2022-11-06 15:39:08 ¶ ● ⬀ ⬈

yuck-pfaugh:

> evelynstarshine:

> > After reading some NtN discourse, which is all about Jod, like I get it but someone start discourse about the Angel or something so we have variety.
> > But anyway, there’s a context I feel is missing for the Jod discourse, and it’s,
> > 1.There is a centuries long history of Māori healers who suddenly found themselves gifted with miraculous powers to heal.
> > 2.New Zealand has a history of sending police and government forces to kill Māori healers.

> > Americans when they think of police raiding ‘cult’ compound are probably imagining Jonestown or those US full of guns fortified cults from TV and that is how Jod’s healing and the raids that lead to the meatwall and dead cops are being framed but from the Prophets of the 19th century, the invasion of Parihaka or the hunt for Te Kooti all the way to the Tūhoe Raids of 2007, NZ police when they surround and raid are there for colonial purpose.
> > And the way the healing part of John’s story is explained, word spreading and travellers amassing, it could have come out of a textbook of Rātana or Te Māiharoa.
> > In NZ, police being massed to raid a ‘cult’ lead by a Māori miracle healer, has different bagage from the US police surrounding a fundie cult in gun country.

> Thank you for putting this into words, OP — I kind of picked up on it my first time through Nona, but I felt that I lacked the background and the detailed knowledge to speak about it. You’ve given us all a lot to look into and educate ourselves upon. I’d like to add just one example from the text:

> > They lied and everyone swallowed their shit. Not only that, they looked at us and were like, We were going to put you fellas in jail, weren’t we? Isn’t it time you guys stop being independent actors, aren’t you recognised by most nations as a cult? We’re all legally appointed officials here, except for the trillionaires. Did you know cows recognise one another?

> “You fellas” is not pronounced “you fellows”.

> To try to put it into perspective for American readers… To ears that have been in NZ for any length of time, this tale in Jod’s own words of how his enemies approached him sounds A LOT like a white American authority figure (a cop or an FBI agent) speaking AAVE mockingly, and threateningly, to a person of colour who is perceived to have transgressed. It’s a racial microaggression. Addressed to a Māori healer who — whatever he’d done to some cows in a country in which, let’s be real, plenty of cows are marked for slaughter every day — was in a long, long tradition of other healers and spiritual leaders persecuted by the colonial government.

> There are probably other details along those lines that I didn’t pick up. I wish we had more Locked Tomb readers in Aotearoa contributing to our conversations here — and when they do I wish we could amplify their voices more.