Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else
156 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 3 4 5 6 7 Newer→ Last
-
Kracklite, in reply to
why not acknowledge that being highly disrespectful to dead human bodies has been part of humanity ever since we were mere homonoids?
You might be very interested in Timothy Taylor’s The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death. Taylor is an archaeologist and the book is a damned good read, looking at the idea that burial rituals are fundamentally aimed at ensuring that the division between the worlds of the living remains inviolate. Some rituals indeed show a deeply respectful process of sending the souls of the dead on their way, while others are incredibly spiteful displays aimed at ensuring the eternal torment or complete annihilation of the deceased – but all nonetheless are aimed at ensuring that they don’t come back, as their existence in an undefined, intermediate state is fundamentally disruptive to the order of the living.
The ritual of burying ObL at sea is, I think, politically calculated to ensure a positive closure and relations with the Islamic world. James Bremner wanted vengeful desecration, and it fits just as well into Taylor’s paradigm, but it would, if one views this spiritually as well as politically, serve to curse and humiliate the “enemy” (as he sees it) of Islam itself, provoking more violence and thus continuing the cycle of hatred, reinforcing and justifying his own essential hatred. Apart from being vile, that is as existentially depressing as the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
BTW, there’s a nice sarcastic quip from Yevtushenko that Stalin’s grave should have a permanent honour guard – to make sure that he stays in it.
-
Islander, in reply to
Kracklite - that title hadnt loomed on my radar before - thank you! I look forward, very much, to reading it.
-
Kracklite, in reply to
It's, quite shocking in the cruelty that is studied, but Taylor is a very good writer, and is able to turn his analysis on himself too, with genuine depth of reflection. I'll think that you'll enjoy it.
-
Islander, in reply to
I think so- one of the things that even amateur wannabes (or archaeology groupies*) quickly learn is that archaeology holds up the mirrors as to how hominoids, right the way through to us, have treated both the living & the dead.
Had my time over again, I'd've been an archaeologist...or a primatologist.*groupies of the scientific discipline rather than the people who practise it
-
A little more detail on the items of interest taken from the compound:
10 computers, 10 mobile phones and about 100 flash drives. Bin Laden also had 500 euros and two telephone numbers stitched into his clothes. It's hard to imagine there won't be something in all that.
-
DexterX, in reply to
Thanks for the two posts re Hone.
Hone was asked his view and he gave it. I didn't find his view offensive - it isn’t my view.
Is Hone apologising for how others interpreted what they thought he meant - what he said wasn't that off - he is qualified to have a view and express it as a citizen living in a democracy.
It is wrong to consider OBL and Nelson Mandela as similar - that is a mistake.
It was interesting watching Hone & Brash being interviewed by the Walrus – Hone isn’t a separatist his view of the treaty and NZ involves partnership.
As regards Brash I am sick of his using the articles of the treaty to bash the Maori seats – they are part of the mix and until both parties to the partnership want to change them, then they are what they are.
Partnership doesn’t mean equality and equality doesn’t necessarily make a partnership.
In NZ “equality” is available to all in the same way that the tickets to the Rugby World Cup are available to all. It is interesting as a taxpayer I am funding the RWC but can’t afford a ticket. You could draw parallels with that position and what it can at times feel like to be a Maori in NZ.
I am inclined to cut Hone some slack and see what the Mana party can develop in terms of policy.
If Hone can provide the voice for and play a part in the leadership for a grass roots Maori renascence then I am prepared to listen to what he eventually has to say. I think Hone sees a need and is working with others on how it is best met. I don’t think he is as stupid or as bad as people portray him to be.
-
DexterX, in reply to
Sounds like they got head office.
-
Craig Ranapia, in reply to
If Hone can provide the voice for and play a part in the leadership for a grass roots Maori renascence then I am prepared to listen to what he eventually has to say.
I've got to ask this one more time: So Harawira gets a complete pass for trotting out the argumentum ad Hitlerium one more time? No, Dexter, I'm not prepared to listen to it from anyone and AFAIC it just shows how little he has to contribute to civil political discourse.
-
DexterX, in reply to
I am not that offended by what Hone has said about Brash, but I was pissed at his Paris trip a few years back.
Hone's Hitler comments originally came in response to the Brash Orewa speech and what was widely regarded as National playing the race card for political advantage - Hone's comments from memory were that Brash's policies were very much like Hitler’s.
In the Walrus interview Hone was asked what he meant by comparing Brash to Hitler and he explained himself, Hone did not raise it as an issue he was there to promote.
I enjoyed the bit where brash asked Hone if his party was “left-wing party or a racist” and Hone hit back with is Act “a ku-klux-klan or rich prick party".Other things Hone emphasised was that Mana would be a strong and independent Maori voice in parliament as opposed to the Maori party and a voice counter to Goff and Labour who Hone considered are not champions of the working class. This last bit I happen to agree with in that Labour and the union movement, in my view, have become representative of the bureaucrats that they are made up of rather than representatives of workers.
Hone also alluded to the justification of Rogernomics, the trickle down theory that doesn’t happen and tax cuts to the rich.
Less buffoonery and more policy might be nice in Hone's case
In politics ‘speech or speeches exist as a mechanism to hide though or intention, Hone says what he thinks so he isn’t hiding much and he needs to think more.
Brash on the other hand is a hollowed out right wing think tanker who is there to promote Rogernomics 3.
It is what it is.
-
Hone had his heart almost in the right place - by talking about how Maori deal with death, he was taking the discourse away from how Pakeha feel about it, which can often be projected as the same as how everyone should feel about it. But the problem is that Hone doesn't speak for all Maori, not by a long shot. Nor is there any clear Maori OR Pakeha way of dealing with the death of Osama Bin Laden. I'd like to hear other perspectives on his claim that Maori never speak ill of the dead. It sounds like total bullshit to me. I can't believe that Maori didn't often do what most people in the world have done at one time or another, actively celebrated the death of an enemy, and tried to humiliate that enemy's people by disrespecting their death rites. Warlike people have always done these things, it's part and parcel of being warlike, that you need to dehumanize your enemy in order to override the sympathy instincts.
-
Lew writes eloquently and concisely about Treaty relations after the Brash/Harawira screening and highlights the fundamental cultural contradiction in the position Brash espouses. A must-read.
Pākehā society, by refusing to honour the Treaty, isn’t honouring its contract with the Tangata Whenua of this land. That breach is not the breach of some airy fairy notion of being nice to the natives. This is not some set of alien strictures; it is not some Mosaic law handed down from on high, to which we must adhere for fear of divine punishment, and most certainly it is not a set of principles insisted upon by Māori in order to weaken the Pākehā bargaining position. This is Pākehā culture in its purest, most idealised form! By failing to honour the Treaty Pākehā society is in breach of its own most fundamental and hallowed principles.
...
Well, I’m Pākehā, and even if those other pricks won’t live up to their own declared standards, I want to honour my agreements, and those of my forefathers; and those made by people from whom I’m not descended but from which my 20th-Century immigrant grandparents benefitted. This Pākehā, at least, pays his debts. I do not carry guilt for the 170-odd years of breaches to date — I carry the responsibility for making right. What form will that take? Well, that’s a wider question and one to be properly decided by society at large.
By failing to honour the Treaty Don Brash is in violation of his own stated principles as the representative of a party which believes in responsibility. By failing to honour a Treaty drawn up by Pākehā, on Pākehā terms and according to Pākehā custom, we as New Zealanders are, more than anything, violating ourselves.
-
And lawyer Scott Yorke takes on the core problem with "One law for all".
There’s another aspect to the issues raised by Brash’s shit-stirring over race that I want to discuss, and that is his claim that the Treaty guarantees one law for all, and that anything other than one law for all fosters Maori privilege.
Firstly, the Treaty says no such thing, and when Dr Brash talks about Article Three of the Treaty, it’s clear he’s conveniently ignored Articles One and Two. As well as the Maori version, which most tribes signed.
But the “one law for all” argument also ignores a rather obvious problem: that the one law Dr Brash and others refer to was largely an alien law imposed by the British on the locals, and based on Western European values and notions of individualism and liberty.
These values and notions have a lesser prominence in many indigenous societies, where the welfare and needs of the collective are more important than of the individual.
It is no surprise, then, that the radical individualism espoused by economic libertarians such as Dr Brash very often clashes head-on with Maori values and customs.
When cultures clash there is very often no discernible right or wrong–just difference. Who are we to say that our western model of jurisprudence and political thinking is superior?
...
“One law” advocates don’t seek equality. How can there be any equality when the rules you want the parties to abide by were written by your side?
-
ChrisW, in reply to
But the “one law for all” argument also ignores a rather obvious problem: that the one law Dr Brash and others refer to was largely an alien law imposed by the British on the locals
I agree with you and ScottY that Brash's exclusive focus on Article 3 of the Treaty is a major flaw. But the more obvious and fundamental problem with his repetitive quoting thereof as definitive proof there is no "special" place for the Tangata Whenua in NZ is that he misreads it.
That the Maori people of NZ were given the "same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England" or "all the rights and privileges of British citizenship" in no way precludes Maori from also having the specific rights they might hold under Article 2. Nor any other legal or property rights arising elsewhere or subsequently. As for Brash himself, who derives no legal or property rights from Article 3 of the Treaty, but has plenty from many other sources.
I wonder whether this is an honest failure of his binary brain, or disingenuous bullshit? (To put it in unfortunately binary form.)
-
Kumara Republic, in reply to
Other things Hone emphasised was that Mana would be a strong and independent Maori voice in parliament as opposed to the Maori party and a voice counter to Goff and Labour who Hone considered are not champions of the working class. This last bit I happen to agree with in that Labour and the union movement, in my view, have become representative of the bureaucrats that they are made up of rather than representatives of workers.
Some say the solution is for Labour to hang a sharp left, while others say it should steal the Nats' clothes. I can't tell who's right or wrong, but the solution in any case is to steer clear of the 'Jenny Shipley syndrome' - "I would rather do what's right than what's popular". And 'right' in Shipley's case isn't the fighting injustice type, but the headmistress-style pontificating that proved to be her Achilles heel.
-
Kumara Republic, in reply to
And lawyer Scott Yorke takes on the core problem with "One law for all".
And the 'one law for all' slogan dates back to Ancient Roman times, and more recently appropriated by Klan veteran David Duke. What Brash seems to subscribe to comes across more as model minoritarianism or 'honorary whites', which is still a subset of One Law For All - if you're a 'coloured', you can call yourself 'one of them' if you have a fat wallet. As opposed to the Kyle Chapmans of this world who'll hate anyone.
-
Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Hone’s Hitler comments originally came in response to the Brash Orewa speech and what was widely regarded as National playing the race card for political advantage – Hone’s comments from memory were that Brash’s policies were very much like Hitler’s.
Which was bullshit then, is bullshit now and Harawira needs to stop getting a pass for trotting it out. A pass, I respectfully suggest, PASers didn’t – and shouldn’t – extend to folks who endlessly equated Helen Clark to Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot and Robert Mugabe and Darth Vader. (Really.)
As I’ve said here more than once, I was broken of my cheap invocations of Stalin by a (lefty) friend who literally threw a copy of Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror at my head and suggested I read it, think very carefully about whether the Labour Party was even in the same galaxy and get a grip.
Very good advice.
-
Sacha, in reply to
even in the same galaxy
We could seriously discuss how Brash's racism relates to Hitler's - and to similarities in some of our colonial past, but I tend to agree the framing doesn't produce a useful conversation.
-
Craig Ranapia, in reply to
I’d like to hear other perspectives on his claim that Maori never speak ill of the dead. It sounds like total bullshit to me.
With a side order of "bitch, please." Then again, Harawira is very good at playing the long con where he can say kind of bullshit that flits across his head thanks to a combo of 1) media white guilt (play the racist card if they get out of line); 2) hacks whose only contact with Maori is toddling off to Ratana & Waitangi once a year and having the usual rentaquotes on speed dial; 3) the endless hunger for good inflammatory pull quotes, a minstrel show HH is perfectly happy to headline.
-
Sacha, in reply to
I wonder whether this is an honest failure of his binary brain, or disingenuous bullshit?
I believe Brash is smart enough to be doing this deliberately, though the lack of general public understanding about the Treaty is alarming. Fear is a powerful emotion.
-
Sacha, in reply to
I’d like to hear other perspectives on his claim that Maori never speak ill of the dead.
It was fisked pretty much right away by Rangiinui Walker and others, to be fair.
-
Craig Ranapia, in reply to
I tend to agree the framing doesn’t produce a useful conversation.
Damn right. When I trotted out my own argument ad Hitlerium a friend made this very good point. Winston Peters is nothing like Hitler. He's exactly like Winston Peters - which is more than enough ammo to go on with.
I get that Don Brash and the ACT Party are loathed around these parts, but the cheap Hitler analogies add no value to the debate.
-
Sacha, in reply to
Don Brash and the ACT Party are loathed around these parts
Given their usual core voting support hovers around the margin of error, you may be understating how widespread that sentiment is. Not that it has much relationship to the scale of their influence and the damage they can cause.
-
DexterX, in reply to
Yes it is bullshit. - but it doesn't offend me.
-
DexterX, in reply to
“One law” advocates don’t seek equality. How can there be any equality when the rules you want the parties to abide by were written by your side?
I think that is a brilliant position - Thanks.
-
So, the "hot intel" from the computers is that they had an "asipration" to attack American trains.
No details as to which trains, how they were going to make them derail (hey, if it was NZ they were hatin on there'd be an easy way. Just wait for a spot of rain, and they'll be off the line of their own accord) or who was going to do the deed.
Just an "aspiration". A bit like how many third-formers have an "aspiration" to make a bomb and blow up Miss Smith's car.
I wait for further hot bits of "intel" with bated breath.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.