Things I wish I'd known 6 years ago—talk from Never forget: October 15th solidarity tour (Wellington)

These are my notes from a talk I gave at the Wellington leg of the Never Forget: October 15th Solidarity Tour on Oct 19th.

I want to start by remembering the violence of the state on and around October 15th, 2007. I know many whānau were hurt and are still carrying that pain. That’s not the focus of my talk, but it is what brings me here. I need to thank the organisers of this event. I think it’s a great idea, and I’m really stoked to be invited to contribute today. It’s really good to have an opportunity to reflect on all of the bullshit that has happened since that day in 2007, when so many people were fucked with, and so many people were hurt.

I also want to acknowledge the people who have agreed to be part of today—there’s some amazing speakers after me, and I’m looking forward to hearing them. Because I’m first up, I figure I can be a bit more personal and reflective than later speakers. So I want to start by reflecting on the immediate aftermath of Operation8 on the political scene in Wellington that I was involved in. I want to talk about things I wish I had known six or so years ago, and how that might have changed how I behaved. Then I want to talk about tino rangatiratanga, and finally about my understanding of solidarity now.

Six years ago, I wish I had been clear on the boundaries between being a friend, and the political work of solidarity. There is a difference between loving and caring for my friends, and being in solidarity with them. Not being clear on those boundaries between friendship and politics made a messy and painful time more stressful than it needed to be. And more importantly, it meant that I wasn’t as good a friend or as good an activist as I could have been. To support my friends, I thought I had to defend them as having done nothing illegal. I was terrified that anything I said could be used against them, because of my closeness to them, so what I said in their support was completely apolitical. If I couldn’t say anything politically useful, just concentrating on being a friend would have been a more effective use of my energy. And not having the inevitable fights that working together under stress brings would have allowed me to be a better friend.

I wish I had been clearer about the connections between Operation 8 and my political beliefs. Not making those connections clear contributed to not knowing how to respond politically.

I wish I had made more time to talk with people about all the different questions and feelings we had, and maybe continue to have.

I wish I had taken more time to talk with people about our politics and what had happened.

All of the silence around what happened, for fear of making things worse, meant that it was really hard to untangle all this stuff. It fed the stress and frustration and made it harder for me to work with people, and to do anything that felt effective. I needed to wānanga, to work stuff out with people who shared some of my values and beliefs. Instead it felt like we were working as a bunch of individuals together, making statements that many of us probably didn’t understand, or had quite different understandings of, or actually didn’t agree with.

I need to know where my values differ from those of the people I am working with, so we aren’t just guessing and censoring ourselves. For example, the group in Wellington that I was involved with that was doing political response to Operation 8 included people from a mix of political backgrounds, but we didn’t talk about our politics, because it felt like there wasn’t time. But it felt important to organise, and try to get more people on board. Instead of taking time to find out where we all agreed, or educating ourselves together so we could make stronger statements, we watered down our politics to make it more palatable to more people. So a lot of the statements we made as a group ended up being really liberal and not consistent with my beliefs—and possibly not consistent with the beliefs of most of the people in the group. It was a wasted opportunity for doing something real.

I wish I had been more self aware and more humble. Our voices weren’t the most important or the most informed. Our skills and contacts could have been put to different uses. There were other people who could have used the attention better than us, and I wish I had put my energy into supporting that to happen.

It wasn’t until years later that I realised we were trying to make lots of different arguments or stories about what Operation 8 meant all at the same time. We needed to untangle those arguments, which would have taken time. Because the strand that was being lost in the confusion, is the one that is the most important, most challenging and most compelling argument—that Operation 8 was an act of colonisation. To make that argument, we need to make colonisation and tino rangatiratanga front and centre. Instead, it was getting overwhelmed by arguments that seemed easier to sell. I think it’s really important to think about the stories we put more energy into telling and why they are easier—what are they challenging, or more importantly, what aren’t they challenging?

I reckon there were 4 main arguments that we were using—which I’ve written about before. I think it’s important to untangle them and think about these separately whenever we are potentially talking about colonisation, because otherwise things seems to fall to a liberal human rights argument. So I’ll briefly talk about each of them here.

There’s the keystone cops argument—Operation 8 didn’t really mean anything, police are just fucking idiots. This argument is tempting, because, for one, it’s usually true that police act like idiots, and it also feels good to name that and mock them when they’ve been violent arseholes. What this argument neglects is that police are acting for the Crown, and it’s no accident that their ineptness is only ever violent when it suits the Crown. Those patterns aren’t hard to see.

There’s the liberal argument, that the state is over-reaching its legitimate power—it’s using the war on terror to expand its power and encroach on our civil liberties, police and anti-terror units need to justify their existence, etc. Again, this is compelling, because it’s true, and it’s easy to sell. But what if I don’t believe the state has any legitimate power? This argument doesn’t challenge the state at all, it doesn’t challenge the status quo.

There’s the anarchist argument, which does challenge the status quo—it starts from a recognition that the state is inherently abusive, it is all about controlling us, and it will use any tool it needs to keep us in line, whether creating fear through propaganda or through physical violence, or whatever. And it will demonise anyone who questions its legitimacy. This argument tends to ignore the importance of culture and history. It tends to overlook that some peoples have more legitimate claims to power than others. It doesn’t challenge us to think about where we are and how we got here.

The final argument, the one that I think got most lost, is the colonialism argument. That, as Moana Jackson has said, whenever indigenous peoples question their dispossession, they are defined as a threat and met with violence. It’s not that we weren’t mentioning colonisation, it’s that we weren’t saying anything beyond mentioning it.

When you look at what happened with Operation 8, when you look at where it happened, at which communities were targeted in which ways, and how liberal politicians positioned themselves—it’s really clear that racism, and fear of tangata whenua rising up, were absolutely central. For example, Helen Clark’s media statement about activists training to use napalm is all about that fear. Operation 8 was a colonial act. To respond to that, it’s really important that we know where we stand on colonisation, and legitimate responses to it, whether by tangata whenua or manuhiri.

On that note, I want to explain where I’ve got to with thinking about colonisation and tino rangatiratanga, or mana. The rest of my talk has nothing to do with Operation 8, but is more general.

Lots of really on to it people have made some simple statements about tino rangatiratanga or justice that speak to me. Patricia Monture-Angus is a Mohican woman, and she talks about justice as being the ability to live as a responsible person in her territory, as a Mohican woman. That’s really similar to Whatarangi Winiata’s definition, which is being able to survive as Māori. These are statements about the ability for tangata whenua to live according to their laws on their lands.

And this leads to my favourite statement about tino rangatiratanga, Ani Mikaere puts it simply that tikanga is the first law here and it’s the only legitimate law here. That’s because law comes from whakapapa—we can’t remain Māori and cede the responsibilities of our whakapapa.

If you can accept that, then questions of solidarity become simple too. I support tangata whenua making decisions that are right for them. It is their decision what they do in their rohe. That’s tikanga. Likewise I have no problem with tangata whenua defending their people, or whenua, or moana from the violence of colonisation, which comes in many forms.

The most inspiring talk I’ve heard in years was Dayle Takitimu talking about Te Whānau-ā-Apanui’s defense of their rohe from deep sea oil drilling. It’s not hard to support that. But the way these actions are portrayed in the media sometimes makes it hard to understand what’s going on. I don’t know if you all have been following the Mi’kmaq defence of their territory from gas exploration which was all over indigenous media yesterday—I was really distracted by it (background information here). The Reuters headline was “Police arrest 40 as Canada shale gas protest turns violent” and their article starts by talking about protestors setting police cars on fire, and throwing molotovs at police. The story could have been about indigenous people defending their whenua from exploitation, and the Canadian state’s violence against them. I didn’t look it up, but I imagine Canadian media were even more slanted. We know the media generally focus on the ‘violence of protestors’ and hardly ever talk about the real issues, which in this case, is the violence of colonisation and the ability of indigenous people to make decisions about their land.

The state has done a great job of making sure most people don’t understand colonisation. Our education system is pretty shocking when it comes to our colonial history and critical analysis. And our media don’t fill that gap. This means that some of the most important solidarity work that needs to be done is education and changing the conversation. The more people, from more diverse backgrounds that bring colonisation into the conversation, the harder it is to ignore.

So I want to finish by saying a few words about solidarity.

My understanding of solidarity now requires that I know myself—I need to be clear of my beliefs. Because solidarity is about interdependence, it’s about connections and relationships. It’s not charity—it’s about my relationship with you, and it’s about the relationship between my struggles and yours. So that also means I don’t have to completely agree with you and all your choices to be in solidarity with you. If I believe in your liberty, your self-determination, then by definition, I don’t get to determine what that means, or how you get there. We all need to understand that solidarity with any indigenous people requires accepting the legitimacy of those people’s decisions. And solidarity certainly doesn’t mean I have to claim to be you—we are not all Zapatistas or Ngāi Tūhoe. My struggles are not the same as yours. But they are connected.

My solidarity may mean simply making those connections clear, whatever they are—it might be western cultural imperialism, or colonisation, or capitalism. Understanding how your cause contributes to my cause. It may mean using whatever privilege I have, to open a space for you to talk about your oppression. By making those connections, we come to know the systems of oppression better, we expose them to more people, and eventually, we win together.

On that note, I’ll finish, thanks again for the opportunity to speak.

Another embarrassment for crown 'justice'

I cannot write about the sentencing of Tame Iti and Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara. I don't have the words today. My heart and thoughts are with their whanau, and those of Emily and Urs.

I appreciate what others are writing. Here are some links to wonderful, articulate responses that speak to the anger and sadness I am feeling:

Leonie Pihama at Te Wharepora Hou, Where is the justice in all this?

Maia at The Hand Mirror, What can they do to you? Whatever they want

Marty Mars at mars 2 earth, lighting a fuse

Annette Sykes Mana Party press release, A sad day for justice

There are protests organised in a number of places (links from Maia's article at THM):

PALMERSTON NORTH
Friday, 25th May 2012, 1pm, Palmerston North District Court. Bring placards, banners, chants and friends.

WELLINGTON
Friday, 25th May 2012, 12pm, Wellington High Court. Bring placards, banners, chants and friends.

AUCKLAND
Saturday, 26th May 2012, 2pm, Mt Eden Prison.

DUNEDIN
Saturday 26th May 2012, 2pm, Dunedin District Court House.

CHRISTCHURCH
Saturday 26th May 2012, 4pm, Christchurch Police Station.

There will be more. We must support each other and fight this system with its bullshit outcomes in whatever way works for us. I'd love to hear what you all are doing.

Crown shows some sense

The Crown Prosecutor applied for and was granted a stay of proceedings on the charge of participation in an organised criminal group following the massive police disaster called Operation 8. There will be no retrial. It is finally coming to an end.

The reasons given by the Crown for a stay of proceedings were (from No retrial of Urewera Four: Judge):

• the organised criminal group charge only had a maximum penalty one year more than the firearms charges so the end sentence would not have been altered much
• five years have elapsed since the charges were laid and a retrial would likely have had to be held in 2013
• the retrial would have added further expense to "what is already a high cost case"
• there had been an "unprecedented media coverage and commentary" about the case which may have jeopardised the fairness of any retrial

All of these points were also largely true of the original trial, re-enforcing the impression that the Crown never expected a conviction on the criminal group charge anyway. It looks like it was an attempt to add some weight to the charges, in order to justify the incomprehensible actions of police around October 15th 2007.

In addition, the criminal group charge allowed otherwise inadmissible evidence to be used to get the firearms convictions. In early September 2011, the Supreme Court upheld the High Court’s ruling that much of the evidence collected under Operation 8 was unlawfully obtained and could not be used. This meant that all charges against 13 accused were dropped. For the four accused of participating in a criminal group, the court found that the seriousness of the charge justified the use of unlawfully obtained evidence. Now that the criminal group charge is off the table, surely the evidence that came with it should be inadmissible. Even by the standards of the criminal justice system, it is unjust to convict these four of firearms charges based on unlawful evidence.

I want to finish by again quoting Hone Harawira on the injustices stemming from Operation 8 (Justice denied to the people of Tuhoe): There has been no apology, there has been no compensation, there has been no public acknowledgement of the need for change in police operations or for new engagement policies as a result of the litany of errors we now know as Operation 8.

For the four accused and their whānau, I am stoked that there will be no retrial. It was a relief to hear that the Crown has the ability to make a reasonable decision. For all of the people hurt by Operation 8, I wish the Crown had shown any sense earlier.

No justice in Operation 8

Hone Harawira has it right (Justice denied to the people of Tuhoe). The defendants and a few others are claiming the verdicts as a victory (eg, Urewera retrial unlikely and Urewera charges don’t stack up), and you can understand why. It must be a huge relief that this specific part of the police campaign of harassment is (fingers crossed) over. But in terms of justice, it is not a victory. The outcome of this trial was never going to be a victory for justice, because the wrong people were on trial.

In his keynote address to the Māori criminal justice colloquium in 2008, Moana Jackson described justice as a system which helps us deal with wrong by re-enforcing what is right, which helps us deal with hurt by dealing with those who are hurt, by helping us deal with injustice by re-defining what is injustice and what is just in our terms. Such a system is focused on avoiding and putting right social harm. It is a definition which makes sense to me.

If we use this definition to look at what happened on and since October 15, 2007, it is clear that one party is responsible for social harm (eg, from the Herald). On October 15, police smashed their way into houses around the country, and attempted to terrify everyone they found—shouting, pointing guns, holding people captive. They blockaded an entire community, stopping and searching cars, photographing occupants, all at gun point. All of this was indiscriminate, children and adults were targeted. Around 20 people were taken and held for a month. Since then, police have harassed those who were arrested, through the courts with ridiculous bail restrictions, and also on the streets. Governments have allowed and defended this behaviour; for example, Helen Clark used the media to say those arrested were guilty before charges had even been laid ( PM: activists trained to use napalm), while John Key “says there is no need for an inquiry into how police and the Crown handled the Te Urewera raids case” (Te Urewera trial cost). As recently as three weeks ago, while the Operation 8 trial was in the news, the police were still harassing the people of Ruātoki (Residents terrorised after police raid wrong house), and were lucky not to seriously hurt anyone.

Of all the evidence that was presented in the media and in court, culled from hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence collected, there is only one example of anyone other than the Crown causing harm to others (Apology followed shots). Four and a half years of harassment and vilification of those arrested, their whānau, the residents of Ruātoki, and Ngāi Tūhoe in general, does nothing to fix that harm.

We are expected to believe Ruātoki is a community of terrorists, and yet they have faced these years of provocation and threats without retaliation. The police have tried to humiliate and demonise these people, and have failed. They have been caught red-faced as the bullies they are.

But the police have not been on trial, and according to John Key, there is no need for them to be. As Hone said: There has been no apology, there has been no compensation, there has been no public acknowledgement of the need for change in police operations or for new engagement policies as a result of the litany of errors we now know as Operation 8. Those would be the first steps towards justice in this appalling mess.

In solidarity

Ka tau taku aro ki ngā tāngata toko whā i tū tonu i te kēhi o Operation 8, koutou ko Ngāi Tūhoe, ngā whānau katoa kua whakawhiua i taua kēhi. Ka whā ngā tau o te hawene me te māngeongeo. Ka tae mai te wā kōti, he wā rararu anō. Ka aroha ki a koutou. He rā ki tua.

He kupu ruarua noa iho, hei tautoko i a koutou, i te mana motuhake o Tūhoe, me te tino rangatiratanga o ngā tangata whenua katoa.

Kia kaha kia māia kia manawanui.

• Drop the charges
• Repeal the Terrorism Suppression Act
• Justice for all those raided, especially Ngāi Tūhoe
• Support Tino Rangatiratanga and Te Mana Motuhake O Tūhoe

Symbols of change

This is shaping up to be an interesting year. There are so many really big issues developing, it’s hard to know where to look.

The distractions

The National Party has hit the ground running. As its second term gets underway, it seems intent on showing what it thinks of tangata whenua, while at the same time, shrinking the only ministry that could give them good advice on these issues.

Key is big on dismissing anything that he doesn’t like the look of. Back in 2010, as soon as the Māori Party announced that New Zealand had signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Key dismissed it as symbolic. When he heard that Māori were upset at the proposed dropping of section 9 of the State Owned Enterprises Act, he pulled that word out again—according to him, section 9 is “largely symbolic”, showing either his ignorance or cynicism (great commentary at pundit: if it’s just a symbol, why do you care?). As the Herald points out, section 9 of the SOE Act was a turning point in New Zealand legislation. Many Māori will fight to hold the Crown to the promises of section 9, whether or not National successfully sell off a portion of the SOEs.

National’s attempts at getting rid of section 9 have both the Māori Party and the Māori Council on their feet preparing for that fight. John Key’s response to both is, well, dismissive. When Tariana Turia says the Māori Party will have to consider its position in government if an appropriate solution isn’t reached, Key responds "I'm extremely confident the Maori Party will remain part of the Government for the next three years." He reckons it isn’t a deal breaker, and a solution can be found, but his dismissal of Turia’s concerns oozes smugness (PM confident Maori Party will stay). In return, she posted a full page ad in the Herald schooling Key, and explaining why it is important that she stand her ground on section 9. Key’s mantra that the Māori Party will continue to support the National Party on confidence and supply must be frustrating the Māori Party. Every time Key says this, dismissing the Māori Party’s own assessments, he diminishes them. This looks more like a parent-child relationship by the day. They must realise they need as much distance from National as they can to have any hope of surviving. I’m looking forward to developments.

The Māori Council is asking the Waitangi Tribunal to stop the planned sales of SOEs until it has heard a claim that Crown management of freshwater and geothermal resources breached the treaty of Waitangi, and whether the Crown is acting in good faith (Waitangi Tribunal claim seeks to halt asset sales). The Council is asking for the return of water resources, or a large portion of the state owned energy companies as compensation. I don’t know what relationship National has with the Māori Council, but after the years Graham Lattimer put in for the Party, he must be disappointed at the way Nick Smith and Key are discrediting the Council and their claims. Smith is trying to make them look unreasonable with statements that they hadn’t come to see him in the three years he has been responsible for fresh water issues—he doesn’t mention whether he has made any contact with them. He calls the claims divisive, and says arguing about the ownership of water is neither practical nor useful. He is using the perennial favourite when Māori want ownership of a resource returned—you can’t own natural resources. Nevermind, that the Crown act as if they have ownership, or that they took it from Māori. The Crown will redefine the English language if need be to retain control over resources. And Key is being dismissive: “water ownership a no-brainer” and “anyone can go to court, but court over what?” (Tribunal action sought over asset sales). Key refuses to acknowledge that there are ways of looking at the world other than the western legal system. It’s good to see the very respectable Māori Council back in the fray.

(I also heard Key on the radio this morning saying he wasn’t concerned about the Waitangi Tribunal holding up sales of SOEs because their decisions aren’t binding—but I don’t know what station I was listening to, and I can’t find reference to him saying this. If I could find a reference, I would add this to the list of things Key says are symbolic.)

Meanwhile, Bill English used the raru at Te Tii to insult Māori on Waitangi Day: “If the northern tribes could run a marae properly, New Zealand might have a more positive view of the Treaty.” Which also implies that Māori aren’t part of New Zealand (all are insulted by Dipton dipstick). Nice one Bill. Personally, I think the reason most New Zealanders have little respect for the relationship between Crown and Māori is because we have such an appalling education system that most of us don’t know our history.

With enough National ministers talking enough crap, even the more conservative Māori organisations are calling them out. When we’re all back on the same page, things are going to get fun.

The bullshit

There will be plenty of court cases to enrage us this year, as there are every year. The first big one will be against the remaining Operation 8 defendants. This is the case stemming from the arrests of around 20 people in 2007. After a year of surveillance, houses were searched in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Ruātoki, Whakatane, Taupō, Palmerston North and Wellington, including 300 police shutting down an entire community. All up, the operation cost around $8 million, and they found a total of four firearms plus ammunition. Insufficient evidence has meant charges have been dropped against all but four defendants. The Crown will try to justify its violation of Ngāi Tūhoe and all those targeted by Operation 8 by going hard against the four remaining defendants. There are heaps of issues worth discussing in this; it is another case that looks like it’s about one thing, when actually, it’s all about colonisation and sovereignty. As Moana Jackson said: "the colonisation of Māori ... has always been about the dispossession and ... terrorising of innocent peoples. ... indigenous peoples being defined as a threat whenever they have questioned their dispossession... The real or perceived ‘threat’ has always then been met with violence." (Jackson, p2 in Terror in our midst? Searching for terrorism in Aotearoa New Zealand).

There will be the fights to defend our whanaunga, Papatūānuku, Hinemoana, Tangaroa, Ranginui. There will be the court cases that try to redefine our sovereignty. There will be all of the day to day ignorance.

The real mahi

While holding on to the little we’ve got in the face of this crap is distracting, Māori are quietly working on some really big issues. An independent constitutional working group – Aotearoa Matike Mai has been discussing constitutional models for the country. The group is convened by Margaret Mutu, chaired by Moana Jackson, and made up of members nominated by Iwi, co-opted for their expertise, and representing particular interests such as Urban Maori Authorities. They are working with whānau and hapū around the motu to develop a constitution based on Te Tiriti and reflecting tikanga Māori.

The WAI 262 report came out last year, and while the recommendations are conservative and disappointing, the claim and the report itself still provide a leaping off point for us. The Iwi Chairs Forum has agreed to support an Interim Taumata, to engage and work out how we can use the WAI 262. Remember this was the Waitangi Tribunal’s first whole of government inquiry, it shouldn’t just affect all branches of government, it will change the way government is imagined. This work should tie in with the independent constitutional working group’s, and I have no doubt that the results will be exciting.

There are also always tauiwi who are willing to engage genuinely. I’m looking forward to hearing back from the Decolonise you mind hui last weekend, which focused on “the connections between racism, sexism, colonisation, classism and other oppressions, and working in predominantly pakeha activist scenes... and how these things affect us and the feminist/ social justice/ peace/ revolutionary/creative work we do.” I look forward to hearing about other exciting projects this year.

So, a big year. There will be many projects and many fronts. For those of us who have been taking a break, it’s time to prioritise, think about what we can give, where we fit in, and to reconnect with the struggle.

Operation 8 charges dropped

Fantastic, long overdue news yesterday (tangatawhenua.com). All but four of those arrested under Operation 8 will have their charges dropped due to lack of evidence. Four years after their arrest, four years after being vilified by the state and media, after four years of stress and harassment. Congratulations to all those who finally have this weight removed from their lives. To the four remaining defendants, kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui. Each time the police have been shown up on this case, each time charges have been refused or dropped, the remaining charges become more obviously tenuous.

Fantastic post from Maia—The cost.

And now the media are back onside again, which must also be a relief for those whose lives the police have tried to ruin (not so much for the police). Eg from the NBR:

"Another chapter in the saga of malicious bungling by the police has come to a ridiculous end with charges being dropped against 11 of the accused in the Urewera 'terror' case... The whole story of the Urewera police raids has been woeful right from the start, and it aids the reputation of the state for over-reacting. The state has already spent what could be millions of dollars on the case, and the trial was set to become the most expensive in New Zealand’s criminal history. So this is embarrassing for the police, who it seems just didn’t have enough appropriate evidence to make their case..."

To the police, how much humiliation do you need? You fucked up, own it, let it go. Drop the charges.

Operation 8: Deep in the Forest

I finally went to see Operation 8: Deep in the Forest at the Coehaven theatre in Ōtaki, and this post is my thoughts on the documentary. I’ve struggled with whether to write about it—I don’t want to be critical of something that is important and should be watched. But it left me so confused, I decided to write about why I reacted the way I did, and maybe other people will want to add what they think.

First of all, Operation 8 is an informative film—at 110 minutes, it covers a lot of material, and it covers it fairly quickly. I’m writing this several days after seeing it, after I’ve had time to sit with my reaction to it, so my memory may be wrong in places. The film has two main strengths. The first is that it gives another opportunity for some of the victims of Operation 8 to tell their story—it does this very well. It also gives a well-constructed, accessible and coherent presentation of arguments against anti-terrorism laws, and police making political decisions on how to treat dissent. My main gripes with the film are that I think these two themes compete with and detract from each other, more importantly, the academic analysis detracts from the personal stories. And I'm confused that, in a documentary that is so clearly about colonisation, colonisation kind of drops off the radar.

The movie seemed to be in two parts. The first part focuses on the experiences of the people of Rūātoki on October 15 2007. This was compelling and upsetting to watch. I cannot imagine what those people went through, I felt rage and powerlessness hearing their stories again. So much of the media focus at the time was on the drama of the police and the leaked information—the real story is the tragedy of how the police treated this community. Like Valerie Morse’s book, this should be compulsory viewing.

The second part of the film focuses on commentary about the police operation. It uses lots of talking heads, almost all tauiwi, mostly academics, two ex cops, and one defendant in the Operation 8 trial. They present several perspectives on the state’s behaviour and build a case that the state has given the police excessive power/discretion. I’m calling this the liberal argument to distinguish it from other positions that are mentioned in the film.

The liberal argument

The operation is an example of the state over-reaching its legitimate power. The war on terror is being used to give the police and courts more power, at the expense of our rights/civil liberties. Special units have been established to fight terrorism where there is none. They create an environment of suspicion and paranoia, and end up "deep in the forest"—where leftwing academics and politicians become enemies of democracy, and blow-hard piss-talk becomes evidence of terrorist conspiracies. These units need to justify their existence by occasionally (or at least once) discovering something resembling a terrorist plot. They may choose when to act on information, picking a time that benefits them (eg, when the Terrorism Suppression Amendment bill was being debated), or that benefits the politicians who they depend on (eg, when the Crown is negotiating a settlement with Ngāi Tūhoe). Ideal targets are those who are isolated (because they are easy to vilify and there will be less political damage) and who annoy the state (because politicians will appreciate vilifying them). Whenever the police are given power and discretion they will become over-zealous, and behave as they did.

The bulk of this part of the film is spent developing that argument. It was this part of the documentary that left me cold—it was so abstracted and separated from where the film started. I felt frustrated hearing what all of these people thought of what happened, given that so many of them agreed with each other. I wanted to hear more from the other defendants, or the victims of the operation—what did they think the operation was about? I especially wanted to hear more about how the operation fits within our colonial history. I at least wanted some diversity of opinion. As I said earlier, the film presents the liberal argument very convincingly, but it does so at the expense of other arguments*, in particular, the colonialist argument that Moana Jackson presents.

The colonialism argument

The operation was an act of racism by a colonial state. "the colonisation of Māori ... has always been about the dispossession and ... terrorising of innocent peoples. ... indigenous peoples being defined as a threat whenever they have questioned their dispossession... The real or perceived ‘threat’ has always then been met with violence." (Jackson, p2) Police used Operation 8 as an opportunity to harass other groups (such as the search of the 128 community centre), but it is clear that the main target was the people of Rūātoki, and the purpose was a show of force against Māori organising independently.

I wanted more explanation about the choices the film-makers were making—why did they give so much time to the liberal argument at the expense of (especially) the colonialism argument? Unfortunately, the film-makers' voices are absent from the film. Many people have commented on their obvious bias towards the victims of the operation, rather than the police. I find the Pākehā liberal bias more upsetting, because it reduces colonisation to a minor role. I feel manipulated—the focus on Rūātoki did not prepare me for a film about terror laws and police power. Why were we given a little bit of information about the history of that community with the Crown, when ultimately it is irrelevant to the main argument the film presents? I feel disappointed that a story of the Crown attacking Māori has been used as backstory for an argument in which colonisation is pretty much irrelevant. I’d really like to hear what others think/feel about this. Unfortunately, I came away from the film thinking it was an example of Māori stories being interpreted and contextualised by Pākehā, and used to a Pākehā agenda. Again.

I’d love to hear how the film affected other people.

* There are two other arguments that are touched on in the documentary
The keystone cops argument:
The police were bumbling fools, who genuinely can’t tell the difference between silly games and a credible threat to national security. Several victims of Operation 8 mock the way police behaved, for example, smashing through unlocked doors instead of opening them. This is mirrored later when David Collins mocks the credibility of a plot to kill President Bush by catapulting a bus onto his head (part of the evidence used by police to get an interception warrant, and reported by the media as a real plan to kill Bush).

The anarchist argument:
The operation is simply the state exposing its abusive nature. It is inherently oppressive—it uses its power to control us. We see the violence of this whenever people try to organise their lives outside its control, even on a small scale. The state then makes up stories to minimise, deny or justify its violence, and terrorism is just their latest excuse. Tūhoe communities like that at Rūātoki have always maintained their independence, so the state will periodically show its force to bring them into line. It becomes especially concerned when several groups with different anti-state positions, such as anarchists and mana motuhake activists, are talking to each other. As long as the state and its police have power over us, they will abuse that power.