On the Love Between James Takamore and Denise Clarke.

A culture which is used as a tewhatewha to cleave apart the desire of two individuals being together in life and death, is a culture that needs to change, not the individuals change for that culture. There is no culture worth preserving that would strike asunder the voluntary bond of love of such a couple, and their promises to each other. Look at the cultural collateral damage in every twenty first century hate-filled warzone. A culture that forcibly intrudes itself between James Takamore and Denise Clarke in death, cannot allow, logically, a relationship between itself and other cultures in life. Not really. Such a culture has no room for entente, nor compassion, and forebodes only a tradition of grief.

My previous post on race relations, my first, made clear Maori self-determination is virtuous. But the conditions on which that can happen peacefully are not in the iniquitous treatment of the grief of Denise Clarke and this couple's two children, by the whanau of James Takamore, who also disrespect the wishes of James Takamore himself.

Worse, in their grief the whanau of James have become bullies.

Rules of Engagement:

For those who need to brand me culturally insensitive, understand my argument: consensual love between two people, and considering there are children, the love that binds a family, must trump force and unchanging tradition. This is not the first time I've said this.

Connect your mind to your heart, and find your own answer, beyond the grime of time.