Prior to being taken over by the Europeans, mainly the subjects of the British Crown, New Zealand was inhabited by Māori, a conglomerate of a number of tribes who had settled the two islands in the 14th century. Just as it was common in the Americas among Indians, the tribes waged wars for territory and resources and slaves and supremacy. The way of all flesh, everywhere and always on the planet Earth. Due to the primitive forms of weaponry, the hostilities were not very much devastating. When, however, white settlers began to trade muskets for the goods that the Māori could offer, those muskets became a game changer: the tribe with a larger number of muskets had a significant military edge and felt encouraged to wage war with other tribes, hoping for a swift and easy victory. Wars were also waged because of the past wrongs suffered at the hands of a neighbouring tribe. Vengeance was also a driving force. And yes, those tribes which were equipped with muskets gained the upper hand in the battlefield. The vanquished, however, would soon learn their lesson and purchase muskets from the Whites, thus tipping the scales in their favour. The mutually devastating wars lasted for almost half a century, roughly between 1806 (in 1805 Napoleon won the Battle of Austerlitz) and 1845 (in 1842 the first Opium War ended). Thousands of Māori men and women died in those hostilities, while whole tribes were decimated. The winning party would enslave the beaten tribe and work the slaves to death so as to have new produce to trade with the British settlers and buy more muskets and wage more wars. The beaten party, too, would do anything in its power to sell whatever they had to the Whites – including land – in order to acquire the firearms, resist the aggressors and – naturally – take revenge. A never ending story. While the Māori tribes would mutually annihilate themselves, the European settlers would enrich themselves and get rid of some of the indigenous population in the process. To put it differently, the Māori simply made room for the British colonizers while reducing their own numbers in the ceaseless feuds. Just one of the many historical examples of one party setting the other two or more parties off against each other and enriching itself in the process. One of the many historical examples of ethnically related nations, states, tribes letting themselves be used against their ethnic cousins by total biological and cultural strangers.
Nothing has changed since then. True, we do not encounter culturally backward tribes as we did in that time, but we do encounter nations and ethnicities whose development is not very much advanced and who let themselves be easily pitted against their ethnic cousins. Recently we could observe the same phenomena in the former Yugoslavia and in the former Soviet Union. Thus Croats were set off against Serbs, whereas Ukrainians – against Russians. Just as Māori received weaponry and other equipment from the West so are Ukrainians receiving it; just as Māori traded most they had for the weapons and equipment, so are Ukrainians selling their land and running up enormous debt; just as Māori were hellbent on killing other Māori to please the third party so is one Slavic nation hellbent on killing another Slavic nation to please a third party. The similarity is striking. The same might be said about Croats and Serbs, and, indeed, about tens and hundreds of conflicts worldwide. It turns out that there are nations with a huge inferiority complex that let themselves be politically and militarily exploited just like American Indians or new Zealand Māori tribes. There are nations – present-day Indians or Māori – that are willing to act as gladiators: they are willing to please the managers of the world by killing their neighbours and cousins so as to get a pat on the shoulder and so as to prolong their own life for a couple of months or years. There is no shortage of nations and ethnicities that are willing to buy muskets, to sell whatever they have, and to wage wars on their neighbours, simultaneously bending backwards to those who provide them with the muskets (Abrams, Challengers, F-16s, satellite intel) and collect from them their resources and grab their territory.
