Generally, I dont bother commenting on the bargain basement bigotry of people like Rodney Hide, but...the first paragraph of this excuse for a column really sets Hides position in stone, with its classic half-hidden binary opposition, e.g. taxpayers paying (for Maori), as if Maori dont qualify as taxpayers, or worse, an acknowledgement that they are, but their needs and requirements as taxpayers dont actually matter and can be comfortably set aside. Then the obligatory false equivalence: e.g. Christian crosses/Maori pou. What does Christian symbolism have to do with the pou on the bridges as kaitiaki, in any way? Its a familiar argument, any mention of Maori spirituality has to be immediately traded off against Eurocentric religious symbols (as a complaint of what therefore ISNT being given its automatic higher place in the hierarchy of wairua). The argument totally ignores (deliberately) the concepts of indigeneity and tangata whenua, and tries to clear the ground of any sense of historic and cultural belonging. Its cultural erasure once again. So it just becomes about which groups metaphysics trumps the other, and its pretty easy to guess where Rodney Hide, who seems to me about as Christian as the dog next door, stands with that.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 06:34:12 +0000
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