The fact that they beat NSW aside (Just had to get that in ;) ) Why is there a special team just for Maori? Isn't this racism/discrimination? No other country in the world, AFAIK, has a rugby team that is restricted to people of a certain race and if the shoe was on the other foot, i.e. if only (for lack of a better word) white people were allowed in a team, there would be calls of aparthied and racism. Can anyone else see where I'm coming from?

I'm not interested in a race argument and I don't really care that they have their own team, I just want to know if I'm missing a bigger picture [img]smile.gif[/img]

For anyone that is unfamiliar with what a maori is it is the name given to the indigenous people of NZ.

Its complete crap they should open the team to every race.

Technically, the team is open to any who have at least 1/64th Maori blood, but realistically anyone who wants to nominate for Maori ancestry can do so (unless they are obviously Pakeha or of Islander origin). It's probably one of those things that have been going on for 100 years and nobody's bothered to question or change it. Kiwis in general don't seem to mind (especially when the Maori win). ;)

There have been Australian Aboriginal Cricket teams, and football teams.

An Oz Aboriginal cricket team toured England.

It's important for indiginous identity. We divide nations into subteams based on where you live, or where you were born (state of origin) why not a longer perspective origin?

Nothing wrong with it in my book.

I did not know about the aboriginal teams, I was thinking NZ was unique [img]tongue.gif[/img]
I see your point and you have shown me the bigger picture, thanks Yorick [img]smile.gif[/img]

No worries Downunda! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Well wouldnt people through a fit if America started a team that only caucasions wear allowed in?

I agree, what would happen if a team was formed for only those with white skin?

That's what I thought at first too Scholarcs, what Yorick is saying though is that it isn't a team that is based on the colour of your skin but on the origin of your ancestors (The fact that they are usually darker skinned doesn't seem to be the issue)

I still don't think it's fair, as Legolas explained, if a team of "whiteys" tried to use this as an excuse for not including black players they would never get away with it.

hmm...but going by that someone could create a team whose ancestors came from Britain? Now that team would be stamped out pretty quickly, whilst this Maori team is allowed to exist.

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 ]

Caleb, you are missing the point big time.

The settlement wasnt done the way I wouldve done it. I do not expect them to give up what they have now, but I do expect them to accept both our culture and hold on to theirs.

This reminds me: in primary school we had to sing the national anthem once a week. Did I refuse to sing the Maori verse? no. Did a Maori refuse to sing the english verse? yes. I just dont know what to say.

Sorry I meant "forgetting about race" in the way that forgetting any past feelings that you had towards another race.

Less than 5% of Maori actually speak Maori. If I could find someone I could converse with regularly in Maori perhaps I would learn it. I took french at school, because it was more enjoyable than latin or japanese, Maori wasnt even offered as an option.

No - I am not living the Maori way, i do not deny them their heritage, but they are the ones that want to live in european housing. 99.9% of Maori if you gave them a choice they would rather live in a house built using European methods with heating etc or a traditional Maori hut, then guess which they would take.

I'll be honest with you...the Maori way of life is now only visible in the museum.

Dominant race with dominant culture? percentage of europeans in auckland is dropping each year. it is now about 66% and continuing to fall.

I hate to say it mate but if I went and asked someone to teach me about the Maori way of life they would tell me to go shove it where the sun dont shine. This is the problem, they are not proud of their culture. I am not prepared to start discussing the different cultures with people until they are proud of it. Until they have lived it.

heck i dont know what ive just written. But you go anywhere in the world and you will find people proud of their culture. But unless you are proud of it then people will forget it. I see old Pakeha trying to make young Maori proud of their culture. But they still will not accept it.

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?</font>[/QUOTE]That is defined by the country in which you live, the country which you are proud of.

It is not defined by the colour of your skin.

Since when are Maoris not proud of their culture, Scolarcs? Channel one on sunday mornings is nothing but maori culture.

I mean sure they're over represented in all the bad statistics concerning literacy, crime, health etc... but this is exactly what Yorick is saying, they were (some may argue that they still are) an oppressed people, thus, they need all the help they can get. *trying not to sound too patronising* [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Without getting involved in the Maori debate I would say that these threads are based on nationalities rather than race - as are national football teams.

From what I have seen in our country, Maori are raised in European-style institutions whilst not recieving the whole-hearted acceptance of European cultural identity from the society which has in and of itself removed any viable alternative through law and legislation. Maori land and fishing rights are coveted in such a way as to exploit financial potential, whilst the traditional, pre-Pakeha settlement Maori lifestyle has been by and large neglected by the conventional New Zealand social system. Those of biological Maori descent are essentially 'paid off' in terms of small financial benefits intended as compensation for a complete sacrifice of cultural identity. The predominantly tribal nature of traditional Maori culture (consisting of independant tribes living in largely self-sufficient Pas and Maraes) is expected, nay demanded to fit itself into the largely corporate, centralized system of New Zealand government.
In Dunedin (Scholarcs and Downunda will know where Dunedin is [img]smile.gif[/img] ) there is a Marae out on the Peninsula (Otakau by name, hence the Anglicized version 'Otago') where the children are raised in traditional Maori culture in traditional Maori language, yet with European tools and technologies. The children raised there cannot speak English at primary-school age (we visited the marae in primary school when I was about 9 or 10, none of us white kids could communicate with the maori children there [img]smile.gif[/img] ) and the values of traditional maori are preserved. However, this seems to be a rare case of practical maori cultural endurance (allowed largely by the isolated geography of the Otago Peninsula), and on a wider scale indigenous people of our country do not have such a strong, tangible cultural foundation on which they can fall back. They are not totally accepted by the pakeha population, yet have no sense of community of their own.

And after all that, comes my point: The maori rugby team serves a valid purpose for providing maori with a sense of community pride that they cannot find in a predominatly white-controlled consumer society (as Yorick and Downunda have been saying for ages [img]smile.gif[/img] ). Whilst rugby is in and of itself a product of European sporting cultural values, the maori-exclusive team allows for a largely under-represented (culturally, not necessarily financially or legally) percentage of the New Zealand population to develope communal-contact, a sense of cultural identity, and a bit of athletic satisfaction. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Thanks dude, very well written [img]smile.gif[/img]

And as is the Maori nation. They do, as I said, have a treaty with the Queen.

What is race other than a nationality developed and refined over a longer period?

Can anyone tell me which of the four macro races the Maori are supposed to fit into? Caucasoid? Mongoloid? Australoid? Negroid?

Or are they a blend of a couple? The Maoris I've known haven't known.

One of my co-writers in Oz is a Maori, and one of the most successful female session vocalists there. She was "first call"
for twenty years or so.

She had a most interesting theory as to the Maori origin.

What a great post. Well said bro. Thankyou. [img]smile.gif[/img]

But the British nation is made up of a multitude of races and will never be one distinct race.

The word 'nation' is used to denote a Nation State when describing sports teams.

But the British nation is made up of a multitude of races and will never be one distinct race.

The word 'nation' is used to denote a Nation State when describing sports teams.</font>[/QUOTE]Except with the Welsh, and Scottish footy teams yes? Or are these now nations of their own right? ;) [img]smile.gif[/img]

England are a nation of conquest and reconquest, with many nationalities and races mixed in. With nations like the Souix which were monoracial, there isn't much distinction between race and nationality.

See also the Japanese. Race or nationality or both? The Mongolians of outer and inner Mongolia are in the same boat. How about the Finns. Of Finno-Ugric stock, and a nation in their own right.

The Jewish and Romanie (Gypsie) peoples have a degree of nationhood that is unreliant on borders, and defined by their race. There are Jews from many races. Slavics, Teutonics, Negroid. Yet each is Jewish.

The lines blur.