by K.R. Bolton
Any hope of calm descending in the wake of the unfounded allegations made against Kapiti residents by Otaki iwi and haka participants at the KCDC meeting of 25 February and repeated by a Stuff journalist has gone after the figurative fires have been stoked by the intervention of local artist Homai Haumaru.
A purported ‘Far Right Group’ at KCDC — a very mixed bag indeed
Having previously expressed outrage on the supposed heckling and jostling of ‘children’ at the KCDC meeting of 25 February, about which there should now have been sufficient information for him to realise the Stuff claims were fiction, on a social and artistic medium in Otaki called Hori, Mr Haumaru has inflamed matters.
Through masterful sleuthing, he claims to have found the two culprits who allegedly incited the alleged events against the ‘children’ — Dale Evans and myself. According to this latest addition to the legend, Mr Evans, representing the Ku Klux Klan, and myself (representing unreconstructed ‘neo-Nazism’) have aligned to form a ‘far right group’ that took up the entirety of the space allotted to the public, symbolically on the ‘far right’ (sic) side of the public gallery. From this strategic position that was directly opposite the main body of the public, around twenty ‘white supremacists’ — which presumably included the five women holding ‘just vote no’ signs, ‘named and shamed’ by Cr Jackie Elliott — could hurl abusive broadsides towards the large party of iwi reps and haka ‘children’, apparently with impunity.
‘So we found them these are the people who just happen to be on the “far right” Dale Evans front and center is a known racist piece of shit. And behind him is Kerry Bolton a closet neo Nazi or maybe he’s out of the closet I am not sure? These two and their white washed group of bull bag mates behind them are the ones responsible for the way our Otaki tamariki were treated at the council meeting’.
And what an unlikely bunch, headed by the Jewish Mr Evans, myself, a miscegenationist on two counts (Jewish and Raukawa), who would have been classified a ‘race traitor’ in Nazi Germany; the Jewish Mr Ruthe; a member of the Labour Party; the spouse of a Chinese woman; but, other than my wife, the rest of this ‘far right group’ (sic) are unknown to me.
Punching out teeth, and other Lessons in tolerance
Nonetheless we — the ‘far right group’ — are invited to the Hori art gallery where we will be helped to ‘understand the language of the monkeys’.
Now, this last quip is especially perplexing. According to the Otaki school complaint to KCDC, someone in the audience remarked ‘why should we have to listen to this monkey language?’ If we take the scenario presented by Mr Haumaru and by Ms Ngarewa-Packer (Maori Party MP) in an NZ Herald article, someone of ‘us’ yelled that across the room. For anyone to have heard this from that side, it must also have been heard by some councillor, and indeed much of the chamber.
It is also Ms Ngarewa-Packer who resurrected an old picture of Dale Evans in one of his stunts, dressed in a makeshift Klan outfit to make a point that had nothing to do with ‘racism’ [it was to demonstrate the nuttiness of then Mayor Rowan’s idea of having a hoodie day —Eds.] Nonetheless, this in itself was sufficient to evoke hysteria, with calls for him to be removed from ‘office’. What ‘office’? It is indicative of the dribbling confusion gripping the mob.
While Cr McCann claims special powers of observation and hearing that are not possessed by any other councillor, Crs Martin Haliday and Bernie Randall, who were seated closer than Cr McCann, state that they heard or saw nothing to verify what is alleged to have taken place according to the Stuff journalist’s report; even the superpowered McCann does not mention the ‘monkey’ claim.
I can only conclude that they did not hear anyone call out from the ‘far right group’… seated at the far right, and on the same side of the chamber as themselves, the comment about ‘monkey language’, because it did not occur. Others in the main body of the audience did not hear this either.
Mr Haumaru then suggests that should we show up to his soirée he might very well knock our teeth out, and we be ‘taught a lesson’. What Mr Haumaru has been led to believe by ‘woke’ Pakeha is that ‘children’ were abused, and jostled, with allusions to ‘monkey language’. For my part, I thought the haka excellent, but some women and elderly crammed among the increasingly loud and vigorous performance did not look so enthused, and there were real concerns for the safety of several seniors.
Poi dance… ah, what poi dance?
Furthermore, vital new information has emerged from yet another witness who was not present, Catherine Scullin of Beach FM radio who refers to ‘children doing a poi dance’. Cr Handford, being interviewed by Ms Scullin, did not see fit to correct her.
The result, and presumably intent, of Mr Haumaru’s posting has been a burst of anger from dozens of messengers who have posted incitements to violence especially against Mr Evans and myself, and in particular the former, whose residential whereabouts has been described by someone who must be of especially gutless character. Others have called for the boycotting of businesses, and for ‘racists’ to be run out of town. That is to say, a lynch mob hysteria has been quickly incited, and a witch-hunt proclaimed: ‘ere be the [imperial] wizards afflicting our village’. Drive them out. Beat them, and in one instance, ‘bring in the MOB’ (sic).
One post suggests sending in a masked group to beat up Dale Evans, whose health problems render him an invalid. Such heroism. Someone thought that I had a ‘sick wife’, but that allusion did not deter the mob-psychosis. However, not a single one of these erstwhile defenders of ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’, seem to have been present at the KCDC meeting. They are imbibing any bilge that Stuff feeds them, augmented by councillors whose integrity is questionable, and it is they who should accept responsibility for any of the threats should these be actioned, having given credibility to nonsense.
Given the moronic freneticism, histrionics and easy manner by which these individuals were able to be whipped up, their banal insults directed against Mr Evans, myself and the ‘group’ (sic) seated on the ‘far right’ are nothing but projections of their own ignorance, the unleashing of their own repressed shadow unconscious, and the demonization of individuals held up as scapegoats for the irresponsibility of KCDC, Beach FM and Stuff(ed) journalism.
There is more to come on this episode, and on the Guru Gateway (a.k.a. Gurugate) saga generally. As Karl Webber of the local Hapu says, the present Kapiti mayor and the Chief Executive Mr Maxwell have to own this. The mayor seems to regard anyone opposed to his Gateway as somehow ‘racist’: ridiculously, they include the Mana Whenua / Hau Kainga, and also the Marae trustees and Kaumatua at Ati Awa. Watch this space folks, there are going to be repercussions. —Eds
I couldn’t quite believe what i was reading when this first surfaced and reading this, for me, explains everything and unfortunately is the way of the world. Any offence of any kind is unacceptable it seems, even if it is truth, which this clearly was not.
We were very dubious about the claims in the Stuff report too. While there are undoubtedly racists in Kapiti, they are just not the people who show up to council meetings, particularly on an issue which all the opposition is based on economics and manipulated statistics. It was the mayor who chose the play the completely irrelevant race card here.
As a matter of clarification and accuracy, Homai Haumaru is not a person but the name of an art exhibit. The only name given for the artist and author of the libelous bilge is ‘Hori’.
The material has been handed to the police as incitement to violence. His Worship has also been contacted in regard to what he suggests in regard to healing a situation in which he and other councilors have played a significant part in inciting.