The Ninjas as described by the little children of Ruatoki raided that community looking for alleged terrorists and found Tame Iti and about three others. Around the country they found another thirteen. The police raids are reminiscent of the past when Rua Kenana's community of Maunga Pohatu also in Tuhoe country raided that place in 1917. The country is in an uproar and the powers that be from the PM on down are urging people to wait for the outcome. In the meantime the judiciary are refusing bail. Pita Sharples the leader of the Maori Party claims that this action will set back race relations for a 100 years. I don't know what the Chief of Police ,the SIS or anyone who decided on this action is thinking of but they obviously think that the political and legal climate is ripe for this kind of action. Given the reaction so far and there's more to come they could be dead wrong. Obviously the right leaners (Paul Henry the Breakfast guru on TV One )are supportive of this and the nation is divided not only on racial but political lines also. This action will surely sink the government already far beind National. It will help the right no end and Maori will swing in behind the Maori Party really big this time.
2 comments:
This whole NINJA THING when it began I thought it a joke or at worst a police exercise. I also thought it was a drug raid which would have made more sense. This beat up terrorist nosense whereby people have been arrested for arms offences to get them inside and then look through the stuff collected for evidence of terrorism is surely illegal and bizzare. The Maori area is specifically Tuhoe land and the Tuhoe tribe. Northland or north of the Auckland Harbour Bridge has not been affected. I given the arrest of "activists" Maori and Pakeha in other parts of the country I can't believe that there's no such people in the north; even those with contact with Tame Iti. It is after all the land of many Maori activists. Could it be that one of them is now in parliament? Why is Tainui hardly affected? They have a rebelious past. Nor other Maori populated areas like Ngati Porou or Kahungunu. Also is this not the fore runner for a crack down of ethnic gangs?
Aug/Sept: Its 9/11 USA again and it's so good to see the two Presidential contestants Obama and McCain all but holding hands at the memorial to that incredible terrorist disaster. It's a pity that we are unlikely to see either go to memorial services for the killings and bombings of innocent people in Cambodia, Afghanistan and Iraq; not to mention the horror of shooting down an Iranian airliner full of innocent people in the Mediterranean some time ago. It does seem that Lochabee in Gt.Britain is remembered but not that one. This selective morality or remberance of terrorism is based not on the immoral horror but on who dun it. If the idea of Iraq and Afghanistan was revenge (although why Iraq is paying for what they didn't do to the US beats me) then 9/11 has been paid for at least ten times over; unless one US life is worth 100 Iraqis and Afhganis.
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