Editorial: Harawira's sorry excuse for apology

OPINION: The essence of an apology is an acknowledgment of wrongdoing.

That is why young offenders attending family group conferences are encouraged not just to say sorry for their actions but to own up to what they have done.

And that is why Maori MP Hone Harawira's latest apology, delivered five weeks after he sent a racially offensive email to a party supporter, is as inadequate as his previous efforts.

Mr Harawira has apologised for the harm done to his party by his comments, and to people offended by his intemperate language, but he still refuses to acknowledge that categorising people of one colour as "motherf...ers" or referring to accountability for public money as "white man bullshit" is racist.

According to Mr Harawira, racism is "based on the power to impose your racial views on the rest of society. Given that I don't have that power as an individual member of Parliament, it's kind of difficult to assume that my comments are racist."

His argument is absurd. If his logic were adopted, only a handful of people would be accountable for what they say. The rest would be free to voice whatever prejudice and invective they chose.

In one respect, however, Mr Harawira has done the right thing. If, because of events that happened more than 100 years ago, he harbours a resentment of all things white, it is pointless for him to pretend otherwise.

His position presents a problem for the Maori Party. It has been abundantly clear for some time that at least one of the party's leaders – Tariana Turia – would prefer to have nothing to do with him and that his other colleagues find him difficult and abrasive to deal with. However, it is also apparent that most party members want Mr Harawira to remain a Maori Party MP. Effectively they have forced the party's four other MPs to accept Mr Harawira back into their ranks, after a token spell in the sinbin.

The shotgun resolution is a recipe for internal dissension, but the party has an even bigger external problem. Mr Harawira has had five weeks to come up with a convincing explanation for his outburst and to show genuine contrition. He has not done so. His failure to do so leads to just one conclusion.

Mr Harawira is sorry he got himself into trouble, sorry he caused his party difficulties and genuinely, and commendably, sorry he used an epithet that is particularly offensive, but he sees nothing wrong with denigrating a large number of New Zealanders on the basis of their skin colour. He is a racist.

His comments would be utterly unacceptable if said by a Pakeha of Maori and, notwithstanding his convoluted logic, are equally unacceptable when said by a Maori of Pakeha.

Maori Party members have made a mistake by forcing his readmission to the party caucus. The party's MPs will not function as effectively with his disruptive presence in their midst and his continued membership of the party will inevitably invite suspicion of its agenda.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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Wally Woolly   #5   11:59 am Dec 04 2009

How is Hone Harawira different to Paul Henry? One abuses the mainstream and one belittles the fringe. In my mind both are both equally culpable. I find it hypocritical to censure one and not the other. This is not political correctness, this is standards of human decency.

eyesrolling   #4   09:52 am Dec 04 2009

SPC.

The Maori party, by continuing to employ him, show themselves to be the sympathy appointments they so clearly are. Democracy does not discriminate on grounds of ethnicity but the Maori party does. Scholarly racists? Angry dim bigots? Window dressing? WOuld the Maori party representatives be hired for their skills by other parties or have they shown themselves woefully inadequate?

New Zealand, by not forcing this oaf out of office and sending the Maori party back to school with a clip round it's racist ear, shows itself to be as we all feared - 20 years behind the rest if the world.

Keith   #3   07:38 am Dec 04 2009

@ SPC: Hone Harawira didn't ask a question. He used taxpayer funds to take a day off sight-seeing when he should have been representing New Zealand at a conference and then used foul-mouthed racist language to attack those who dared to criticise him for it. Where's his "tough question" in that?

SPC   #2   12:34 am Dec 04 2009

I wonder if this is not of some attempt to marginalise those who ask tough questions. If you had an actual answer to his question, as Pakeha have opporesed Maori why should Maori have any regard for Pakeha justice - would you not have made it, rather than vilify him for the imtemperate language and try to use that to accuse him of racism and silence him.

Appalled   #1   09:26 am Dec 03 2009

Hear hear. The double standard is alive and well.

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