Like predictions, moral clarity about the past is simpler.
In real time, stories get muddled and the narrative of history has not emerged from a jumble of storylines.
Rawiri Waititi, Te Pāti Māori co-leader, called the British royal family “war criminals” last week, and demanded that King Charles III pay for his family's colonising past.
Apologies and reparation for past crimes matter. But if we are going to have moral clarity about colonisation in history then we must have clarity about it in the present.
Rawiri fumes at the royal family who “ask you to turn a blind eye to the genocide, rape and oppression they continue to be responsible for”, while telling us to turn a blind eye to the genocide, rape and oppression in plain sight in Ukraine.
He tells us not to “stick our noses in other people's business”, that this is a “proxy war” between the US and Russia. As if the indigenous people of Ukraine have no agency in fighting their oppressors.
President Vladimir Putin is an old-fashioned empire-builder, running amok like a modern-day Christopher Columbus.
“A real war has been unleashed against us again,” Putin lied to the crowd at this week’s military parade in Moscow, drawing a false parallel between his invasion of Ukraine and the fight against Nazi Germany.
His cruise missiles detonating in the air over Kyiv told another story.
This kind of disinformation is straight out of the colonisers’ playbook. Make up stories to convince people that taking someone else’s land, wealth and waters is in everyone’s interests, especially the colonised.
To modern colonisers, the past is not about wrongs, reparations and apologies, but a playbook on how to justify racial purity and ethnic cleansing.
Putin looks up to Catherine the Great, and has likened himself to Peter the Great who “gathered in the lands”, invaded Sweden and created a great “Slavic Empire”. Portraits of both hang in the Kremlin. When Russian troops retreated from Kherson last year, they took everything they could carry. Paintings, furniture, dishwashers. Even urinals. They also took time to rob a grave and take the skull of Prince Grigory Potemkin, the favourite general of Catherine.
His bones resonate “empire” for Putin. It was Potemkin who first took control of the anarchic southern frontier of Catherine's empire in 1783. A region previously ruled by the Mongol Khans, the Tatars, the Cossacks and others. Potemkin was the first Russian to annex Crimea.
Even then, disinformation campaigns played a part. When Catherine visited Crimea, the story goes that Potemkin built fake villages along her route, populated with fake villagers exuding fake prosperity.
Today, Putin wants recognition that “Russia has its own sphere of influence, and has a right to claim additional territory”, says Fiona Hill, who worked for recent US governments.
She remembers Russia offering to “pull out of Venezuela” if the Americans would “pull out of Ukraine”. This is how big colonising powers behave. Get together and divide countries up.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy doesn't share Putin's pre-occupation with the past. “I don’t love the past,” he said. “We have to jump forward, not back.” The Russians can have Potemkin's bones. But he'd like the dishwashers back. And the stolen children.
The northern summer is a critical time in the war. Putin is bracing for Ukraine’s counter-offensive. Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries have already retreated from Bakhmut, after fruitless months laying siege.
Ukraine has a chance to end this war, but only if others, including New Zealand, continue to have the moral courage to stand up to modern-day colonisers.
The war will end when Russia is militarily defeated and its leaders conclude their colonial war was a mistake. It will be over when Ukrainian people can go to the supermarket without bombs dropping, when the guilty have been brought to justice, and reparations have been arranged.
President Zelenskyy may not care for the past, but he recognises that the Muslim Tatars made up the bulk of the Crimean population when Potemkin annexed it more than 200 years ago. After 2014 and Putin’s occupation, many Tatars once again fled. Those who remained are political prisoners. The restoration of their rights and culture is one of Zelenskyy’s top priorities.
In April he honoured them by hosting Iftar, a Ramadan evening meal, with Crimean Tatar leaders.
It is surely right that a free people fighting for their lives and their culture in a war they did not provoke, against what is unquestionably colonisation, deserve the maximum support we can give them.
When you can find the courage to condemn a tie as a symbol of past colonisation, but lack it to condemn Russia for abducting children and ethnic cleansing, I suggest it is time to reset your moral compass.......The full article is published HERE
Josie Pagani is a commentator on current affairs and a regular contributor to Stuff. She works in geopolitics, aid and development, and governance.
He tells us not to “stick our noses in other people's business”, that this is a “proxy war” between the US and Russia. As if the indigenous people of Ukraine have no agency in fighting their oppressors.
President Vladimir Putin is an old-fashioned empire-builder, running amok like a modern-day Christopher Columbus.
“A real war has been unleashed against us again,” Putin lied to the crowd at this week’s military parade in Moscow, drawing a false parallel between his invasion of Ukraine and the fight against Nazi Germany.
His cruise missiles detonating in the air over Kyiv told another story.
This kind of disinformation is straight out of the colonisers’ playbook. Make up stories to convince people that taking someone else’s land, wealth and waters is in everyone’s interests, especially the colonised.
To modern colonisers, the past is not about wrongs, reparations and apologies, but a playbook on how to justify racial purity and ethnic cleansing.
Putin looks up to Catherine the Great, and has likened himself to Peter the Great who “gathered in the lands”, invaded Sweden and created a great “Slavic Empire”. Portraits of both hang in the Kremlin. When Russian troops retreated from Kherson last year, they took everything they could carry. Paintings, furniture, dishwashers. Even urinals. They also took time to rob a grave and take the skull of Prince Grigory Potemkin, the favourite general of Catherine.
His bones resonate “empire” for Putin. It was Potemkin who first took control of the anarchic southern frontier of Catherine's empire in 1783. A region previously ruled by the Mongol Khans, the Tatars, the Cossacks and others. Potemkin was the first Russian to annex Crimea.
Even then, disinformation campaigns played a part. When Catherine visited Crimea, the story goes that Potemkin built fake villages along her route, populated with fake villagers exuding fake prosperity.
Today, Putin wants recognition that “Russia has its own sphere of influence, and has a right to claim additional territory”, says Fiona Hill, who worked for recent US governments.
She remembers Russia offering to “pull out of Venezuela” if the Americans would “pull out of Ukraine”. This is how big colonising powers behave. Get together and divide countries up.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy doesn't share Putin's pre-occupation with the past. “I don’t love the past,” he said. “We have to jump forward, not back.” The Russians can have Potemkin's bones. But he'd like the dishwashers back. And the stolen children.
The northern summer is a critical time in the war. Putin is bracing for Ukraine’s counter-offensive. Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries have already retreated from Bakhmut, after fruitless months laying siege.
Ukraine has a chance to end this war, but only if others, including New Zealand, continue to have the moral courage to stand up to modern-day colonisers.
The war will end when Russia is militarily defeated and its leaders conclude their colonial war was a mistake. It will be over when Ukrainian people can go to the supermarket without bombs dropping, when the guilty have been brought to justice, and reparations have been arranged.
President Zelenskyy may not care for the past, but he recognises that the Muslim Tatars made up the bulk of the Crimean population when Potemkin annexed it more than 200 years ago. After 2014 and Putin’s occupation, many Tatars once again fled. Those who remained are political prisoners. The restoration of their rights and culture is one of Zelenskyy’s top priorities.
In April he honoured them by hosting Iftar, a Ramadan evening meal, with Crimean Tatar leaders.
It is surely right that a free people fighting for their lives and their culture in a war they did not provoke, against what is unquestionably colonisation, deserve the maximum support we can give them.
When you can find the courage to condemn a tie as a symbol of past colonisation, but lack it to condemn Russia for abducting children and ethnic cleansing, I suggest it is time to reset your moral compass.......The full article is published HERE
Josie Pagani is a commentator on current affairs and a regular contributor to Stuff. She works in geopolitics, aid and development, and governance.
8 comments:
" I suggest it is time to reset your moral compass.."Waititi has no moral compass.
Anyone in that position who objects to wearing a tie but is happy to make a fool of himself wearing a cowboy hat is obviously nuts. and should be treated with the contempt he shows for others.
And I thought that Waititi's hat was traditional Maori garb. More fool me!
The Hat. Known as a common form of head cover.
Outdoors - appropriate for sun cover.
Indoors - for disguise and one might think today, for ambush/robbery.
And in Waititi's case, unnecessary self embellishment and to disguise a real lack of self-confidence.
The Parliament of New Zealand deserves more respect.
We need to make a distinction between colonialism and imperialism in these discussions. The former strictly speaking alludes to people from an imperial heartland moving in large numbers into lands that the imperial power has annexed. Colonisation was a prominent feature of imperialism but the two are not the same thing. India, for instance, was never a colony in the sense of being the destination of many thousands of British emigrants.
Oh Pur.... lees urinals and kitchen sinks? You really have been watching the BBC.
A shocking thing I saw was a man in his 70's at least sitting on the side of the road on the grass near a park. Well I thought he was sitting. It was somewhere in the Donbas region. He had been a victim of a landmine blast and I guess that was where he landed. He was one of the ethnic Russian's that have lived in that region for over 400 years. Zelensky's Nazis had been putting them there and they've been at it for almost a decade murdering ethnic Russians destroying their homes and burning their land.
There's nothing good about war and this war is no different. Truly a bankers war prolonged and backed by the West. And Zelensky is no hero.
Sorry Josie but you have the wrong end of the stick.
Whatever you say about Waititi becomes irrelevant & meaningless after espousing your narrow views.
Although I do not approve of his pollitics either.
Maori colonised the Chatham Islands.
Genocide by another name.
Whitewashed by Andrew Little saying in Parliament that Maori "settled" there.
I should add it seems that Te Pati Maori are the only ones tolling this bell. Ironically caught between a rock and a hard place.
As Russia they fear US NATO expansionism, Neo Colonialism by another name and is also perpetrated by Blackrock and Vanguard. I would agree, the threat is real. They have a very relevant point. I would be shouting this too to be wary and cautious of these agents.
Possibly why Māori MPs feel their voice will be stronger with them. We have not got to the bottom of the water issue yet. Who really owms NZ's water? Who owns vast amounts of NZ property? I would be concerned too. I think it's important not to dismiss their voice because they seem like a bunch of clowns. Labour has lead us down a very treachorous path. BlackRock's wealth is in excess of 9 trillion and growing.
Our next problem is the USD. What is it likely to do? It will affect us.
And to talk about fundamental religions and tribalism is just chaos and the ruling class know it and use it to weoponsise their mission. It is disturbing what you say Josie and ai don't agree.
A quote to remind those of Britain, Germany, President Macron, and those of the country known at the US.
"Entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz"
Benito Juarez.
Who conquered Neo- Colonialism after 3 short years in 1867 and should need no translation I think. The key words are practically the same in Engish. Al derecho means rights. An amazing life story and an amazing individual.
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