Re: Million marchers globalize

[amst015@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Actually, further to this subject... in NZ, race and identity politics
are also at boiling point.  There is a similar grouping of apparent
radicals from the Maori [indiginous people] who seem more interested in
discussing issues of land, and artifacts, than the material reality of a
predominantly Maori/ Pacific Island underclass.

Of course, discussing stolen land from 1840 is much easier for the
conservative requirememnts of the Govt.  Dealing with largely historical
issues means that they appear to be doing something "good", when in fact
they are able to do nothing that addresses the economic deprivations of
the general underclass as whole.  Most Maori are detribalized and
disinfranchised both from their "culture" and from the dominant white
culture.  Thus, the return of lands to elite, professional groups who
disguise themselves as radicals and then often defect to mainstream right
wing politics, has no wider effects on the structures that created the
problems in the first place.

The Farrakhans of the world suit the agenda of global capitalism, and
they are certainly not only confined to Nth America and its own perculiar
history.

Jane Gregg
[Dept of American Studies, University of Canterbury, New Zealand]


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