The profound political implications of Ihumātao
The most important shift in New Zealand politics in almost three decades was registered last month, when a long-simmering Māori land occupation at Ihumātao erupted into a mass struggle. In […]
Author Archives: James Robb
The Holodomor in Ukraine and the obfuscations of “Mr Jones”
Few countries in the world suffered more than Ukraine in the twentieth century. One of the nations of the Soviet Union favoured with fertile soils and bountiful agriculture, geography made […]
Cotton, slaves, war, and measles in colonial Fiji
Second of two articles on Land Labour and Epidemic Disease in the capitalist penetration of the Pacific First part here. Almost one hundred years after the Sydney Cove epidemic, a […]
Land, labour, and epidemic diseases – two articles on capitalist penetration of the Pacific
When the deadly epidemic of influenza swept the world in the months following the end of the Great War of 1914-18, the toll it took in the Pacific Islands was […]
Child welfare in the age of capitalist decay – a glimpse of New Zealand’s stolen generation
[Note: this post was updated on 24 June with comments on the obfuscatory character of the term ‘domestic violence,’ and on the source of Oranga Tamariki’s tendency to act on […]
Teachers in New Zealand take a step towards West Virginia, and ponder their next move
A nationwide one-day strike by 50,000 teachers in both the primary and secondary sectors took place in New Zealand on 29 May. It was the first time in the history […]
Cruise of the Mokoia – Harry Holland and anti-colonial struggles in Fiji and Samoa
(Second of two articles on indentured labourers and the early anti-colonial struggles in the Pacific. First part here) Very soon after the publication of Holland’s pamphlet on indentured labour in […]
Indentured labourers at the forefront of early anti-colonial struggles in the Pacific
Within less than a month of joining the war against Germany in 1914, New Zealand had seized its first colonial conquest from Germany. On 29 August 1914, troops from the New Zealand warships Moeraki and Monowai stepped […]
An early New Zealand rightist movement built on religious hatreds
While Alliance of Labour leader Arthur Cook lent his support to the Communist Party, another leader of the Alliance of Labour, its President Matthew Joseph Mack, was embracing a different […]
‘Left’ critics of the Labour Party after 1919
Harry Holland’s general political course, from the time of the 1913 defeat on the waterfront, was one of ‘bending to the right’ to accommodate the Liberal politics of the […]
