VICTIMS OF OPPRESSION
Sir,-These are a few ideas of. an ordinary working man formed after some reading and a lot of tea-O discussions and bartop debates with my mates. In between cricket and horses, you'll understand. First, let me say, "Welcome" to the Hungarians. The world belongs to all of us, and there is room for all of usespecially in New Zealand. However, when I am asked by you and others of the Press (and how eloquent and pressing the appeals have been) to show sympathy for the Hungarian "Freedom Fighters," I do feel sorry for them-but somehow not quite as much as I think you would like me to. For one thing very few of these refugees Jook like fugitives from oppression and tyranny. The refugees from Hitler’s Germany in the 30’s, and the refugees from the bombs and shells of war looked the part. There was no mistaking it-they were seared and ravaged. Not these happy, smiling people. The New Zealand couple "back from the hols" look more like it. Now let us look at another picture. Up to the state of emergency in 1952 thousands of Africans in Kenya were living in conditions little better than slavery. In Nairobi alone 10,000 had no place of their own in which to sleep at
night, and there was very little hope that their condition would improve. Since the rise of the Mau Mau "terror," 9800 Africans have been killed, not counting 940 hanged. In 1955 over 60,000 unconvicted detainees were in compounds that bore a strong resemblance to concentration camps, and 17,000 were serving long terms of imprisonment. Disturbing, to say the least, Now, as a humanitarian, you, sir, and others of the Press, could easily enlist my sympathy for these people-I could even get indignant about it. Rule by oppression and bloodshed is wrong. It is wrong in Russia and Hunary, it is wrong in Spain, the U.S.A., outh Africa and the colonial outposts of France and Britain, and we can’t select its victims for preferential treatment or our motives must be suspect.
C. J.
POTTS
(Nelson).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 916, 1 March 1957, Page 5
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349VICTIMS OF OPPRESSION New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 916, 1 March 1957, Page 5
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