I’m not sure what you mean here given Parihaka was destroyed, the people dispersed or imprisoned, women raped and they still have a fraction of their previous lands.

Having said that, had they used violent means of resistance, the same would have happened, except more people would have been killed. Non-violence sometimes doesn’t work, but that does not mean violence does.

The insight of Moriori was that using violence screws you up. They may have been able to fight off the Ngati Mutunga/Ngati Tama invasion, but would have destroyed their own culture in the process. The kind of society that results from using violence to create its independence is usually authoritarian, brutal and lacks respect for individual human beings – the very qualities you need to successfully fight wars.

At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the anarchist leader Durrutti said something to the effect of “If we don’t win in six weeks, we’ll be so messed up it won’t be worth us winning”. As the war continued Republican Spain became more authoritarian, less revolutionary and more under the thumb of the Soviet Union.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers to the argument about using violence – I find it hard to tell anyone not to fight in self-defence, but I think there are huge pitfalls in choosing to use violence.

But nonetheless, Churchill’s decision was to have catostrophic consequences . . . . And the ambitions re: Palestine and Iraq were colonial in nature, not responding to a danger / threat to the UK – let alone the Dominion’s.

And that is context re: the stand taken by NZ pacifists.

I’d love to know how you came to the conclusion that we attacked a neutral country

I raised this as a point about the pacificists in WWI, whose contribution to the Labour movement / party and the left has been excised from history.

The Left in NZ was empowered by the stance of the pacificists in World War I, Peter Fraser among them.

In the the 20th and 21st centuries, war has rarely been the right policy option. You could argue that WWII is the exception, but that was begat by the unnessary WWI.
And in NZ, we forget that Gallipoli was a colonial war against a neutral non-white empire.

That failure to understand our history is why we are in such a tangle on Afghanistan.

You’ve hit the nail on the head, the real question remains of how easily such and such a person can be manipulated into believing in somebody elses political cause. Which I fear is all too easily from the comments I see on NZs political blogs (no matter which way they lean)

Seriously? You went from Twyford’s post about the Moriori, to a generalised statement of political tactics on the left, to slavery analogies? Shame.

And what’re the practical implications of what you’re arguing? Do you genuinely think that NZ under the Nats’ isn’t a liberal democracy where passive resistance has a chance of achieving goals? Or are you talking internationally? What’re the practical consequences of supporting violent resistance overseas? When is it ok to invade a country? Or, conversely, when it is ok for a group within a country to use violence against its own government?

Or maybe just in the abstract? Glorying in a violent struggle against pie in the sky intangible oppressors that you will never have to participate in? Cos, seriously, all you seem to be saying is “violence for political causes I believe in – YAY!”

I just don’t really see where you’re coming from at all with this post, and I think it’s poorly thought out.

Also, Tim Selwyn put an axe through the PM’s window. I don’t think taking lessons from him on when it is appropriate to use violence is the best idea. He demonstrably has poor judgment on that issue.

Pacificism can work. So can active resistance. Surely it’s a horses for courses thing. We should never dismiss non-violence as an option.

The problem for the majority who are ostensibly left wing is there is a clear contradiciton in pacifism or non-aggression and support of the state. One which Gandhi clearly saw. Furthermore, as many of those ostensibly on the left support the Afghan war and the like I don’t really think the “left” (which is a largely meaningless term nowadays) has much to say on non-violence and non-aggression.

Gandhi became more absolutist in his pacisfism as time went on. He once said

‘I do believe, that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.’

and

“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the arms act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to the government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.’,

I say bollocks to that. The Left should be anti-imperialist, not pacifist.