Hate That I Love You – The Migrant Worker
While I should be enjoying summer break, I’ve regrettably been made aware that current online discourse is once again focused on migrant workers and their position in Western society. The debate is taking place on the aggressively Nazi website X.com (formerly Twitter, formerly entertaining) and is centred around the leaders of president-elect Donald Trump’s new […]
In defence of student spaces for Māori and Pasifika
Māori and Pasifika students have a right to their own spaces on university campuses. Campuses can be isolating places at the best of times. This is even more true for Māori and Pasifika students, who have to deal not only with being in the minority on university campuses, but also with a university environment that […]
The Waikeria Uprising
“We are tangata whenua of this land. We are Māori people forced into a European system.” On 29 December 2020 prisoners at Waikeria Prison protested, lighting fires in an exercise yard before climbing onto the roof of the jail. After six days the protest came to an end with the surrender by the remaining 16 […]
Detainees set fire to the Christmas Island Detention Centre
The following article was published on the Australian website Red Flag on 6 January. Among the detainees there are New Zealanders, including Māori and Pacific Islanders. A riot has broken out in the Christmas Island Immigration Detention Centre, much of which, as of early Wednesday morning, was in flames. The rioters are men who want […]
Solidarity to fight Islamophobia, not more spies
“Justice to those affected has not yet been served.” That was Aliya Danzeisen’s response to the Royal Commission’s findings. The Commission was tasked with finding what factors lead to the massacre of 51 Muslims in Christchurch last year. Danzeisen has every right to be outraged and disappointed at the Royal Commission’s woefully inadequate recommendations, and […]
Convergence on the Right: What’s Driving the Rise of Conspiracy Theories?
If the election has been dominated in the mainstream by the centre-left, Labour and Jacinda Ardern, on the right-wing dangerous fringes are enjoying a worrying rise. ACT’s increased vote share is the most visible but, further right, conspiracy-theory-fuelled parties are drawing big crowds. Conspiracy theories have always been the realm of the far right – […]
From anti-racism to liberation
The Black Lives Matter movement has succeeded, in just over a month, in moving mass consciousness and mass discussions over racism further than years of well-meaning educational programmes. The movement, in its size, youth, anger and multiracial composition, offers an image of hope and the way forward. The leadership of young Black demonstrators has given […]
Marching for Black Lives
Yesterday upward of 10,000 people marched down Queen street in solidarity with the rebellions sweeping the United States in the wake of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police. The immense power of the unleashing of centuries of trauma has spread rapidly across cities all over the United States, and now […]
Thank you, rioters
Once again, Black America has surged to the front lines of the global struggle. This year, the United States has stood out primarily as a leading centre of right-wing lunacy, political breakdown and murderous incompetence in the pandemic. Now, it is showing the world something else: the potential for sudden eruptions of mass resistance that […]
The Politics of Hate: Racism and Islamophobia in NZ Today
This talk was presented to the Pōneke branch of the ISO on 17 March 2020 by Romany Tasker-Poland, a teacher, trade unionist, and member of the ISO. We are speaking about a year after the massacre at the mosques in Christchurch, as commemorations are being held. Every day is bringing out more information about this […]
