Look at the real-world destruction this is causing: under the Resource Management Act, productive builders and businesses are forced into regulatory gridlock, extorted for time and capital to appease untestable supernatural assertions. Even worse, this institutionalized mysticism is being ruthlessly forced down the throats of captive children in state schools.
To defend activities like the haka, the hongi, the karakia, the pōwhiri, and the waiata as merely "secular team-building" is a supreme delusion. These physicalized acts are inherently interdependent, intertwined, and interlocked with a specific spiritual worldview; forcing a child or an employee to perform them is a direct, tyrannical assault on freedom of conscience. It is an unadulterated insult to the intelligence of every atheist, agnostic, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jew who believes that the state has absolutely no business meddling in the human soul.
The defense of this regulatory nightmare relies entirely on primitive sentimentality, bloodline entitlement, and the archaic weaponization of a 19th-century treaty. The ideological central planners scream that historical primacy grants a permanent spiritual jurisdiction over the legal code, but their low-resolution moral bullying stops right here.
We live in a modern, pluralistic nation home to nearly 300 distinct ethnicities, and the self-evident reality is that a civilized, functional democracy cannot distribute legal authority or political leverage based on the ancestral lottery. Arguments rooted in "indigenous" privilege or "we were here first" are a direct invitation to tribalized warfare and a total subversion of equal treatment under the law.
True inclusion is not the forced conscription of citizens into rituals they find irrational or superstitious; it is a cold, neutral, universal public square where the state is completely blind to your pedigree. We must possess the radical courage to stand up straight, smash this deceptive double standard, and demand a surgical law reform that completely purges every single piece of legislation of this esoteric debris.
One law for all—that is the non-negotiable baseline of civilization, and anything less is a total capitulation to structural division.
■ Make New Zealand Secular
John Robertson is a patriotic New Zealander who frequently posts on Facebook.
To defend activities like the haka, the hongi, the karakia, the pōwhiri, and the waiata as merely "secular team-building" is a supreme delusion. These physicalized acts are inherently interdependent, intertwined, and interlocked with a specific spiritual worldview; forcing a child or an employee to perform them is a direct, tyrannical assault on freedom of conscience. It is an unadulterated insult to the intelligence of every atheist, agnostic, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jew who believes that the state has absolutely no business meddling in the human soul.
The defense of this regulatory nightmare relies entirely on primitive sentimentality, bloodline entitlement, and the archaic weaponization of a 19th-century treaty. The ideological central planners scream that historical primacy grants a permanent spiritual jurisdiction over the legal code, but their low-resolution moral bullying stops right here.
We live in a modern, pluralistic nation home to nearly 300 distinct ethnicities, and the self-evident reality is that a civilized, functional democracy cannot distribute legal authority or political leverage based on the ancestral lottery. Arguments rooted in "indigenous" privilege or "we were here first" are a direct invitation to tribalized warfare and a total subversion of equal treatment under the law.
True inclusion is not the forced conscription of citizens into rituals they find irrational or superstitious; it is a cold, neutral, universal public square where the state is completely blind to your pedigree. We must possess the radical courage to stand up straight, smash this deceptive double standard, and demand a surgical law reform that completely purges every single piece of legislation of this esoteric debris.
One law for all—that is the non-negotiable baseline of civilization, and anything less is a total capitulation to structural division.
■ Make New Zealand Secular
John Robertson is a patriotic New Zealander who frequently posts on Facebook.
2 comments:
It's also a violation of one's human rights to be forced to take part in a religious ceremony or ritual.
Participation in an opening prayer in the NZ Parliament has always been optional.
The 'special case' status of Maori religious rites should be challenged in court.
Here here! A fabulous piece.
I am part Maori and I cannot bear to think that people assume I believe in all this nonsense. If some part Maori want to, that is up to them but I want no part of it. We are all individuals and should be treated equally in all respects. Please do not speak or think of us as one.
Post a Comment
Thank you for joining the discussion. Breaking Views welcomes respectful contributions that enrich the debate. Please ensure your comments are not defamatory, derogatory or disruptive. We appreciate your cooperation.