The “Pa” is the must go to celebration of T W “s birthday January 25th that sees the socialist faithfull and wannabees like Luxon trooping up to the Twin tower Ratana Church to seek to be recognised.
Now from a meeting in April 1936 between Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana and Michael (Micky) Joseph Savage Prime Minister of NZ a deep alliance between Labour and Ratana began and continues to this day.
One year earlier from the “Marriage” Savage Led Labour defeated Reform /United under George Forbes that directly led to the formation of National under Adam Hamilton in that year Ratana and Savage buried the Mere.
Three years earlier Eruera Tirikatene who had won Southern Maori for Labour was an early follower/believer in T W Ratana’s sect. The Tirikatene Family had a hold on southern Maori until 1996 when Winston’s tight five swept the Maori seats with ex rugby first five Tu Wyllie ending the Tirikatene hold, by then under Whetu Tirikatene Sullivan, Sir Erueras’ daughter who had followed him following his death in 1967.
Now Rino Tirikatene, grandson of the Kaumatua, has signed on with the Labour remnants of the Jones boy, Nashy, and the once retired National MP , radio jock Michael Laws.
Will the Winston first lifeboat have room for these new comers who will place pressures upon the current MPs, Costello, Marcroft, Patterson, Arbuckle, Foster and Ashley Wilson?
Current polling has room for a couple more but the current recruitment is beyond the polling and there are suggestions Winston first does not garner the votes Polls predict.
That said current electoral support for the Coalition leaders is tanking if poll respondents are being accurately counted?
The question is hanging, who will be next in climbing aboard the Party of the Man once claiming He was Happy to be the MP for Tauranga, how long ago was that?
6 comments:
It has always confused me that Maori could take to Christianity. The religion was a big driving force behind the evil white colonial machine. So why on earth would they culturally appropriate the thing that is oppressing them.
To answer CXH's question, primitive tribal peoples are henotheistic - they acknowledge the existence of the gods of other tribes. They moreover assume that those gods are what give those other tribes their military and/or economic prowess. So when they come across a more advanced civilisation, they will start worshipping their god(s) in the expectation that they will benefit accordingly. This is all the more so when the shamans/priests of that more powerful group offer the people they have subjugated a stake in their god(s). Hence we find large numbers of colonised people 'converting' (wrong word, but commonly used in the context) to Christianity or Islam as those empires grew. But note that taking on 'foreign' god(s) did not mean abandoning their own tribal deities - that would raise the ire of those gods resulting in crop failures, epidemics, etc. So you end you end up with a mish-mash of indigenous and imported beliefs.
So, what you're saying Barend, is that we end up with the worst of both worlds - genuflecting to everyone's deity. Embracing diversity does not create and ensure unity for the betterment of all.
Henotheism is a well-established paradigm in the study of comparative religion and the history of religion, Peter. It has a lot of explanatory power and resolves what at first appears to be a conundrum such as a tribal people taking on the god(s) of their conquerors while at the same time holding on to their own. There is no need to add value judgements such as whether it's good, bad or otherwise. These do not clarify, they only muddy the waters.
"So you end you end up with a mish-mash of indigenous and imported beliefs" and that doesn't "muddy the waters"?
No, Peter. I am describing the explanatory power of the henotheism paradigm here. Sure it's all 'muddy waters' to 'outsiders looking in' without a robust conceptual framework to apply to their observations but paradigms such as this help the informed understand what is going on between the ears of those affected.
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