There are no depths to which our dominant colonial industry won’t sink.
(Image: AP/Mohammed Ballas)
This evening (15 Feb), Agritech New Zealand is hosting an "Ageritech Summit" with the Israeli agricultural sector.
It’s shouldn't surprise us that Damien O’Connor would support another colonial state making agricultural profits from dispossessing and killing the indigenous population. After all, that’s the legacy of the industry we so proudly hold up as a national symbol.
The Israeli state, which is maintaining the longest running military occupation in history, has morphed into an apartheid state. This is something Palestinians have been telling us for decades, as have anti-apartheid activists from South Africa (like Nelson Mandela's son and the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu), and mainstream human rights groups (like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Israeli group B’Tselem)
Beyond that, the Israeli Defence Force and illegal settlers regularly harass Palestinian Farmers, spray aerial herbicides and set fires to their crops, uproot their olive trees (8,400 olive trees uprooted in 2020 alone), target women farmers and more.
Are these the behaviours that our agricultural sector wish to be aligned with? Does this alliance fit brand Ardern?
Apparently so.
Our values as a country are in shatters, and it’s a completely natural consequence for us. Not only does New Zealand continue to profit through the devastation of tangata whenua and their land, but the normalisation of violence towards animals has created a nation devoid of decent values. Profiting from the endless exploitation and death of others is celebrated and sold to us as some sort of deeper connection to the land. It's no wonder we're unable to see right from wrong.
I guess Israel and New Zealand will share notes on how to make their systems of violence more efficient, while patting each other on the back for their colonial might.
(Read the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa press release here, and follow their instructions to send a letter to Damien O'Connor and Nanaia Mahuta here.)
