Posted on 06/17/2007 2:55:02 PM PDT by DieHard the Hunter
The arrest of 12 Mongrel Mob members last week, for the murder of toddler Jhia Te Tua, again put the media focus on this country's homegrown terrorists.
The arrests were disturbing enough. That Jhia's father Josh turned up at the court to eyeball his daughter's killers - with a photoshopped image of Jhia in Black Power garb - was more disturbing still. Te Tua is also on bail for an earlier drive-by shooting.
Which goes to prove. That the mythic hopes of Pita Sharples and other gang apologists that gang members may be turned around, are just that. Mythic. Earlier media reports that Te Tua had jettisoned his gang patch - and was remorseful that his innocent daughter was the victim of his poor choices - proved incorrect.
No such luck. That wouldn't be staunch, bro. Once Power, always Power. And gang life is that simple. Once in, you are in for life. The gang is your family. They may be a violent, sociopathic bunch of drug-dealers and drop-outs but, hey, they are still whanau.
This is not an equation that makes any sense to mainstream New Zealanders. We assume people want to better themselves through a mix of hard work and endeavour. That they like to be liked by their neighbours or, at least, respected.
So we find this patched nihilism just a little odd. There are no reference points we have for such an agenda of anti-social activity. Historical allusions to barbarians maybe, but that would be it.
Despite that there is a genuine and often perverse sympathy within Maoridom for gangs and their membership. For a start, most of them are Maori. That makes them whanau. And being whanau excuses any number of errors, sins and crimes.
Maori Party leader Tariana Turia alluded to such when she defended gangs as being no worse than the police. And if they were mixed up, she overtly hinted, then it was all down to 200 years of Pakeha settlement.
There are other apologists like social worker and Black Power member Denis O'Reilly and various academics who have researched gang members and secretly wish they were. Throw in white, wealthy civil libertarians and you have a ready-made bulwark to protect these thugs from both the law and societal scorn.
Fractured public and police policy has not helped. There is no national crime strategy that targets gangs and their activities. Instead district commanders are left to determine their own level of involvement and virtually all of it is reactive.
After the events of this past month, Wanganui police have a golden opportunity to hound and harass the Mongrel Mob into the periphery. Instead, police numbers will decrease and the gang numbers will steadily build. Next month, next year there will be another Jhia. There will be political outrage and police saturation. Then there will be nothing.
It is not as if the legislative tools do not exist to deal with gangs. The Suppression of Terrorism Act was passed through parliament after 9/11. It bans various activist outfits and makes even membership of these groupings a criminal offence. The difference between a terrorist and a gang member is what, exactly?
The latter are actually the more dangerous to the average Kiwi.
Gangs control the drug trade in New Zealand. They are violent, aggressive, anti-social and require criminal activity as the price of their membership. They infect and infest previously peaceful neighbourhoods, ruining the lives of those unlucky enough to be living near them. They abuse the welfare system and the generosity of Housing New Zealand. In short, they shaft taxpayers. They are parasites.
Worse still, they are the entry point for a new and more violent generation of membership. Jhia's drive-by shooting was a direct parody of the badlands of Los Angeles.
South Auckland is over-run by youth gangstas who hustle and grind -kids who have assumed all the social and cultural mores of a distant scum from a distant land. That influence is starting to take shape within the same age group that aspires to Mongrel Mob and Black Power association.
Which leaves three possible answers to New Zealand's growing gang problem.
First, we can stick with the status quo. Seek to manage them in the way you manage weeds in your garden. The occasional hoeing, but until they attack the cabbages, then there will be a mutual tolerance.
Second, outlaw them. Provide the policy and police consistency that has been conspicuously absent these past forty years. Harry and harass them out of existence. Give them Giuliani (former New York mayor Rudy) - no tolerance of any transgression, no matter how minor.
Third, employ the US Air Force's Wright Laboratory from Dayton, Ohio and let them loose on the mean streets of New Zealand. Apparently, they are developing a "gay bomb". It is a chemical weapon that releases large doses of aphrodisiac over enemy units and transforms them into rutting beasts.
Let a couple of those bombs off at the next gang rumble - or lower grade rugby league match - and let nature take its unnatural course. It would certainly ensure a new communication tool between the Mob and the Power.
Stupid? Maybe. But not as stupid as doing nothing. And it is the latter that is the official policy of this administration and its predecessors. A gay bomb has to be better than that.
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