War or revolution: IDF invasion poses stark choice
The Israeli “ Defense Force” is massing on the border of Gaza – a tiny enclave in which one and a-half million Palestinians live. Airstrikes and missiles have killed 20 Palestinians so far – including a Hamas military leader. Three Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rockets. But this is not some kind of zero-sum game, just […]
Wellington: Solidarity with Gaza
Around 35 people joined an emergency picket in solidarity with the people of Gaza here in Wellington at lunch-time on Friday. The action had been called at less than 24 hours’ notice as news came through of Israel’s latest murderous assault. Israel is threatening a new slaughter, and the prospects for more death and destruction […]
Israel wages war on Gaza
At least twenty people in Gaza are dead after Israel unleashed a new wave of bombings reminiscent of the 2009 war. Once again, pictures of mutilated bodies are spreading across the internet, while Israeli officials do their usual schtick about “self-defenc”e and “Palestinian rocket fire”, calling their assault “Operation Pillar of Defence”. Lies. The 4 […]
Film Review: American Radical: the trials of Norman Finkelstein
“Every single member of my family on both sides was exterminated. Both of my parents were in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. And it is precisely and exactly because of the lessons my parents taught me and my two siblings that I will not be silent when Israel commits its crimes against the Palestinians.” It is […]
Frustration spreads protest around world
What started as little-seen, low budget, YouTube video in July became a trigger for demonstrations throughout the world in September. Josh Lees from Socialist Alternative was at the protest in Sydney. Hundreds of police have savagely and repeatedly attacked a Sydney demonstration opposing racist insults to Islam. Police used tasers, pepper spray, police dogs and […]
Māori money: A giant awakes?
Iwi corporates, estimated to be worth $37 billion in 2010, are changing the rules of New Zealand’s economy and politics. Māori capital has been criticised from the red-neck right as rent-seekers, from the left as an iwi aristocracy, and from within Māoridom itself. But in two major battles this year, Māoridom’s elite weighed in on […]
Winston Peters and Anti-Asian Racism
Winston Peters is reviving his old anti-Asian bogeyman. This time he’s blaming elderly Asian migrants “cashing” in on New Zealand’s superannuation scheme. Peters’ racist tactics are groundless and he cannot provide a shred of evidence to support his claims. The truth is, far from “cashing” in on New Zealand, relatively youthful Asian immigrants make a […]
Honouring Past Struggles: Whangamata Protest 2008
In July 2008, Hauraki Māori and other community members of Whangamata occupied the proposed car park area of the Whangamata marina. What led them to this point? Te Matatuhi (the marina site) is the ancestral name of tangata whenua for the specific lands subject to the proposed marina. Te Matatuhi is land of particular significance […]
Current local struggles
Police shootings, brutality cases in Rotorua Police brutality was in the spotlight again in early April after it was admitted that police shot Napier man Lachlan Kelly-Tumarae not once as was originally asserted, but at least eight and as many as fifteen times, fatally wounding the 19-year old. Questions were also asked of another case […]
What’s abhorrent? John Key, whaling, and racism
John Key is engaging in a bout of populist moralising, describing killing whales as ‘abhorrent’ in response to South Korea’s indication that they may resume whaling. The hypocrisy is staggering – this same week National has announced further concessions to New Zealand’s dirty and polluting farming industry. If the concept of killing whales is ‘abhorrent’, what about farming […]
