YOU TAKE IT, YOU OWN IT:

Beyond the foreshore: New Zealand is a reminder of the damage that can be done when desperate politicians play the race card (Richard Adams, April 16, 2004, The Guardian)

Over how many generations can groups live with their grievances? Just as importantly, can they ever be settled?

The country that has gone furthest towards answering these questions is New Zealand, where for the last 20 years a strong political consensus has existed to make the long and difficult attempts to meet the valid demands of Maori, who arrived hundreds of years before the first Europeans. New Zealand shows what can be done, given the will. But it also sounds a warning: that even an accepted consensus over race can be threatened by blundering politicians.

New Zealand's progress towards reconciliation is in danger of being halted, after a speech redolent of Enoch Powell's infamous 1968 "rivers of blood" address. Don Brash, the leader of New Zealand's rightwing National party, had been languishing in the opinion polls since taking over as leader of the opposition. Facing mounting criticism and little popular support, Brash - like desperate rightwing politicians everywhere - played the race card.

In the text of his speech, Brash declaimed "the dangerous drift towards racial separatism in New Zealand", and called attempts at reparation an entrenched "grievance industry". His claims were given a harsher sting by the immediate reaction for Brash's party: a sudden surge of popularity in the opinion polls, catapulting it into a clear lead over the governing Labour party.

It's one thing for white South Africans to decide that the measures needed to control their black population are too morally corrosive to be maintained, but why would an overwhelming majority do this to themselves? And why is it Mr. Brash who has played the race card if policy was being made along racial lines?

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 16, 2004 8:37 AM