Anti-racist action in Christchurch, photo by popartyrights

Thomas Inwood, member of Fightback and Anti-Racist Action (Christchurch).

A Facebook page for “The Pakeha Party” caused a stir in early July, quickly gaining more ‘likes’ than any other political party in New Zealand. While the founder, David Ruck, admitted that the idea was initially a joke between friends, the torrent of interest has resulted in an attempt to build a real political party based on rhetoric of ‘equal rights’ for all New Zealanders. The Pakeha Party illustrates the profound ignorance of history within our society, as well as an underbelly of racism which have both  been emerging more frequently during the economic recession. While many have, quite rightly, pointed out that David Ruck is a complete buffoon, the popularity of his bigoted ‘joke’ highlights a dangerous ideological tendency.

Historical Illiteracy

Reading comments in the media, and made by Ruck via the Facebook page, it is clear that supporters of the message of ‘equal rights’ completely misunderstand a great deal of New Zealand’s colonial history, and race relations. The myth of a privileged Māori beneficiary living off the hard work of others is commonplace not just within misinformed racist circles, but has representation in mainstream media. The disgusting cartoon by Al Nisbet earlier this year is  a clear example of mainstream attacks on Māori living in poverty – and a perpetuation of the myths around beneficiaries in general.

More disturbing are the many calls from white New Zealanders to discard the Treaty of Waitangi and ‘let bygones be bygones’. This is perhaps one of the most fundamental misunderstandings, reinforced by a kind of abstracted liberalism based around ‘individual’ rights and responsibilities. The argument is familiar enough: that “Pākehā now should not be paying for the crimes of our ancestors”. The separation of who is ‘guilty’ for particular wrongs in the past from any repercussions over time must be challenged. What supporters of Ruck’s message ignore are the ways that violations of the Treaty (illegal land seizure etc.) by The Crown have created a fundamentally unequal society. All workers are dispossessed, but indigenous people experience dispossession in the extreme within colonial societies. Ancestral land which sustained families for generations were enclosed, carved up, and sold – often illegally or in a fraudulent manner. Naturally, this forced Māori into poverty in rural communities while the collective wealth of the nation circulated through predominately white hands. Revenue from these injustices, and the labour of the working class, built New Zealand largely in the image of Europe. Institutions with European ‘sensibilities’ were seen as normal and Māori struggling to integrate into these systems were punished.

In the mid 20^th century a migration from rural communities by Māori into urban centres took place. Māori were slotted in always at the lowest rung of the working class within urban environments. Māori integrated, often discouraging children to learn their own language so as to better fit in within the white, European-centered schooling system. Māori were being incorporated into European society, but effectively as an underclass. Urbanization largely destroyed widespread understanding of Kaupapa, and over the following decades Te Reo was in serious jeopardy  of becoming extinct. This loss of cultural identity is still being grappled with today. The Pakeha Party are likely informed by the generation of white New Zealand who remember this era as the “good old days” when race and The Treaty were ignored. As Morgan Godfrey pointed out recently, New Zealand’s egalitarian myth does allow Māori (and everyone else) to participate, so long as they assimilate. “There’s no room for Māori participating as Māori.”. The message of ‘equal rights’ from The Pakeha Party would effectively see a reverse of Māori initiatives which attempt to allow Māori full participation in society as Māori.

Those who find Ruck’s message resonating with them seem to misunderstand that the crimes and injustices of the past have created and reinforced the inequity of the present. Māori are over represented in prisons, have poorer health outcomes and die younger, are in more dangerous and lower paid jobs; all related to systemic poverty and institutionalized racism that has built up over decades. Treaty settlements and  Māori specific social development schemes are  trying to correct very real wrongs that not only disenfranchised Māori, but inversely allowed for the over-privilege of Pākehā in New Zealand. What Malcolm X said of America rings no less true with the meagre Treaty reparations being made now for past crimes:

“If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches, that is not progress. Even if you pull it all the way out, that is not progress. Progress is healing the wound, and America hasn’t even begun to pull out the knife.”

Reparations, progress; these  ideas are ongoing. Even in supposedly progressive journalism around the Pakeha Party it is often pointed out that the Waitangi Tribunal is two years off finishing up all settlement claims, as though in two years New Zealand will finally have racial harmony once more. The harm done in the past has shaped the present and will continue to shape the future regardless of Treaty settlement processes. The ongoing struggle with racial oppression cannot be overcome under capitalism, but cannot be reduced simply to questions of class. [Read more…]