We, Alternative Jewish Voices, deplore Israel and America’s illegal war of aggression against Iran. We also condemned the repression of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but that does not justify this war.

International war will only bring — is already bringing — more civilian death and destruction. We support the right of the Iranian people to determine their own future.

America and Israel again attacked Iran in mid-negotiation, three days after Iran’s Foreign Minister, Sayed Abbas Araghchi tweeted: “Iran will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon.”

No one has offered the slightest contrary evidence.

This war of aggression violates international and US domestic law. After the Second World War, the Nuremberg Tribunal called aggression “the supreme international crime”.

We see around us the world they were trying to avert: Israel has waged genocidal war on a trapped community and bombed six countries that were not at war.

This morning, Israel is occupying parts of Lebanon. Russia has invaded and pounded Ukraine for four years. Pakistan is bombing the cities of Afghanistan. US President Donald Trump doesn’t know what to grab next.

Imperial ambitions
We regard the attack on Iran as the latest enactment of longstanding imperial ambitions. How many countries has America tried to bomb into submission? How many times did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bomb the blockaded population of Gaza before America gave him the green light and the weapons to commit outright genocide?

This week, benefiting from the distraction of Iran, Israel has yet again sealed Gaza behind a total blockade. Aid agencies are again counting the days until they again run out of food.

Netanyahu boasts on camera that this war is “what I have yearned to do for 40 years”. Beware of men who prefer the risks of war to those of peace. Chaos and civilian misery are their signatures, but we share responsibility for their impunity.

Even after the horror of livestreamed genocide in Gaza, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon acquiesces to more war and speaks as if Trump and Netanyahu are trustworthy public officials.

Luxon’s appeasement disgraces us. We must not support this unfolding disaster, not materially and not out of the side of the Prime Minister’s mouth. We must say “No” in a bold, principled voice; joining states like Spain and Denmark.

As this fire spreads, we must also peer through the headlines and focus on the people of Iran, Gaza, Afghanistan and Lebanon. Civilians need protection, intervention and an end to the games of these warmongers.

We urge our morally vacuous government to stand with the civilians, the law and our future.

Alternative Jewish Voices – Sh’ma Koleinu is a collective of anti-Zionist Jews from the Far North to Dunedin. It has a liberatory Aotearoa Jewish identity, whether religious or secular or cultural. It is part of a movement for collective liberation, in Aotearoa and in Palestine.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Timor-Leste Prime Minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão has paid tribute to the “courageous and determined” contribution of Australian journalist Robert Domm to the struggle of the Timorese people in gaining independence from Indonesia. He died last Friday.

Domm was remembered for meeting in secret with the then Timorese resistance leader Gusmão in an exclusive interview.

“The government and people of East Timor are deeply saddened by the passing of Robert Domm, whose courage and determination helped bring to the world the truth of our fight for self-determination,” Gusmão’s statement said.

“In September 1990, when few in the world were aware of the devastation in occupied East Timor, or that our campaign of resistance continued despite the terrible losses, Robert Domm made the perilous journey to our country and climbed Mount Bunaria to meet with me and the leadership from FALINTIL.

“He was the first foreign journalist in 15 years to have direct contact with the Resistance.

“Your interview with me, broadcast by the ABC Background Briefing programme, broke the silence involving Timor-Leste since 1975.

“He conveyed to the world the message that the Timorese struggle for self-determination and resistance against foreign military occupation was very much alive.

Merchant seaman
“Robert Domm visited East Timor in the 1970s, then under Portuguese colonial control, as a merchant seaman on a boat crossing between Darwin and Dili, transporting general cargo and fuel.

“He returned in 1989, when Indonesia allowed tourist entry for the first time since 1975.

“He returned in 1990, allegedly as a “tourist”, but was on a secret mission to interview me for the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

“Robert Domm’s journey to find me took extraordinary courage. His visit was organised by the Timorese resistance with, as he later recalled, “military precision”. He involved more than two hundred people from Timore who guided him through villages and checkpoints, running great risk for himself and the Timore people who helped him.

“He was a humble and gentle Australian who slept next to us on the grounds of Mount Bunaria, ate with us under the protection of the jungle and walked with our resistance soldiers as a comrade and a friend. I am deeply moved by your concern for the people of Timore.

He risked his own life to share our story. His report has given international recognition to the humanity and the resolve of our people.

“Following the broadcast, the Indonesian military carried out large-scale operations in our mountains and many of those who helped them lost their lives for our freedom.

Exposed complicity
“Robert continued to support East Timor after 1990. He spoke out against the occupation and exposed the complicity of governments that have remained mute. He was a co-author, with Mark Aarons, of East Timor: A Tragedy Created by the West, a work that deepened the international understanding of our suffering and our right to self-determination.

“He remained a friend and defender of East Timor long after the restoration of independence.

“In 2015, twenty-five years after his maiden voyage, Robert returned to East Timor to commemorate our historic encounter. Together, we walked to Mount Bunaria, in the municipality of Ainaro, to celebrate the occasion and remember the lives lost during our fight.

“The place of our meeting has been recognised as a place of historical importance.

“In recognition of his contribution, Robert Domm was awarded the Order of Timor-Leste in August 2014. This honour reflected our nation’s gratitude for its role in taking our struggle to the world. Robert’s contribution is part of our nation’s history.

“Robert’s soul now rests on Mount Matebian, next to his Timorese brothers and sisters.

“On behalf of the government and people of East Timor, we express our deepest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Robert Domm. His courage, decency and sense of justice will forever remain in the memory of our nation.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A Fiji-based Pacific solidarity group supporting the indigenous Palestine struggle for survival against the Israeli settler colonial state has today issued a statement condemning Fiji backing for Israel.

In an open letter to the “people of Fiji”, the Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network (F4P) has warned “your government openly supports Israel despite its genocidal campaign against Palestinians”.

“It is directly complicit in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians and history will not forgive their inaction.”

The group said the struggle resonated with all who believed in justice, equality, and the fundamental rights of every human being.

Fijians for Palestine has condemned Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s coalition government plans to open a Fijian embassy in Jerusalem with Israeli backing and has launched a “No embassy on occupied land” campaign.

The group likened the Palestine liberation struggle to Pacific self-determination campaigns in Bougainville, “French” Polynesia, Kanaky and West Papua.

Global voices for end to violence
The open letter on social media said:

“Our solidarity with the Palestinian people is a testament to our shared humanity. We believe in a world where diversity, is treated with dignity and respect.

“We dream of a future where children in Gaza can play without fear, where families can live without the shadow of war, and where the Palestinian people can finally enjoy the peace and freedom they so rightly deserve.

“We join the global voices demanding a permanent ceasefire and an end to the violence. We express our unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people.

“The Palestinian struggle is not just a regional issue; it is a testament to the resilience of a people who, despite facing impossible odds, continue to fight for their right to exist, freedom, and dignity. Their struggle resonates with all who believe in justice, equality, and the fundamental rights of every human being.

“The images of destruction, the stories of families torn apart, and the cries of children caught in the crossfire are heart-wrenching. These are not mere statistics or distant news stories; these are real people with hopes, dreams, and aspirations, much like us.

“As Fijians, we have always prided ourselves on our commitment to peace, unity, and humanity. Our rich cultural heritage and shared values teach us the importance of standing up for what is right, even when it is not popular or convenient.

“We call on you to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people this Thursday with us, not out of political allegiance but out of a shared belief in humanity, justice, and the inalienable human rights of every individual.

“There can be no peace without justice, and we stand in unity with all people and territories struggling for self-determination and freedom from occupation. The Pacific cannot be an Ocean of Peace without freedom and self determination in Palestine, West Papua, Kanaky and all oppressed territories.

“To the Fijian people, please know that your government openly supports Israel despite its genocidal campaign against Palestinians. It is directly complicit in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians and history will not forgive their inaction.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A Fiji-based Pacific solidarity group supporting the indigenous Palestine struggle for survival against the Israeli settler colonial state has today issued a statement condemning Fiji backing for Israel.

In an open letter to the “people of Fiji”, the Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network (F4P) has warned “your government openly supports Israel despite its genocidal campaign against Palestinians”.

“It is directly complicit in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians and history will not forgive their inaction.”

The group said the struggle resonated with all who believed in justice, equality, and the fundamental rights of every human being.

Fijians for Palestine has condemned Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s coalition government plans to open a Fijian embassy in Jerusalem with Israeli backing and has launched a “No embassy on occupied land” campaign.

The group likened the Palestine liberation struggle to Pacific self-determination campaigns in Bougainville, “French” Polynesia, Kanaky and West Papua.

Global voices for end to violence
The open letter on social media said:

“Our solidarity with the Palestinian people is a testament to our shared humanity. We believe in a world where diversity, is treated with dignity and respect.

“We dream of a future where children in Gaza can play without fear, where families can live without the shadow of war, and where the Palestinian people can finally enjoy the peace and freedom they so rightly deserve.

“We join the global voices demanding a permanent ceasefire and an end to the violence. We express our unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people.

“The Palestinian struggle is not just a regional issue; it is a testament to the resilience of a people who, despite facing impossible odds, continue to fight for their right to exist, freedom, and dignity. Their struggle resonates with all who believe in justice, equality, and the fundamental rights of every human being.

“The images of destruction, the stories of families torn apart, and the cries of children caught in the crossfire are heart-wrenching. These are not mere statistics or distant news stories; these are real people with hopes, dreams, and aspirations, much like us.

“As Fijians, we have always prided ourselves on our commitment to peace, unity, and humanity. Our rich cultural heritage and shared values teach us the importance of standing up for what is right, even when it is not popular or convenient.

“We call on you to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people this Thursday with us, not out of political allegiance but out of a shared belief in humanity, justice, and the inalienable human rights of every individual.

“There can be no peace without justice, and we stand in unity with all people and territories struggling for self-determination and freedom from occupation. The Pacific cannot be an Ocean of Peace without freedom and self determination in Palestine, West Papua, Kanaky and all oppressed territories.

“To the Fijian people, please know that your government openly supports Israel despite its genocidal campaign against Palestinians. It is directly complicit in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians and history will not forgive their inaction.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The West Papuan resistance movement OPM has blamed the tragic death of a New Zealand helicopter pilot in a remote part of the troubled Melanesian region on Indonesia’s security forces and “every nation supporting barbarity”.

In a statement today, the OPM (Free Papua Organisation) chairman-commander Jeffrey Bomanak claimed his movement had undertaken a “thorough investigation” and unilaterally rejected any implication of responsibility for the death of pilot Glen Conning.

He also expressed sincere apologies to the pilot’s family.

Bomanak said the OPM “respects civilians from Sorong to Merauke” and also from “other parts of the world”.

The Jakarta Post reports that Glen Malcolm Conning, 50, a pilot for PT Intan Angkasa Air Service, was killed yesterday after landing in a remote part of Central Papua province with two Indonesian health workers and two children, all of whom survived.

The Cartenz Peace Taskforce, assembled to deal with Papuan independence fighters, retrieved his body from the remote area and transported it to Timika near the Freeport copper and gold mine, reported the newspaper citing a military statement.

“The body of the pilot has been evacuated from the Alama district to Timika and arrived at 12:50 pm local time. The body is currently at the Mimika General Hospital for an autopsy,” Cartenz spokesman Adjutant Senior Commander Bayu Suseno said.

Mimika police head Adjutant Senior Commander I Komang Budiartha told reporters yesterday that three helicopters had been dispatched for the search effort, according to The Post.

‘Heart-broken’ for loss
RNZ Pacific reports that a statement by Natasha Conning on behalf of his family said he was truly loved by his family and friends, who he had cherished spending time with when he was not flying or being in the outdoors.

“Our hearts are broken from this devastating loss,” she said.

The OPM has been waging a low-level liberation struggle in West Papua against Jakarta since a contested UN-supervised Act of Free Choice vote in 1969 in the former Dutch colony, which has been widely condemned as a sham.

In the OPM statement today, Commander Bomanak said: “From the beginning of the brutal invasion and illegal annexation, our war of liberation is the very defence of our homeland, just as it would be for you, and as it was during WWII.”

The “barbarity” of the Indonesian military and police was well known and “illegally supported by a tyranny of vested interests — geopolitical and trade from every nation with armament exports and a resource industry that steals our natural resources”, Bomanak said.

He said the death of the New Zealand pilot was “another tragic chapter in six decades of international support for Indonesia’s crimes against humanity”.

Bomanak also criticised the New Zealand government for allowing citizens to be employed by the “rogue state”.

NZ hostage pilot
In February 2023, pro-independence fighters took another New Zealand pilot hostage. Phillip Mehrtens, 37, who was captured shortly after landing his plane in the remote mountainous area of Nduga to drop off passengers.

He has been held hostage ever since and has featured in several videos and photographs circulated by his captors.

A spokesperson for the West Papua Action Aotearoa (WPAA) group, former Green MP Catherine Delahunty, said in a statement that the killing of Conning was an “utter tragedy for his family and friends”, adding that her movement was concerned over the killing of any civilians in West Papua.

She also noted that the area of the tragedy was a “conflict zone” and that the Indonesian military had a responsibility for the safety of pilots flying there.

Delahunty said the New Zealand government needed to respond to the dangerous situation “affecting our pilots” by calling on Indonesia to allow the UN Human Rights Commissioner and foreign media into West Papua.

She said the government should stop “sitting on their hands and start negotiating with Indonesia for peace, human rights and self-determination in West Papua”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“Only the struggle counts . . .  death is nothing.”  Éloi Machoro — “the Che Guevara of the Pacific” — said this shortly before he was gunned down by a French sniper on 12  January 1985.

Machoro, one of the leaders of the newly-formed FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) — today the main umbrella movement for New Caledonia’s indigenous Kanak people — slowly bled to death as the gendarmes moved in.

The assassination is an apt metaphor for what France is doing to the Kanak people of New Caledonia and has been doing to them for 150 years.

As the New Zealand and Australian media fussed and bothered over tourists stranded in New Caledonia over the past week, the Kanaks have been gripped in an existential struggle with a heavyweight European power determined to keep the archipelago firmly under the control of Paris.  We need better, deeper reporting from our media — one that provides history and context.

According to René Guiart, a pro-independence writer, moments before the sniper’s bullets struck, Machoro had emerged from the farmhouse where he and his comrades were surrounded.  I translate:

“I want to speak to the Sous-Prefet! [French administrator],” Machoro shouted. “You don’t have the right to arrest us.  Do you hear? Call the Sous-Prefet!”

The answer came in two bullets. Once dead, Machoro’s comrades inside the house emerged to receive a beating from the gendarmes.  Standing over Machoro’s body, a member of the elite mobile tactical unit said:  “He wanted war, he got it!”

Weeks earlier, New Zealand journalist David Robie had photographed Machoro shortly before he smashed open a ballot box with an axe and burned the ballots inside. “It was,” says Robie, “symbolic of the contempt Kanaks had for what they saw as the French’s manipulated voting system.”

Every year on January 12, the anniversary of Machoro’s killing, people gather at his grave. Engraved in stone are the words: “On tue le révolutionnaire mais on ne tue pas ses idées.” You can kill the revolutionary but you can’t kill his ideas.  Why don’t most Australians and New Zealanders even know his name?

Decades after his death and 17,000 km away, the French are at it again. Their National Assembly has shattered the peace this month with a unilateral move to change voting rights to enfranchise tens of thousands of more recent French settlers and put an end to both consensus building and the indigenous Kanak people’s struggle for self-determination and independence.

Thanks to French immigration policies, Kanaks now number about 40 percent of the registered voters. New Zealand and Australia look the other way — New Caledonia is France’s “zone of interest”.

But what’s not to like about extending voting rights?  Shouldn’t all people who live in the territory enjoy voting rights?

“They have voting rights,” says David Robie, now editor of Asia Pacific Report, “back in France.”  And France, not the Kanaks, control who can enter and stay in the territory.

Back in 1972, French Prime Minister Pierre Messmer argued in a since-leaked memo that if France wanted to maintain control, flooding the territory with white settlers was the only long-term solution to the independence issue.

Robie says the French machinations in Paris — changing the boundaries of citizenship and voting rights – and the ensuing violent reaction, is effectively a return to the 1980s — or worse.

The violence of the 1980s, which included massacres, led to the Matignon Accords of 1988 and the Nouméa Accords of 1998 which restricted the voting to only those who had lived in Kanaky prior to 1998 and their descendents. Pro-independence supporters include many young whites who see their future in the Pacific, not as a white settler colonial outpost of France.

Most whites, however, fear and oppose independence and the loss of privileges it would bring.

After decades of calm and progress, albeit modest, things started to change from 2020 onwards. It was clear to Robie and others that French calculations now saw New Caledonia as too important to lose; it is a kind of giant aircraft carrier in the Pacific from which to project French power. It is also home to the world’s third-largest nickel reserves.

How have the Kanaks benefitted from being a French colony? Kanaks were given citizenship in their own country only after WWII, a century after Paris imposed French rule.   According to historian David Chappell:

“In practice, French colonisation was one of the most extreme cases of native denigration, incarceration and dispossession in Oceania. A frontier of cattle ranches, convict camps, mines and coffee farms moved across the main island of Grande Terre, conquering indigenous resisters and confining them to reserves that amounted to less than 10 percent of the land.”

It was a pattern of behaviour similar to France’s colonies in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.  Little wonder the people of Niger have recently become the latest to expel them.

Deprived of education — the first Kanak to qualify for university entrance was in the 1960s — socially and economically marginalised, subjected to what historians describe as among the most brutal colonial overlordships in the Pacific, the Kanaks have fought to maintain their languages, their cultures and their identities whilst the whites enjoy some of the highest standards of living in the world.

David Robie, author of Blood on Their Banner – Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific, and a sequel, Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, has been warning for years that France is pushing New Caledonia down a slippery slope that could see the country plunge back into chaos.

“There was no consultation — except with the anti-independence groups. Any new constitutional arrangement needs to be based around consensus.  France has now polarised the situation so much that it will be virtually impossible to get consensus.”

Macron also pushed ahead with a 2021 referendum on independence versus remaining a French territory. This was in the face of pleas from the Kanak community to hold off until the covid pandemic that had killed thousands of Kanaks had passed and the traditional mourning period was over.

Macron ignored the request; the Kanak population boycotted the referendum. Despite this, Macron crowed about the anti-independence vote that inevitably followed: “Tonight, France is more beautiful because New Caledonia has decided to stay part of it.”

Having created the problem with actions like the disputed referendum and the current law changes, Macron now condemns today’s violence in New Caledonia.  Éloi Machoro rebukes him from the grave: “Where is the violence, with us or with them?” he asked weeks before his killing. “The aim of the [law changes] is to destroy the Kanak people in their own country.”  That was 1985; as the French say: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same thing.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has called on the international community to “pay serious attention” to the escalated violence happening in West Papua.

Head of ULMWP’s legal and human rights bureau, Daniel Randongkir, said that since the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) — a separate movement — took New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens hostage last month, tensions in the Papua’n central mountainous region had escalated.

The New Zealand government is pressing for the negotiated peaceful release of Mehrtens but the Indonesian security forces (TNI) are preparing a military operation to free the Susi Air pilot.

Randongkir said the TPNPB kidnapping was an effort to draw world attention to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Papua, and to ask the international community to recognise the political independence of West Papua, which has been occupied by Indonesia since May 1, 1963.

Negotiations for the release of Mehrtens, who was captured on February 7, are ongoing but TPNPB does not want the Indonesian government to intervene in the negotiations.

Randongkir said that in the past week, there had been armed conflict between TPNPB and TNI in Puncak Papua, Intan Jaya, Jayawijaya, and Yahukimo regencies. This showed the escalation of armed conflict in Papua.

According to Randongkir, since 2018 more than 67,000 civilians had been displaced from conflict areas such as Intan Jaya, Nduga, Puncak, Puncak Jaya, Yahukimo, Bintang Mountains, and Maybrat regencies.

Fled their hometowns
They fled their hometowns to seek refuge in other areas.

On March 16, 2023 the local government and the military began evacuating non-Papuans in Dekai, the capital of Yahukimo Regency, using military cargo planes.

“Meanwhile, the Indigenous people of Yahukimo were not evacuated from the city of Dekai,” Randongkir said in media release.

ULMWP said that the evacuation of non-Papuans was part of the TNI’s preparation to carry out full military operations. This had the potential to cause human rights violations.

Past experience showed that TNI, when conducting military operations in Papua, did not pay attention to international humanitarian law.

“They will destroy civilian facilities such as churches, schools, and health clinics, burn people’s houses, damage gardens, and kill livestock belonging to the community,” he said.

“They will arrest civilians, even kill civilians suspected of being TPNPB members.”

Plea for Human Rights Commissioner
Markus Haluk, executive director of ULMWP in West Papua, said that regional organisations such as the Pacific Islands Forum and the African Caribbean Pacific bloc, have called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to immediately send the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to West Papua.

ULMWP hoped that the international community could urge the Indonesian government to immediately stop all forms of crimes against humanity committed in West Papua, and bring about a resolution of the West Papua conflict through international mechanisms that respect humanitarian principles, Haluk said.

Haluk added that ULMWP also called on the Melanesian, Pacific, African, Caribbean and international communities to take concrete action through prayer and solidarity actions in resolving the conflict that had been going on for the past six decades.

This was to enable justice, peace, independence and political sovereignty of the West Papuan nation.

Mourning for Gerardus Thommey
RNZ Pacific reports that Papuans are mourning the death of Gerardus Thommey, a leader of the liberation movement.

Independence movement leader Benny Wenda said Thommey was a regional commander of the West Papuan liberation movement in Merauke, and since his early 20s had been a guerilla fighter.

He said Thommey was captured near the PNG border with four other liberation leaders and deported to Ghana, and lived the rest of his life in exile.

Wenda said that even though he had been exiled from his land, Thommey’s commitment to a liberated West Papua never wavered.

Republished with permission.

https://t.co/32Q0qeXCS2

— Benny Wenda (@BennyWenda) March 20, 2023

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

PART 1: Divide and rule with Māori and Pacific communities

White Supremacy (WS) has proliferated during covid-19 lockdowns in Aotearoa from 17 August 2021. Supremacist activism, aspirations, attitudes, behaviours, beliefs, concepts, ideas, languages, media output, organising praxes, political slogans, political thought, and political party policies have all flourished as people protested against government covid restrictions and lockdowns.

In this writing, I distinguish between anti-vaccination and freedom protesters who are not advocating for WS and those who are part of anti-lockdown protests and anti-vaccination organising who do support white supremacy.

Similarly, the focus of this commentary is not to examine conspiracy theories. Moreover, I am not seeking to examine the work of Māori or Pacific people engaged in anti-vaccination and freedom from lockdown protests.

WS works best when it can divide and rule Māori and Pacific communities. My focus in this article is on Pakeha involvement in WS as it evolves in contemporary Aotearoa.

This article seeks to offer ways to understand the contemporary emergence of the supremacy phenomenon. This article will offer a thumbnail sketch outline of some of the features of supremacy in an Aotearoa context.

I assume colonial and historical forms of WS already existent in Aotearoa are coalescing and are being energised by contemporary, hybrid variations of supremacy emerging from the US, Europe, Australia, and other countries.

Supremacists in Aotearoa are clearly drawing upon WS activism, aesthetics, hostility, media output, messaging, modes of organising, and political thought from overseas.

White supremacy in Aotearoa
I attempt to group these variegated expressions of white supremacy in this article. I seek to outline this phenomenon as a composite of ideas, concepts, languages, beliefs, ideologies, attitudes, activisms, praxes, aspirations, narratives, and political positions — all situated in a time, space, and condition in Aotearoa.

I feel that WS must also be understood as embodying modes of being, living, and knowing operational in community, family, political, and social life. WS is occurring at multiple levels of our communities.

Further, I believe people must be able to analyse WS; group supremacist phenomena, and assess it vis-à-vis a framework such as a spectrum. Further, we must invite African, Asian, Māori, Pacific, and Pakeha communities to consider WS from within values specific to each cultural group.

Most importantly, we must invite community groups to question WS from their many different community standing places. I hope this modest work offers communities a framework for assessing WS from within their own flax roots community perspectives.

We need more work considering these issues from the perspectives of women, LGBTG, working class, and disabled sectors of the wider community also.

The online Merriam Webster Dictionary defines WS in two ways. Firstly, WS is defined at its most basic as “the belief that the white race is inherently superior to other races and that white people should have control over people of other races”.

In this definition, WS is defined as a component of an attitudinal sphere.

Secondly, the Merriam Webster Dictionary defines WS as “the social, economic, and political systems that collectively enable white people to maintain power over people of other races”.

Structural and societal level
This shifts discussion of WS from an individual attitudinal sphere to a structural and societal level. I deploy both these definitions of white supremacy in this article — and expand upon the definition in regards to specific concerns such as activism, language, and the media.

I argue white supremacy is one component of a wider colonial settler project in Aotearoa. Alicia Cox at Oxford Bibliographies defines Settler Colonialism as “an ongoing system of power that perpetuates genocide and repression of indigenous peoples… normalises continuous settler occupation… exploiting lands and resources to which indigenous people have genealogical relationships…includes interlocking forms of oppression such as racism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism”.

In sum, I will argue that all forms of WS outlined in this article contribute to Settler Colonialism in Aotearoa.

I have examined commentary, comments, interviews, and video footage of well-known Pakeha WS activists and media pundits in Aotearoa. I have examined Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok, and internet commentary from flax roots people. I considered fringe parliamentary political parties’ policies of those positioning themselves for entry into mainstream politics.

I viewed video footage of freedom and anti-vax protests around the country. I looked at internet sites of groups organising anti-lockdown protests around Aotearoa. I researched QAnon, the ALT-Right, and white supremacist organisations overseas. Similarly, I read work on concepts, language, and political thought that underpins some of these movements.

I see WS as a formation existing along a spectrum for the transformation of specific sectional interests; for those seeking to use direct action to challenge the government; for those seeking representation in Parliament, and finally for people seeking a potential white ethno-state.

We should be sensitive to the aspirations, attitudes, beliefs, concepts, ideas, use of language, and ideals concerning economic, social, and political thought underpinning WS in the list introduced below.

Expressions of WS
When examining sources I found expressions of WS regarding:

(1) contempt for Te Tiriti,
(2) rejection of power sharing between Pakeha and Māori as articulated in Te Tiriti,
(3) appropriation of He Whakaputanga alongside a rejection of Te Tiriti,
(4) antagonism towards the historical experience of Māori,
(5) privileging of a mythology of “peaceful” or “just” race relations in Aotearoa — thereby erasing histories of racism suffered by Africans, Asians, Māori, or Pacific communities in Aotearoa,
(6) political policies of different fringe parties antagonistic to “race”-based privileges for Māori in health, in law, or at the United Nations,
(7) vilification of the NZ Labour as “socialistic”,
(8) attacks on Māori activist, community, political, or scholarly leaders,
(9) assumptions WS is on same side as “ordinary” Māori, Pacific, Asian, African, or Pakeha communities,
(10) attacks on independent university based critical scholarship,
(11) abuse of Māori language users,
(12) championing of bellicose forms of Pentecostal Christianity as the only legitimate faith for Aotearoa,
(13) attacks on the United Nations and governments as cabals of evil,
(14) contempt for migrants rights,
(15) deployment of language hijacked from liberation struggles,
(16) deployment of narratives of WS,
(17) refusal to debate honestly,
(18) antagonism and personal attacks against those considered enemies of WS using different media,
(19) articulation of action programmes,
(20) modes of praxis,
(21) introduction of Alt Right and QAnon concepts, language use, and values, and
(22) lauding of former US President Donald Trump, Republicans, and Q.

I deploy one example of the techniques Pakeha WS proponents use to articulate their programme re language hijacked from liberation struggles. Pakeha WS adherents have sought to appropriate, disrupt, interrupt, colonise, and then occupy the languages of Māori and African-American liberation — and, implicitly, the epistemologies underpinning these languages.

For example, Pakeha WS figures have called acclaimed Māori community leader Hone Harawira a “sell out”, a “house negro”, and a “traitor” for his community work for Māori families during covid-19 lockdowns in Northland in 2021.

Here, WS folk have attempted to colonise the Black Liberation language of Malcolm X. This “house negro” language was deployed by Malcolm X in a specific time, place, and condition- as Manning Marable articulates in his controversial history, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. Māori activists deployed this language in debates with their more conservative elders in years gone by.

But Pakeha WS advocates deploying this language are no friends of Malcolm or the Black Liberation struggle — these Pakeha are bitter opponents of the BLM movement. Similarly, these Pakeha are no friends of Māori liberation struggles such as the one at Ihumatao.

The whakapapa of struggle
WS adherents are trying to colonise, disrupt, and occupy this language so as to appropriate it to better undermine the links connecting Hone to his own people. But Hone is conjoined to his people by whakapapa and the whakapapa of struggle.

Moreover, who would Malcolm X stand with? WS representatives attacking indigenous people — or an indigenous Māori brother, like Hone Harawira?

I invite Asian, African, Māori, Pacific, and Pakeha communities standing in their own cultures, community values, experiences, and histories to consider these questions.

Does WS in its various forms as outlined in brief above:

(1) Resonate with your community values?
(2) Articulate your vision of the country?
(3) Uphold the mana of the diverse sections of each of your communities?
(4) Sympathise with your communal experiences or histories?
(5) Align with your notions of community service?
(6) Voice your community needs?
(7) Articulate your community aspirations for your young people, women, or your elders?
(8) Support your concerns in the parliamentary party sphere?
(9) Offer a valid means to find a way out of covid-19 in a time of great uncertainty?
(10) Make Aotearoa/New Zealand a safer place for your community?
(11) Make Aotearoa/New Zealand a more tolerant society?
(12) Uphold the mana of the first people of this land, the Māori people?
(13) Offer a means to advance the concerns of all communities in Aotearoa?
(14) Does settler colonialism offer a positive vision for a united and prosperous Aotearoa/ New Zealand in the future?

Only communities in Aotearoa have the answers to these questions. I hope the definitions, analysis, articulation of a spectrum, and the final questions provide an accessible and safe framework for communities to assess, critically engage, and strategise concerning this contemporary phenomena known as WS.

Tony Fala is an activist, researcher, and volunteer for a small charitable trust engaged in food rescue and distribution to communities in South Auckland. He acknowledges his own racism in years gone by — something he had to overcome. Fala wishes to acknowledge the anti-racist contributions of Joe Carolan, Tina Ngata, Rawiri Taonui, and Joe Trinder — and all other activists, journalists, and scholars engaged in responding to WS. He also wishes to acknowledge the important work of The Disinformation Project in Aotearoa.

• Tomorrow: Part 2: WS storytelling in more detail

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz