8/21/11
Chief Selwyn Garu on land in Vanuatu
Chief Selwyn Garu speaks on customary land in Vanuatu and the problems brought about by (Australian-backed) attempts to commercialise it.
8/19/11
George Jackson - 40 year commemoration
August 21st marks the 40th anniversary of the execution of George Lester Jackson. The Chicago- born Jackson would have celebrated his 70th birthday on September 23rd.
Jackson was a prisoner who became an author, a member of the Black Panther Party, and co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family prison organization. He achieved global fame as one of the Soledad Brothers before being executed by prison guards in San Quentin Prison.
Based on an edited portion of Prisons on Fire by the Freedom Archives (2001) with video editing by Oriana Bolden.
8/17/11
Morgan Godfrey comments on Tuku Morgan
Same old tuku tarau he's just another authoritarian Maori 'leader' who hates being held accountable....to anybody. I'm Impressed with Morgan Godfery his comments about Tuku being bound to the ideology of privitisation showed more insight & intelligence than the Maori media hacks that interviewed him.
Check out Morgans blog Maui Street & a huge shout out to all the other Maori bloggers out their giving voice to the unheard our flaxroots.
More here about tuku selling out to private prison companies & facilitating the expansion of the prison industrial complex in Aotearoa.
Tainui supports privately managed prisons
Corporate Iwi: Doing business with human rights abusers
Iwi Capitalists provide brownwash for prison privitisation in NZ
The idea is that iwi, or groupings of iwi, or iwi-private joint ventures will invest in parts of the country's infrastructure, such as hospitals, schools, prisons and roads, through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) with the government. This has become more of a reality because the National-led government has made it clear it is more amenable to this type of arrangement than the previous government.
TAINUI WANT CHANCE TO BE OWN GOALERS
Tainui chair Tukoroirangi Morgan says Tainui will put its hat into the ring to run private prisons.
Tuku Morgan says the government's announcement to allow private companies to run prisons will offer Maori opportunities to invest, manage and own infrustructural development.... See More
He says this is something Tainui believes is critical for long term sustainability and a matter he has personally taken up with prime minister John Key.
“At Waitangi I was part of the presentation to the Prime Minister including the deputy PM pushing the issue of public private developments. We think it is an intelligent approach by iwi to get involved in important infrastructural development,” Mr Morgan says
Tainui chair Tukoroirangi Morgan says Tainui will put its hat into the ring to run private prisons.
8/9/11
Darcus Howe on the 'London Riots'
Darcus Howe, a West Indian Writer and Broadcaster with a voice about the riots. Speaking about the mistreatment of youths by police leading to an up-roar and the ignorance of both police and the governement
7/26/11
ANTI EXTRACTION HUI 29-31 JULY
NGA WHARE WAATEA MARAE, MANGERE, AUCKLAND
wi Leaders, Runanga Chairpersons, Natural Resource managers, Activist groups and concerned individuals
E nga Rangatira tena koutou katoa
The government is embarking upon an aggressive national minerals extraction programme that has serious implications for Maori land, conservation land and the marine environment. A number of iwi throughout the country including Te Whanau a Apanui, Ngapuhi, Te Rarawa, Ngati Kahu, Te Arawa, Ngati Porou, and Ngai Tahu have expressed extreme concern and in some cases taken direct action to protect the environmental integrity of their tribal territories.
To add insult to injury and hard on the heels of the discriminatory Coastal and Marine ACT, the present government is considering a new bill to be called the Exclusive Economic Zone and Extended Continental Shelf ACT which will alienate the marine area from the 12 mile limit out to the 200 mile limit of the economic exclusion zone.
In effect this new legislation will be a rerun of the Foreshore and Seabed disgrace, and is contrary to the rights and guarantees contained within Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
In addition the recently established the Environmental Protection Agency will fast track “projects of national significance” and the EPA will allow by-pass the requirements in the RMA to consult with Maori and this is of great concern to many Iwi Maori organizations and interest groups.
If this is not enough, the government is also secretly negotiating the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) with a number of Pacific Rim countries, which will provide the opportunity for multi national companies to avoid NZ regulations and seek compensation from NZ taxpayers for any obstacles to their ability to extract profits from our natural resources.
Therefore I would like to invite representatives of your organization to attend a national hui to be held at Nga Whare Watea Marae, Mangere, Tamaki Makarau 29th -31st of July to consider this situation and develop a national response to these issues.
In reflection it is instructive to consider the national Maori response to the Foreshore and Seabed issue whereby over 40,000 concerned Maori demonstrated against the governments refusal to allow Maori to contest the governments arbitrary confiscation of the marine area out to the 12-mile limit. The government’s response was to ignore Maori concerns. In stark contrast, when the government proposed to allow mining in schedule 4 protected conservation land, 50,000 citizens demonstrated against the policy and the policy was immediately dropped.
As a result this national hui will also engage with a number of environment NGO’s and concerned community groups to develop a united strategy to address these issues of mutual concern.
Date: 29th-31st July 2011
Venue: Nga Whare Watea Marae
31 Calthorp Close Mangere
Powhiri: 4.00pm Friday 29th July 2011
No rei ra rau rangatira ma, e nga iwi o nga moutere o Aotearoa nau mai haere mai whakapiripiri mai!
na Mike Smith
Ngapuhi – Ngati Kahu
National Political Advisor, Greenpeace Aotearoa.
Ph. 021 504486
email: michael.smith@greenpeace.o
Registration Form & Info
wi Leaders, Runanga Chairpersons, Natural Resource managers, Activist groups and concerned individuals
E nga Rangatira tena koutou katoa
The government is embarking upon an aggressive national minerals extraction programme that has serious implications for Maori land, conservation land and the marine environment. A number of iwi throughout the country including Te Whanau a Apanui, Ngapuhi, Te Rarawa, Ngati Kahu, Te Arawa, Ngati Porou, and Ngai Tahu have expressed extreme concern and in some cases taken direct action to protect the environmental integrity of their tribal territories.
To add insult to injury and hard on the heels of the discriminatory Coastal and Marine ACT, the present government is considering a new bill to be called the Exclusive Economic Zone and Extended Continental Shelf ACT which will alienate the marine area from the 12 mile limit out to the 200 mile limit of the economic exclusion zone.
In effect this new legislation will be a rerun of the Foreshore and Seabed disgrace, and is contrary to the rights and guarantees contained within Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
In addition the recently established the Environmental Protection Agency will fast track “projects of national significance” and the EPA will allow by-pass the requirements in the RMA to consult with Maori and this is of great concern to many Iwi Maori organizations and interest groups.
If this is not enough, the government is also secretly negotiating the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) with a number of Pacific Rim countries, which will provide the opportunity for multi national companies to avoid NZ regulations and seek compensation from NZ taxpayers for any obstacles to their ability to extract profits from our natural resources.
Therefore I would like to invite representatives of your organization to attend a national hui to be held at Nga Whare Watea Marae, Mangere, Tamaki Makarau 29th -31st of July to consider this situation and develop a national response to these issues.
In reflection it is instructive to consider the national Maori response to the Foreshore and Seabed issue whereby over 40,000 concerned Maori demonstrated against the governments refusal to allow Maori to contest the governments arbitrary confiscation of the marine area out to the 12-mile limit. The government’s response was to ignore Maori concerns. In stark contrast, when the government proposed to allow mining in schedule 4 protected conservation land, 50,000 citizens demonstrated against the policy and the policy was immediately dropped.
As a result this national hui will also engage with a number of environment NGO’s and concerned community groups to develop a united strategy to address these issues of mutual concern.
Date: 29th-31st July 2011
Venue: Nga Whare Watea Marae
31 Calthorp Close Mangere
Powhiri: 4.00pm Friday 29th July 2011
No rei ra rau rangatira ma, e nga iwi o nga moutere o Aotearoa nau mai haere mai whakapiripiri mai!
na Mike Smith
Ngapuhi – Ngati Kahu
National Political Advisor, Greenpeace Aotearoa.
Ph. 021 504486
email: michael.smith@greenpeace.o
Registration Form & Info
6/20/11
6/12/11
Geronimo Day July 17th Bobby Hutton Park
Greetings Comrades and Friends:
Due to the limited size of Eastside Arts Alliance, we are having a Memorial for geronimo at Bobby Hutton Park (DeFremery Park). This event will be held Sunday July 17th. The park is located at 18th and Adeline in West Oakland across the street from the W. Oakland Library.
The Memorial will start at about 3pm. Come celebrate the life of a Revoulationary. For more information check www.itsabouttimebpp.com or call 916-455-0908 or the BPP Commemorator Newspaper 510-652-7170.
We would like to thank Claude Marks of Freedom Archives, Neome Banks of OCS Alunmi and Carol and Big Man for all their help.
Billy X Jennings
6/7/11
Māori Politicians placate homophobia for votes
The recent attendance of a group of Māori male politicians at the Destiny Church annual conference and their advocacy for the supposed benefits of that church to Māori people highlights the political purgatory that Māori find ourselves in leading up to the November election.
The scenes of Pita Sharples, Hone Harawira, Tau Henare and Shane Jones lining up to be ‘blessed’ and to hear their platitudes of thanks to a homophobic and misogynist institution is not merely disturbing it is sickening. We should never forget the ‘enough is enough’ hate marches instigated by Destiny Church. We should never forget the kinds of hate speeches that Māori gay and lesbian whānau were bombarded with during the Civil Union debate, and the ongoing homophobia that Destiny Church leaders and members continue to openly express with both fervor and hatred.
So, who benefits from a group of heterosexual Māori male politicians standing on such a stage? Not one of those Māori men challenged the underpinning homophobia and misogyny that is espoused by Brian Tamaki. Rather it was avoided like the plague. What does that say to the many Māori gay and lesbian people within our whānau? It says that yet again we are easily sacrificed for 0.5% of the vote.
Dr Leonie Pihama
Māori And Indigenous Analysis Ltd.
Fulbright Scholar, Indigenous Wellness Research Institute, University of Seattle.
Contact may be made Skype (leoniepihama) for further comment.
6/5/11
Concerned Citizens Exhibition
Press Release
More than 50 artists from around New Zealand will be exhibiting work in Wellington at the start of next month to raise funds and public awareness for the arrestees of the 2007 October 15 "terror raids." Exhibited works range from paintings, sculptures, and animation, to a reproduction of the assassination device police claim "terror raids" arrestees planned to use - a catapult designed to launch a bus onto the head of former US president George Bush.
According to contributing artist and spokesperson Lance Ravenswood, the charges against the 18 arrestees of the October 15 raids are "just silly. Any sensible person should feel that the police and courts need a good telling-off about the way they’ve been behaving.” A number of prominent figures have also spoken out against the handling of the case, including civil rights lawyer Moana Jackson and Professor Jane Kelsey.
“Why have these people been denied a trial by jury? Why is there so much secrecy surrounding the legal proceedings? The police seem to be equating legitimate political and environmental activism with terrorism," says Ravenswood.
Richard Meros, author of On the Conditions and Possibilities of Helen Clark Taking Me as Her Young Lover, will be exhibiting a piece in a similar tone, entitled Your Honour We Eat These Charges For Breakfast, featuring berry-soaked strips of the 2002 Terrorism Suppression Act (TSA).
“This muesli celebrates the afternoon the Solicitor General’s office struck down the use of the TSA against those arrested on October 15, 2007, reminding bowels and brains that the charges of terrorism were not even strong enough to be presented to a court” says Meros.
The exhibition will open at the Garrett Street exhibition space on Friday June 3rd at 4:30pm, followed by a screening of Errol Wright and Abi King-Jones’ documentary about the October 15th raids, “Operation 8: Deep in the Forest”. Viewing will continue over the weekend.
“We’re concerned about whether justice is being done here. Lots of people in the community have questions about this case - we want them to get together, experience some great art, and talk about what’s going on,” says Lance Ravenswood. “As artists, we want to do what we can to help 18 New Zealanders who are being punished, before the trial even takes place, by an immense financial burden in a drawn-out battle against extremely questionable charges. That’s why we’re donating our work, to raise funds to support the defendants and their families through the trial.”
The Concerned Citizens exhibition will feature work from up and coming as well as more established artists, including Peter Madden, Roger Morris, Bryce Galloway, Arlo Edwards, Kerry Ann Lee, and Tao Wells, creator of the controversial Beneficiary’s Office installation in 2010.
More info : Here |
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