They are also a group that's not usually involved in public demonstrations – so the fact that so many turned out showed just how much this matters to them.”

I think their chant “What do we love? Friendship! What do we hate? Protestors!” is illustrative of your point: they protested against protesting, apparently unaware of the irony.

Mark Thomas: “i wonder if a generic kiwi whitey could've written this article without being accused of being xenophobic.”

Russel Brown: “I think a kiwi whitey who could read the banners and place the whole thing in a nuanced historical context would still have been on fairly strong ground.”

A kiwi whitey like myself, who doesn’t know enough about the historical context, is going to have to write from the point of view of saying “I’m attempting to understand what’s going on here”, and so while we can offer criticisms we do have to moderate them due to the simple fact that we don’t know enough to stand on a soapbox. There’s a responsibility to show that you understand something well before pointing out where it goes wrong, and the fact that western commentators don’t always do this inflames the nationalism displayed on this march. And since a generic kiwi whitey by definition won’t know enough about “nuanced historical context”, I suspect Mark is right.