Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Dame Anne Salmond, the historian and New Zealander of the Year in 2013, has come out with an opinion piece today in response to Friday's atrocity. It has been published by both the NZ Herald and Fairfax so she obviously wants it widely debated.In it, she says that white supremacy is part of us and she says in its soft version it can look bland and reasonable. A person saying that te reo Māori is a dead language, for instance. Of course, when you say that to Māori family who are fluent across generations then you’ve lost the high ground.It’s important to say this because the horrors of extremism are built on top of a base of smaller slights. And if there is is an undercurrent the extremists feel as though there are supporters out there waiting to be mobilised by their insane actions.A small example of this happened over the weekend when a well known, intelligent, conservative female blogger posted in social media. She said that no matter what you think of her, Jacinda Ardern is doing a great job. So far so goo