A viral video making the rounds on social media shows a group of Maori legislators staging a protest in New Zealand’s parliament, beginning with one of them ripping up a bill, followed by a group performing a “Haka” — a traditional Maori war-dance ritual.
The Maori are said to be the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand, having arrived in the 1300s — 400 years before the British, which is a historical blink of the eye.
The Maori shared the island with another group — the Moriori — who were a group of pacifists. The Maori genocided this tribe in the 1800s and partook in cannibalism, stopping only in the 1800s with British control of the islands.
The bill currently being protested declares that all people in New Zealand are to be treated equally. The Maori representatives, however, had issues with everyone being treated equally because they currently get special treatment under the law.
Many on the left applauded the protest as a symbol of indigenous people defending their rights against a right-wing government.
This is an increasingly frequent theme in left-wing discourse: that Western states (New Zealand being an heir of the British Empire) are colonial, and that those living on the territories have displaced and oppressed the indigenous population.
New Zealand is far from the only country to have had this accusation levied against it. Israel is frequently referred to as a “colonial-settler state,” as is the United States, Canada, Australia, and others.
