While we may be forgiven in the antipodes for focusing on our latest Budget, the event was noticeable for the lack of engagement with arguably our greatest challenge: oil. Indeed, other than the Greens, our Parliament, local government, media and sadly the public seem blind to the slow train coming.

Our world is ticking towards midnight at the petrol pump, and no-one seems to notice. Aotearoa NZ has the fifth lowest price for petrol in the OECD and seems to have no answers other than to retreat at pace from any environmental policies that might upset truckers, SUV drivers, and boy racers.

 A barrel of oil has now hit US$135. Previous IEA estimates that by 2030 the world could be producing 116B barrels of oil a day have been downgraded to less than 100B. World demand today is 87B barrels a day and climbing. Current output is not meeting even that demand, and Saudi Arabia, when asked by Dubya to raise output said they couldn’t see why they should and wouldn’t be raising it again for a while.

I pick here and now that a really large cut is coming your way very soon. It’s just not going to be the tax one you were after.

So let’s keep our eye on the real issues this year at our election. If we do not balance our transport demands with courage in environmental policy, food and commodity prices will continue to rise exponentially, and we can kiss goodbye to any progress that we have made on poverty. Alternatively, it might be time to build fences with razor wire in anticipation of the day people in our cities and towns can’t afford to buy food.   

Peter Williams on National Radio this morning raised concerns about upholding the rule of law, in particular that the Dominion Post’s actions are contempt of court in light of the fact that the Solicitor General’s decision means most of this evidence is inadmissable. Certainly, we must be concerned about the ramifications of allowing the “public to judge” through the media lens, despite Ron Marks apparent enthusiasm for the idea.

However, here we are, and here is the affadavit. So what does it mean for the self-interested (again according to Ron Mark) critics of the police raids and the attempted use of the Terrorism Suppression Act?

Very few of the criticisms that I have read or have made myself fall over in the light of this affadavit.

At the outset, all have stated that if there are charges to be laid, the Crimes Act and the Firearms Act are sufficient pieces of legislation within which to make a prosecution. This is proving to be the case, as in depositions the court has agreed there are charges to answer. The extension of the powers towards a security state that is being sought today cannot be argued on the basis that there are holes in the law through which evil people are escaping prosecution.

All critics have stated that the raids were heavy-handed. Again this stands, as it is increasingly clear from the evidence today that the police were not searching for mysterious figures hidden in the Urewera, but specific individuals well-known to them, no doubt with home addresses, phone numbers, favourite cafes, and all the rest. So we are left scratching our head as to why a whole town and then unrelated individuals’ houses needed to be held hostage by the police - to ensure nobody tried to escape on horseback into the wild blue yonder, perhaps? I suggest it is still a case of testosterone and budgets gone wild in the total institution that is our nation’s violent arm of the state.

All critics have said that the insinuation that political activism is terrorist activity is mud that’ll stick, and an insidious use of the media, parliament and the police. The grab-bag of activists charged still suggests this, and the affadavit goes no way towards proving some violent revolutionary plot across activist groups. Indeed, even the selective reading we have been allowed through the filter of police and then media analysis suggests there was some unease within those involved and a range of views about aims and strategies. People were clearly speaking out against violence here, not just condoning it.

So were there more than empty words in the Urewera. I’m inclined to believe so. I shook my head this morning when I read the Dominion Post, and thought, in relation to those suspects in the affadavit, “you dumb a__es”.

But this is not to be taken as an argument for greater police powers, more intelligence, broader powers to gather communications. The powers of the police are sufficient, our intelligence agencies are as incompetent and conspiracy driven as always, and we don’t need more impositions on our lives. So perhaps the empty words are those ringing out from Wellington, and continue to require us to challenge and critique.

At a time when the parliament and executive have been so loose with labelling political activism as terrorism, when NZ First has again attempted to get parliament to wipe te Tiriti o Waitangi from the record, and the violent arm of the state has brutalised Ngai Tuhoe (again), Jones’ comments are questions of maturity and insight.

Put simply, she asks if Pakeha are willing to build a relationship with Maori yet. She suggests up until now:

“Pakeha have largely refused a relationship of positive, real, engagement, being busy instead with forms of colonisation, and with “being entertained” by, and “doing good things” for, Maori.”

This question is so pertinent because, frankly, as a descendent of te Pirirakau, Ngati Rangiwewehi and Ngati Hinerangi, I am one of a lot of pissed off tangata whenua. I don’t trust the police, the executive, and most of the parliament. I don’t want a bar of the New Zealand that Pakeha are creating for themselves. And as a result of the last month’s events, I’ve rapidly become more sympathetic to those who may have advocated violent struggle. I’ve even caught myself beginning to think in the excluding language that I used as a 19 year old: “those” Pakeha supported by “their” state with “their” kupapa, pet Maori in parliament.

I’d rather have some faith restored that we are building a social contract that seeks a just relationship based in te Tiriti and honours our collective role in building Aotearoa. So the question remains to one and all: are you ready yet?

Sommerville argues for a reconciliation of science, faith and morality as recognised forms of imagination, that is, as movements generated out of our intellectual and spiritual capacity to create and think. She argues for reconciling them today as contributors to our ethical imagination.

This was like streaming light into my Sunday. I am going out to find the book. At least take the time to listen to the lecture. The rest of the series continues next Sunday 2 September. Not to be missed.

I find the waiting the hardest. Soil’s turned (three times no less), but it’s still cold and miserable, and I wonder how long July and August are going to last. Next thing, I’m into this flurry of activity.

Yesterday I planted 80 potato plants, which should be enough for about 100 meals for a family of 4. I also put in a few dozen garlic plants and shallots. The only reason I am able to plant on such a scale in an urban setting is that our neighbour has agreed to us gardening their property. It’s really worth asking if there is a fallow piece of land nearby - people wax lyrically about the garden that used to be there, but can’t or won’t do it themselves.

Potatoes are in three varieties - early, mid- or second early, and mainstay (I’ve seen a few different classifications, but this gives you the idea). I tend to go for uncommon varieties, out of interest really. Also, I’m quite committed to sustaining our riwai Maori.

I’m much inclined to trenching at this early stage, as it means there is plenty of soil to mound with as time goes on. And a good layer of wood ash on top of the soil now means more potatoes later!

My leeks, red onions and swedes are all nearing harvest size, indeed, we have eaten a few of our leeks already. The swedes might be a bit of a disappointment given the lack of cold here, but we’ll see, we’ll see. Cabbages and broccoli, spinach and silverbeet are, as always, faithful crops that we eat a lot of.

The strawberries are starting to come away again. I find these the hardest to get from the plant to the bench - if I haven’t eaten them, my daughter has!

Also, I’ve finally removed the cloches from the pepper and chilli plants. The chillis fruited right through winter. I half seriously wonder if that is a blessing, or a disturbing sign of global warming. Actually, I saw a pohutukawa in blossom two weeks ago. Everyone else commented how beautiful it was - I’m troubled by it, to be honest.

About the only thing I don’t like about spring is crab grass - if you have any organic ways of getting rid of the stuff (other than pulling it out bit by bit), I’d love to know.

Till next time, happy gardening!

The concept of killer languages comes from Skuttnabb-Kangas (2002) in promulgating her theory of linguistic genocide, where she refers to English and other languages that oppress as “killer languages.” She advocates that:

Children should learn new languages, including the dominant languages that most minority children obviously want and need to learn, in addition to their own languages. Formal education that is subtractive, that is, that teaches children (something of) a dominant language at the cost of their first language, is genocidal and turns dominant languages, for instance, English, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, or Hausa, into killer languages. (p. 181)

Manu notes that “while it is no secret that discrimination in education is rife and takes many forms, it is interesting that discrimination on the basis of language has received little attention in the field of educational research.”

He also provides a link to Decolonization, Self-determination and education by Margaret Maaka which references Skuttnabb-Kangas and others, including Frantz Fanon (1963):

National liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people, commonwealth: whatever may be the headings used or the new formulas introduced, decolonization is always a violent phenomenon.

And the famous quote that “a language is a dialect with an army and navy.” There is an on-going debate over who originated this quote—whether it as scholar Max Weinreich; his son, Uriel Weinreich; or his student, Joshua Fishman. Of the three, only Fishman is alive and he is unsure who said it first.

I personally am in the privileged position of being conversant in te reo Maori. But even given that lens, perhaps there is a call here to encourage the home languages of Christ and the church in communicating our gospel, that is Greek and Hebrew, recognising the geneocidal and ethnocidal history that backs our lazy use of English.

So I have been subject to ridicule as I have started suggesting in forums with community-minded, justice-oriented followers of the Way that we must stop using the language of ‘mission to the poor’. We must stop using this language of domination.

For I believe that the way we discuss the ‘poor’ today has lost the sense of solidarity with which Jesus was speaking. ‘Mission to the poor’ has more to do with 1600 years of Christendom. It is a defining label for a colonising church.

Defining a group as the ‘poor’ is another act of power over the Other. The church defines them, the church saves them, the church directs their transformation.

While I could continue, I’m more interested in others’ thoughts and responses.

If I may cut some objections or queries off at the pass:

• how should we talk about others then? Well, why don’t we use the terms that groups apply to themselves. In my neighbourhood, we say we’re from the ‘vale. We don’t say we’re poor.
• how do we not fudge the issue of poverty by refusing to identify people in poverty? Why can we not use the language of justice, and highlight injustice, rather than the language of povery.

I believe the church needs to reinvent it’s language. What do you think?

He maintains that ”until Christians are confronted with the truth of the gospel (God loves us all - including enemies) they will continue to participate in an evil that society defines as good or good for the majority of people.” He refers people to the Centre for Christian Non-Violence in his conversations.

He’s carrying signs at his protests that ask “Why are Christians killing people?” and similar messages. He claims that “it’s been an effective way for people to enter dialogue with me,” which if you read his post on the Jesus Radicals website is an understatement.

 This man may well be mad in the world’s eyes, but I’m convicted by his example. He is a witness to the Gospel call to peace, and asks the question, how are we responding to this world soaked in violence? Are we starting with simple steps, or are we over-theologising?

 How can we respond in Aotearoa New Zealand? I have an instinct that in the lack of church response to the VC given to Willy Apiata, we are complicit in the violent structures that saw the SAS in Afghanistan fighting Afghani people in the first place. Should I not have pointed out the sin of violence that underpins this act of doubtless bravery?