I know this is a bit of a faux pas but I really can't be arsed typing this out again.
Quote:
umm, me, this time last year 
It's all too easy to claim that we aren't responsible for past wrongs, but it's wrong. If someone steals a car, the injustice continues until either the car is returned or the owner is duly compensated.
The descendents of European settlers who have become rich off land and possessions that were never rightly theirs in the first place continue to inflict an injustice on the just owners of those possessions, and will continue to do so until either the possessions are returned or the rightful owners compensated for their loss.
They entered into a legal agreement with our ancestors in good faith. Our ancestors abused the shit out of that agreement, and out of the Maori. Their descendents have profited hugely from those actions and continue to do so, while the people who should - in a just world - have reaped those benefits continue to languish in a society where they have been starved of any alienable capital.
The injustices continue, and it is us who are committing them.
|
I'd change a bit of the wording in that if I were gonna write it again now, mostly because that's just badly written there
But the basic point remains the same. The 'equal' starting points people are so fond of in threads like this are actually incredibly far from equal. Until they're rectified, all we're doing is perpetuating a cycle that began with a flagrant disregard for human rights, our own word, and the law.
I ask again, what do you think this will cost? Nobody's going to lose their home over this. NZ is a wealthy country, it can be done without breaking anybody's back. And in the end, even if you look at it purely from an economic viewpoint, can we really continue to have an eighth of our population languish the way it does now? Especially with the way our white population is aging.