The Haka in the NZ parliament video has been quite viral on Arab social media circles in the past two days, and it has generated some pretty interesting reactions that I will share here.
Reaction type number 1: why? The most common reaction is people being completely unaware of the history of Maori peoples in NZ, so they share or comment on the video in an attempt to understand the context of the video. Many comments ridiculing the thing, but most were just curious about who these people are.
Reaction type number 2: damn this is cool. Many thought it was cool and that it shows that Maoris are brave people that are not afraid to capture the white man’s institution to do their dance and show their culture.
Reaction type number 3: this is a defeated people. This type of reaction was the most interesting in my opinion, because people made a lot of comparisons to Palestinians inside Israel who participate in elections and have representation in the Knesset. It was a lot of “is this really it?”, this is a defeated people whose culture and way of life was mostly decimated by colonisers, and now they’re standing in the white man’s institutions wearing the white man’s clothing and doing song and dance. I have to emphasise that most of these reactions actually came from a place of love for native people, but they saw the Haka in this particular context as a sign of humiliation, not strength. One guy wrote that Israel might let three Palestinians do a dabke in the Knesset in 2050 as they sign a law that deports all remaining Arabs in Greater Israel.
Russians have entered the central districts of Kupiansk, Chasiv Yar and Kurakhove, all within 3-4 days. Insane pace compared to just a few months ago. All three advances will completely reshape the upcoming year of the war in Ukraine. Taking eastern Kupiansk will collapse the north Oskol front for Ukraine and force a withdrawal from a significant chunk of land. The fall of Kurakhove will force a withdrawal from south Donetsk into less fortified regions, which will most likely mean that Russia enters Dnipro Oblast for the first time in early 2025. And the fall of Chasiv Yar means that Russia will control the highest points in the whole Donetsk region and will open up an opportunity to basically roll down from the hills of Chasiv Yar into the Kramatorsk - Konstantinivka line. We’re firmly in the opening stages of a complete collapse of the AFU now, the way that the Kupiansk offensive has happened was unthinkable a few months ago. Russians just drove like 5km deep into Ukrainian lines with basically no resistance and could then reinforce that opening quite easily. All that is happening while Russia have seized border villages with no resistance in Chernihiv and Kharkov Oblasts, and have also started a new offensive in Zaporozhye/Donetsk close to the strong fortified towns of Velika Novosilka, Gulaypole and Orikhiv. Disastrous situation for the AFU.