Dom Post on extremism and free speech
The Dom Post Editorial:
Few things are more abhorrent than the extreme Right and those who perpetuate its thuggish philosophies.
I always wonder why they are called extreme right, as invariably such groups support protectionism and left-wing economic policies. Take the BNP whose economic policies are:
- anti foreign investment
- wants the subordination of the power of the City to the power of the government
- self sufficiency in food production
- is critical of corporatism and big capitalism
- seeks to reduce income inequality
The arrival in the Hutt Valley of supporters of the far-Right National Front, Right wing Resistance and New Zealand Nationalist Alliance at the weekend is only slightly more concerning. With their truncated version of the Nazi symbol, skinheads and their sparsely-attended parade through Wellington’s streets, they succeeded only in demonstrating they are inconsequential and have no support in New Zealand.
True.
An anti-racism campaigner was appalled that a holiday park allowed the groups to stay. However, the alternative – allowing discrimination on the grounds of political belief – would not only be illegal, it would also be a difficult concept for many New Zealanders to swallow.
There is a sensible middle group. Don’t discriminate on the basis of membership or belief, but hell if I owned a holiday park, and you started waving a swastika about, you’d be gone.
More difficult to resolve is the debate raging in Britain over whether British National Party leader Nick Griffin should have been given a slot on the BBC’s Question Time programme. Those who believe he should not, argue that it gave his whites-only party an undeserved aura of political respectability. They claim 3000 expressed interest in joining the party just before and after the appearance.
BBC bosses argue that, as a state broadcaster, the corporation has to cover all political parties with a national presence – something it judges the BNP to have achieved because, though it has no MPs at Westminster, in European parliamentary elections this year it won two seats with just under a million votes.
The BBC is right in principle and in practice. A principled democracy cannot simply silence views that the majority disagree with.
Absolutely. And a state broadcaster especially must not censor minority views.
In practice, Mr Griffin’s appearance has simply revealed his politics for the illogical farrago of prejudices they are. He floundered over whether he denied the Holocaust had taken place and defended the Ku Klux Klan as “almost totally non-violent”.
Griffin tries to pretend that he is now merely a defended of indigenous Brits. He is a former National Front member (he joined at age 14) and not only is he a Holocaust denier, he even criticised David Irving for admitting the number of Jews who died may be up to four million. He has also praised the Waffen SS and ironically attacked the RAF for its bombing of Nazi Germany.
He has also attempted to form an Alliance with Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini!
There is no room for complacency about those who preach the politics of hate, but the way to deal with them is to confront them and expose their policies to the unblinking light of reason. The alternative – pretending they do not exist – simply feeds their conspiracy theories and allows their distortions to grow unchallenged.
Again – I agree. One reason I publish regular updates on the National Front and its various splinter groups.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
With their truncated version of the Nazi symbol, skinheads and their sparsely-attended parade through Wellington’s streets, they succeeded only in demonstrating they are inconsequential and have no support in New Zealand.
Interesting that no one (lefties/anti-fascists/whatever) turned up to oppose them this year – probably a good move, as it probably takes the fun out of it a bit!
October 27th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I have always viewed those of a National Socialist persuasion as being nationalistic socialists, rather than international socialists like the communists.
And those policies are so left wing!
October 27th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Common English usage is immune to facts. It’s a truism that the words we use for political orientation (right-left, conservative-liberal, etc.) have meanings piled on meanings to the point of uselessness. I’m guessing they’re ‘right wing’ in that they’re conservative, and they’re ‘conservative’ in that they’re pining for a return to an imagined past golden age of white supremacy.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
The BNP is surely a party almost forced into existence by the policies of of the Govt over the last decade. With its surveillance cameras, mindless PC and draconian curtailment of free speech seemingly only directed towards the White majority GB seems a shadow of its former self and ripe for extremism.
JC
October 27th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
DPF:
“There is a sensible middle group. Don’t discriminate on the basis of membership or belief, but hell if I owned a holiday park, and you started waving a swastika about, you’d be gone.”
And how would you deal with the case of a holiday park owner who allows jewish people to stay, so long as they do not wear a kippah/yarmulke? Serious question – how can a liberal society prevent the public display of “hate” symbols/speech, without also giving room for “bigots” to prohibit the wearing or displaying of cultural or religious symbols they don’t like?
[DPF: Well I might draw the line about symbols associated with advocating genocide. Secondly I would say there is a difference between a holiday park and a dairy. If a Nazi clad person came into a dairy, they'll be out in three minutes and won't affect custom. Letting Nazis stay at a holiday park will affect other visitors who won't stay if swastikas are on display.
Finally, I am not sure legislating against prejudice is the best way. If a dairy wanted to ban Jews from being served (as a cafe in Invercargill did) maybe it is better to let them display their prejudice, and let other people protest against them, than coerce them with the law]
October 27th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
One only needs to investigate the views of ‘extreme’ groups of any denomination to encounter precisely the same nutcase arguments albeit coming from different perspectives. Whether one looks at anarchist greens or extreme libertarians, fervent communists or deeply involved fabian socialists, it doesn’t matter, they all have ideas that bring one closer to vomiting than to laughter.
The one thing that all these groups share with politicians of any colour and hue, however, is the shear lust for power and the preparedness to perpetrate any and all fraud on conscience to achieve and maintain it. The difference is one of degree only, not limited by principle in any shape or form.
The only sensible way to improve things in my view is an extremely transparent implementation of the concept of ‘government’ with state power rigidly shackled and politcians heavily scrutinized and contained within short periods of electability. The first thing to get rid of is the ‘professional’ politician and the lifelong campaigner for democratic endorsement of a particular political cause.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
AG, that’s exactly the same arguement we are seeing with the “gang patch laws”. How long before someone decides to extend their scope? The way the current government is planning to extend surveillance powers, not long, IMHO.
And I wonder what went through the mind of the anti racism campaigner when Pita Sharples told the mongrel mob not all their enemies were brown?
but hell if I owned a holiday park, and you started waving a swastika about, you’d be gone.
Thus ensuring the power of the swastika to bring fear endures. Why not simply ignore it, or mock it, like I do with the cross, the crescent moon, the jewish star, etc?
October 27th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I suggested some years ago (in response to a comment from the late Janice Graham) that politics was like a clock with parties being left or right of Noon. Labour at present would be 9 O’clock, National at 1 and ACT at 3. Hitler and Stalin would be so close to 6 O’clock that it would not matter, that is left and right wing totalitaian governments end up being the same thing.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Grifin did say one thing that I thought was true. If white English are not the tangata-whenua of England then who is? Should they not be afforded special rights to protect their distinct culture and mores? Seems to be the case with indigenous peoples everywhere else in the world.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Griffin and the BNP will continue to gain traction as Britain moves further and further from its roots as a defender of liberty.
Some of you may have guessed I am no lover of religion, but this case is just wrong.
The pensioner had written to Norwich council complaining about its decision to allow the march in the city centre in July, at which she claims she was verbally abused.
In the letter, she wrote: “It is shameful that this small, but vociferous lobby should be allowed such a display unwarranted by the minimal number of homosexuals.”
Mrs Howe referred to homosexuals as “sodomites” and blamed “their perverted sexual practice” for sexually transmitting diseases as well as the “downfall of every Empire”.
She argues that she is not homophobic, but was expressing her deeply held religious beliefs.
However, Bridget Buttinger, deputy chief executive at the council, replied to Mrs Howe in September, warning that she could face being charged with a criminal offence for expressing such views.
“As a local authority we have a duty along with other public bodies to eliminate discrimination of all kinds,” she wrote.
“A hate incident is any incident that is perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated by prejudice or hatred. A hate crime is any hate incident that constitutes a criminal offence.
“The content of your letter has been assessed as potentially being hate related because of the views you expressed towards people of a certain sexual orientation.”
She added: “Your details and details of the content of your letter have been recorded as such and passed to the Police.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6424895/Pensioner-questioned-by-police-after-complaining-about-gay-pride-march.html#
October 27th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Ohh boy Brian that is a can of worms.
By what position does one start as historically the MoriOri were here before the Maori, who was here before the European.
In the UK the Saxons claim first dibs but the Celts from the west also do.
Meanwhile the UN wants self determination for all indigenous peoples everywhere to slaken/break down national sovereignty so they can legitamise their push for global governance. Which is rearing it’s head yet again in the Copenhagen Accord’s 181 pages.
My stance is clear – National Sovereignty (as it’s bad enough with bureaucrats in Wellington let alone one 3000 miles away).
All are equal before the law as long as they are citizens regardless of gender, race, colour.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Political compass.
Right and left in today’s political cultures generally refer to economic policies, not social policies. Otherwise, they’re meaningless and they cling on to old referents. The BNP are labelled as far right because they’re high up on the authoritarian side of the scale and they’re associated with the social policies of the traditional 20th century right. Their economic policies differ, however.
As you pointed out, they veer to the left, insofar as one is able to distinguish any real policies with real background to them other than the superiority of the “indigenous” British and policies to reflect that.
One of the greatest mistakes made all over the world is to conflate social and economic policies and draw a conclusion from that – for example, to say that a party with leftist or liberal social policies is authoritarian simply because control is implied on one part and then extrapolated to the other part; or to take a party with liberal economic policies of lower taxation and liberal trade and associate that with social freedoms. Although they can come together, they’re not necessarily tied together in the way they often are by a lot of people.
Hitler’s Nazis were indeed highly authoritarian, but were in favour of a liberal sphere of trade, as opposed to the equally authoritarian Stalinist government of the USSR, who believed in state controlled production and enforced social policies. If you look to the US and UK of the 1920s and early 1930s, you’ll find the socially conservative and economically liberal parties in opposition. Oswald Mosley’s fascists were described as the wartime equivalent of the BNP in the Times this weekend – that’s probably the place you’d find the BNP in relation to the political mainstream of today.
October 27th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Good point Chris
October 27th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
“I always wonder why they are called extreme right…”
Similarly when hard-liners were trying to turn Russia back to Soviet communism in the early days of Gorbachev etc, these hard-liners were usually labelled in the Western MSM “right wing” and “rightists”.
Interesting to note the neo-fascists are climbing on the indigenous-rights bandwagon. That may eventually collapse it. Even in NZ.
Meanwhile, in the links below, readers will note NZ “right” wing extremist Kyle Chapman is back in politics not too long after marrying a Mormon lady and declaring he was settling down. The Christchurch Press yesterday printed a picture of Chapman leading vigilantes “on patrol” in eastern Christchurch. Chapman, as I understand it, is part-Maori.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch/2999176/Right-wing-vigilantes-patrol-Christchurch
AND
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2998598/Far-right-leader-returns
October 27th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
“Chapman, as I understand it, is part-Maori.”
That would be amusing if it were true considering he fire bombed a marae. Any legit source for this?
October 27th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
It gets a bit muddied going back that far.
The Celts were they earliest known grouping (originating out of Europe) but what about the Romans, Vikings, Jutes, Angles, Normans etc etc with various other more localised influences eg Dutch, Spanish.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Should they not be afforded special rights to protect their distinct culture and mores?
Maori had their language systematically smashed by the representatives of the Crown, after a treaty of some sort had been signed, what’s the UK equivalent?
October 27th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
MikeNZ
“By what position does one start as historically the MoriOri were here before the Maori, who was here before the European.”
Epic fail …
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=loeJXTt7Rj0C&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=moriori+myth&source=bl&ots=wS0ByQ2K0u&sig=hsEzByA5qPeZv1u8cr-fgx7HFX0&hl=en&ei=4TrmSqvaEovWsQPf8tWwBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CBgQ6AEwBzgU#v=onepage&q=moriori%20myth&f=false
October 27th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Re Everlasting Fire at 1.04…
I think we should invite Herr Chapman to disclose his whakapapa.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
The indigenous peoples and cultures argument is the dumbest argument for British nationalism I’ve ever heard. Nick Griffin says that indigenous peoples of the UK trace their ancestry back to 17,000 years ago, when Stephen Oppenheimer, the source he quotes regularly, says that migration to the British Isles began 15,000 years ago and other sources put it as recently as 9,000 years ago.
Since then, however, the British have been invaded, colonised and populated by, not in any particular order:
Vikings
Angles
Saxons
Jutes
Danes
French
Gauls (different periods)
Romans
Spanish
Moors (different periods)
Celts
…and others I can’t think of right now. But this is just history, and it doesn’t take into account prehistoric population shifts.
What Nick Griffin means when he says indigenous inhabitants of Britain is white people. Fuck knows what our culture is, but I’m damn sure it’s not the pseudo-history spewed out by Nick Griffin.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
I hope you would also toss out anyone wearing a Che Guevara tee-shirt, waving one of Mao’s Little Red Books or displaying the Hammer and Sickle.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Did the Human Rights Commissioner visit them to hand out certificates in recognition of them standing up for their beliefs.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Re Pete at 1.10…
There were people in Britain before the Celts, and their genetic heritage survives. They seem to be related to the Basques and perhaps the non-Arab Berbers of North Africa.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
I found it ironic that the protesters were asking the BBC to impose censorship and deny free speech and then called the BNP doofus a Nazi. Denying the BNP airtime is just encouraging them and the undercurrent of British Nationalism.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
MikeNZ – yes – a can of worms indeed
So, because the UK was historically peopled by a disparate lot of cultures and races over the past 10,000 years, they don’t have anything distinct that should be cherished and supported – that is what I am reading here. I am sure that the Anglo-Norman knights who stood with their Anglo-saxon descended footmen on the fields of Poitiers, Crecy and Agincourt would have argued that they were very English.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
DPF: “I always wonder why they are called extreme right, as invariably such groups support protectionism and left-wing economic policies.”
I suspect the reasoning is something like the following:
Extreme case of “We are all the same” = no-one is allowed to be different = socialism.
Extreme case of “we are not all the same” = they are inferior to us = fascism.
Hence the tag “extreme right”.
My 2c.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
The question as to whether someone is indigenous is purely political. ‘Indigenous Britons’ has about as much relevance as many other groups calling themselves indigenous, including Maoris.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
The Anglo-Normans spoke a derivative of French.
Anglo-Saxons spoke Old English which had just branched from Old German.
It would not have been a very English sounding argument.
Pacific Islands including NZ are different to most of the rest of the world in that until a couple of hundred years ago their ethnicity was relatively unmixed.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
No wonder I keep hearing banjos for some strange reason.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
On the contrary, that is the distinct thing that should be cherished and supported. The most distinctive thing about British history isn’t its ancestral roots, but its global reach that defined it, as someone said above, as the defender of freedom.
For me, the most repulsive thing about the BNPs policies is that their modern day policies prefer white over everything else and use British interchangably with white. Tens of millions of Indians, Pakistanis, Africans, Maori, Pacific Islanders and Caribbean Islanders, each to the man a non-white, fought and died in two world wars to defend freedoms that the BNP take for granted in their expressions of racial preference. Not only that, but the BNP actively deny that the people we fought were responsible for the atrocities they were.
And yes, the British Empire has a very sketchy history, with legacies of its own atrocities – but what’s even more amazing is that despite these things being in very recent memory, those non-white men still fought and died for the freedoms that Britain came to represent.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Somewhere back in the dim, dark recesses of the mind i recall my university history lessons where politics was shown more as a circle than a line. On one side you had totalitarianism on the other side you had liberalism. It basically denoted that socialism and fascism were closer to each other than the “left” and “right” of modern western democracies. I’ve always thought it explained politics much better than a purely linear model.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Pete George posted at 1.46:” The Anglo-Normans spoke a derivative of French.
Anglo-Saxons spoke Old English which had just branched from Old German.”
Pete, at the earlier mentioned Battle of Poitiers in 1356, English was well established, it hadn’t just branched from German.
However, in 1356, an Englishman, a Dutchman, and a German speaking low German still would probably have had little trouble understanding each other.
Though Saxons were predominant in the Germanic invasions of Britain, English’s closest Germanic relative is Frisian, still spoken on the coast of Holland, Germany, and Denmark.
The Anglo-Normans’ ancestors, the Normans who invaded England, were about the first generation of Normans whose main language was French. They were only a two or three generations from the Vikings (the Normen or North Men) who gave their name to Normandy.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Chris C, I thought the indigenous people of Britain were Neanderthals? Griffin and Chapman certainly bear a striking resemblance to them.
As for zealous persecution, you can’t go past smokers. Enjoyers of tobacco are the New Jews. Punitively taxed for our sins, excluded from humane conditions. The tyranny of the majority strikes again.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
The queue for the Yayoi Kusama Exhibition at the City Gallery was out the door and halfway across Civic Square all weekend.
While the white supremacy rally one block away was ignored. Says it all really.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
But does it do you any harm? Even possibly a majority of tobacco enjoyers prefer much of the improvement over the recent tyranny of the minority.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
The other interesting thing about the Moriori myth, is that it was a European ship The Rodney, which was chartered to sail to the Chathams. So the muskets and transport for the ‘genocide’ were provided by the Europeans.
The myth was perpetuated through our school system and persists because it is used to justify European colonisation.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
MikeNZ as a visitor to these shore why the NZ in your title, you must be a visitor because any kiwi would know that the Moriori were an iwi of the Maori.
Tsk, you do have a bit of study do you not ?
October 27th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Chris C. posted at 1.55:”…Tens of millions of Indians, Pakistanis, Africans, Maori, Pacific Islanders and Caribbean Islanders, each to the man a non-white, fought and died in two world wars…”
They certainly contributed and played their part Chris, but tens of millions? Hundreds of thousands more likely in each of the two world wars, and by far the most of those were Indians, some of whose descendants are now Pakistanis.
Of the Pacific Islanders, Cook Islanders and perhaps Niue Islanders fought in the Maori Pioneer Battalion in World War 1, but no Samoans, as they were just emerging from being a German colony, and I don’t think any Tongans fought in World War 1 either. The Second War was a little different, but the main Pacific Island contribution in manpower to the Allies then came from the Fijians who supplied one, perhaps two battalions.
Some Indians fought on the Japanese side in South-east Asia in World War 2, but as a colony nearing independence, that was perhaps forgivable.
The argument of “we fought for you so we deserve X” weakens as time passes. It may have been trailblazed by NZ when fighting for trade concessions when Britain entered the EU.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
RRM (1488) Vote: 0 0 Says:
October 27th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
The queue for the Yayoi Kusama Exhibition at the City Gallery was out the door and halfway across Civic Square all weekend.
While the white supremacy rally one block away was ignored. Says it all really.
Does it? i don’t know what it ” says”. maybe you could enlighten me.
maybe it says Juvenal was right, and too many people prefer bread and circuses while their society crumbles around them.
Perhpas it says a lot of people admire the work of a Japanese artist, but don’t want to live in a street full of Japanese.
So, what does it say?
October 27th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Black Moss – the fact that you would describe seizing a ship, ordering the captain to take you to the Chathams and holding the first mate hostage on shore until the venture was complete as “chartering”, says much about your attitude.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
My Name is Jack –
Wellingtonians are more interested in what you have to say, than in what colour your skin is??
October 27th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Couldn’t help but laugh when I saw the name of the councilor in the pensions article linked to earlier: Buttinger. Must date to the old tradition of adopting the lastname of your profession.
October 27th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
BlackMoss – When has it ever been a justification for colonisation? Just curious. Take into account what Put it away said. Then also take into account the brutal slaughter the pacifist and innocent Mori Ori endured with clubs, axes and muskets. Picture the days when their bodies were laid out for days and eaten until they were too rotten to be eaten anymore. The few remaining were taken into slavery, and had atrocious living conditions.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Hmmmm, for some time here I thought I was reading of Barack Obama.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Grumpyoldhori, I’m a Kiwi by most definitions, being a fifth generation New Zealander.
I didn’t know that “any kiwi would know that the Moriori were an iwi of the Maori.”
What the hell is an “iwi”?
October 27th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Over 2m Indians alone fought for the British in WW2, 1m in WW1. Then include Northern and central Africa and the former colonies on the East like Nigeria, South Africa, extend eastwards across the Arabian peninsula to include what’s now Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran, then further East to India, of course, Malay, Burma and the Caribbean and Pacific islands.
If you go to the cemeteries in France and Belgium, the number of non-Christian graves and non-Western names on the graves there is astounding. It really does number tens of millions of non-white British combatants fighting on behalf of Britain. They dwarf the contribution made by the predominantly white colonies by merit of their populations and percentage of young men involved.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Put it away, I stand revised by your information — I hadn’t realized the coercion possibility. Although there could be some issue with the legitimacy of being forced or whether it was a convenient excuse to avoid prosecution under an existing law (note the captain received a generous amount of trade goods for the passage, excerpt from historian Claudia Orange on link below–interesting story, the tribes took off to the Chathams because they were escaping Te Rauparaha.)
http://www.waitangi-tribunal.govt.nz/scripts/reports/reports/64/490A0DA6-0ABA-498F-8765-DA4BD1D86CF7.pdf
>
3.7 Captain Harewood and the Maori
Captain Harewood, the commander of a visiting trading vessel, the
Rodney, protested that he was pressed to take the migrants to Rekohu.He
had good cause to so claim. Though the transport of Maori to other
places was a profitable business, British subjects who aided and assisted
Maori warfare were liable to be prosecuted in New South Wales, and at
this time at least one who had operated in the Kapiti area had been so
charged. Harewood’s case would later be referred to the British Resident
in the Bay of Islands, James Busby, for inquiry, but it appears that he was
not prosecuted.24 Amongst other things, Harewood recorded that two
trips were required and that themate was taken hostage to ensure that he
returned for the second group.25His record, however, also shows that he
received a generous payment of trade goods.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
“Few things are more abhorrent than the extreme Right and those who perpetuate its thuggish philosophies.” How about leftists who cling to the ideology which has murdered countless millions? It seems they get a free pass.
“More difficult to resolve is the debate raging in Britain over whether British National Party leader Nick Griffin should have been given a slot on the BBC’s Question Time programme. Those who believe he should not, argue that it gave his whites-only party an undeserved aura of political respectability. They claim 3000 expressed interest in joining the party just before and after the appearance.”
The Dom Post (and you) conveniently leave out the background story–that the BBC stacked the panel and the audience so blatantly that the BNP picked up a large amount of support due to people’s outrage at such a dishonest ploy.
“A principled democracy cannot simply silence views that the majority disagree with.”
Since when was Britain’s Labour Party part of a “principled democracy”? Just the latest revelations about their immigration policies and their thieving ways would seem to indicate exactly the opposite. Principled my ass! And the BBC has been perfectly comfortable with either ignoring or distorting the views their leftist culture finds unacceptable.
“One reason I publish regular updates on the National Front and its various splinter groups.”
But never, ever publish updates about the so-called “anti-fascist” demonstrators against the BNP? You know, Unite and other Socialist Workers useful idiots? You are a profoundly dishonest person Farrar, posing as an impartial observer.
October 27th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
EverlastingFire,
You’re right, it’s not a valid justification, but the argument colloquially, at least in my experience, goes something like this: “well, why are they complaining about their land being taken–they did much worse to the Moriori”. Kind of like the actions of the European are part of the natural order (as the Maori conquered the Moriori, the European conquered the Maori…) and not something we have to redress.
I don’t deny that tribal life could be brutal back at that time, and the Moriori, who had adopted a culture of peace, were mercilessly and violently murdered, with the remainder taken as slaves as you say. However, Europe has also fought bloody wars, and many states continue too. Europe was not exactly a civilized place in all quarters back in that time either and many lived in squalor, oppression with child labour, few rights for women and appaling sanitation. In many ways, you could look at aspects of the Maori world as being more civilized. It is always dangerous to compare groups at different times in terms of determining which is more “advanced”. Europe naturally was able to share ideas from East to West and back again, but it also went through the dark ages. On the other hand, Maori adopted quickly to new technologies and were commercially enterprising in the early stages of settler contact.
Mt_Tinman => iwi means tribe. You may be a NZer but you must have had your head in a box not to know that one…
October 27th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
You act like the BNP are majority and the right people for their support were deliberately kept out. On a turnout of less than 35%, the BNP took 6% of the vote, which was 2% less than the Greens. Even based on a 35% election turnout, the BNP supporters would have been in the minority.
What you don’t like is that the programme was about Griffin and he got dragged over the coals. And I didn’t like that – if the programme had been its normal format, Griffin would have been shown up for the one-issue reductionist idiot he is without accusations of stage management being thrown about. But the audience set the questions, not the BBC, and even based on a 35% election turnout, the BNP supporters in the audience would have been in the minority.
Griffin would have complained regardless of the questions or the makeup of the audience, because he was made to look like a grade A joke of a representative.
“Have you denied the holocaust?”
“I’ve never been convicted of holocaust denial…”
What a joke.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
There are more Hindus in New Zealand who regard the swastika as a religious symbol than there are neo-Nazis. Simply put- facism isn’t kiwi.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
If you go to the cemeteries in France and Belgium, the number of non-Christian graves and non-Western names on the graves there is astounding. It really does number tens of millions of non-white British combatants fighting on behalf of Britain.
Lets see, “tens of millions”: tens is a pural which effectively means more than 1 lot of ten million doesnt it, so we are at least talking 20 million here – now the total casualty count of military personal in WW2 came out at 25M – something is telling me you are full of shit.
Total Indian military casualties in ww2: 87,000
Total Indian military casualties in ww1: 74,187
Now consider that the Indian division mainly fought in the Sudan, then Iraq and finally Burma during ww2 (whilst not forgetting the stirling effort they performed at Casino along side the Kiwis), I would hazzard a guess that a small minority was buried in France and Belgium. It might pay if you remember that ww2 was a world war – most of the Indian deaths were in India, defending the country against the invasion by the Japanese where they suffered 1.5 million deaths as a result.
When you try to make shit up about a countries sacrifice to try to justify some silly point, it greatly detracts from the actual sacrifice and suffering a country has gone through!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
October 27th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Chris C, if you’re right, then how come there’s so much evidence that the BBC carefully hand-picked the audience? And the evidence is undeniable–several audience members have backed that up.
No, what I don’t like is that both the Dom Post and Farrar tell a carefully selected part of that story. Further, the carefully selected audience was given a crib sheet by the BBC organisers before the event, and if you’d care to do even the minimum of research you’ll see that the sheet provided them with the talking points the opposition to the BNP dictated. You also make no mention of the fact that panelists were allowed to speak for minutes while Griffin (a man I have little admiration for, by the way) was cut short again and again.
Dimbleby behaved more like an attack dog than a moderator–I see no mention of that either.
The issue I have isn’t with supporting or opposing the BNP–the issue is with dishonest reporting and the blatant bias of the BBC, something that’s very well documented but doesn’t get a mention. And with the way the Dom Post (and Farrar)
are quick to describe the BNP as ‘far right’ (they’re not even right, let alone “far right”) yet the greens and Labour are NEVER described as ‘left’.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Thank you BlackMoss, my stone-age is a bit rusty.
Non-existent really.
I had thought it might mean something slightly different. Moriori were as much a Maori tribe were as Caucasian New Zealanders are a Pom tribe but why not just use words everyone understands – in this case “tribe”.
As an interesting aside a book I was just reading told of a method Maori used to deal with Moriori (and others of different tribes).
It seems the bodies were placed in a circle feet to the middle and the fire was lit.
The meat was considered cooked when steam issued from the mouths.
Now who said they didn’t have the wheel?
October 27th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
@Bevan
Casualties aren’t combatants. That’s the first problem with the argument. Make the distinction between people who fought and people who fought and died or were injured. The numbers are vastly different.
Secondly, you really did pluck that 1.5 million deaths from Operation U-Go out of thin air. The Burma campaign as a whole didn’t result in any more than 70,000 deaths.
Thirdly, India was British. They fought under British commanders to keep British territory as part of a British campaign.
Finally, have you been to Paschendale, Ypres or the Somme?
October 27th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Then I’d back that up with evidence, if I were you, not hearsay.
BNP = democratically elected minority in PR with a piss-poor turnout. You = reactionary minority whining about BBC bias because they don’t deal with things to promote your point of view.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Do your own homework–it’s fun seeing you display your ignorance Chris and it’s not my job to educate you.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Aw. And I was enjoying your facts so much. It’s a shame that I must be so stupid I can’t find them by myself. Either that, or they don’t exist.
Which do you think is more likely?
October 27th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Bevan (4.32 post) is dead right about the errors of Chris C’s post about Indian and Pacific casualties.
Chris: You can’t even spell Passchendaele, and the battle burden there was born by British, Anzac, and Canadian troops. If there were Indian troops, they would have been a small part of the British commitment. It is an absolute untruth to suggest there are large numbers of Indian civilians in the war cemeteries near there, or that India, or the other countries you mention, lost tens of millions of people in World War 1.
You stand by your statement:” Tens of millions of Indians, Pakistanis, Africans, Maori, Pacific Islanders and Caribbean Islanders, each to the man a non-white, fought and died in two world wars…”
This is untrue, and absolute garbage. You weaken the hand of those who argue against the BNP when you not only make, but stand by such statements. Shame on you.
October 27th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Casualties aren’t combatants. That’s the first problem with the argument. Make the distinction between people who fought and people who fought and died or were injured. The numbers are vastly different.
You said there are tens of millions of non english sounding names of british combatants buried in France and Belgium – one would think that if you are talking about names on grave sites, then you would be talking about people who have, you know been killed. Now as the number of deaths will be less than the total number of casualties, and the number of Indian deaths will arguably be the greatest percentage of non english sounding british combatants who fought in both world wars and there number comes no where near the figure of “tens of millions” – leads me to think you are talking out your arse.
Or are you thinking anyone with a non english sounding name is counted as a british combatant, therefore somehow the UK owes them something?
I said:
most of the Indian deaths were in India, defending the country against the invasion by the Japanese where they suffered 1.5 million deaths as a result
You said:
Secondly, you really did pluck that 1.5 million deaths from Operation U-Go out of thin air. The Burma campaign as a whole didn’t result in any more than 70,000 deaths.
Actually I got it from wikipedia….
Reading and comprehension musn’t be a strong point – you do know that the Indian sub continent was invaded by the Japanese dont you? I wasn’t talking about Burma.
Finally, have you been to Paschendale, Ypres or the Somme?
Aint got nothing to do with anything. Regardless of where my travels have taken me, that has nothing to do with anything I have said here, most of which can be verified with some simple research – mind you one could ask you the same question regarding where you saw these tens of millions of non english sounding names of british combatants on grave stones…..
October 27th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
You stand by your statement:” Tens of millions of Indians, Pakistanis, Africans, Maori, Pacific Islanders and Caribbean Islanders, each to the man a non-white, fought and died in two world wars…”
Oh its easy really, you just have to forget that out of 30 million total military deaths in both world wars that at least 10 million were Russian, 7 million German, 4 million Chinese, 2 million Japanese, 1.5 million French, 1 million from the UK – not to mention the other countries who were not british subjects who lost hundreds of thousand of servicemen. And that all the non white british subjects (who number in the tens of millions remember) who fought and died in any theatre of either world war were transported and buried in France and Belgium…..
October 27th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
The way i see it history of the Nations and their people can be summed up by this quote.
The conquered mourns, the conqueror is undone.
October 27th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Chris C>Tens of millions of Indians, Pakistanis, Africans, Maori, Pacific Islanders and Caribbean Islanders, each to the man a non-white, fought and died in two world wars to defend freedoms that the BNP take for granted in their expressions of racial preference.
Rather than another couple of dozens of posts of speculation, I’ve checked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
Assuming we’re talking about the non-British parts of the British Empire or what is now the Commonwealth, there were 227,000 military deaths in WW1 and 220,000 military deaths in WW2. However, the original claim mentioned Maori rather than New Zealanders and a number of other nationalities that are usually dark skinned. In which case the number of dark skinned British Empire military deaths will be much smaller once you take out the non-indigenous Canadians, Australians, South Africans, and New Zealanders.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
The indigenous peoples and culture argument is the dumbest arguement for Maori nationalism I’ve ever heard. says that the indeigenous peoples of Aoteoroa trace their ancestry back about 1000 years ago.
The point is that the indigenous peoples of England are the English, who do trace their ancestry back further than our own indigenous peoples, and with a damn sight more accuracy as well.
October 27th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
That doesn’t surprise me, I thought that’s what they normally did to try and get a representative cross-section of voters in political audiences. It would only surprise me if they stacked the audience one way or another.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Well – its all starting to sound like something that happened around 80 years ago. The National Socialists in germany (and austria) got traction because governments did exactly what they are doing now – liberal in some directions – very un-liberal in others.
eg:
1- The liberal part – anti discrimination laws (they simply force it underground and it comes up in the shape of ‘nationalists’).
2. The anti-liberal part – ID cards, search and seize laws (anti terrorist).
And now they have won seats in the EU government.
Believe me – they are going to get more.
And although I think Key is doing a great leadership job – I have already decided to vote against him next election due to his denial of the 84% who voted to reverse the anti smacking bill.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Chris C, unfortunately in your enthusiasm to make a point you lost it with regard to exaggeration. Before WW1 the British establishment in India forbade planning even in principle for the deployment of Indian army troops beyond India, although a theoretical exercise had been done and was not destroyed as ordered so was available in 1914. The exercise was prepared at the initial instigation of one Douglas Haig in 1910-11. In late 1914 when the British were finding out just how inadequate their preparations were with regard to having a mass army available, they did turn to the Indian Army for troops, and deployed one Corps in the Ypres area. That Corps was reinforced over time, and like all troops in the area took significant casualties, but generally the experiment was not a great success and they were withdrawn in 1915.
The Indian Army also took a major part in other campaigns, those in Iraq, the middle east, and in East Africa. Those campaigns lasted most of the war, but were of nothing like the intensity of the Western front, so casualties were proportionately lower. Troops were also raised amongst other areas, the Caribbean, East and West Africa, and I believe a few from Belize and Guyana, but I don’t think any of these served in France in the front lines although they may have served as labourers. The British did recruit thousands of Chinese as labourers, I’m not sure where these were sourced, most probably through Hong Kong. Just as a note, the French by contrast made extensive use of African troops, Sengalese, Moroccans, Algerians, etc in France as part of their front line troops. For numbers, around 1.5 million volunteered in India, 800,000 were deployed, with 48,000 killed or missing, around 65,000 wounded. So killed were around 6.25% of deployed, about 3.5% of volunteers, casualties in total about 13.5%. As a percentage of population, about 0.02%. By contrast UK, NZ, Australia, and Canada suffered 2.19, 1.64, 1.38, and 0.93%. So the UK had over 100 times the casualty rate of India.
ALL Indian army troops were volunteers, no conscription applied to any part of the “coloured” Commonwealth or Empire. As a proportion of the population, Indian casualties were miniscule compared to the so called “white” dominions, NZ, Australia, and Canada, let alone Britain.
So there is absolutely no case for there being “10’s of millions” of Indian or other “coloured” commonwealth soldiers being casualties, and there’s no case at all for millions of casualties from India at any remove as a result of the war.
October 27th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
@ all the people getting stuck into Chris C.
As I understood it Chris was making a few separate points at the same time.
a) Tens of Millions of Non-whites fought in WWII
b) Lots of these died
ie when he said ‘tens of Millions fought and died’, he was being lazy in structuring his argument, but it was still contextually clear.
c) He has personally seen the war graveyards in Europe. And was struck by the number of non-European names.
again, he is not claiming that a lot of those non-european who fought and died were in the European campaigns, just that he was personally struck by the number of non-european graves he observed.
Instead of going to all this effort to criticize him for what can be construed from taking sloppy grammar literally, you should engage with his argument, which is a good one.
October 27th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Re Hayek at 9.20….
Chris C exaggerated to the point of absurdity in saying tens of millions of non-whites fought and died in World War II.
You (Hayek) say: “He was being lazy in structuring his argument, but it was contextually clear.”
How can you have a good argument when your premises are absurd?
Nor was it mere “sloppy grammar”. It was bloody lies.
The original Hayek was a powerful thinker, and judging by your 9.20 post you’ve got a cheek using his name as a pseudonym.
October 27th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
The socialist workers were outside the Shepherds Bush/White City tube stations yelling and handing out leaflets asking for the BBC to “ban the Nazis”. I asked a few of these smelly and oxymoronically named “workers” party people that banning somebodys rights to freedom of speech was a very Nazi characteristic and they snarled at me.
Not nice people these socialists or their comrades the national socialists – two peas out of the same pod. I too am sick of them being associated with the right. I think it’s just laziness from the left who have really nothing else to try and pin on the right – so it comes easy to them to call right wingers fascists etc. How many hundreds of millions people have died for the Socialist cause again?
October 28th, 2009 at 2:37 am
@Clint Heine
The Socialist Workers Party are indeed weird – I once had a flatmate who was a member; it seems more of a cult than a political party, which is probably one of the many things they have in common with the BNP.
However, there is one crucial distinction. SWP activists want nazis banned. The BNP wants immigrants banned.
October 28th, 2009 at 6:33 am
So unfair, the “right” would never try and apply any sort of lefty label. Righteousness rules.
October 28th, 2009 at 7:53 am
Jack 5 you are the fool here not me. I am saying that Chris C’s point was badly articulated, but not lies: it was obvious when he said ‘tens of millions of non-whites fought and died in World War II’ that he meant tens of millions of non-whites fought in world war II: though it was bad grammar, by ‘and died’ he obviously didn’t mean that all of those tens of millions died, just that lots of them did, which is supported by the facts (eg. 87,000 military casualties for the Indian Empire). Instead of engaging with his argument, you’ve got all tied up handwringing about an ambiguous statement in one of his sentences in one of his posts. I wouldn’t express my argument like that, but I’m not going to hold that against him. But if I were to say ‘250 gatecrashers came to my daughter’s 16th birthday party, drank all my beer, ate all my food, fucked in my bedroom and shat in the bath’ I would not be saying each one of those 250 participated in each of those things. And I wouldn’t say that on a blog because then simpletons like you wouldn’t understand what I was saying. But I expect you would say “hayek is lying because it’s impossible for 250 people to be fucking in one bed at once, and 250 people wouldn’t all shit in his bath because after the first offenders had done so even they would find it revolting”. Get my point?
October 28th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Go on Pete give us a clue if you have any.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
hayek (7.53):
Chris C said in his post: “…Tens of millions of Indians, Pakistanis, Africans, Maori, Pacific Islanders and Caribbean Islanders, each to the man a non-white, fought and died in two world wars to defend freedoms that the BNP take for granted…”
Your qualification that he meant tens of millions fought in World War II but not all died, is also a colossal exaggeration to the point of being absurd.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Communism and Fascism/Nazism are just two variations of the same evil. Both tend to be closed societys that are run by some dictator and enforce conservative views. Unfortunately, both groups tend to come into being from poorer groups in society that feel left out of government policies.
I do think that if violent/invasive crimes were dealt to and punished more severly then these crimes will decrease which will help get rid of the reason for some racist views.
Also, if imigration was changed to allow anyone into a country providing they have a job but were at the same time to tighten up on immigration in other areas (eg, only allow imigration of immediate families) we would get rid of another reason for racist views.
Finally (heres the controversial bit) if we allowed people to discriminate freely at home, at work etc, we would be able to stop this hatred festering behind closed doors. If this was done with the previous two ideas then society as a whole would be able to decide what is acceptable rather than have the government ram down peoples throats what is acceptible (which must generate extremism). EG, No sane business would discriminate based on race, gender etc as it is unproductive, and likely to garner consumer boycotts. Yet at the same time, a business may wish to not employ a neo nazi, or a muslim who makes his wife wear a burqa as they do not wish to enable such repugnant values. Society would be able to pressure and educate people away from these views.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Jack5. You are an imbecile. Or perhaps senile? Or just a crank? How is that an absurd exaggeration? Do I have to go and quote the exact figures? I’m not much interested in doing that for you. I think, for one, their participation (the more specific figures have been elaborated by others) speaks for itself. Of course only a fraction died, were injured, etc.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Time for you to study logic hayek, since in your Tuesday 9.20pm post you spoke of argument and structure of argument.
“fought and died”: In this case from your post and Chris’s post “and” is a two-place logical operator, a (logical) conjunction, with “fought” and “died” the two operands. It is true if BOTH of the operands are true, otherwise it is false.
It is definitely not true that “tens of millions” of these servicemen died in either of the two world wars or even in both of them combined. Therefore the argument is false. Additionally it is not true that “tens of millions” of the servicemen you describe even fought in both wars, therefore it fails the test on both operands – “fought” and “died”.
Your shouting of “imbecile”, “senile”, “crank” (1.40 post) and earlier “fool” (7.53 post) are ignorant ad hominem comments. I’m surprised that you have heard of Friedrich von Hayek let alone have the nerve to take his name for a pseudonym. Let me guess, your dad or mum is an ACT member, and you’ve heard them talk of Hayek.