Harawira - Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill
te-pati-maori
Thu Mar 29 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Harawira - Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill
Thursday, 29 March 2007, 4:53 pm
Speech: The Maori Party
Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill Hone Harawira, Spokesperson for Disarmament and Arms Control 29 March 2007
Madam Speaker, this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill stirs some very strong memories in my mind, and some even stronger feelings in my heart.
And I don't mind saying Madam Speaker, that those feelings are not fuelled by the jingoistic, acid-drenched, hate-filled, anti-Islamic, death-to-anyone-from-the-Middle-East, vitriolic, poisonous, crapola that the United States is trying to foist upon the rest of the world.
No Madam Speaker, my understanding of terrorism comes from a far different source, a source that relies on historical fact rather than hysterical drama for its position, a source which connects me to my indigenous brothers and sisters around the world, and a source which roots me clearly in Aotearoa, home of my ancestors, and homeland forever of the Maori people.
Madam Speaker, last year I was privileged to be invited to a conference in Canada - the United Nations Expert Seminar on Treaties, Agreements and other constructive arrangements between States and Indigenous Peoples - held in Hobbema, Treaty 6 Territory, Alberta, Canada, 14-17 November 2006.
And while I was there, I saw a t-shirt that some of the local brothers were wearing. It had a picture of Geronimo and a couple of his warriors carrying weapons, and the caption below which read:
Homeland Security ... Fighting Terrorism in the USA since 1492
And I paused to think that although separated by thousands and thousands of miles, indigenous sentiments about colonial terrorism were exactly the same.
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And the picture and the sentiments on those t-shirts, remind me of a book I read when I was doing bed and breakfast in Mt Eden.
The Book was called Watch for me on that Mountain, and it was about the rebellion of Geronimo and his people against the rampaging racist terrorists of the United States Seventh Cavalry, operating under a clear mandate from their masters in Washington to crush everything that stood in the way of the land-hungry, gold-maddened settlers, and to round up, and hunt down and kill where necessary, any natives who stood in their way.
Madam Speaker, everyone in this House knows the phrase "the only good Indian is a dead Indian". Such were the sentiments of the United States of a just a couple of hundred years ago.
So when I think of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill Madam Speaker, that too, is where my understanding of terrorism comes from.
I reckon you could update that "dead Indian" threat to read "the only good sand-nigger is a dead sand-nigger", to explain the United States current misbegotten crusade in Iraq.
Misbegotten, because it is a military campaign borne out of the union of the lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction which were never found, and the link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein which was never proved.
And yes Madam Speaker, I call it a crusade because it is a venture of Christian paranoia against Islam, a task that Richard the Lionbreath and his foolish followers could not achieve hundreds of years ago, and a failure that George Bush, with all his technological superiority, is doomed to repeat.
So when I think of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill Madam Speaker, that too, is where my understanding of terrorism comes from.
And now we hear, that the United States of Australia has finally charged some poor dumb Aussie, David Hicks, as their first Guantanamo 'war on terror' detainee.
An Australian for heavens sake!! Six years after 9/11 !! Is this the result of billions of US intelligence dollars spent on securing a conviction to justify their war in Afghanistan? An Australian!
Madam Speaker, heaven forbid that we should be connected in any way with the mind-numbing stupidity and pointlessness of a process that has failed so spectacularly that after six years, all they could come up with is a so-called "confession" from an Australian charged with "providing material support".
And seriously Madam Speaker, hands up all those in this House who believe that that confession was entered into freely and willingly?
So when I think of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill Madam Speaker, that too, is where my understanding of terrorism comes from.
And I recall too that my time in Mt Eden arose out of an uprising right here in Aotearoa, when tens of thousands of people right throughout the country marched against the terrorist apartheid regime of South Africa in 1981.
And like many others in this House, I will never forget the image of a young man running through the streets of Sharpeville carrying a young girl, shot to death by government sponsored agents of terror; an image which helped shape an understanding in the minds of thousands of New Zealanders that our passion for rugby should not be allowed to be sullied by a link to state-sponsored terror and state-sponsored murder.
So when I think of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill Madam Speaker, that too, is where my understanding of terrorism comes from.
And I can recall too Madam Speaker, a very personal connection to South Africa. I recall one brother, a member of the ANC who fled the terror in his homeland, Andrew Moletsane.
Andrew came to my home in Otara in South Auckland, to give testimony about the terror being imposed by the crumbling apartheid regime of South Africa. A few years later, Andrew Moletsane was hunted down and murdered in Botswana by one of Botha's goon squads. His name is recorded forever in the List of ANC Members who Died in Exile: March 1960 - December 1993.
So when I think of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill Madam Speaker, that too, is where my understanding of terrorism comes from.
And I make another personal connection to the pain and suffering of the black people in apartheid South Africa Madam Speaker, when I recall calling Bishop Desmond Tutu to take the stand as my one and only witness in the trials which arose out of the arrests of the members of the PATU Squad following the final Springbok match at Eden Park.
Bishop Tutu is a small man, but when he walked into the courthouse that day, the whole world stopped. His entry stunned the whole courtroom into silence, and scared the hell out of me as the person who had called for his testimony.
I asked him to tell the court what apartheid was, and for the next twenty minutes, in a quiet and humble voice, Bishop Tutu proceeded to describe apartheid through the eyes of one who had been forced to witness the terror imposed upon his people, the degradation, the humiliation, the pain, and the death.
As he spoke, you could have heard a pin drop. And when he stepped down from the dock that day, I looked around and saw something I had never seen before and never seen since, in a court of law of this country.
The public rose to their feet to acknowledge the man and the message. The prison wardens rose to their feet as well. The police stood up. The press stood up. The lawyers stood up. The defendants stood up. Even the jury stood up. I found out later that the judge had to force himself not to stand up, such had been the power of the truth of the terrorism that was apartheid.
So when I think of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill Madam Speaker, that too, is where my understanding of terrorism comes from.
And then last night I took the opportunity to read some of the history of the Te Roroa claim, and I was overwhelmed by the loss of land, the loss of mana, the loss of pride, and even the loss of life that the people of Te Roroa have had to face over the last 180 years.
And it reminded me of the Muriwhenua claim, the Tainui claim, the Ngai Tahu claim, and it reminded me of those who gave their lives all over Aotearoa to save their lands from the rapacious actions of colonialism, and again I was reminded about the real impact of terrorism, right here in Aotearoa.
So when I think of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill Madam Speaker, that too, is where my understanding of terrorism comes from.
And Madam Speaker, I won't even mention the terror imposed upon the dreamtime people in Australia, the Kanaky in New Caledonia, the Maohi of Tahiti, the Kanaka Maoli of Hawai'i, and even those who fought in the Mau Uprising in Samoa against the colonial terrorists of New Zealand.
Madam Speaker, America dominates the world, and stomps around the sandpit of the Middle East like a spoilt bully, smashing little brown kids who would dare to say no to their excesses and their demands, and killing thousands of innocent civilians to repay one act of terror in the United States of America.
Madam Speaker, the suppression of terrorism is not a one-way street.
So when President Bush says after 9/11 that:
"Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there....Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists"
Madam Speaker, I am happy to say that the Maori Party will oppose the use of terror to impose one-eyed nationalistic misconceptions of religious superiority and governance on any people, whether committed in the name of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda or in the name of George Bush and the United States of America.
ENDS
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