Alan is a novelist and newspaper columnist, he is the author of ‘Once Were Warriors’, ‘One Night Out Stealing’, ‘State Ward’, ‘What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?’, ‘Out of the Mist and the Steam’, ‘Szabad’, and ‘Jake's Long Shadow’.

Educate disaffected Maori youth to become part of society, not on the outside glaring in

I don't mean Maori in the region who have jobs, are law-abiding and raising children on aspirations and love. I mean the small percentage of lowlife filth, the vermin, the welfare-created Frankensteins; the truant youths, the unemployed, bored and seething with anger at their horrible upbringing for which citizens have to pay.

I mean the generational pissheads and welfare-addicts. The meth-users and dope-heads turned psychotic on sustained drug use. I mean the next generation of losers rewarded by government to stay losers by paying them a benefit. Any wonder the good people of Thames expressed outrage, Maori no doubt amongst them.

The group of snarling youths in the street who glare at non-Maori dying to "smack" them over. The drunk and stoned parents who neglected them like they were neglected. The same parents whose self-loathing became transferred abuse of their kids, from violence to sexual to not feeding properly, put-down verbal abuse, bereft of all forms of discipline.

This is what we're dealing with and Thames is just one of numerous small communities where the racial divide is most apparent; except it isn't racial, it is class....

Read Alan's full NZ Herald blog here > http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11830835

Education best way to get young Maori away from gangs

I think gangs like Black Power and the Mongrel Mob are more a social nuisance, a scary visual image and an inordinate cost on the justice and health and social welfare systems, than a real danger to society. But they could be if we sit back and let them flourish.

These people contribute nothing to society. Indeed, they extract disproportionately. Your columnist has a soft spot for those born into less blessed homes and difficult circumstances. But not for gang members, much as I understand their backgrounds. There's a line, boys, and you crossed it......

Read Alan Duff’s full column here > http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11787097

No more excuses - let's foster aspiration

A video of teenage girls rampaging inside a South Auckland superette, robbing it of cigarettes was disturbing.

The owners are Indian. The thieves have clearly grown up on the notion that stealing beats working, and very likely been taught that the Indian superette owners rip brown people off, and not that they work very hard in making a better life for their families.

A Maori rugby team I used to support in Hawke's Bay had a similar attitude to white people. Whenever they played Havelock North - a team with no shortage of Maori and Pacific Island players - the spectators would yell and scream, "Get those rich honkies! Smash them!"

Loser talk.

Same loser outlook that girl gang has. I don't know of any Pakeha girl gangs. Nor Chinese, Indian, or Europeans. Just Maori and Pacific Islanders. I know why this is: many brown folk don't grow up knowing anyone in business, so don't respect what they do, the effort and the risk.

As high schoolers, my two youngest daughters have been violently confronted by Maori girls in gangs.

Our Maori political leaders tell us it's all right to whinge about our poverty. But never do they urge us to go into business. A Maori university lecturer recently excused our appalling rate of murdering children as a result of cultural devastation. Excuse me?....

Continue reading here > http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11689621

The bone-headed fighter? No thanks

This columnist usually stays away from politicians. But then Hone announced a comeback. Oh dear. Maoridom needs Hone Harawira back in politics like the proverbial hole in the head. He couldn't get on with the Maori Party, founded the Mana Party, had a bromance with the gifted but flawed German, Kim Dotcom. And when the admirable Kelvin Davis thrashed him in the last election, who does he turn on? Dotcom. But of course others, too.

A man with a hero-complex is not what Maoridom needs. They - our people - do not need someone pandering to our lowest common denominator, telling them their failures are not their fault but the fault of rich white people, greedy capitalists, a stacked system, government, all on the assumption these people are incapable of helping themselves.

Not once have we heard offered a solution to "poor" people's woes, to "poverty." He came up with no ideas on creating employment. Nor use of Northland Maori land.

No ideas on instilling an education ethos in the outlook of the very culture of those he claims to be fighting for. His ideas were and still are zilch.

He hasn't demonstrated by a single gesture that maybe he should take a less hardline stance. Oh, no. Not Hone. He's the self-described "fighter." Whoopee, that's gonna put a lot of Maori into their own homes and give them jobs, lift us up to the educated, aspiring middle class, a scrapper representing us......

Continue reading here > http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11660712

Time to break silence on Maori violence

Back in NZ - and only Auckland - last week it seems as if I never left France.

Except for one major difference, the negative first: a young Maori couple from Taupo convicted of torturing then killing a child under their care. And not one Maori leader stood up and said anything.

There's an awful pattern here and if we keep staying silent then the pattern will keep repeating itself. Maoris are more in need of learning parenting skills than are non-Maoris and that applies to a lot of Pacific Island parents too.

No, it's not racist. It's a fact. Don't go into the whys and wherefores. Just look at the kids murdered, beaten up, sexually abused.....

Continue reading here > http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11639811

Ngapuhi should show some respect

Let's put the boot on the other foot and Parliament promises a hostile welcome to a Ngapuhi delegation wanting to visit.

Years ago, I wrote a column about Te Papa featuring a sculpture of the Madonna with a condom over it. I said if this had been a Maori carving they might find no museum left. It was an insult to Catholics and in my opinion cultural arrogance on the part of the curator.

That column was about respect. I've also previously written that even if we had a Prime Minister I personally detested, I'd still give him or her the respect the office demands.

Not deserves, as sometimes we'll have a PM who doesn't earn that. It is our highest political office. (Putting aside the Governor-General, an office I don't necessarily care for. Too old-fashioned, too many British Empire trappings and traditions, increasingly irrelevant in this modern age. Time for radical changes.)

Now, if Maori at Waitangi promise our Prime Minister a hostile welcome, why should he go? It's mass bullying, at its worst. Let's put the boot on the other foot and Parliament promises a hostile welcome to a Ngapuhi delegation wanting to visit.

There would be an uproar. And rightly so....

Continue reading here > http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11586154