Blimp deflator: Letting out the gas

Surely, when someone speaks of “irrational Maori ghastliness with spitting, smugness, self-righteousness and the usual neurotic Maori politics…” he’s launching a diatribe, rather than initiating a debate. I’m not sure how one engages with a person who makes that sort of statement, or even whether one should bother to do so. Perhaps the best thing to do with “broadcaster” Paul Holmes — who once described former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan as a “cheeky darkie” — is ignore him*. Incidentally, why are New Zealand’s newspaper op-ed pages (totally?) dominated by right-wing columnists like Karl du Fresne — a man who apparently doesn’t realize that the answer to the plight of the Palestinian refugees is justice, not charity. But that point aside, why should the Arab states — or any states, for that matter — facilitate the Zionists’ ethnic cleansing of Palestine?

Returning to the subject of Maori, I find the statement: “No-one in their right mind wants to see Maori fail; every New Zealander has a vital stake in Maori succeeding…” patronizing and condescending. I feel like responding: “But it’s easy to ensure Maori succeed. All you have to do is pat them on the head and give them sixpence. Then, if they don’t perform as expected, you give them a good boot up the backside.” As in much colonialist literature, the statement treats the “native” as a museum specimen, who really should do the “decent thing” and stay in his glass case.

* In September 2003, he [Holmes] repeatedly referred to then-United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan as a “cheeky darkie” during a rant on his radio show, as well as using “darkie” to refer to black people generally. — Wikipedia.