New Zealand governments of the last thirty years have had great difficulty in distinguishing between wants and needs. The government's big "want" in 1971 was for the country to have a Race Relations Conciliator because it was a nice thing to do in the United Nation's international year for combating racism and racial discrimination. Pressure from the United Nations for such a post had been resisted for a number of years because the people saw no "need" for it, and still don't. At the time, one Opposition Member of Parliament expressed the sentiment of the people when he said that irrespective of New Zealand not having achieved utopian conditions in race relations, there would be few countries in the United Nations that could match our good record.
Well, the government finally buckled to the demands of the United Nations, rode roughshod over the people, and in 1972 established the post of Race Relations Conciliator. Since that time race relations in this country have deteriorated steadily and now are the worst they have been in the last 120 years. The reason for this is simple. First there is the Government pandering to a racial minority, and the putting in place laws granting restitution, and never ending privilege and preferment. On the one hand this has increased the expectation of the minority so that the more they receive the more they want, and on the other has produced resentment among white taxpayers, students and job seekers. The principle of one law for all becomes more tenuous as our particular form of apartheid takes shape. To all intents and purposes the secular State has gone as the Government force-feeds a very reluctant population with the synthetic mumbo jumbo of a partially resuscitated stone-age religion based on Gods of convenience.
Several people have held the office of Race Relations Conciliator since it was first established. Most could be described as doctrinaire left liberals with axes to grind who, consequently, had difficulty in being even-handed with their decisions. Some say that the only truly racist organizations in New Zealand today are a few skinhead gangs who are anti-black and brown, and the Office of Race Relations Conciliator, which is, in effect anti-white. But while the gangs support themselves, the Conciliator's office is taxpayer funded. So it could be said that all New Zealand taxpayers, through no choice of their own, are, sadly, proxies for racism.
Recently our socialist matriarchal government appointed a new Conciliator. He hails from South Africa and is of part Dutch and part black-African descent. He has not lived in South Africa for number of years and when there seemed to have been quite heavily involved politically. About the time he was offered the Conciliator's job, South African President Thabo Mbeki, and head of the African National Congress (ANC), wanted him to return to contribute to his own country.
Our radical feminist Attorney-General, who was mainly responsible for the appointment, declined to provide a response to a correspondent who quite properly asked why the Conciliator had not taken the step of becoming a New Zealand citizen, despite being resident here. And he has the gall to say that that one of his tasks is "nation building". Is this on the basis of racial separatism he tells us he fought so hard against in his own country? It can't be anything else because that is the way the government, made up of many old protest radicals, including the Prime Minister, is taking us. And as a fifth generation New Zealander I do not take too kindly to a relative outsider, with the power of the government behind him, telling me how my nation should be built.
This sort of arrogance got our South African functionary in to deep trouble when he was invited to the capital city's 160-year-old Wellington Club, a private organization based on traditional English values, and which has a strict dress code. He thumbed his nose at all this and turned up in a garish open necked African shirt and a long ethnic jacket consisting of artificial animal skin panels. Naturally he was refused entry because he was not wearing the conventional jacket and tie required by the Club's rules. He regarded the refusal as "extremely insulting" and disappeared in a huff to grizzle to the media and to take advantage of the photo opportunity his petulance provided. This was the worst thing he could have done because the nationwide coverage he got generated a torrent of ridicule and scorn, and little sympathy.
As one writer said, the Conciliator chose confrontation rather than conciliation when faced with a problem, a reaction that suggested he was eminently unsuitable for his job; therefore he should apologize for his behavior and quietly resign. Those who appointed him remained silent. He did apologize in a fashion, but is still in the job.
The Conciliator hit the news again the other day when he was towed away for being illegally parked while giving an address to a group. Such happenings are not usually news worthy but what caught the reporter's eye was the fact that the Conciliator's car was adorned with a personalized registration plate carrying the four-character configuration of ANC 1. With his South African background, and close association with President Mbeki, what else could the letters stand for other than African National Congress? To carry this type of foreign political baggage in to a job that most think shouldn't exist, and is divisive at the best of times, shows great insensitivity and brings in to question, once again, his suitably for the post.
Earlier this year Nelson Mandela accused the African National Congress of being as intolerant and racist, and as corrupt, as South Africa's white leaders during the apartheid years. Mbeki who during exile received military training in the old Soviet Union is a major player in all this, while ensuring that power becomes increasingly centralized. For the Race Relations Conciliator to be connected with this political set-up, and then go to the trouble of arrogantly wearing it like a badge of honor on his motor vehicle in another country, is a matter for great concern.
I say, wake up New Zealand before it is too late. Start by showing your disgust to your elected representatives. And don't be put off by the prospect of being called a racist. It's only a tactic by the left to discourage you from exercising your right to freedom of speech to question their political motives.
Colin Robertson, a former officer of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, is a businessman and writer. He is working on a book on New Zealand’s race relations industry.
