A web is a powerful symbol of diligence and connectivity - but also of entrapment. On a cold morning in the mountains of the North Island, this particular web brought to mind the web of nations.
New Zealand was originally settled by the Maori people who sailed from Polynesia more than a thousand years ago. After roughly 600 years, the first Europeans - Dutch, French and English - arrived and, in the fashion of the day, annexed the newly discovered land for their nation. This peculiar human behavior of claiming territory already occupied by native peoples continued in heady fashion for the most part of the 18th and 19th centuries. Among others, Great Britain, France, Spain and the Netherlands extended their web of foreign colonies to all corners of the globe. The justification for colonialism was either to guarantee supplies of spices, silk, and other highly desirable commodities, or else to "enlighten" the "savages" with the governmental, economic and religious systems of Europe. If neither of these was possible or practical, a territory could also be conveniently used as a dumping ground for criminals and other undesirables. Sadly, the practise of colonialisation continues to this day with the American occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and the Chinese occupation of Tibet. And today's motives remain the same; to guarantee supplies of critical resources such as oil, gas and water, or to impose "enlightened" forms of government, trade, and religion upon the native peoples. The rhetoric may contain different words - democracy rather than communism may be the political flavor, multiculturalism rather than a master race the cultural trend, and atheism rather than Christianity the chosen religion - but the result is the same; wars of oppression by those who seek to impose their will on others, and struggles for independence by those who resist entrapment in a web not to their liking.
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