Division yes, but maybe not conflict
Edward Ellison and others attended to big hui in the Waikato over the weekend. I think we people should look forwards as well as backwards, and create our own futures. We should never sever ties with Britain, or any other friendly nation. However being ruled from London today is both weird and ridiculous.
I think it is time for non-Māori to explore what sovereignty means for us, on these distant islands. To get in step with the times. This may take decades as each generation comes forward.
However I think there is much less conflict here than we imagine.
Poodles and tails
I'm glad National went with Act New Zealand: they had no choice. But Christopher Luxon did have the choice to instantly shut down what is, in my view, Act’s racist Treaty Principles Bill. This Bill clearly seeks to gut Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The Treaty is our founding document. It justifies the position of Pākehā, i.e. Tangata Tiriti, in Aotearoa.
It is a road map for a civilised bicultural society, for justice for tangata whenua under the onslaught of colonialism, and it is a document which, when honoured, will give us peace.
What many see as Act's mindless rubbish will cause major, disruptive protest action across the nation.
This will sink Luxon, so, I'm glad he will be the poodle wagged by the Act tail. Then perhaps we can return to sane, progressive, fair government.
Bird strike
As it is illegal to interfere with protected species, I think the simplest answer to deter gulls from outdoor cafes etc, would be to make it a punishable offence for us humans to feed them anything. If made a punishable offence to feed them, the birds would have to go back to foraging and working at the low tides for their sustenance and for their offspring, as was their original means of feeding themselves.
As they are opportunists, of course they are going to hang around, hoping you will drop something or give or leave them something. No more. They have become too used to humans doing just that and that is why we have such a problem in the main area of Oamaru.
The only weapon I can see that one could use against a flock of seagulls is the stock whip.
Yodelling is optional.
Tribute well received
I wish to congratulate those responsible for the article on the late Emeritus Professor Ewan Fordyce, published in the ODT (20.1.24).
Ewan and I had similar interests from an early age that continued over the years. He looked forward to receiving from me a rare collection of fossil fish teeth for the University of Otago Geology Museum.
Mapping the land from the river to the sea
It is impossible to discern the relevance and logic of Dave Tackney’s objections (ODT 16.1.24) to Susan Hall’s reflections on the complicity of Western imperialism with Israel (ODT 6.1.24). In particular Mr Tackney contends that the phrase "the river to the sea" — absent from Ms Hall's letter — "means total annihilation of the Jewish people".
In fact the words "from the river to the sea" do not originate with Palestinians or their supporters, but with right-wing Israeli politicians themselves. The very first principle of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party manifesto chillingly states that "between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty" (Likud Party: Original Party Platform 1977, Article A).
Nor is it just Palestinian sovereignty which is thus erased but, most recently, its very geography.
In an address to the UN General Assembly on September 22, 2023, Netanyahu flourished a placard-map brazenly entitled "The New Middle East".
Here Israel is, exactly as proposed, depicted as the entirety of land "between the Sea and the Jordan", while Palestine's Gaza Strip and West Bank are completely expunged from the map.
It took just two more weeks for such witless provocation to explode in human catastrophe (both ways round), and, in the three months since Black Saturday, to be mercilessly perpetuated through Netanyahu's boasted doctrine of Dahiya – the grotesque strategic policy, that is, of a disproportionate destruction of civilian life and infrastructure which we see daily in the littered corpses and bombed rubble across the entire Gaza Strip.
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