Harawira: Pitch invasion Speech
te-pati-maori
Thu Apr 05 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Harawira: Pitch invasion Speech
Thursday, 5 April 2007, 4:47 pm
Speech: The Maori Party
Notice of Motion 1: That Supplementary Order Paper no 106 relating to the Major Events Management Bill be referred to the Commerce Committee for consideration and that the Committee in its consideration of the Bill have the power to adopt, if it thinks fit, the amendments set out in the Supplementary Order Paper
Hone Harawira; Member of Parliament for Te Tai Tokerau Thursday 5 April 2007
Mr Speaker, this SOP to convict people for pitch invasions makes me think back to that historic day, Saturday 15th July, 1981, when a few hundred people forced their way onto Rugby Park in Hamilton, and stopped the match between South Africa's ambassadors for apartheid, and Waikato.
I was going to say a few hundred Kiwis, but I also recall that on the day, I ran into Gary Foley and a bunch of the Koori brothers who had come across from Australia to support the anti-apartheid movement.
I remember him laughing at a bunch of us who'd come down from Otara that morning dressed for action - full face motorbike helmets, padding, heavy jackets and boots - and Gary and his mates were in their swish day gear, nice pants, body shirts, dark glasses. Little did they know that by the end of that day, they would be covered in their own righteous blood, and the boys from Otara would be having the last laugh.
And I can remember the image on the news that night of another lost soul from overseas, a man who clearly did not fit into his world, peering anxiously out from under the grandstands at Rugby Park, and knowing that his debut would not be that day either.
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His name was Errol Tobias, the forgotten winger, the man they never interview on sports programmes, the token black that the South Africans had picked at the last minute to try to deflect the world's anger and attention away from the continued oppression of their black citizens at home while their wholesome white Springboks were playing rugby half a world away.
Mr Speaker, I raise these memories because I have no doubt that there were a number of people in this House who were also at Hamilton on that day, a big day in one of our nation's darkest times, a time many MPs rightfully claim their badge of honour for marching against apartheid, a time when 32,000 people signed a petition against the tour, and a time when two of the country's most powerful organisations also came out against the tour - the Federation of Labour and the Labour Party.
And I ask whether their memories have become so blurred by power that they would deny their own kids the rights they fought for so passionately in 1981?
Mr Speaker, how quickly we can deny our history, if 25 years later we can now pass legislation to make such actions illegal - and to suit whom?
Mr Speaker, making pitch invasions illegal may be great for the hosts and producers responsible for the timing of sports broadcasts, keeping sponsors happy, and ensuring international broadcast rights and fees are not jeopardised, but it does nothing for the right of every Kiwi to voice their opposition to the hosting of sports events which are clearly against the national psyche.
Mr Speaker, I raise these memories because July 25 1981 is an important day in the history of this nation, when we said to the world that we were serious about our opposition to a regime that practiced terror on its own citizenry.
Mr Speaker, I can recall a couple of feisty little ex-pat Cuban generals, Ripeka Evans and Donna Awatere, trying to get everyone rarked up for some seriously heavy action, while just down the ranks a bit, Father Terry Dibble and the Reverend George Armstrong were leading others in that old protest classic, "We shall overcome."
And I can remember Donna and Peka putting me and a couple of the other brothers from Otara into the front line, with clear instructions not to listen to anyone else but them, and I don't mind admitting that we laughed at these two little hens telling us what to do, before we realised that we didn't even have a plan, and that maybe they knew what they were talking about.
And then I remembered that Donna's father, the legendary commander of the 28th Maori Battalion, Colonel Pita Awatere, had led a march almost 20 years earlier, up Queen St to protest the New Zealand Rugby Union's decision to leave Maori out of the team to tour South Africa to comply with their apartheid regime, and I can remember saying to the boys "Watch Donna - when she says go, we go".
Mr Speaker, when I study the 1960 protests, I see that people protested on rugby fields even then, and yet here today, we would think to put an end to that tradition, and I say again Mr Speaker, how easily we forget our proud tradition of protest and demonstration.
I recall vividly the cattle trucks surrounding the park, the police on every corner, the protons on their way to the game, the hatred and the filth spewing from drunken rugby supporters - and I can remember thinking, "come on Donna ... we can't wait forever" as we marched closer and closer to the park.
I remember that 90% of the protesters were just dressed normally and that our lot from Otara looked a bit out of place amongst all the thousands of keen and happy Pakeha who were marching alongside us, singing and chanting.
I remember seeing people in the second row of the protest march, just behind the lead banner, with wire-cutters, bolt-cutters and ropes ready for action.
I remember Donna giving me the "hold-your-horses-Maori-boy" look as we got up to the park and could feel the spit and the beer and the abuse and the cans getting thrown at us, and then, all of a sudden, we came up alongside a fence.
And I remember looking at Donna, and her pointing at the fence and yelling "go, go, go" and before the poor buggers in the second row could even get their wire-cutters going properly, everyone had grabbed the fence, and before you could say "Springboks go home" that fence was "gone, gone, gone" and where just seconds earlier there had been hundreds of protons hurling abuse at us, suddenly the bank was clear, and we surged onto the field behind Wally Te Ua, and a bunch of other priests and their Melanesian Cross.
And I remember getting out into the middle of the field, and everybody jumping around like idiots, clapping and singing, and I looked across the protest ranks and saw that only a few hundred of us had gotten on to the field, against tens of thousands of rabid rugby followers incensed at this turn of events.
Mr Speaker, I raise these memories because they speak of a people galvanised to action, and the right to take that action being denied by this SOP.
Mr Speaker, invading the pitch that day was like putting a poultice on the national obsession for rugby at any cost, and saying to the world that there were deeper meanings for Kiwis than just a game of bloody football. And I can remember M ... Speaker, the howls of drunken fury from the protons in the grandstands, and I can remember them hurling empty cans of beer at us and watching them fall short, and I can remember them then throwing full cans of beer which came raining into our ranks, and pole-axing those without helmets, and I can remember the Pakeha protesters lobbing the cans out onto the ground in front of us, and I can remember the boys from Otara grabbing the full cans and taking a swig before hurling them back into the grandstands.
And I can remember Mr Speaker that people were proud to be on the park that day, and yet today we would make that pride a sin by accepting this SOP to suit the Rugby World Cup.
And Mr Speaker, I can even remember that one of the really, really great memories I have from after that day, was knowing that the whole of racist South Africa was riveted to their screens that day, waiting to see their beloved Springboks take the field, and that 300 Kiwis ruined their day. I heard stories coming out of the republic of rednecks and racists calling their television stations to demand that the New Zealand Police shoot us so they game could go on.
And, Mr Speaker, I raise these memories so that we are wary of sneaky SOPs that give greater weight to the timing of sports, than hard-won civil liberties.
Mr Speaker, last week I spoke out against the paranoia and racist assumptions that drove the overloaded Terrorism Suppression Bill.
Today I link that same paranoia to this SOP which could be an acronym for the Suppression of Protest, and I warn the House today that if we don't have the courage to start opposing these insidious little pieces of creeping fascism we will one day soon find our own children charged with treason for daring to oppose a game of football.
The process for connecting the dots is already there.
Steve Biko once said, "The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed" The Maori Party will not vote for an SOP to satisfy the oppressive demands of sport and television, and we will not support the demand to set aside valid protest.
ENDS
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