Oh that's been done. Check the historys of South Africa and the United States of America. All white teams were the norm.

Need I point out the bleeding obvious here?

We are talking about dispossessed indiginous peoples, who need and deserve every assistance in their assertions of identity.

An Amerindian team is a comparison, or an Ainu, or a Lapp team, or a Basque team.

Why begrudge such things? Races like the Irish and the Lapps, and the Ainu were not allowed to speak their own languages in the countries they had always lived in.

The Maori bloodline is thinning. There are no Tasmanian Aboriginies left, no full blood Ainu left. Assertion of this is important, necessary and vital to their nationhood.

The Maori were not even conquered like the Aboriginal tribes and the Amerindian nations. They signed a treaty with the British royalty, yet have gone the way of other conquered peoples.

They are a proud, beautiful and wonderous people. If they want to get together and play a game of football as one people, why, as part of the Caucasian majority, would you begrudge that?

That is unthinking, meanspirited and legalistic.

No it's not FAIR, yes it's RACIST. But such is the legacy of conquest, war and dispossession. This hardly even remotely compensates for the destruction of culture, lives, and families the European invasions caused.

[ 06-10-2002, 02:11 AM: Message edited by: Yorick ]

Yeah Decades ago all white teams wear the norm. But what about now? If say, A state created a team that allowed only white people in there would be protest everywhere.

If it is a issue of equal rights, well its not very equal is it?

[ 06-10-2002, 02:13 AM: Message edited by: Grand-Ranger ]

No it's not. It never will be equal which is why Maoris and other indiginous people deserve every assistance they decide to accept.

Australia gives preferencial employment to Indigenous Australians, education subsidies and subsidised housing.

Yet this hardly balances the gross inequality against a conquered people, forced to live in and under alien cultures, value systems, lifestyles and heirachies.

The weath of the European majorities is built upon that which was taken from the dispossessed.

It never will be equal.

Besides, you're missing the point.

There is a New Zealand team. There are New Zealand provincial teams. If a European wants to play Rugby, he can at every oportunity.

This is an additional team that can give an opportunity to a player who may not be able to break through the abundance of European players.

[ 06-10-2002, 02:31 AM: Message edited by: Yorick ]

You say that it will never be equal. But as soon as people forget about race etc. then it will be. I have friends from every race in the world. And that is what people need now.

Next we will be seeing "maori only" threads here because that would give an opportunity to a maori guy who may not be able to break through the abundance of threads started by European posters ;)

A more appropriate analogy is if an American-Indians-only team was set up to play various professional teams (or like an All-Black Harlem Globetrotters team). It's a MINORITY team. It probably *is* discriminatory, but it gives the minority group good publicity and an opportunity to play on the world stage.

In the Maori case, the real Test team is still the All Blacks - and everyone is open to join that, if they have the talent. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 06-10-2002, 04:43 AM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

It is easy for the conqueror to be blaise about this topic. You take their land, and then expect them to give up their language, their identity and their culture?

Blithely or blindly "Forgetting about race" doesn't promote harmony. That can promote resentment and frustration for the ABSORBED race. Acceptance and tolerance of difference is what promotes harmony.

Are you learning to speak, read and write Maori? Are you living the Maori way?

It's a one way street for Europeans. Expecting the dispossessed to assimilate into their culture, and then "forget about race". Easy to say when you are the dominant race with the dominant culture.

Can you not see your attitude is part of the problem?

It is faux acceptance. Accepting only that which seems the same.

True acceptance accepts that which one KNOWS AND SEES IS DIFFERENT.

The differences are what provoke TRAVEL, and DISCOURSE.

The differences of various cultures provide colour, vitality and heathy variety to our world.

It will be a horrible victory for blandness if and when MONOculturalism is victorious over MULTIculturalism.

I have friends from many races as well. I, we celebrate and find interest in each others differences.

We have threads where members from a single country call out to each other. Dutch and Australian threads come to mind.

What's the big deal?

"Need I point out the bleedin obvious" Other people are still allowed to post in them.

[ 06-10-2002, 04:54 AM: Message edited by: caleb ]