What do we make of this carry on with the Hurricanes rugby team and one of their owners Troy Bowker? Now regular listeners to this show will know of Troy Bowker. We’ve had him on here quite often because he’s a man of ideas and opinions. We’ve had him on here talking about the capital gains tax, the hypocrisy of electric vehicle manufacture and on allowing high net worth individuals to come and live in New Zealand as long as they bring a big chunk of their money. Opinions which I thought were eminently sensible.
He’s an entrepreneur, a type A personality who takes risks and has made a decent amount of money in his time, and along the way employed a good number of people. He’s the kind of guy who, in that respect, should be encouraged in our community.
But like many he appears to have become frustrated with the increasing use of the name Aotearoa, and he’d support Judith Collins idea of a referendum on the issue. But Sir Ian Taylor had posted on Linkedin the Tom Scott cartoon about this country’s seafaring heritage, saying that would be a wonderful message for “Judith and her friends” who want a referendum.
Troy Bowker then waded in, by the sounds of things not knowing much about Ian Taylor’s heritage, and saying that Taylor was 95 percent European, and that the Vikings and the Romans were just as good at sailing and maritime activities as the first people to arrive by sea in this country. And he accused Taylor of sucking up to the left loving Maori agenda.
So it was a scrap between a couple of entrepreneurs which if Troy Bowker was not part owner of the Hurricanes rugby team would probably have died a very quiet death if it wasn’t for the rugby connection.
But because a good chunk of Bowker money props up the Hurricanes and contributes to the running costs of the team, one of the more outspoken members of the Hurricanes playing staff, TJ Perenara wants something done about Bowker, and then a couple of politicians decide they’ll be considering their presence at Hurricanes games in the future if Troy Bowker stays as a shareholder and board member. And to complete the pile on the boss of the Maori Authority Matthew Tukaki has now called him racist scum. Which is hardly adding any class to the discussion. In fact, I think for a man of Tukaki’s supposed standing in Maoridom, that insult is a disgrace.
Calling someone a racist seems to be the first thing that comes to mind for certain parts of NZ when they don’t agree with something that is said. That’s actually the problem here. Hence my call for NZ to wake up to the danger of the insipid cancel culture that is doing a lot of damage to NZ.
So a few questions. Who is being racist here? Bowker, for suggesting that other ethnicities were quite good sailors too? Judith Collins for wanting a referendum on what the country’s name should be? Ian Taylor for suggesting that Aotearoa was the name that these lands were given when the first polynesians arrived here 800 or 900 years ago? A suggestion that most historians would not agree with.
The rugby connection is frankly irrelevant. I imagine it makes up a small part of Troy Bowker’s business interests. And the baseline issue here is the idea of a referendum on the country’s name. What is so wrong with the idea? The issue has been dismissed as irrelevant. Really? Surely the name of something is the absolute key to a person or a place’s identity? If you change your name, you only do it after a good deal of thought.
If a country wants to change its name officially it should do so in a democratic and measured way. We all know very well why the political class don’t want such a democratic activity - they know what the result will most likely be. The majority will want to retain New Zealand. And there is a certain group of people in this country who are just not prepared to accept democratic outcomes anymore. And that is the most worrying aspect of this entire episode.
Peter Williams is a journalist and commentator who hosts the morning show on Magic Talk. This article was first published HERE
12 comments:
All things Maori are sacrosanct today. Questioning Maori rights, culture or oral claims to fame earns you a whipping on social media, backed up by the usual suspects - Maori Party, Labour and Green MPs; Maori activists; academics; celebrities and sportspeople.
The woke brigade react like volunteer fire fighters to the siren going off. Instead of rushing to help their community they dive for their keyboards and join the twitter mob, scared to be outdone by their woke mates or seen to be conspicuous by their absence which will earn them condemnation.
They're like a flock of chooks following the leader who has just had its head chopped off. No thought, just blind obedience.
I agree with the previous writer. The left in this country do not believe and are not committed to genuine democracy and freedom of speech. Their ideology is the One True Religion and us heretics - those wanting to think for ourselves - are to be punished, abused and suppressed.
There is a certain cowardice from them in all this - they can't or won't debate the issues in an adult fashion and they seem terrified that the real people out there have minds and opinions of their own and want them heard,
Those pushing to change the name of the country without a referendum show that they have no concept at all of genuine democracy. They would rather cry "racist" and tell people to shut up and comply.
In the past men and women worked and died to make New Zealand a decent country for decent people to live in. Right now we are becoming the East Germany of the South Pacific.
Is this New Zealand the way you want it? Hell no!
"And to complete the pile on the boss of the Maori Authority Matthew Tukaki has now called him racist scum."
I bow to the racist head of a racist organisation when it comes to identifying racists.
"There is a certain group of people in this country who are just not prepared to accept democratic outcomes anymore."
Peter, I think it goes much, much deeper. They are intent on wrecking our democracy completely. The Maori ward issue leaps to mind. "Maori" (I use the cynic quotes because I am sure the majority of actual Maori do not support this), "Maori" did not like the fact that the vast majority of New Zealanders did not support the idea of racially segregated council wards. This was rejection of democratic outcomes. So they simply wrecked democracy. The binding referenda for Maori wards were scrapped in a travesty of process. This non urgent legislation was passed under urgency. Public submissions closed on the day they opened. Even so, the public submissions were overwhelmingly against racial wards but they were simply ignored. What has followed is a naked power grab in councils that, in some cases, propose to inflate the value of the 15% Maori vote all the way up to 50%. All of this under the nose of our media who seem to be asleep at the wheel. Not a whimper from any "journalist" anywhere.
As for Bowker. He's being cancelled for the outrageous suggestion that we should be as proud of our Pakeha heritage as Maori are of theirs.
Your last comment sums it up, Peter:-
Democracy is now dead as far as the government is concerned.
Multiple opinion polls have show that New Zealanders do not want the name changed.
If the question about changing the name of New Zealand is such a storm in a tea cup, then it must follow that employees have full discretion not to use Aotearoa/Aotearoa New Zealand in their work? Where such usage reflects personal choices then fair enough I have no issue with it, but where it becomes organisational policy then it must by definition be a very important matter indeed.
So for me the idea of referendum puts the cart before the horse. It is those who want to change the name of New Zealand who should be demanding the referendum and not the other way around. But that's the big lesson of Brexit, the flag referendum and Maori wards: don't ask the question if you don't want to hear the answer.
All true Peter. DeeM,your last paragraph describes NZ general population perfectly.
Sorry to break the news but, the race to change this Country is well on the way, notice the "rebranding" of all Government agencies, preferential health treatment for maori, adding to all the existing legislation favoring that race.
All the while New Zealanders let these things happen without a murmur.
Aotearoa has been on our banknotes for years, I don't remember a discussion at the time.
It is my belief maori have had an agenda for this Country for at least 20 years, waiting for the right time to move, that time is now.
So wake up NZ, or this way of life will be lost.
The 'racist' label is levelled at anybody who expresses any opinion that doesn't suit some Maori or any opinion related to race that the left don't like. The term 'racist' has been used and defined in various ways but fairly consistent are concepts of (i) believing or speaking as though one race is superior to another, (ii) prejudice or discrimination on the basis of race, (iii) antagonism towards a person or people on the basis of their membership or a racial or ethnic group, and (iv) stereotyping members of a racial or ethnic group as likely to possess particular characteristics especially when those characteristics are inferior to those believed about one's own or another group or groups.
I fail to see how Troy Bowker's reported comments were racist under any reasonable use of the term. He referred to someone else's comments as being "Another example of European NZers not being proud of their own ancestors and sucking up to the left Māori loving agenda." In the relevant exchange Bowker went on to write “Please show some pride and respect for the achievements of your own ancestors like the Maori do. Worshipping Maori like you are doing is disrespectful to your other ancestors,”
Bowker made no allegation that Maori were inferior. There was no prejudice, discrimination or antagonism towards Maori. There was no stereotyping except of 'the left'. His first comment was an implied denigration of the left for their alleged 'Maori loving agenda'. One might take offence through interpreting this as suggesting a belief that 'loving Maori' is wrong or unjustified, but Bowker made no comment supporting such an interpretation. A more realistic interpretation was that he was criticizing an agenda based on idealized views and excessive focus on Maori whilst disparaging and undervaluing other races. He subsequently asked his debate opponent to behave in a way that Maori do; that seems to be the opposite of racism against Maori. His next statement disapproved of 'worshipping Maori like you do'; this criticized a particular person's way of worshipping Maori, in context clearly referring to idealizing Maori and their ancestors whilst denigrating one's own ancestors. The only reasonable interpretation of Bowker's statements was that he was calling out racism towards Europeans and their ancestors, not being racist towards Maori.
But we're unlikely to see reasonable interpretations from the easily offended.
How long will we New Zealanders continue with 'aint it awful" stuff when we could be demanding electoral reform such as Swiss style Direct Democracy?
We have no upper house, not even an effective opposition. We are as a people vulnerable to an Ideologue takeover.
I urge readers to take a little time and learn how the Swiss voters are the most important people in Switzerland. The politicians really are the servants.
Don McKenzie
Racism I
Black American political economist, Thomas Sowell – one the most important though largely unsung public intellectuals of the last 100 years – had this to say about brown supremacist part-Maori and their white liberal stooges:
"Anyone who studies the history of ideas should notice how much more often people on the political left, more so than others, denigrate and demonise those who disagree with them — instead of answering their arguments."
“One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans-- anything except reason.”
When brown supremacist part-Maori refer to ‘racism’ what they actually mean is placing it under new management.
Theirs.
Have a free definitions lesson 😊
DEFINITIONS LESSON
"Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage” – Ayn Rand
Racism is today often conflated by the ignorant with simple bigotry, which it is not. Principled opposition to unearned racial privilege is not racism. Nor is it typically evidence of bigotry.
There is only one race. The human race. Much of what is commonly referred to as "racism" is actually ethnocentricism.
And the most disgustingly bigoted, ethnocentric people in this country are part-Maori who have raised up one group of ancestors while trampling down another to identify monoculturally as "Maori," chopping whole branches out of their family trees in order to do so.
These people are best-described as “brown supremacists,” since their agenda is to elevate their ethnocentric self-interest above our common citizenship. This is classic Nazi “blut und boden” [blood and soil] racial supremacism. Think: “Aotearoa is Maori Land,” which I’m sure we have all heard many times before.
Those who believe in a single standard of citizenship, colourblind government, and the abolition of unearned privileges for part-Maori are the complete opposite of their ethnocentric opponents.
Racism II
But the actual racists have carried out a clever "bait and switch,” and conned the liberals seeking public virtue-signalling and moral preening opportunities into accepting their redefinition.
As black American political economist, Thomas Sowell, reminds us: "Sixty years ago if you believed everybody should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, you were a radical. Thirty years ago, you were a liberal. Today, you're a 'racist.'”
Racism is a different beast altogether. It occurs where a group of bigoted, ethnocentric individuals get together to colonise or create a system affording them separate, different, or superior rights to everyone else on the basis of group membership.
In a free society all citizens enjoy individual equality in citizenship. This is so whether some of a citizen’s ancestors arrived in a canoe in 1350, a sailing vessel in 1850, an ocean liner in 1950, or more recently by airliner. Even someone who put his hand up 30 seconds ago at a swearing-in ceremony is entitled to all the rights of citizenship. Prior arrival or ancestral longevity in the land is no basis for special privilege.
Group rights are anathema to a free society. They create two classes of citizenship where only one existed before. Group rights require the intervention of an activist government forcibly taking rights from one group to bestow upon another. As Richard Prebble reminds us: “One group’s positive discrimination is another group’s negative discrimination.”
In Preferential Policies: An International Perspective, Thomas Sowell records the downstream effect of government-sponsored identity politics. Touted as promoting inter-group harmony, Sowell found that wherever such policies had been tried, they invariably expanded over time in scale and scope, benefited already advantaged members of the preference group (those with the smarts to work the system), and led to increased rather than decreased inter-group polarisation. In many places they have brought about decades-long civil wars.
Of course, any downstream proposal that the beneficiaries of state-sponsored identity politics revert to being treated the same as everyone else will make such groups squeal like stuck pigs. As Thomas Sowell reminds us: “When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.'
I will leave it to readers to determine whether New Zealand is a racist country, and if so, in whose favour this racism operates.
ENDS
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