Report from Poneke Solidarity Demo

As indicated previously, I don't agree with the proposition that in New Zealand " the ruling white -supremist paradigm" is "all encompassing".
I've found it frustrating that some people of that opinion don't want to discuss their stance on this list for various reasons. If we get up on our hind legs in public and advance viewpoints on issues of huge social importance we ought to own them in any arena. Below are my own viewpoints.

Don Franks

Human activity and human society are not static. They constantly change and develop and that applies to racial discrimination as much as anything else.

"White supremacist" ideology is of no use to the New Zealand ruling class today and they don't promote it. If state institutions did systematically promote white racism, there would be hell to pay from the mass of the population. There would also be strident repercussions from New Zealand's trading countries. (Recently a poor taste "joke" about Chinese in a Salient column caused an international incident.)
Of course racism can be subtle, but it is not racism for someone in a position of authority to be a white person. If white supremacy was really the order of the day, there would be no Maori top military and police commanders, no top ranking Maori cabinet ministers and no state encouragement of Maori capitalism and Maori business studies - which are taken up by pakeha as well as Maori.
Some say, well that's just tokenism. But these are positions of real social power and not seen or treated as anything out of the ordinary. If we really lived in a state where white supremacy was all pervasive there would have been a hue and cry at the appointment of a Maori Minister of foreign affairs, or the appointment of a non white Governer General. And if we really lived in a state of all pervasive white supremacy there would not be the widespread and socially accepted intermarriage between all races.

Political speeches from all sides of the debating chamber remind us that  the cultural catchcries of the ruling class in New Zealand today are not "white is right", but rather "diversity" and "inclusiveness". "Christian values" are not a foundation of any modern state institutions. Today "Christian values" are a minority and shrinking ideology, ironically particularly enduring in some Maori and Pacific Island circles.

If there is a  "foundation" of state institutions it's clearly the power of capital. For example immigration entry is essentially based on ability to pay and usefulness to the New Zealand economy. A lot of poor people who'd like to come here are not white, but ultimately they're unjustly debarred because of economic considerations, not their colour.

The education system has failed many Maori. I don't believe this is the fault of Maori, nor do I believe its the result a deliberate white racist policy. I suspect generational poverty and deprivation is a large part of the problem.
I don't claim overall knowledge of the education system, but I do know that Maori are no longer beaten for speaking Te Reo, and that there is a degree of encouragement of Maori culture and state support for Te Reo. That is NOT to say that education is therefore all A OK and in no way racist. My point is that there is a process of change.
A lot of this change is relatively recent. Several guys I worked with at Fords told me of being smacked at school for speaking Te Reo. Those beatings would have been as late as the '50's, maybe even '60s.
I don't belong to the school of thought that society is gradually getting more civillised . If anything, I believe society is becoming overall more inequitable, and unjust. The present uncivillised state of affairs includes irrational ugly inhuman behaviour like racism and nationalism. One practical of opposing racism and nationalism is to insist on open borders. Try getting the Maori party to support that one.

White supremacist practice developed to the greatest extent in South Africa.
When apartheid was toppled that was a great advance, but South African rulers adapted and continue today to exploit and oppress the majority black population to in many respects a greater degree than before. An important part of South African capitalists adaptation is the encouragement of a growing black bourgeoise.

In New Zealand the ruling class has adapted to changing circumstances and will continue to adapt. Capitalism is pragmatic and in many ways quite flexible. In my view capitalism has no inate fixed ideological attachment to sexism or racism or homophobia or religion or anything else and is only driven by its need to maximise profit. The helpmates of that need vary in different epochs. Capitalist accumulation once required blatant officially sanctioned systematic racism to help carry out its core business.
Today such policies would pointlessly disrupt the pursuit of capitalist profiteering.
That is not to say that degrees of racism don't persist today, they do.
So does the dispossession of the majority of Maori, Pakeha, Pacific Island and other ethnic inhabitants of this land continue. So does the particularly brutal dispossesion of the very poorest New Zealand citizens, who are mostly brown.
I make no claim to have all the answers to these questions, but am convinced  that working people of all colours have their most  basic interests in unity against capitalism. Even if there was actually a regime of white supremacy in New Zealand that would be the case, but I don't believe there is. I think to insist on the existence of an all pervasive state of white supremacy in New Zealand is at odds with the facts and clouds our understanding of the way forward.