Wooly_Cow

http://tvnz.co.nz/content/3116285

Not wanting to get overly political here but.....anyone else think this guy was caught with his snout in the trough, lying to his employer (if I said I was sick and got caught going on holiday, I'd be rightly sacked!), and spending tax payers money for a jolly......then decides that the best defence is write in terms that can only be described as racist....

Wooly_Cow

BEVS

Oo yis !

Stoof

i'm guessing the apology (or not really) on radio yesterday will also have his colleagues shaking their heads again

http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/hara...s-sort-3126524

scrubbedexpat094

He's an a**e

Matewx

Had a very interesting chat at work today with some of my staff...

Which included:
- Maori
- NZ White (Not sure if this is the right way to say...)
- Maori/Nz White mixed
- Me

Needless to say that everyone had VERY different opinions...

Had to use my mediation skills....

Matewx

Oh!

Me I think he's an idiot... Feel sorry for the other ones in his party who are doing great work...

Charismatic

I think he told the truth (though not all of it).

However he is still a tosser IMO.

Matewx

Oh yea!!

As I see it, it's the use of language & attitude & delivery of it...

He's entitled to his opinion...

I mean, I come from a country where not so long ago the biggest racist man in the country was runner up to be President!!! so...

BEVS

Thought that read "had to use my medication"


Spot on. Totally spot on. I agree.

He wrote it how he sees it and he is entitled to bigoted view. He proves that bigotry still exists the world over.

So , I am taking a chance and opening this thread up for debate and moving the thread to the main NZ forum in the hope that ' we ' can make good use of this topic for an open and honest debate and discussion.

I was born to Irish/English parents in a time where ' no Irish need apply ' in the UK. We mixed with a huge multi-national set of peoples which further did me , as a kid, no favours at all. Believe me .

Husbands' family is also right mixed . Not Irish this time. Afro-Caribbean. Not him. His cousins.


Be careful people . It's an opportunity isn't it, to sensibly really discuss and debate the issues of perceived difference, given that many of us are or could also be migrants and come from all countries and creeds.

I don't want to have to pull the plug on it.

adamlt1972

But couldn't this idiot have made his point (i.e that he didnt feel as though his sickie should've been questioned) without bringing the race issue into it.
Bearing in mind that numerous pakeha politicans had been caught out in the same manner, there is simply no need to bring race up as an issue in that context.
So the man is clearly a racist.

pricklykina

I think that he could have done it differently for sure
And I certainly don't agree with him
But you also have to bear in mind the language of the initiating email
Buddy's language was pretty colourful and not what you would have expected from and ex waitangi tribunal member

We've all been guilty of the email written in haste I'm sure...that's why we should wait 24 hours after being provoked or at the least, have some one read the email before we hit send

teeym

Not long back here in sunny old Blighty, we had the loathsome Nick Griffin of the BNP on Question Time. This seemed like a great opportunity to have a reasoned debate on race, quash their silly political views and expose their lack of depth on other important political points.

What we actually got was a bunch of low rent politicians and a viciously partisan audience exhibiting bullying, name-calling and general manners that wouldn't be tolerated at a chimps tea party to the degree where half the electorate began to feel sorry for the man.

Race is a thorny issue and politicians seem loathe to confront it and accept that racism (along with all the other "ists" and "isms") is very much a part of everyday life. And this is a shame, because to most people it is little more than the odd comment or bad taste joke which, while not to everyones liking, can be shrugged off by the average sensible human being as an instrinsic side effect of our inbuilt apprehension of all that is different. Unfortunately when the only people prepared to stand up and talk on the public stage are the likes of Nick and Hone, people - quite often via red top newspapers - can get the impression that things are much more serious and that the world is a simmering cauldron of hate where all colours and creeds are just waiting for an opportunity to knock seven shades out of each other.

Bad things have happened in the past - no one will argue that. But the longer descendants of the wronged feel they should bring it up in respect of their forefathers and the longer descendants of the perpetrators feel compelled to make apologies they do not necessarily believe in, then the longer we will continue in an "us and them" cycle with both parties holding lingering, damaging grudges.

I personally prescribe beer, to be taken once every half hour until everyone has forgotten what they were arguing about.

Mgee

In a way I'm a bit worried about this. Not about the particular incident itself, but the underlying attitude, because I cannot help thinking about how I will fit in the society as a migrant if I'm seen as just another white motherf***** by part of the society and have to bear the burden of what happened in NZ yonks ago and what had nothing to do with me. Yet, in Hone Harawira's world, I am part of that historical tragedy based on my skin colour. For me, classifying anyone just based on their ethnicity or skin colour and treating them as a bunch with similar qualities is racist.

I travelled in Africa about ten years ago, and it was sobering for me to be treated just as a toubab (white person) instead as a person in the remote villages. I realised how hard it is when people automatically expect you to have certain qualities and faults just because of your skin colour, without knowing your personality or any other traits you have. Because I was a toubab, I was constantly approached with all kinds of requests to buy the locals everything from footballs to cars -and sometimes the attitude was really hostile when I refused.

Now these people in the remote villages where not really racist because due to lack of contact with toubabs and lack of information about the world, they simply treated me according to the only information they had: that all white people are incredibly rich. In a sense it was true from their perspective: if I have the money to travel there, surely I have the money to buy them what they need. Even my very low daily budget was a lot of money for them, and they couldn't understand when I tried to explain them that it took me a long time to save the money for the trip and that I am not a rich person who can buy stuff for anyone who asks for something.

When I was treated like this, I realised that this is what racists do as well: they select one quality of a group of people as the common denominator for the whole group, and base their world view and attitudes on that, ignoring all personal differences within the group or any other qualities the group may share. These folks in the West African countryside were not racists because their attitudes sprung from the lack of knowledge and understanding. They relied only to what was told to them by other locals and that was their only reference of what a toubab is.

This is not the case with the MP in question. He has access to all the information in the world, he's travelled (even to "the museum made famous by Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code" ) and is presumably an educated person, through which he should have quite a wide perspecive, also historically, and yet he bases his views on prejudices and labels all whites under the "white mother*******s" label. Private email or not, it does worry me as I see it racist, especially as Mr. Harawira lives in a multicultural society and must know that the white people in NZ represent numerous cultural and ethnic groups, yet Mr. Harawira treats them as a single mass.

However, in a democracy, even the racists are entitled to their opinion, and so is Hone Harawira, the BNP in the UK, the FN in France and the Perussuomalaiset in Finland. But the question is whether Mr Harawira had the right to abuse the system based on his world-views (i.e. using the white MFs' tax money for his personal travels), and for me the answer is simply no.

Green Fruit

Because of colonialism, I understand that clearly there were injustices committed against the traditional Maori societies. As unjust as I think that was, obviously that is nothing to with the present day European population. If I remember correctly John Key's mother is Jewish, I'm sure he does not have a problem in New Zealand having relations with Germany. As terrible as those atrocities were, of course its unfair to blame a people for what their ancestors did. According to New Zealand radio, Hone Harawira's birth name is John Hatfield. Of course people should be proud of their roots, but all Maori people, including Hone, have some some European ancestry. I feel this makes his comments even more ridiculous.