Three cheers for Hone Harawira: "hip hip hooray, Howard IS a racist"

Aussie PM labelled `a racist'` - The Dominion Post

Intervention plan shows Howard 'racist' - Maori MP [SMH]
Thank you Hone Harawira. Thanks for having the courage to say it: John Howard is a racist. His government is racist and his actions in the Northern Territory - purportedly to stop sexual violence against children - is a grab for precious resources, particularly uranium.

One of the men in this image
is a racist bastard,
the other one said so.

The Howard government wants to make Australia a key player in the nu-killer-ization of the planet. Australia has the world's largest reserves of recoverable uranium and global capital wants to get its hands on the stuff.

In order to do this any objections of the traditional owners must be overcome. What better way than to manufacture a moral panic as a national emergency and then militarise the place.

Speaking a couple of days ago on Maori TV, the Maori Party MP Hone Harawira compared Howard's actions to those of the Bush regime in Iraq. Three cheers to Hone Harawira.

What's been interesting is the apologetic way that the media has reacted to this story. It was covered on TV1 on Monday night in tones of shock and outrage: "How dare an uppity politician from the Maori party publicly declare a foreign leader to be racist?"

It's about time and other NZ politicians should do the same as Mr Harawira and call Howard a "racist bastard", because he surely is.

So far Howard has not commented on Mr Harawira's outburst, but New Zealand PM Helen Clark's office saays the comments are "regretable". What's regretable Prime Minister is that you won't say it too.

today the Maori Party issued a media release calling for a special caucus meeting to discuss what Howard is up to. It's a good idea to push this issue, but frankly I'd be surprised if the Clark government has the guts to confront Canberra on this issue. Here's a taster of the Maori Party release, which you can read in full here:

The Maori Party Caucus today called a special caucus meeting to consider the Australian Government's response to the report, describing it as a sledge-hammer approach - a widespread and ill-thought through attack on Aboriginal communities in Northern Territory - rather than focusing on the extremely significant situation of child sexual abuse.

Australia does have a "black history" and there is a lot of institutional racism. Unlike in New Zealand the indigenous "problem" in Australia is largely hidden in remote communities. Most Australians wouldn't have a clue what's really going on in the outback and, unfortunately, their ignorance is maintained by a media that is reluctant to really change Howard on this issue. However, not all Australians are troglodyte head-in-the-sand white supremacists. Here's a song from Australian comedian Eddie Perfect, it's perfect for John Howard.


If you want to know more about the nuclear fuel cycle in Australia (the link above is to a pro-nuclear blog site), try Nuclearfree Australia