Is It Time For New Zealand To Embrace Apartheid?

Most people consider apartheid to be one of the recent century’s many evils. Elderly Kiwis speak with pride of opposing the 1981 Springbok tour and helping to bring the regime in South Africa to its knees. Today, though, it’s apparent that race-based policies are making a comeback. This essay asks the inevitable question.

To Kiwis in Generation X, apartheid was placed along the Holocaust as an example of the worst of all possible crimes – racism. We were made to write essays in school denouncing it. The television and radio told us every day that ending it was one of the world’s most pressing issues. So when apartheid ended with the democratic elections in 1994, we all cheered.

In recent years, however, apartheid has surged back into fashion. The powers that be, for reasons nefarious, have encouraged a renaissance in racial consciousness. In 2020, most people’s identities are once again based primarily around their racial heritage. It’s once again common for people to think of themselves as their race first and as a Kiwi second.

In New Zealand, successive strategic Government decisions have rejected the idea that New Zealanders are one people under one law. They have enshrined separatist sentiments, promulgating the belief that the essential nature of relations between whites and Maoris is one of oppression, deceit and exploitation.

Part of the New New Zealand history is that white people have stolen some innumerable wealth from the Maoris, and that justice demands therefore that the Maoris get their own back on white people whenever they can. This blatantly racist narrative has inspired an anti-racist counter-reaction, as the nation has been set against itself.

Anti-racists were appalled by recent news that the Sixth Labour Government was allocating coronavirus support funding on the basis of race. GPs of Maoris and Pacific Islanders were given $4.50 per patient, but GPs of white people were only given $1.50 unless those patients had been previously marked out as belonging to the poorest quintile. This is a blatantly racist policy, and some were surprised it was even legal.

Given that the most recent Budget allocated $1,000,000,000 to Maori causes alone, some could be forgiven for thinking that the Sixth Labour Government had given up on the white working class completely, and had settled for being a brown party. If this is the case, then we’re arguably on our way to an apartheid system where political factions argue for racial interests first and foremost.

This news came in the context of the realisation that the Police had no intention of stopping certain Maori tribes from blockading public roads, particularly roads in Northland. Despite the fact that blockading a public road is a crime, the Police have not made any arrests, and have even said that they weren’t going to do anything about it.

So many people have supported these actions that it seems as if New Zealand is taking tentative steps towards a fully apartheid system, where different laws apply depending on one’s skin colour.

The question raised by this essay is: should New Zealand embrace this shift, and institute full apartheid? Should we organise our society to reflect a fundamental and unbreachable difference between Maoris and non-Maoris, such that the two different groups cross each others’ paths as little as possible?

The first step would be to entrench the Maori Roll. This would mean that all Maoris were forced to vote in the Maori electorates whether they wanted to or not. Their race being their defining quality, they would no longer be eligible for the General Roll. Correspondingly, Maori voters would not be permitted any influence over non-Maori affairs.

The second step would be to declare certain areas as tribal reservations. In principle, these already exist. The areas being blocked by roadblocks are, by virtue of that residents are allowed to block them, effectively the same as North American-style reservations. Eventually, Maoris would be transported from the cities into these tribal enclaves.

Future steps would entail the institution of separate drinking fountains, toilets and beaches. Sports leagues would also be segregated, with a special Maori league for rugby. Maori players would no longer be eligible for the All Blacks or Black Caps.

The reality, of course, is that apartheid between Maoris and whites in New Zealand is impossible on account of that they’re already too mixed together.

At least 25% of New Zealanders – including the author of this piece – are some kind of mixed-race Northern European/Polynesian. Those of us who are cannot reasonably be expected to pick a side in the great race war that so many seem to be agitating for.

If you’re a mixed race white-Maori, you are probably the result of a relationship in which a white person and a Maori loved each other. Your entire existence is an expression of co-operation and goodwill between these two peoples. Therefore, it’s impossible for a Kiwi of mixed blood to choose one side over the other, any more than they could choose their left hand over their right one.

The majority of New Zealand already has white ancestry. Sooner or later, the majority of the country will also have Maori ancestry – this is inevitable given that Maori ancestry is already carried by many Kiwis who are indistinguishable from fully white people, and that interbreeding rates between Maoris and whites are extremely high (the average Maori woman is more likely to breed with a non-Maori than with another Maori).

Seeing as there is no reproductive barrier between the two groups, it seems inevitable that mixed-race white-Kiwis will eventually comprise a majority of Kiwis. From that point, there’s no looking back.

If apartheid really is impossible, then it’s a mistake to take steps towards it. That means that all separatist measures have to be opposed, both intellectually and legally. No Treaty favouritism, no race-based funding, no Maori roadblocks, no official narrative of hatred, division and revenge. It’s time to replace our national narrative with Esoteric Aotearoanism.

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If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 and the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 are also available.

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