Category: Uncategorized

Chris Brickell’s book Mates and Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand sheds light on a part of our history previously confined to closets and court records, detailing the history of male homosexuality in this country since the 19th Century. Spark journalist Ian Anderson speaks to Ronald Trifero Nelson, who has adapted this book for the theatre.

To start with, what do you set out to do when you make theatre?

Well it’s an old Fabian idea, to entertain and educate.

Continue reading “Mates & Lovers: interview with Ronald Trifero Nelson”

“Ahmad Sa’adat is the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. One of nearly 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners, he has been sentenced to thirty years in Israeli prisons for a range of “security-related” political offenses. These charges include membership in a prohibited organization (the PFLP, of which Sa’adat is General Secretary), holding a post in a prohibited organization, and incitement, for a speech Sa’adat made following the Israeli assassination of his predecessor, Abu Ali Mustafa, in August 2001.

Excerpted from the Spark discussion list
http://groups.google.com/group/thespark-discussion
 grant_brookes wrote:

So are demands that no-one else supports “better” than ones thatachieve reforms within the framework of capitalism? Where’s the logic in that, unless the purpose of campaigning around “radical” demands is to brand a group, for recruiting purposes?

Don Franks replied:
Are political demands really like garments in a department store, selected by individuals in the hope of creating a particular image?
The first political demand I was really conscious of was Stop the war in Vietnam.
There was a time in New Zealand when that was  “a demand that no-one else supported”, apart from, like, a couple of communists and a clergyman.
By the time I got involved a lot of the hardest work had already been done and some solidarity had been built up against the current.
When I became part of the anti war movement the big marches were quite exciting and the Committee on Vietnam debates were always interesting, often quite dramatic. In between times it was a pleasant social thing to sit round and stuff leaflets into envelopes.
The bit I hated doing was wearing a CoV badge and thus getting into debates with some of the huge number of New Zealanders who supported the war and thought the Viet cong were coming down here to take over everything. I  had limited knowledge of the details of the war and couldn’t argue very well and didn’t like the abuse and contempt I was sometimes subjected to. Quite often I would guiltily go down town without wearing a badge in order to have a quiet life. Continue reading “It's the right thing to do”

Excerpted from the Spark discussion list
http://groups.google.com/group/thespark-discussion
Is there any sanctimonious law and order or religious fanatic that doesn’t have a secret past full of transgressions? A lot of people will be asking this after the exposure of Act’s law’n’order heavy David Garrett.
Act is not a major political force or threat, and it really never has been – indeed, the fact that it needed to be founded indicated that the highwater mark of the Business Roundtable had passed. Nevertheless it’s great to see them hoist on the petard of their own sanctimonious hypocrisy. Continue reading “Hypocrisy, lying and double dealing and double standards”

Wednesday September 22, 1pm
Waikato University, Student Union Building, @ Guru Fabians room

• Public meeting organised by Hamilton Left Initiative in response to new round of government attacks on working people.

• Come along, support or help build student involvement in upcoming union/workers actions.

• Speakers representing Greens on Campus, Unite on Campus, Workers Party on Campus, and Unions Waikato.

• Literature, discussion, action-making, debate, socialising, building, democratising.

For further details/enquiries email jared@unite.org.nz or phone on 029-4949-863
All welcome! Please forward to all relevant networks/individuals/lists.

Reviewed by Mike Kay
One of New Zealand’s leading contemporary historians, Judith Binney, has written a major study on the story of how the people of the Urewera came to be parted from their lands. This book deserves to be widely read. However, at over 600 pages long, it is unlikely to reach the audience that it merits. Therefore, I will attempt to summarise the narrative in this review, and then analyse it from a Marxist perspective.
Hapū of the Urewera take their name from Tuhoe-potiki, who was descended from the immigrant Toroa, leader of the Mataatua waka, and also the indigenous ancestors Toi and Potiki I. Continue reading “Book Review: Encircled Lands: Te Urewera, 1820 – 1921 by Judith Binney (Bridget Williams Books, 2009)”

By Ray Nunes
Published April 1999
The great unknown past of the Maori people,together with a view of Maori nationalism today
A pro-Mao, Marxist Leninist analysis
………………………………..
Introduction
by Daphna Whitmore
The following pamphlet by Ray Nunes is based on a reply to a former member of the now-defunct Communist Party of New Zealand (in which Ray Nunes earlier played a leading role) and whose letter contained criticisms of the standpoint of the Workers’ Party of New Zealand as published in the party’s monthly journal, The Spark of April 1994. At that time the Workers Party was a pro-Mao organisation.
In 2002 the Workers Party merged with Revolution Group and now identifies as a Marxist Party whose members hold a range of views about the role of  Stalin, Mao and Trotsky. Continue reading “THE MAORI IN PREHISTORY AND TODAY”