Jim Hopkins: Winston still knows value of a good harangue

Winston's back. ("Ohhh, quick, nurse, the screens!!") Well, that's what the news reader said on Wednesday.

"Winston's back," she said. And the wireless didn't melt. The valves didn't flicker and dim the way they do when the space aliens call.

There was no eerie stillness, as there is before the tectonic plates go their separate ways. The newsreader sounded quite chirpy.

She could've been saying, "Whoopee! We've hit the jackpot". She didn't, of course. But when she said "Winston's back" there was an audibly jubilant ring to her tone.

Rightly so. Winston's good copy, good for business. He's hot and hairy and frightens the horses. Journalists are drawn to things that frighten the horses.

Because we are too. Safe may be safe but it isn't engaging. Creepy, scary, spooky, stroppy, feisty, fiery things engage people.

For some perverse reason, they make us buy papers, turn on the radio, watch television. Where we see or hear the ads. Which is good for business. Less is bore, bad is good - that's news!

Winston knows this. He knows he's crack cocaine, something journalists shouldn't take but can't resist. So he gives them what they want. And they give him what he's wants - "Winston's back!!" Ahhh, there's gold in them thar shills.

It's is a conspiracy of sorts - a whine/whine, win/win situation, if you will. Winston and the scribes know the value of a good harangue. They know tirades travel well. They know we prick up our ears when we hear one.

So Winston trashes brown power at Grey Power and, bingo, he's back! Countries that treat different groups differently have never prospered, he told his audience who, demonstrably, have an above average need for new hips, hearts, teeth and specs and may therefore have welcomed an argument for preferential treatment.

But no; Mr Peters told the grey people that brown people were being treated differently (i.e. better) and this meant we were repeating one of history's greater mistakes.

Except it's not. The Romans had slaves and citizens for centuries and did quite spiffingly. Boys and girls have been educated differently - and men and women treated differently - in many apparently successful nations. The Brits built a great empire in an age when the classes (boss and working) were treated very differently.

People have always been treated differently. Because of gender, class and, yes, race. Maori and Pakeha were treated differently in New Zealand in the 19th century and in the 20th and they are still being treated differently now.

How they're being treated differently may have changed, but the fact they're being treated differently hasn't.

Nor has the fact that such differences in treatment go to the heart of the contract between the citizen and the state. People don't like being persecuted by their government. And they don't like others being advantaged by their government either.

Righting yesterday's wrongs is not only impossible, it's guaranteed to create new injustices. Such is the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Winston knows that. He knows grievance is a fertile garden. He knows his seeds will grow there. And he's actually right to plant them. As was Don Brash and Phil Goff - tentatively - last year. Any discrimination on the basis of race should be utterly unacceptable in a modern liberal democracy. All such discrimination contains a hint of Hitler. Let's accept the history of New Zealand is shabby. And then move on.

The history of every country is shabby. Conflict between groups over land and resources has been a fact of human life right back to the days when our lot callously dealt to the poor old exterminated Neanderthals.

Look in the mirror and you will see the ghost of a murderer. So will every other human being on earth. Despite that universality, we've chosen to relitigate our past. We didn't have to, but we did.

And when Winston says, 'that's wrong, it's creating racial privilege', the newsreader says he's back. Then the lines run hot and talkback's chocker with people saying they've had a gutsful and we're on the wrong track and who's looking after my side when the Maoris are getting preferential treatment?

For which they are roundly condemned. But wait. Think about it. If it's logical for Winston to say it gives him an audience and if it's logical for news organisations to report what generates ratings, it's also logical for anyone, including Maori, to accept money they've repeatedly been told they deserve.

Modern Maori behaviour is as logical as Winston's. It's as logical as the media's. It's an entirely logical example of cause and effect; self-interest in action.

By all means, condemn the people who've enabled that self interest but not those who've said "Yes" to an offer no one would refuse.

For 35 years, governments have been saying to Maori, "Tell us you're victims and we'll give you millions". To which, Maori have sensibly replied, "Okay, we're victims. Could we have our cheque, please".

Let's be honest, folks. If some nice, kind, generous, guilt-ridden government ever made any of us the self same offer, we'd feel the pain and take the money too.

End of story. End of debate. Sorry, Winston.