Harawira Hone: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Harawira Hone: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:638;Page:8506] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Kia ora Madam Speaker. Kia ora tatoui te Whare. This Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill stirs some very strong memories in my mind and some even stronger feelings in my heart. I do not mind saying that those feelings are not fuelled by the jingoistic acid-drenched hate-filled anti-Islamic “death to anyone from the Middle East” vitriolic poisonous crapola that the United States is trying to foist upon the rest of the world. My understanding of terrorism comes from a far different source—a source that relies on historical fact rather than hysterical drama for its position a source that connects me to my indigenous brothers and sisters around the world and a source that roots me clearly in Aotearoa the home of my ancestors and homeland forever of the Maori people. 
Last year I was privileged to be invited to a conference in Canada. The United Nations Expert Seminar on Treaties Agreements and other Constructive Arrangements between States and Indigenous Peoples was held in Hobbema in the Treaty Six territory Alberta Canada. While I was there I saw a T-shirt that some of the local brothers were wearing. It had a picture of Geronimo and a couple of his warriors carrying weapons. The caption below read something like this: “Homeland Security—Fighting Terrorism in the USA since 1495”. I paused to think that although we are separated by thousands and thousands of miles indigenous sentiments about colonial terrorism are exactly the same. 
The picture and the sentiments on those T-shirts reminded me of a book I read when I was doing “bed and breakfast” in Mount Eden Prison. The book was called  
Watch for Me on the Mountain 
 and it was about the rebellion of Geronimo and his people against the rampaging racist terrorists of the United States 7th Cavalry who were operating under a clear mandate from their masters in Washington to crush everything that stood in the way of the land-hungry gold-maddened settlers and to round up hunt down and kill where necessary any natives who stood in their way. Everyone in this House knows the phrase: “The only good Indian is a dead Indian”—such were the sentiments of the United States of America just a couple of hundred years ago. So when I think of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill that too is where my understanding of terrorism comes from. 
I reckon we could probably update that “dead Indian” threat to read: “The only good sand-nigger is a dead sand-nigger” to explain the United States’ current misbegotten crusade in Iraq. It is misbegotten because it is a military campaign born out of the union of the lies about weapons of mass destruction that were never found and the link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein that was never proved. Yes I call it a crusade because it is a venture of Christian paranoia against Islam. It is a task that “Richard the Lion Breath” and his foolish followers could not achieve hundreds of years ago and a failure that George Bush with all his technological superiority is doomed to repeat. So when I think of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill that too is where my understanding of terrorism comes from. 
Now we hear that the United States of America has finally charged some dumb Aussie David Hicks as its first Guantanamo “war on terror” detainee. An Australian for heavens’ sake! Six years after 9/11 is this the result of billions of United States intelligence dollars being spent on securing a conviction to justify its war in Afghanistan? An Australian? Heaven forbid that we in this country should be connected in any way with the mind-numbing stupidity and pointlessness of a process that has failed so spectacularly that after 6 years all it could come up with was a so-called confession from an Australian charged with providing material support. Seriously hands up all those in this House who believe that that confession was entered into freely and willingly. When I think of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill that too is where my understanding of terrorism comes from. 
I recall too that my time in Mount Eden arose out of an uprising right here in Aotearoa when tens of thousands of people right throughout the country marched against the terrorist apartheid regime of South Africa in 1981. Like many others in this House I will never forget the picture that used to come up on TV of a young man running through the streets of Sharpeville and carrying a young girl who had been shot to death by Government-sponsored agents of terror. It is an image that helped to shape an understanding in the minds of thousands of New Zealanders that our passion for rugby should not be allowed to be sullied by a link to State-sponsored terror and State-sponsored murder. So when I think of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill that too is where my understanding of terrorism comes from. 
I can recall too a very personal connection to South Africa. I recall one brother a member of the African National Congress who fled the terror in his homeland Andrew Moletsane. Andrew came to my home in Otara South Auckland to give testimony about the terror being imposed by the crumbling apartheid regime of South Africa. A few years later Andrew Moletsane was hunted down and murdered in Botswana by one of Botha’s goon squads. His name is recorded forever in the list of African National Congress members who died in exile between March 1960 and December 1993. So when I think of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill that too is where my understanding of terrorism comes from. 
I make another personal connection to the pain and suffering of the black people in apartheid South Africa. I recall calling Bishop Desmond Tutu to take the stand as my one and only witness in the trials that arose out of the arrests of the members of the Patu squad following the final Springbok match at Eden Park. Bishop Tutu was a small man but when he walked into the courthouse that day the whole world stopped. His entry stunned the whole courtroom into silence and scared the hell out of me as the person who had called for his testimony. I asked him to tell the court what apartheid was and for the next 20 minutes in a quiet and humble voice Bishop Tutu proceeded to describe apartheid through the eyes of one who had been forced to witness the terror imposed upon his people—the degradation the humiliation the pain and the death. As he spoke we could have heard a pin drop. When he stepped down from the dock that day I looked around and saw something I had never seen before and have never seen since in a court of law in this country. The public rose to their feet to acknowledge the man and his message; the prison wardens rose to their feet as well; the police stood up; the press stood up; the lawyers stood up; the defendants stood up; even members of the jury stood up. I found out later that the judge had to force himself not to stand up such had been the power of the truth of the terrorism that was apartheid. So when I think of this Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill that too is where my understanding of terrorism comes from. 
 Last night I took the opportunity to read some of the history of the Te Roroa claim and I was overwhelmed by the loss of land the loss of mana the loss of pride and even the loss of life that the people of Te Roroa have had to face over the last 180 years. That reminded me of the Muriwhenua claim the Tainui claim the NgaiTahu claim and many other claims. It reminded me of those who gave their lives all over Aotearoa to save their lands from the rapacious actions of colonialism. Again I was reminded about the real impact of terrorism right here in Aotearoa. So when I think of the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill that too is where my understanding of terrorism comes from. 
I will not even mention the terror imposed on the Dreamtime people in Australia the Kanak of New Caledonia the Maohi of Tahiti the Kanaka Maoli of Hawaii and even those who fought in the Mau uprising in Samoa against the colonial terrorists of New Zealand. America dominates the world and stomps around the sandpit of the Middle East like a spoilt bully smashing little brown kids who would dare to say no to its excesses and demands and killing thousands of innocent civilians to repay one act of terror in the United States of America. 
The suppression of terrorism is not a one-way street. After 9/11 President Bush said: “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda but it does not end there. … Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” I am happy to say that the Maori Party will oppose the use of terror to impose one-eyed nationalistic misconceptions of religious superiority and governance on any people whether committed in the name of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda or in the name of George Bush and the United States of America. Kia ora tatou katoa.