tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7257493550531569180.post7430459009615916340..comments2024-03-26T16:16:22.535+13:00Comments on AGAINST THE CURRENT: WHAT'S IN A LETTER?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7257493550531569180.post-3586952165458411012009-09-24T09:14:06.349+12:002009-09-24T09:14:06.349+12:00But there isn't a necessary causal connection ...But there isn't a necessary causal connection between the economic situation you cite and things like the Maori Language Act of 1987, is there? I fail to see how you think progressive pieces of legislation like this are part of neo-liberalism. You might as well argue that the Homosexual Law Reform Bill or feminist-inspired legislation of the '80s were part of neo-liberalism. <br /><br />Why can't campaigning based around cultural grievances and human rights be combined with a left-wing approach to economic matters? As I say, most of the people who pushed the language rights movement were lefties. <br /><br />And you ignore my point that many Maori have benefited from policies designed to rectify injustices of the past - eg, the Maori Language Act and the kohanga reo and free education in Maori it has led to. I think that in this day and age free education for adults is something very progressive.mapshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18209906216745532870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7257493550531569180.post-90726625351643438392009-09-24T07:28:11.163+12:002009-09-24T07:28:11.163+12:00The point remains - over two decades of official b...The point remains - over two decades of official biculturalism has not improved the economic conditions of Maori. Like working class Pakeha they have suffered under the neoliberal economic policies of both both Labour and National governments.<br /><br />The only Maori to have benefited has been a small elite - who, not surprisingly, support these economic policies. <br /><br />There's nothing 'complex' about this.Steven Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04352539377513132294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7257493550531569180.post-60398353113389680122009-09-23T18:17:44.394+12:002009-09-23T18:17:44.394+12:00I don't see that all campaigns involving Maori...I don't see that all campaigns involving Maori cultural grievances and demands have been a dead-end: to take an obvious example, who would now argue against the 1987 Maori Language Act, or the kohanga reo movement, both of which grew out of decisions by the Waitangi Tribunal? Without the 1987 Act the Maori language would probably now be in a very bad state. <br /><br />I have met many Maori people, none of them wealthy, who have been very happy that they or their tamariki or mokopuna have been able to access an education in a language that was repressed for a long time. The 1987 Act and the free education which children and adults can receive in Maori would not have happened without a long-running campaign. <br /><br />There are many other products of campaigns based around cultural grievances that have been beneficial to ordinary Maori: one that I am familiar with is the struggle to reclaim taonga appropriated by museums, and to gain a say in the management of mseums and other similar institutions, so that they do not distort history and misuse artefacts. <br /><br />Maori from Whanganui tell me that they remember the killings and expropriations of the nineteenth century and the institutionalised racism of the twentieth century every time they hear the name of their home mispronounced. I can understand why they want the name changed. <br /><br />Obviously, I don't think that campaigns based around cultural grievances and demands are the only solution to Maori problems. <br />I'm not sure who would hold such a peculiar view. Certainly Syd Jackson, who helped kickstart the long campaign for language rights, wouldn't: he was a socialist and a trade unionist. <br /><br />Political unity between ordinary Maori and Pakeha in bitterly divided communities like W(h)anganui can surely only come if the Pakeha majority begins to acknowledge longstanding Maori oppression and makes space for the Maori as well as the Pakeha history and culture in the public spaces of the area.mapshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18209906216745532870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7257493550531569180.post-75090796334563189702009-09-23T17:32:37.789+12:002009-09-23T17:32:37.789+12:00I didn't intend to write about the specifics o...I didn't intend to write about the specifics of the Wanganui issue rather the cultural nationalism and 'identity politics' that seemed to inform much of the debate.<br /><br />I'm also not trying to tell anyone anything but it is also quite clear that the beneficiaries of 'biculturalism' has been a small elite of Maori business people, politicians and civil servants. I'm sure you wouldn't deny that?<br /><br />Maori nationalism and 'identity politics' is a political dead end for ordinary working class Maori.<br /><br />That was my main point.Steven Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04352539377513132294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7257493550531569180.post-77273446644782445052009-09-23T15:38:20.134+12:002009-09-23T15:38:20.134+12:00Hi Steve,
I'm not suggesting Bryce's work...Hi Steve,<br /><br />I'm not suggesting Bryce's work is necessarily anything - just doubting whether anybody (including himself) would consider him an authority on Maori society and politics. <br /><br />Rata's work certainly is informed by a very mechanical Marxism, and certainly has been appropriated by the right. Rata herself has facilitated this process, as her various op-ed pieces for the Herald have shown. <br /><br />Far from being an outsider titling against some academic elite, she has been very successful as an academic, is able to place articles in the MSM, and enjoys the ear of policy-makers in the National and Act parties. <br /><br />Getting back to the subject at hand, though - what I was trying to suggest (perhaps not very eloquently) was that you have failed to engage with the specifics of the situation in Whanganui. Here we have a group of people - undeniably amongst the poorest and most marginalised in the country - who have been campaigning for at least one hundred and seven years (council records show them presenting an argument in 1902) against what they see as a racist attack on their history and culture. <br /><br />Wouldn't it be worth trying to understand why these people feel so strongly about this issue, rather than simply telling them that they oughtn't be bothered, and are in some way the tools of Tariana Turia and Ken Mair? There is a real material base for the sense of oppression and difference that Maori in areas like Whanganui feel, and this can't simply be dismissed with calls to class unity. <br /><br />My own view is here:<br />http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2009/09/whanganui-why-laws-and-turia-are-both.html<br /><br />Some interesting replies in the comments boxes.mapshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18209906216745532870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7257493550531569180.post-11222381553314833522009-09-23T10:50:19.596+12:002009-09-23T10:50:19.596+12:00Rata has looked at how policies that were intended...Rata has looked at how policies that were intended to liberate indigenous peoples have actually led to the formation of wealthy elites.<br /><br />I note she has often been attacked by the academic and political elite that have promoted culturalism over the past two decades or so. <br /><br />To smear her arguments as 'right wing' is well wide of the mark.<br /><br />Similarly, Bryce Edwards has written at length on Maori politics and to dismiss his arguments as 'mechanistic Marxism' is also entirely wrong.Steven Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04352539377513132294noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7257493550531569180.post-86910122945957883022009-09-22T17:49:32.591+12:002009-09-22T17:49:32.591+12:00I would be very wary of Rata's work, which mak...I would be very wary of Rata's work, which makes use of concepts based in a very mechanical, economistic version of Marxism to score right-wing points. Her whole intellectual project derives from personal animus, and her book, which only uses a couple of case studies to back its generalisations, has been questioned on empirical as well as methodological grounds by many Maori scholars. <br /><br />The basic problem with the analysis you advance is not that it's wrong - it's not completely wrong - but that it's grossly simplistic. There is no single Maori elite, no single 'Treaty process', and no easily definable 'cultural nationalism' at work within Maoridom. <br /><br />I would look at Jane Kelsey (particularly her essay in Nga Patai) and Evan Poata-Smith rather than Rata or (!) Bryce Edwards for an account of the effects of the attempts to co-opt the Maori protest movement over the past 25 years. But it would better still to study one aspect of this complex process in detail, rather than rushing to generalisations that produce nice-sounding political soundbites but have very little analytic bite.mapshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18209906216745532870noreply@blogger.com