Imagine this, sometime in the 1800s a few things happened there, the British signed a treaty with the local Maori, and not related, certain lands were confiscated from the Maori at the time to be used by colonisers. a family farmed the land for 150 years, then sold it, and it has been returned to the local Maori.
Those locals negotiated a deal with a large building company to build houses on the land. 40 of these house will be for the local tribe, the rest for private sale.
A few people who are also the local Maori, but disagree with those that did the deal have occupied the land and are protesting. No building is happening. The protest has really gathered steam to the point its own community has taken off, prominent entertainers have turned up and its a bit self sustaining. There have been other similar occupations of land in the past that have ended in different ways .. This time everyone is being patient but no one is backing down.
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/rnz/ihumatao-land-battle-timelineOne thing is some land confiscated, there is a process where the government talks to the tribers, tries to arrange a deal to compensate them. Some of them have gotten millions, setup businesses and are using that money to help their communities. Some of them fight amongst each other over who should do the talking.
When you have one lot who do a deal, then another who say, no thats not good enough, and want more, it could ruin the whole process and everyone who has had a deal will say "ok we want more now too". Our Prime Minister (who I don't like) first said "I'm not getting involed", then "ok, nothing can happen till there is an agreement where everyone is happy" which helps the protesters. She won't go there though ..
There is a bunch of police who are at the sight making sure the protesters can be there, but not past a point.
Also one of the locals was abusing a police officer as he looked to be an immigrant "Video has emerged of a protester at Ihumātao telling a police officer to go back to his own country - and she says she is not sorry for the tirade."
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/08/ihumatao-protest-video-shows-protester-racially-abusing-police-officer.html Some of these protesters have endured a lot of racisim in their time, however they also believe that anything they do could never be racist to others .. wtf?
This will probably go on for months if not years, we will soon leave winter and some described being there as a "Maori Woodstock". Just a lot of similar people united and supporting each other.
No easy answers
