TNEWS TALANOA

04 Nov 2007, 21:22
Auckland, New Zealand:

THE last time whale hunting went before the Tongan cabinet in the mid-1990s the proposal was to kill 10 humpbacks a year. Now, do the maths... 10 humpbacks at roughly10,000 kilos per animal works out to 100,000 kilos per year. The population of Tonga is just over 100,000 people. This means that every Tongan man, woman and child would receive less than one kilo of meat per year. For an obese nation as you call us that's hardly enough for morning tea.

The far-sighted decision in 1978 by the King of Tonga to ban whaling not only saved humpback whales from local extinction, but 30 years later has also provided an enormous economic benefit.

A 2006 report by the Melbourne consultancy, Economist at Large, found that over the past decade, whale-watching and its associated revenues have been growing in Tonga by over 12% per annum. Whale-watch revenues have transformed the economy of the northern island group of Vava'u.

View full story: http://www.matangitonga.to/article/tvnz_...2_pf.shtml

It's not surprising to hear such form of racist language coming from NZ media. There was this Auckland Radio Talkback host by the name of Mike Law or something who kept referring to the people of Tonga, shortly after the 16/11 event, as The brown skin thick heads, The brown Idiots, coconut brains, near animal race, The black idiots, plus many many racist comments about the Tongan people. He was hosting this show to a white New Zealand listeners and not one of them spoke out about his language. Except for these two random Tongan listeners who happened to be tuning in by accident and heard the man talked. Their English was not that fluent but they quite managed to bravely defend their people. I am not sure how really Mike Law felt after realizing they were not alone after the two Tongan men joined in. Mike Law is hailed as a hero in the eyes of the white New Zealanders esp. in Auckland for his straight forward nonsense, or whatever they called it, even when he called the Tongans 'near animal... brown coconut bains' (accusing them of burning down their capital and then calling on Nz for help). One of the two men assured Mr. Law that it wasn't the people that called for help. But rather it was the Prime Minister, Fred Sevele, and his government and king. They were the ones who deserved the heartless and racist comments that he made. The capital was trashed because they need an end to dictatorship, and the two went on......... Mike Law changed the subject after that but it was too late. He smashed their hearts.

If we can listen carefully to comments by whites in the NZ media, when it comes to opinions on many issues concerning Tonga or Tongans, one would be surprised to know that still there are so many people like Mike Laws in the NZ media - and they come from the NZ public.

God doesn't give NZ a chance to win the World Cup soon because of their injustices: They hate our guts but they are constantly using our people like Jonah Lomu, Howlett, Lauaki etc in rugby and other fields including politics for their own entertainment and benefits (the ones they called 'near animal race' for their advantage).

That's one strong reason why we should continue to push for democracy in Tonga because once we have that we will be able to get as much benefits as our people in New Zealand or Australia have. Given our total population 100,000 the nation is potetially rich but the royal family will not let us. But once we run our government the old, the young and the unemployed will all receive welfare benefits plus many other benefits. We will only send our kids to NZ, Aust, USA to study or on vacation but no longer for money. We will become the mighty Tongans again that ruled empires in the South Pacific. We can do that again. We can also rule rugby in the South Pacific like our Ikale Tahi showed us in 2007 World Cup. But first we must run the government. We will show Mike Law and New Zealand that it is a mistake to underestimate the Tongans because we were once rulers of this southern seas before their ancestors came.

Lets do the first task together and fight for democracy.