An Open Letter to the ACT Party Regarding Candidate Selection

Dear ACT Party Leaders,

As you may know, I was brought up in Wanganui, and keep an eye on events there. So it was with great interest that I received the below letter, published in the Wanganui Chronicle on 8 July 2011.

ACT’s announcement of the second ‘Don’ in the ‘Don and John’ lineup today was well-received, and if I may be so bold as to say so, I think the author of this letter also has a lot to bring to their table. I quote it in full:

Taniwha real
In reply to Dusty Miller (letters, July 1), I’m not one of those experts, but I do believe the taniwha to be real, not imagined, and I’ll tell you why.

Perhaps the ancient Celts of New Zealand may never have known war or possessed weapons, as prior to Maori being brought here by Zheng He New Zealand had never been threatened internally nor externally and there was no need.

However, New Zealand was visited by Viking ships and Scottish birlinns (a birlinn is similar to a Viking ship) which used to trade with resident Celts. The sailors of these vessels were fierce, battle-hardened warriors with far superior weaponry and military discipline compared with Maori.

As the bow and stern design of these ships is similar to the head and tail of the taniwha, I could well imagine that the sight of them would strike paralysing fear into the heart of any Maori confronted by them, and for this reason I believe the taniwha represents these ships.

Believing this to be the truth of the taniwha, I would not think these ships could be found in a small creek or marshland because of their size.

Taniwha artwork is yet another example of Maori following the culture of those who came here before them, the Celts.

IAN BROUGHAM
Wanganui

I believe Mr Brougham’s Qualifications for Candidacy are Strongly Evident in this Letter. It provides a striking yet unconventional Insight into New Zealand history, weaving back together the varied strands of the rich Tapestry of our origins which Revisonist Historians who hate their own Culture have spent hundreds of years unpicking. In particular, he illustrates comprehensively how Maori, far from being Indigenous, were simply the first wave of Hostile Asian Immigrants to these fair shores. He shows due respect for our Noble Celtic Elders, who were clearly Men who thought like Men, and he recognises their manifest superiority over the Maori, in Warfare, Navigation, Art, and undoubtedly in other Fields as well. Despite his modest claim to not being an Expert, he is clearly Learned, but this does not prevent him Sharing his bountiful wisdom with others, as Readers can see by his patient Explanation of what a ‘birlinn’ is.

Furthermore, Mr Brougham has confirmed himself to be of Sound Mind regarding other crucial policy topics of our Time — protesting strongly against the ‘h’ being forced into ‘Wanganui’ by those same forces of Revisionism, and against the Emissions Trading Scam, by supporting the Endeavours of that noble veteran of the ACT ranks, Muriel Newman — herself also a believer in the undeniable Truth of New Zealand’s Celtic Settlement, and who herself certainly thinks like a Man.

Moreover, Mr Brougham already has more than a Decade’s political experience, having stood under the mighty Equal Rights banner in local body Elections, and for the OneNZ Party (a Sister to the redoubtable One Nation party in Australia) at the National Level. Indeed, while the 0.67% of the Vote he received in the 2005 General Election is unjustly low, it is similar to what the ACT Party is presently polling.

As one final thing, everyone knows that to succeed in politics you need a strong Hand. With the unfortunate departure of John Ansell, ACT presently has Two Pair — Don Brash and Don Nicolson, John Banks and John Boscawen. As everyone knows, Two Pair is a strong Hand, but not strong enough to ensure Victory. Adding Mr Brougham would restore ACT to Full House status, giving the party a Hand that could only be beaten by Four of a Kind (which I think we can all agree is unlikely); or a Smith & Wesson which, as the lore of our American brethren confirms, even beats Four Aces (this is also unlikely because the Liberal Culture-Hating Revisionists are too afraid to permit Noble Celts from arming themselves against Tyranny). Mr Brougham would complete the Full House because, as you wise Celts of the ACT leadership are surely aware, “Ian” is simply a Celtic rendition of “John”.

Mr Ian Brougham is well Qualified to join the Great ACT party, and he has the courage to speak Truth to Power. New Zealand needs him to return it to Celtic Glory. Nevertheless I must state I have not Approached Mr Brougham to ascertain his Willingness to stand for ACT, an exercise I shall leave to the ACT Leadership.

Trusting that you will consider this Recommendation with all the Gravity it deserves,

L

Trotter: more on the h

This blog is almost becoming Kiwipoliticoh, since given my limited time at present I’m having to pick my battles.

I’m pleased Chris Trotter has come to terms with his inner racist. His characteristically torrid column is basically a rehash of the bogus arguments I discredited here, which Chris has apparently not bothered to read, much less answer the questions I pose in it. His latest column makes explicit what I wrote in the first post on the matter and discussed in more general terms in another post – that people pick an ideological side on matters like this and employ whatever post-hoc rationalisations they need to convince themselves of that position. I freely admit I’ve done the same in this h debate – to me, as to most, it just seems obvious which side is in the right, and that’s a sure sign of ideological knee-jerk. The difference is that my position has some weight of philosophical and legal precedent and linguistic and geographic fact behind it, not just settler ideology.

The column is not pure rehash, though – it’s got some new hash thrown in for good measure, and none of it any more useful than the first lot. It is the canard that by changing a European name back to a Māori name the former is somehow “obliterated” or “expunged” from history. The very examples Chris gives to support this absurd contention disproves it, and moreover it shows the naked settler racism of the position.

Names are important, and to his credit Chris does not succumb to the smug `haven’t those maaris got more important things to worry about’ rhetoric, hoever he over-eggs his pudding a bit here. If, on its own, changing a name genuinely did obliterate and expunge it from history and this was a necessarily bad thing, then Chris ought for consistency’s sake to form a club to protect Beaulieu, Bewley and Baldie Roads, in danger of being so obliterated and expunged by the nefarious newcomer Bowalley Road. The fact is that those names have not been lost – they have faded from common usage but remain a part of the fabric of local culture, to be remembered and celebrated, as they are. If the change goes ahead, nobody except the fearmongers such as Trotter and Laws are suggesting that all historical references to Wanganui be struck from the records, or that a great terminology purge be conducted. The name and the fact of its usage for a century and a half will stand in the documentary record, as it ought to. The generations currently living here will mostly go on using Wanganui, and even many businesses will not bother to change their stationery, out of a dogged loyalty to the identity or out of simple inertia.*

Instead of mourning the loss of Beaulieu, Bewley and Baldie, Chris lionises the upstart Bowalley Road in the very name of his blog. This reveals that Chris accepts that some names have more intrinsic value than others, and on this point I agree with him. Where we disagree is on the basis by which we determine which of an exclusive pair of names should take precedence over the other, a simple matter of logic which I covered in the first post.

Now for the racism: having accepted that some names have more value than others, and having chosen to privilege the colonial name over the traditional name, Chris and others like him essentially say “the settler tradition is more valuable and important than the Māori tradition”. If the case were a marginal one, or if there were two equal competing claims, this would be fair enough – I’m not suggesting that all or even most names ought to be Māori names by right – but in a case where there is a clearly and obviously correct name which isn’t being used in preference to a clearly and obviously incorrect name, the implied statement changes from “the settler tradition is more important than the Māori tradition” to become “settler mistakes are more important than the Māori tradition”, which is much more pejorative. It essentially says “our ignorance is worth more than your identity”, and that, right there, is colonialism in a nutshell.

The battle will be an fierce one, and the troops are massing. The NZGB has signalled that numerical advantage – `preponderance of community views’ – isn’t enough to prevent the change, but it also grants significant weight to those views. In a bald attempt to strengthen their crude majoritarian argument before the NZGB, the Wanganui District Council (which, oddly, will not have to change its name even if the city name changes) has decided to seek a legal opinion on the NZGB’s decision, and to hold another referendum on the spelling of the name. As if there is such a thing, they plan to “conduct a neutral information campaign” on the matter beforehand, though it isn’t clear how they plan on ensuring even a fig-leaf of neutrality – will the council (who voted against the change) argue the sans-h case while Te Runanga o Tupoho (who brought the petition to the NZGB) argues the h case? Will the council pretend it can be neutral on this matter? And what is the purpose of an information campaign anyway, when they, better than anyone else, know that this isn’t a matter of logical, dispassionate assessment of facts and history – it’s a matter of picking sides. I watch the carrion birds circling with interest.

L

* Incidentally, the Wanganui Chronicle had a good laugh at itself and its readership on April 1 with a front-page story announcing that the name would be changed to the Whanganui Chronicle. Good on them! A few days later the editorial apologised to all those who had been taken in, saying that they’d thought the story too absurd to be believable.