The fuss caused recently by Winston Peters’ outburst at Green Party MP Lawrence Xu-Nan seems to have disappeared into the maw of old news. Maybe it shouldn’t.

To remind you, Mr Peters said ``I know you just came here five minutes ago. Go back to your own country.’’

Then: ``That’s where they lie like a flatfish, but they don’t lie like that here, all right? This is called democracy, unlike what you’re used to.’’

He later justified his comments by saying he was ``defending New Zealand’s democracy.’’

Lawrence Xu-nan was born in Tianjin in China and came to New Zealand with his parents at the age of eight after only a year of two of elementary schooling in China.

The rest of his life, including his education through primary school, secondary school, undergraduate

and postgraduate studies, has been in New Zealand. That’s three quarters of his life.

So why did Mr Peters suggest that Mr Xu-Nan, after 32 years in this country, has no understanding of truth, is unaccustomed to democracy and should ``go home’’ to the country of his birth?

Unless Mr Peters has some knowledge of Mr Xu-Nan’s situation that he has not shared with us, there is only one plausible explanation: it is because Mr Xu-Nan is ethnically Chinese.

Last year Mr Peters told Mr Xu-Nan and another overseas-born MP to ``show some gratitude’’ for the opportunity he has to live in New Zealand: gratitude from an inferior to a superior.

Mr Peters’ New Zealand First colleague Shane Jones last year shouted out in Parliament ``send the Mexicans home’’ referring to the Green Party’s Ricardo Menendez March, born in Mexico in 1988 who came to New Zealand in 2006.

Mr Jones refers to himself and Mr Peters as ``historical foundation New Zealanders’’.

``Historical foundation’’ is a term used in the United States to describe America since its colonisation by European settlers. It is based on the idea that the ethnic Europeans who took part in that colonisation are the only true owners of the nation and its culture.

People from other ethnic groups and cultures can never be equal to these white European conquerors – neither to First American Peoples who were displaced, nor the involuntary immigrant African slaves and their descendants, nor the Chinese and Latino immigrants who have arrived more recently.

Those who subscribe to this view are concerned that their dominant position will be usurped by people from these other ethnic groups and cultures – it’s called ``the Great Replacement Theory'’ and many extreme right-wing organisations in the USA and Europe are dedicated to ensuring that this ``replacement’’ will never happen.

The ethnic groups and cultures are, of course, non-white: African, Asian, Arab -- all people with a different skin colour. The theory argues that they should be at least prevented from entering European-led countries, and at best, ``sent home’’ to countries where most people look like them.

The right-wing groups that espouse these views are currently gaining more and more power in the US and Europe, as well as in Australia.

Now it’s possible that Mr Peters and Mr Jones don’t know any of this. It’s possible that they use racist language by coincidence.

But racism is not like an umbrella you only put up when it rains. It is part of a person’s fundamental belief system. It implies the superiority of one group of people over another, and those who believe it tend to believe in other examples of the same thing – misogyny, class hierarchies and patriarchy, all of which are fundamentally anti-democratic.

Mr Peters is not ``defending New Zealand’s democracy’’ — He is undermining it.

In an election year that is something that should not disappear into the maw of ``old news’’.

  • John Drummond is an emeritus professor, University of Otago.