 10 as the first candidate for the Maori Party, there had to be a fast-tracking of the requirements of the NZ Electoral Commission.
As a consequence, all positions and rules adopted by the new party were deemed interim until after the by-election, when the Maori Party scheduled its first general meeting. Despite this, the media continued to portray the Maori Party as disorganised and lacking in policies and substance. As the date for the by-election drew closer, the racial attacks on Maori began with earnest.
At the same time, the Maori Party leaders had gained support from Pacific Island communities and many traditionally entrenched Maori Labour supporters. The prime minister came under scrutiny for her refusal to front Maori and her remaining MPs were under tremendous pressure within their constituencies. Maori were leaving Labour in droves.
Turia asked NZ Alliance leader and seasoned union leader Matt McCarten to manage the by-election campaign. The refusal of the main political parties to stand candidates in the by-election because they did not consider it important fuelled efforts to get as many Maori voting as possible.
The electoral commission reduced the number of polling booths from over 400 to just over 100, which made this difficult. The Te Tai Hauauru is a huge electorate covering an enormous area. Many towns didn’t even have a polling booth, which meant that unless the Maori family had a car, they couldn’t vote. This situation was taken to the Waitangi Tribunal who were stunned at the figures presented to them. As a consequence, car rides to the nearest booth were organised for people if they wanted to vote.
Turia received 97% of the vote — an unprecedented success in a by-election. More than 9000 Maori voted, a 60% turnout (high participation compared to other NZ by-elections.) The media quickly attempted to cover up this victory by stating that it was still a small percentage of the 26,000 Maori living in the electorate. What they didn’t say was that a large number of that 26,000 were not even eligible to vote!
That night the Maori Party was officially launched and the party had its first MP in parliament. At the first national general meeting the following day, all the interim positions of the party were voted on and passed. The constitution was accepted, pending a review in six months. All the rohe were given until January 1 to finalise their positions and policies. Labour may call a snap election in the new year when it becomes clear that the Maori Party is likely to win the Maori seats.
The Maori Party’s electoral results will obviously depend on its campaign strategy, policies and candidates, which at this stage are in a process of development. But one thing is certain — the level of support for and interest in the Maori Party is enormous. Once the general public realises that the Maori Party also offers an opposite pole to neoliberalism, this support will increase.
It is clear from the media that the neoliberal establishment is shaking in its boots. The speed of creation, the wide popularity and the collective spirit of the Maori Party has taken them by surprise. They did not expect that it would be Maori who would offer the anti-neoliberal organisations in Aotearoa an anchor to unite around. Ironically, the only thing that will stop such a unification and collective front against neoliberalism is anti-Maori attitude in this country.
But what is more important — stopping Maori from becoming independent in their own homeland or joining them to defeat neoliberalism?
[Jesse Butler is a Maori journalist and member of the Maori Party.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 28, 2004.
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
Jesse wrote:
"The agenda of putting down the Maori Party is because it represents Maori first and then Pakeha second, and includes all the other cultures in this country."
That's just about sums up the problem with the 'Maori party'. It completely overlooks the main social division within society ie big holders of capital, traditionally referred to as capitalists, and the working majority who create the wealth they expropriate and instead sees social problems as associated with race.
The vast majority of maori are working class in that they don't own large sums of capital and to even suggest National, traditionally big capital's favourate political party alternating with Labour when there's social unrest, might be of help in achieving equality and justice is almost farsical in my view.
You might be able to negotiate some cultural policies in exchange for your support of National, but with their wider policies of generaly targetting issues facing working people such as annual leave, minimum wage, health and education, which would all disproportionally effect Maori any partnership would likely be unproductive if you also take into the consideration working people of different cultures. But perhaps that's not the real concern but rather creating a new and larger Maori capitalist class to exploit the rest of us. I hope I'm wrong but that is one impression many might feel.
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
Jesse wrote:
"The agenda of putting down the Maori Party is because it represents Maori first and then Pakeha second, and includes all the other cultures in this country."
That's just about sums up the problem with the 'Maori party'. It completely overlooks the main social division within society ie big holders of capital, traditionally referred to as capitalists, and the working majority who create the wealth they expropriate and instead sees social problems as associated with race.
The vast majority of maori are working class in that they don't own large sums of capital and to even suggest National, traditionally big capital's favourate political party alternating with Labour when there's social unrest, might be of help in achieving equality and justice is almost farsical in my view.
You might be able to negotiate some cultural policies in exchange for your support of National, but with their wider policies of generaly targetting issues facing working people such as annual leave, minimum wage, health and education, which would all disproportionally effect Maori any partnership would likely be unproductive if you also take into the consideration working people of different cultures. But perhaps that's not the real concern but rather creating a new and larger Maori capitalist class to exploit the rest of us. I hope I'm wrong but that is one impression many might feel.
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
Blah, blah, blah Niko. And the thieves are not called capitalists, they are called Pakeha. Get it right. Havent you read the history of this country? Obviously not.
Not too busy, studying another countries history are you? Maybe its time you done a bit of reserach instead of belonging to the communist mickey mouse club.
What amazes me about you political experts is your inability to provide an alternative to the present system. You are good at dribbling from the sideline but there has been, to date, no real solution from you lot to the problem.
Why is that I wonder? I have a reason. Its because you nancy boys dont have a solution, do you? Your whole movement is centred around complaining about the true revolutionists who are actually doing something for their people.
All of you dropkicks still havent answered my question. What is your solution? Describe your alternative in detail. Its all bit vague when all you can do is spin ideology, that quite frankly has failed, and failed miserably.
WHAT IS YOUR SOLUTION? SPIT IT OUT NANCY BOY
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
Well Jesse, you really are outdoing yourself here. The only CWG members I have had the pleasure of meeting were maori- I dont know if Scott is or not.
Really, you are getting yourself quite worked up and now you are calling Scott a nancy boy, presumably in reference to his sexuality.
And thats the problem. In this party, you have people who embrace gay and lesbian.. .and people who shit on them.
You have people who think that Maori workers should ally with maori bosses, and people who dont.
You have trade unionists and bosses.
You have a dictatorial constitution and some bloody nice people as members.
Its a mess. Its NZ first without the sex appeal. Its Tuku without the undies...
so dont get caught with your pants down.
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
Jesse, I think you went a bit overboard. All I'm really saying is that people of Maori decent aren't a homogenous group. There are the Act like
Donna Awatere maori, the John Tamahere maori or perhaps the guy who was formerly in the Alliance party among other Maori people.
At time sides need to be taken in whether to support the capitalist boss or the working people who create the wealth. What happens if the boss happens to be maori and many workers are being screwed over by him inorder to boost his/her profit margin. Which side do you take?
By fudging that question and talking nonsense about a common maori philosophy, ignoring the class divisions present will eventually cause problems.
As a further example, say at a large wood processing factory where some of the workforce have maori heritage. Obviously you're not going to stop people from working in their previous jobs, so ineffect the maori workers have basically the same interests as the pakeha workers in trying to make a decent living. Should private capital, for example Carter Holt Harvey profit from the exploitation of ALL the workers. No in my view. Here we sort of move to a solution, though other people might be more literate in this respect.
Instead of private capital, whether owned by Maori, Pakeha or another culture, profiteering from the collective work of thousands of people, the big industries such as CHH could be nationalised with more control over operations by the people who work there in conjunction with the community over where profits/resources flow rather than flowing into the coffers of Billionaire/millionaire capitalists of whatever origin.
I once read an article about Robert Mugabe which described him as a Nationalist who wanted to develop a local bourgousie while helping to develop the country he was leader of. In some way that's how I see the maori party, in that at present it seems they also want to develop a new Maori capitalist class while helping to improve the lot of all maori. While I can sympathise with this position, I nevertheless think we can do alot better in working to get rid of all parasitic owners of big capital rather than consciously working to create a wider variety of them.
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
Jesse, I think you went a bit overboard. All I'm really saying is that people of Maori decent aren't a homogenous group. There are the Act like
Donna Awatere maori, the John Tamahere maori or perhaps the guy who was formerly in the Alliance party among other Maori people.
At time sides need to be taken in whether to support the capitalist boss or the working people who create the wealth. What happens if the boss happens to be maori and many workers are being screwed over by him inorder to boost his/her profit margin. Which side do you take?
By fudging that question and talking nonsense about a common maori philosophy, ignoring the class divisions present will eventually cause problems.
As a further example, say at a large wood processing factory where some of the workforce have maori heritage. Obviously you're not going to stop people from working in their previous jobs, so ineffect the maori workers have basically the same interests as the pakeha workers in trying to make a decent living. Should private capital, for example Carter Holt Harvey profit from the exploitation of ALL the workers. No in my view. Here we sort of move to a solution, though other people might be more literate in this respect.
Instead of private capital, whether owned by Maori, Pakeha or another culture, profiteering from the collective work of thousands of people, the big industries such as CHH could be nationalised with more control over operations by the people who work there in conjunction with the community over where profits/resources flow rather than flowing into the coffers of Billionaire/millionaire capitalists of whatever origin.
I once read an article about Robert Mugabe which described him as a Nationalist who wanted to develop a local bourgousie while helping to develop the country he was leader of. In some way that's how I see the maori party, in that at present it seems they also want to develop a new Maori capitalist class while helping to improve the lot of all maori. While I can sympathise with this position, I nevertheless think we can do alot better in working to get rid of all parasitic owners of big capital rather than consciously working to create a wider variety of them.
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
Im still waiting gentlement for your alternate system. Everytime I ask this question there seems to be an invisible cloud of deafness descend upon you people.
If you people came up with a descent and workable alternative, I would take you seriously. However, your silence or avoidance, of such a kaupapa is deemed by me as your shortcoming.
Its one thing to critise- I have no problem with that, but it is another thing not to offer a solution of the problem at the same time that the people can see would benefit them and provide their whanau with a better future.
Is this not your weak point? The lack of a practical and realistic alternative. I think it is and always will be.
Now gentlemen, where is your alternative? The Maori Party has one and is polling extremely well as result of it.
I wonder what you polling results would be if you stood for election with your crazy plan to rise up and overthrow the system.
I can just see the 1NZSASGP shooting your asses off in front of all the TV cameras. Now, that would be really funny.
And I didnt know that Scott was gay. Nancy boy means a boy pretending to be a man but failing because of their inability to take on the enemy.
too long scott, no time to read, try again!
and try it in 400-600 words...
Try the last two hundred words
Or five words:
Occupy the foreshore, not cabinet!
Today we need to revive the spirit of Bastion Point by building on the support for the hikoi shown by unions like the National Distribution Union, the Service and Food Workers Union, Aste, and the Manufacturing and Construction Union.
Neither Pakeha nor Maori unionists will ever back a party that makes overtures to National, but many of them will back occupations of a foreshore which all ordinary New Zealanders value and worry about losing.
By occupying the foreshore and inviting ordinary Pakeha to join them, Maori can take the wind out of the sails of the right-wingers who say that the hikoi was about Maori privatisation, while at the same time thwarting the iwicorp opportunists who think that Maori sovereignty means Maori capitalism.
Sea farming and tourism ventures can be controlled by workers, not by brown or white capitalists.
And if the foreshore and its industries can be socialised, then why not the whole economy? A movement to socialise the whole of Aotearoa can take inspiration from the occupied factories of Argentina and the collective farms being established in Venezuela, as well as the indigenous communism of Rangiaowhia and Te Whiti.
This is the argument that the CWG made on the hikoi and has been making at Maori Party hui. Justin Taua will be making it at the Frankton hui in Hamilton on Wednesday.
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
"By occupying the foreshore"
What are you going to do when the tide comes in?
:)
sure, sparts
who are you arguing against? of course we need ongoing actions. hardly any new idea.
hikoi the best, party the rest
yes to the hikoi and no to the party
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
Well the Hikoi was inspirational, but it was not instigated by Tariana Turia, Graham Latimer, the Unions or Tuku Morgan it came out of the will of the people. Tariana Turia and others were merely opportunists who grabbed at this from the sidelines to capitalise on a movement that had begun well before Pakaitore, another place where she capitalised. At this stage, she can be categorised as a loose cannon, because she is at present in a party that has not formalised its rules and kaupapa, so there are no accountability measures that she has to abide by, hence her willingness to state anything she pleases. So, whatever she says now cannot be regarded as policy of the party as she can not be castigated by the electorate councils until the systems of accountability political parties need, are set in place. The statements she has made are her opinions and are not party policy nor are they the opinions of the rest of the Party, similarly as are Matt McCarten's statements. Their claims that we will make deals with National and or Labour after the next election are antithesis to what the "Maori" Party was established for, three to four years ago by Iwi.
In an MMP climate there is no guarantee that labour or national will have major party status come the next election, as the strategy that the Iwi Party or the Maori Party as some of the genericists like to call it, should be to contest all the electorates, regardless of whether they win them or not. The purpose is to undermine the stranglehold Labour and National have on power in the electorates and thence in cabinet. They can do this by targeting farm labourers, shearers, scrub cutters, and Iwi who are living on the land, this will draw labour and national votes away at the source of their power on the land, these voters are generally encouraged by their farm owning, manufacturer, factory owning bosses to vote for Labour or National. The Iwi party if they adopt this strategy, which it looks like they will means that the view of Cabinet will have to reflect the new rearranged makeup of Parliament which will because of this strategy cause there to be three major parties in parliament the Iwi Party, Labour and National but they will all be minor parties. We estimate that they will each end up with approximately 30% of the electorates with the Maori Party also taking a third of the list votes.
What commentators fail to recognise as they view the present political climate is that because of the indoctrinisation of 160 years of white supremacism in Aotearoa, that their view of what Iwi aspirations are, are obscured. They in their rush to point out the weaknesses of the Iwi movement towards self-determination and independence because of what a few loose cannons say based on their so-called understanding and surreptitious admiration of the westminster system is that they feel that the rule of the white parties are insurmountable. And as such will commentate negatively on any snippet of innuendo that the indigenous party members might care to espouse. However, this superiority will not be reflected in the next election, as the strategy to contest all the electorates will undermine that suzerainty. What is claimed in most instances is that it is assumed that Iwi would have to make deals with National when in fact it may be the other way around, national will be hoping that the Iwi party will make deals with them, or the neoliberal labour party.
The superiority of labour and national in the electorates is not assured, it is merely assumed. Therefore, I believe the Iwi Maori Party can radically upset this hegemony. In the meantime commentators for and against this an indigenous party regardless of what its leaders and underlings state. Cannot deny that under MMP, and the leftist leanings and position of Iwi workers and the underclass this embraces will see Iwi as a major minor voice in Parliament, whom the government and the rest of the pakeha colonisers can no longer ignore.
Geoffrey Karena
Join the Maori Party
I feel real sorry for you confused and lost people.
My information is that the Communist Workers Group new Zealand is been and gone- I mean, passed its used by date.
So why support their failed cause, when you can join a real cause that is rising in the polls.
Unfortunately, the Maori party will have to teach these no-hopers who complain about the system yet havent got the balls to start a revolution, how to provide tangible results for their people.
Oh yes, boys and girls, sit back and watch the real men and women revolutionists show you how its done.
We got sick and tired waiting for your revolution and discovered that your own disunity and squabbling over pathetic differences of idealogy was what your real problem was.
Face it, you people havent got a solution for this country. All you have is an unrealistic and unworkable fantasy of a future revolution.
Sad but true.
You guys are too addicted to your internet prono, takeaways and weekly benefit checks to give it up for a revolution.
Get real with yourselves.
Besides, your not hard enough to have a shoot out with the blue coats. All of you desk shufflers will drop your nuts at the sight of a police uniform.
Ha-ha.
Come now and see sense ladies, and join the real deal and perhaps people will take you seriously.
At the moment you guys are polling at 00000000000000000000000000.1
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
"Face it, you people havent got a solution for this country. All you have is an unrealistic and unworkable fantasy of a future revolution.
"
Jesse: you're a member of the Maori Party. Maybe you can shed some light on what are the Maori Party policies? I have as yet not been able to find any other than their support for the stances made by the 30,000 strong hikoi marchers.
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
I agree with the substance of the CWG's opposition to the Maori Party - especially given its (the new Maori Party's) rather vague rule and that it will ally with Brash etc (and oppose independent action). [Brash B ash B ush] or [B ash Brash B ush?]
The problem is probably here with the word "communism" - one of this Jesse character's points is that communism has failed. Now, without necessarily being a communist myself, I think that this position is totally wrong. A sytem or concept such as "communism" cant fail, because by its definition its the "most perfect" (of course there are no perfect systems) system of particpatory democracy and as friend of mine who was/is I think still an economist said (confirmed) - it is -if ever implemented - the most efficient economic system. Let's say, as mathematicians do (annoyingly admittedly); that this "can be shown".
ON the other hand - that the "soviet system" (or the "Soviet system" failed (can anything fail?) is arguable (that is specifically the USSR as they were (or became) in fact State Capitalist (after some years of semi-socialism - and remembering that the Soviet Union ws invaded by the European countries almost immediately it tried to implement a socialistic system, and that there weere many who were traitors to the working class who tried actively to wreck it, as well as general ideological problems that set in) (and indeed Lenin himself said that if the Russian (any) revolution "failed" then the counter revolution would put in place a more vicious tryanny;as in fact happened - that is well known as "revisionism" (leading to the divctatorship of Stalin) which occurred very soon after the initial revolution - about the mid 1920s (it began). China I feel was a great example of a revolution and to some extent (maybe in the late 60s to 70s) came very close to an ideal socialist (not communist )system...but probably (as I myself predivcted in 1970 )revisionism set in - in fact I said "when China becomes revisionist" to a Marxist and he countered with "if". It is almost inevitable that the early revolutions, rebellions, struggles etc may not lead to the path of a better (more demorcatic and egalitarian} society - but like those many many struggles that occurred so that our present "free" democarcy of liberal bourgeois society could come about ( more (but still not many)) workers in the West reasonably off compared to horrific suffering everywhere else. Suffering everywhere not only for pure ecomnnomic reasons (eg for Maori it is cultural destruction etc which is continuing but yes there is a revival and this si important) but psychological, even "spiritual" suffering.
It is simplistic and unrealistic to think that a socialistic or even a communist sytem will evolve after what is really a very short historical time - that since civilistaion began (or even human societies formed into appreciably large groups). If a truly democratic system (we dont have a democracy - we have a sham which simply helps rich business peopel to make more and more money)- truly democratic - as against the wet dreams imagined by the Jessse's of this world - we might be moveing (amd Maori would be moving) toward a better, more human/humane society (lower suicide rate and so on)...fewer wars, better conditions/pay and opportunities for women and so on. Maori - while some have mad e it in to professions and that is reat - are still on "the bottom rung" of the social-economic ladder (some thing I share I think!!)
- I may reuse a cliche
Because the Greens lack an understanding of politics and history they are infact potentially a very fascist party ( I can see them splitting in the fairly near future eg I like Keith Locke, but am wary of some of the others) - seeing the world as over-populated (it can be shown that it's not), polluted (these things often translate into ("we dont like people, people are greedy, they eat too much, they copulate, they are genetic..."): they never offer solutions to the problems they point to such as pollution etc as those things, polution and "ungreennness", is what keeps them "in a job".
I could "devil's argue" that the CWG need more concrete examples of how a better world is to be implemented (I personally am not necssarily sure we will ever have one! My own belief involves individual struggle and colectivism (or some form of cooperative/competitive system)(which is complex I know if not hopelessly muddled) - BUT the CWG and similar groups are very "onto it" - I feel more so than the Greens who (like any extreme & any 'ists') are very capable of leading us into Hell. Undoubtley they have some good platforms, of course - we all want a better environment etc But they shouldn't be misleading the Maori as they were the first great environmentalists.
Certainly the Maori people need to think about socialism etc and beware of parliamentary democacy. But that is up to Maori of course.
Direct action is the way to go, I feel, when avenues of peaceful protest have been exhausted. The Maori Party will just waste energy: all parliamentary poelicial parties are useless. Have been shown to fail (can be) shown to always fail in the long run) - more so than communism (if anyone can define communism).
Peters and Morgan etc dont sem to me to be very good for Maori - and the Green party seem to ne to be,well, rather green. (If not actually ill...)....
The Jesses of this world eh?
Re: Yes To The Hikoi, No To The Maori Party
I think that Jesse has a "point" what other system/political programme is there? What do the left offer?
But I think if he really had a good understanding of world and national politics and philosohphy (you dont need to be a philosopher per se or university trained for that)he wouldn't be cying for a solution.
There is no actual solution or alternative pe se -
what is needed - in the long term -is a peoples'Government by and for all the people): the Carter Holt Harvey example given above is cogent. In South American (and previously in France eg in 1968 when the workers seized factories, universties etc) recently the workers seized some of the factories, ditribution places shops etc (the 'means of production'):
In addition to such direct action creating change reformist tactics are neccessary and Maori also will or may be energised into groups such as the Maori Party (which would be good eg if they also allowed their members more freedom to take actions outside the pariament when that parkliament - frequently - fails to deliver, and they dont aly with Brash etc).
Of course the question has to be looked at by Maori and there is the question of cultural identity and empowerment of Maori. (but that shouldn't intimidate those who want to join with the common struggle of the Maori and pakeha working class.) We are all human despite our historical/cultural differnces.
Occupation of the foreshores etc is another action needed (which will also help to "educate' people.)
The Hikoi was a great achievement - but the next stage must come.
None of the parties, Maori or other actually have any real solutions, by and large their "progress" (there is some) benefit the capitalists (and also of course there are some positive reformist actions).
Many eg of Labour's and national policies lead to and assist wars and thus are (indirectly) - involved in the planning of murders. (The major Imperialist nations - it can be shown - are the terrorists of the World ..and most parties in NZ toe their line eg our glorious Phil Goff with his brilliant and deep statements about terrorism... (one wonders if these guys are just scared, fooled by US, British and Aussie propaganda about "evil " muslims etc, or they are complicit with big business)
But Jesse is also naive if he expects any more coherent "plan" from Dick Hubbards or Turianas or Brashes or Clarks or any of them - by and large they support Business and conservative policies. They dont have any more clear plan.So the question is for Jesse - what solution does ne offer - what ideas, what direction?
Specifically -
ah, there's the rub!