OPINION
Phil Green
We’re meant to get all exercised about the Opotiki ‘thing’ happening recently, with the tangi of an important gang member. All fluff and feathers.
Whether we like it or not, the sages of New Zealand legality have deemed (over our heads) that Maori indigenous rights are akin to the Ten Commandments. The most visible part of Maoridom is the gang member.
When Rob Muldoon tried to get to know troublesome Maori, he went to the gang patch. They loved him for it, which is part of New Zealand folklore, but for us, not so much. We admired his bravery, but who would’ve knifed the Prime Minister, Rob Muldoon? Apparently, he was so brave he threw his drink into a gang member’s face. That may be an urban myth, but it’s a good one, so I’ll keep telling it.
I was a child of the 1970s, and I recall politicians talking tough about gangs through the years, and nothing’s happened. Who really thinks Mark Mitchell will sort them out? Not me for a start. Too many years, and they’re now too heavily engaged in the Maori Renaissance.
When I was at intermediate, the children of gang members were everywhere, and it was significant who was aligned with the Black Power, and the other, the Mongrel Mob. I could never tell the difference, though my friend in the Black Power repeatedly drew the hammered fist wherever he could. He shares a name with the Maori party leader, and I did google to see if there was an association, but no.
They would have brawls after school, yet while in school they assumed a truce. So it’s been going on for over 40 years. I recall a girl coming up to me, and I have no idea why she chose me, to say, “We’re gonna get our land back.” Nice girl, but it shows how this issue has been simmering for a long time.
Back to the future or present, and with all the seething words from Newstalk journalists, I doubt we’ll ever see a return to 1950s race relations that we expect to be rational and cordial as evinced by Sir Aprirana Ngata in the 1940s.
These are tough times and, frankly, I agree with the “softly, softly” stance taken by the police. We presently don’t have judges who will criminalise brown faces, and we don’t have a corrections facility to house them. New Zealand is literally a decolonising state like African countries right now, and the fighters are the heroes (read gangs).
Despite credulous voices from conservatives, there’s no public clamour to attack gangs as the police attacked peaceful mandate protestors at Wellington last year. I think that makes sense. We are a very multi-ethnic society, and the brown in us resiles from conflict which would otherwise summon something akin to a race war.
New Zild is different and we tolerate these divergent attitudes because, as Kate Sheppard knew, we are a just and tolerant society.