TUHOE 'TERRORISM'

As the shakedown continues on Monday's police 'anti-terrorism' raids, the focus appears to be on Tame Iti and his supporters.

While they have obviously been playing Cowboys and Indians in the Urewera's, there's no evidence of 'the arms training camps' the police alleged were hidden away in the forest and bush. Indeed, some media went looking for these camps and found nothing except for evidence of camp fires and an old billy can hanging from a tree.

But the police have gone ahead and arrested Tame Iti and sixteen others and charged them under the Firearms Act - it remains to be seen whether there is any concrete evidence to pursue charges under the Suppression of Terrorism Act.

What's alarmed the police is that the stated aim of Tame Iti and his supporters is to create a 'Maori nation'. The state, especially under this Labour Government, has embraced and integrated a 'safe' brand of Maori nationalism. It seeks only to assert itself within the capitalist status quo. It's a cuddly brand of Maori nationalism that liberals are comfortable with.

However Tame Iti's brand of Maori nationalism seeks that which the state cannot countenance. An independent Maori nation is never going to get the support of the establishment.

As Tuhoe, Tame Iti's focus is on creating an independent Maori nation on Tuhoe land

Of course nationalism, Maori or otherwise, is ultimately a reactionary phenomenon. Having identified the 'white state' as the problem, Tame Iti should not be surprised that he and his supporters are largely viewed as a bunch of disaffected Maori who don't like white people very much.

However there is precious little evidence that Tame Iti and his supporters (and I suspect there are only a handful) were about to launch some kind of 'guerilla war' to pursue their cause - although its already been reported by some media that Tame and co wanted to launched an 'IRA style war'.

However it appears that whatever was going on in the Urewera's has given the police a convenient Trojan Horse to target other activist groups around the country - some of which have a more sophisticated class-based view of the capitalist state and who have no sympathy for 'race-based' politics.

It'll be interesting to see how the Maori Party reacts. As a race-based party, logic suggests it must support Tame Iti.