Friday, April 27, 2007

Stealing stuff

I don't expect much of the Dominion Post - it earned its nickname Slum Post. But most of the time they keep their racism thinly veiled, not today. The front page teaser was titled School Reward and the little blurb said:

Maori involved in the illegal occupation of two schools, including alleged vandalism and the apparent theft of thousands of litres of water, look set to be rewarded with free land leases
The article itself is slightly better, but only because it's longer, which makes it hard to maintain that level of racist statements on a per word basis.

Katherine Rich gets her oar in
National's education spokeswoman Katherine Rich said the proposed deal showed Maori could illegally circumvent the Treaty settlement process to their benefit, and set a dangerous example.
How dare Maori circumvent the treaty process? The state stole the land fair and square, and now Maori should follow the process the state sets out in order to get something. Anything else is lawlessness, but bad lawlessnes, not like stealing land in the first place (and as for stealing water, how dare Maori claim a luxury like water from the farmers who bought it from the people who stole it).

(Having re-read the article, I feel the need to clarify that the above paragraph is sarcasm. I'm not convinced it's possible to out reactionary the Dom Post).

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:27 am

    Maia, the 'article' link goes to something on blogger.

    btw, is there a way to subscribe to all comments on your blog?

    ReplyDelete
  2. My favourite nickname for the Dom-Post is "ComPost".

    Ahem. Carry on.

    ReplyDelete
  3. weka, I think if you plug this into Bloglines (www.bloglines.com) it should work. Let me know if it doesn't:
    http://capitalismbad.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/full

    ReplyDelete
  4. The article is here, and its every bit as appaling as maia suggests. But then, so is Katherine Rich's press release. How dare the government actually do the right thing and return stolen land!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks Weta for pointing out the problem, and I/S for finding the article.

    All fixed now

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous1:08 am

    Thanks Spans :-)

    gawd though, another thing to register with...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous9:44 am

    Fantastic post. You captured the irony really well. I laughed my head off - though of course the reality of the situation is quite serious.

    How sad for me a Barbadian living in London, to recognise so clearly the issues involved even before I read the article, at the same time how fabulous to find a radical sister on the other side of the world.

    ReplyDelete