It should come as no surprise to anyone that there is a racist element to this dispute, but you may be surprised to find out that the racism was exhibited by a protester on the site who identifies as being Maori. Or not. Conversations about inverted racism are few and far between in our overly sensitive media environment.
Newshub published the video conversation of a protester at Ihumatao insulting a police officer.
Newshub
“Another foreigner occupying our whenua in Aotearoa and then not even letting us on our own. F**k off back to your own country,” she said.
The woman then added, “And you’re just a dick!”
She has anger management issues, but if this abuse is indicative of what our police are putting up with at Ihumatao, they have my sympathy. This officer should be congratulated on his composure during this unnecessary racist diatribe, which may also explain why the police had to bring another 100 officers on site recently.
This particular protester thinks colonialism is the reason for the dispute, and while there are historic elements of colonialism, the current Ihumatao dispute is within one iwi. But goodness knows how many other iwi are now involved after protester numbers were swelled by people travelling in from far and wide.
For a balanced historical background read Idbkiwi’s synopsis of the history of the Ihumatao dispute.
But who is the actual racist in this conversation? Who is the real “dick”? And how many other protestors have a “racist chip on their shoulder”? Not forgetting of course that Maori were at one time immigrants here too.
Regardless, such confused and angry individuals should be evicted forthwith because they are malcontents who contribute nothing to a peaceful society. They have no credibility for being able to arrive at a “peaceful” resolution to their “peaceful” demonstration. There’s far too much hate being circulated at this point for Ihumatao to end well, and I suspect the militant minority is more than happy for this to continue ad infinitum.
The PM promised government support to “help facilitate a solution to the dispute” but subsequently reneged on her pre-Tokelau support for the Maori youth protesters by stepping back post-Tokelau and declaring she has no immediate intention to visit the site.
Perhaps someone appraised Ardern of the inappropriateness of her intervention in the first instance? I wonder if they also warned her about the likely blowback from angry Maori youth protesters when she withdrew her support?