Open Letter to Human Rights Commission about The Correspondence School

[Peter Douglas Zohrab]

Dear Mervin Singham,

So that people can judge for themselves, I am now publishing as an open
letter on the internet my complaint to you about The Correspondence School,
my former employer, which you rejected completely and without any specific
explanations -- even assuming that all my allegations are true (which they
are). I may go through the motions of taking my complaint to the Human
Rights Review Tribunal, but it is probably just a rubber stamp, in such
cases, for your decisions -- just as I have experienced the Broadcasting
Standards Authority to be just a rubber stamp for the sexism of TVNZ and
TV3. I would obviously need to fork out large amounts of money to lawyers,
and I have already experienced discriminatory treatment at the hands of the
following crooked lawyers: Ernie Gartrell, Geoff Fulton, and Nigel Hughes --
so I have no expectation that I will get a lawyer who will do a proper job
for me.

The Human Right Commission has been proactive on Feminist issues such as
so-called "Pay Equity" (which is based on skewed statistics, which ignore
the different average career-lengths of men and women), holding public
meetings on this issue, whereas you have been totally silent on the
anti-male bias of the Family Court, leaving men and fathers to fight this
battle by themselves. In one complaint to the Human Rights Commission about
anti-male bias, I received a reply from your "Woman's Officer" -- showing
how great the sexist arrogance of your organisation is. Needless to say,
you have no "Men's Officer".

You now incorporate the Race Relations Office. One complaint I wrote to
previous Race Relations Conciliator Rajan Prasad did not even receive the
courtesy of an answer. The last Race Relations Conciliator thought it was
OK to visit the Wellington Club and dictate to them what their dress code
should be -- just because the members were mainly White ! As far as I am
concerned, the Race Relations Office was -- and you are now -- mainly a
power base for various ethnic groups against an unorganised White and
Mixed-Race majority. If that is the case, the Whites and Mixed-Race people
are going to have to organise against you.

I have no faith in the legal system. It is perhaps time for the men of New
Zealand to declare their independence from the so-called "justice" system
and set up their own one. The Institute of Judicial Studies has been using
five women and three men to teach our judges "Gender Equity" -- with three
of these women being professional or activist Feminists. None of the men is
an activist or professional Masculist. The Institute of Judicial Studies
obviously itself has no concept of "Gender Equity"-- yet it is teaching our
judges the meaning of that term !

The Minister of Justice, Phil Goff, who presides over this system, has
refused (1 June 2000) even to meet me to discuss the sexist offence
"male-assaults-female" (which has heavier penalties than common assault) !
His "reasoning", if it can be called that, was as follows:
a.. Males are more likely to be convicted of assault offences than females
(He cited a source for this);
b.. "... in male-female relationships the physical, emotional and
psychological harm for a female recipient of male violence is usually more
devastating than in cases of a male recipient of female violence" (He did
not cite a source for this);
c.. "The rationale for a separate male-assault-female offence is based on
a demonstrable general disparity between the sexes in cases of assault
(namely, the frequency and nature of the violence), and the desirability of
sanctions reflecting that disparity" (He did not cite a source for this).
My comments are as follows:
a.. Males are more likely to be convicted of assaults because the police
do not generally arrest women for assaulting males, and males do not
generally complain to the police when they are assaulted by females --
because the police are at least as sexist and anti-male as Phil Goff is and
treat men with contempt, as Phil Goff does. See:
http://www.landwave.com/family/ and
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
b.. If males are more likely to be convicted of assault, that is no reason
for each individual male to be more heavily punished ! That is grossly
sexist. If women were more likely to be shoplifters than men, would that
mean that penalties for women shoplifters should be heavier than for male
shoplifters ?
c.. The sexist creep, Phil Goff, has absolutely no evidence that the
emotional and psychological harm in heterosexual domestic violence is worse
for women than for men. This is just his sexism and chivalry speaking. The
emotional and psychological harm are in fact worse for men, because they
know that if they retaliate they will be arrested -- not the woman who
started it !
d.. Feminists routinely state that psycholoical abuse is worse than
physical abuse;
e.. Women are more likely to use weapons in domestic violence than men
are;
He bases his view of Domestic Violence on exclusively Feminist sources and
is so narrow-minded that he refused even to meet with me on this topic.

Here, then, is the text of my complaint to your office, which you rejected
out of hand:

"February 9 2002

LYNN TAYLOR
Kaihohourongo
Information Adviser
Human Rights Commission

Dear Lynn,

Thank you for your response to my email of the 8th of February.

Please treat this document as a complaint against The Correspondence School,
my then employer. I wish also, later, to make related complaints against my
then union, the Post Primary Teachers' Association, and against the lawyer,
Ernie Gartrell. The latter two parties refused to give me the support I
needed at crucial times.

The most obvious detriment that I have suffered is financial, in that I was
dismissed from my employment at The Correspondence School, was unemployed
and then under-employed for some time, and had to cash in my Government
Superannuation in order to be able to support myself and my family.

However, the more important detriment has been psychological, because I have
been forced to take up the first offer of work that came up, which was
necessarily not the type of work I was previously doing, because The
Correspondence School is unique in New Zealand, as regards the range and
types of work available to teachers is concerned. In fact, the work I have
been forced to take up is similar in some important respects to work that
was available to me at The Correspondence School, but which I deliberately
refrained from applying to undertake there, for reasons that are connected
with the present complaint.

In addition to the detriment relating to my dismissal, there is the much
more serious psychological detriment that I suffered through frequent,
almost constant intimidation, minor assaults and sexual harassment and
sexual (i.e. anti-male), racial/ethnic (i.e. anti-non-Maori and
anti-non-Chinese) discrimination throughout my 14 years at The
Correspondence School. Female staff there also communicated with my wife
behind my back and conspired to extend the psychological abuse I suffered at
work into the home environment.

I reacted to this by disseminating censored pro-men and (to a much lesser
extent) pro-White information on the internet, and gradually increasing the
overtness of my political activity at my workplace. The amount of
oppression that I was subjected to decreased over the years, but I saw no
sign that my abusers suffered any punishment, and I suffered severe
psychological harm from almost constant minor harassment and mind-games by
the large number of Feminists at the workplace.

The remedies I seek (I can supply more details later) are:

1. full reinstatement;

2. full refund of all financial losses and enrolment in a
superannuation fund at Correspondence School expense until age 65;

3. disciplining of various personnel at The Correspondence School;

4. a full apology to myself;

5. a full review of all relevant Correspondence School documents, with
my participation, so that the equality of all employees - with specific
mention of males, mixed-race and non-minority persons - is explicitly
expressed as a management goal.

My dismissal occurred as follows:

1. The following matter was taken to unsuccessful mediation, and
resulted in a warning being put onto my file: I complained, in an email, to
the then Staff Development Officer, one Anthony Dreaver, in response to an
emailed question from him, about the one-sided brainwashing teachers there
had received on the Treaty of Waitangi (I was a "Mastermind" contestant on
TV in 1989, and my specialist topic was the Treaty of Waitangi) on a
staff-training course that was allegedly "voluntary", but linked to our
Performance Monitoring process. I expressed strong feelings of contempt for
anyone who would contemplate re-inviting that particular speaker. I did not
refer to any specific staff member or use any words to describe any staff
member. The then Secondary Principal, Alan Chang, tried to force me to
apologise to Anthony Dreaver - presumably on the grounds that I had been
referring to him - but Anthony Dreaver resigned and Alan Chang later stated
that he himself intended to re-invite the same speaker ! This proved me
correct in my contention correct that I was not referring to any specific
individual - and certainly not to Anthony Dreaver.

2. On the occasion of national Poetry Day, the Head of English, Jo
Kahl, who was also PPTA Branch Chair, invited people, by email, to
disseminate their favourite poem. I wrote a short satirical, anti-feminist
poem over my morning tea break, and, having no other favourite poem, put
that up on the only notice-board on our floor as being my favourite poem.

3. Jo Kahl took the poem down without asking my permission or otherwise
mentioning it to me. She claimed afterwards that she thought that a brief
reference to "aborted innocents" in it was offensive, but that is an obvious
lie on her part. She obviously took it down in order to censor the
political message in it.

4. When I saw that it had been taken down, I took down a lot of other
poems and went and told Jo Kahl what I had done.

5. She called me a "Silly Man." No other words were used.

6. I complained by email to the Principal about the censoring of the
poem and the fact that Jo Kahl had called me a "Silly Man", with stress on
the word "Man", by the way, and asked for an apology.

7. I asked for assistance from the PPTA, but they refused to intervene.

8. A few days later, the then Acting Principal, Kate Murcott, said she
had decided, after speaking to the CEO, Rod Browning, that Jo Kahl did not
need to apologise.

9. Since my employer had put a warning on my file about my refusal to
apologise to Anthony Dreaver, when I hadn't even said anything about him,
and now they were refusing to make Jo Kahl apologise, when she had called me
a name and confiscated my property (my poem), and since the PPTA had refused
to help me, I considered I was in a hopeless situation, with no rights, and
subjected to racial discrimination (in the Treaty of Waitangi case) and
sexual discrimination (in the poem case). So I sent an email to all staff,
saying that I now considered myself free to insult anyone I chose, and I
said I was starting off by calling the Acting Principal a "sexist dyke."

10. I was suspended on full pay while an "investigation" was carried out.

The rest of this document (i.e. the Appendix) consists of most of the
document that I supplied to The Correspondence School as part of their
dismissal process (The deleted part consisted of comments on other
documents, and would not make sense in the absence of those documents). It
relates to some of my experiences at The Correspondence School over a period
of 14 years. This document is not perfect, and may need to be expanded upon
or corrected in some details, e.g. in response to questions from you.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Zohrab

APPENDIX: WRITTEN MATERIAL SUPPLIED TO THE CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL

After events surrounding my work in the Chinese Section of the Languages 1
Department, I had to revert to teaching German, and commencing the teaching
of Computer Studies. I feel somewhat insecure teaching the latter subject,
but I have to try teaching it, because of the career path it may open up,
now that I am no longer teaching Chinese. German is a declining subject, in
terms of student numbers, and I have allowed my knowledge of it to get
slightly rusty, (compared to what it would otherwise have been), as I was
concentrating my efforts on Chinese.

The following details are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I didn't
keep a diary, and so there have been countless incidents, on an almost daily
basis, of which these are just the most recent, or the most prominent ones
in my recollection of my (up till then - P.Z.) eleven years at The
Correspondence School (TCS). The point is that lots of the harassment,
intimidation, and persecution was non-verbal, or by way of innuendo, so that
it would have been impossible to keep a record of it, to remember it, or to
prove that it was harassment, intimidation, or persecution. So I have
listed the more concrete of the incidents, and provided hard evidence where
possible. This will be the skeleton which I hope will allow the flesh to
stand up in court, or wherever.

I have been having problems at TCS for many years - right from the start of
my employment there in 1988 - as shown by an incomplete and unsent draft
letter addressed to the then Associate Director, Alan Dodds, which, in 1993,
was already looking back at past problems. I have been subjected to the
equivalent of psychological domestic violence, which (according to Feminists
such as Professor Lenore Walker -- author of "The Battered Woman" -- and the
New Zealand Department of Justice report "Hitting Home") does more damage
than physical domestic violence (though I have been on the receiving end of
some the workplace equivalent of that, as well).

This psychological and physical violence has been directed largely at
enforcing Political Correctness - especially Feminism - as a world view,
using the implied threat of dismissal or deleterious other career
consequences if I did not conform. I work in an atmosphere where others
give the impression of being able to control my career along these lines.
For example, some years ago, I was talking to my Head of Department, Maggie
Friend, and the person who has sat next to her ever since I have been at the
Correspondence School (though our floor's seating is about to be rearranged
as I write these words), Marion Findlay. Marion Findlay, a PPTA activist
and Feminist of long standing, said (with Maggie Friend's apparent
agreement) that I was unlikely to be promoted, but gave no reason. Some
years later, I revisited this episode with Maggie Friend, and she appeared
to say that my former ineligibility for promotion had been somehow removed.
Again, she gave no reason. She deals in hints and intimations, and is
seldom clear or explicit.

Possibly, this constant psychological bullying and torture was aimed at
making me subservient enough to the Chinese, who are known to like to be
obeyed. My rights as a teacher of Chinese were not to be equal to those of
my native-speaker teachers of Chinese -- our rights were to be proportional
to the relative size, population and potential economic, political and
military importance of New Zealand (in my case) and of China (in the case of
my colleagues). In other words, I was to be their vassal, and their dog.

There seemed to be an expectation, since my father had been a diplomat, that
I would be diplomatic to my Chinese colleagues. But my Chinese colleagues
were New Zealand residents or citizens, just as I am. It is taking
Political Correctness too far to grant relative status to citizens and
residents of New Zealand on the basis of the power of their country of
origin ! You can't carry out this stupid sort of policy and then wonder why
skinheads start growing in popularity !

Management at the Correspondence School switched constantly and seamlessly
from the Politically Correct stance that Chinese people had a different skin
colour and therefore had to be treated deferentially by Whites -- to the
cynical point of view that China was very important and you had to be
deferential to these (sometimes racist) people -- and back again. Maggie
Friend's way of putting it was that "The Left Hand doesn't know what the
Right Hand is doing." There was always this schizophrenia between the
ideals according to which most of the rank-and-file thought the school was
been run, on the one hand, and the cynicism which most of Management seemed
to subscribe to.

Sometimes this oppression seemed to be aimed at destroying my
self-confidence, so that I would not be -- or would not consider myself to
be -- in a position to make a complaint against them. Management would put
psychological pressure on me to the point where I made a mistake in my
work -- something that they knew I did not like doing -- so that I would
feel that they had me over a barrel. This happened, for example, on
February 19th 1999, although it has been rare since about 1997 -- possibly
because this is not Sally Rawnsley's modus operandi, and I was working for
her in RPD for much of that time.

There is a reasonably consistent pattern of promotions in the Correspondence
School, whereby those promoted are often (but not always) the most
unprofessional members of their Department - their unprofessional behaviour
does not count against them much, as long as they are politically correct,
and also (as in any establishment) prepared to put aside their scruples and
obey their superiors. Examples of unprofessional people holding positions of
responsibility pepper the present document.

First experiences

The initial problem seemed to be the circumstances surrounding my
appointment: I replaced someone, Alison Hoffman, who had been working in a
temporary capacity, but who had applied to get her job on a permanent basis,
once it became a permanent position. Her colleagues seemed to think that
she deserved to have got the job, and that there was something or other
reprehensible about my having got the position instead of her.

The discrimination I have been subjected to has been: ethnic, because I am
non-Chinese and non-Maori, where colleagues and/or superiors have been
Chinese, or Maori; sexual, because I am a pro-male male in a (particularly
in the past) viciously female-supremacist environment; intelligence-related,
because I am clearly a highly intelligent person. In the left-wing
environment of the Correspondence School, someone who is highly intelligent
is regarded as unduly privileged - except among colleagues in the Individual
Programme section, which deals with "gifted" children. An intelligent
person attracts a lot of jealousy (aka Tall Poppy Syndrome).

My life at the Correspondence School settled into a pattern of continual
psychological battery, which reached a crescendo towards the end of every
term, when my colleagues would indulge in the ritual of making me feel that
I was about to be terminated. Another ritual they engaged in was to note
when I made jokes, and to supply me with the line that evoked the joke in
subsequent years, in order to see if the same line would evoke the same
joke.

The list of topics included at the end of the draft letter indicates the
issues/people which/whom I intended to write about in the letter. I did not
complete it, because of my suspicion (encouraged by recurrent remarks by my
father and Maggie Friend, hinting at a knowledge of what I had written on my
computer) that what I wrote on it was possibly not safe from the prying eyes
of my employers.

I am including that letter unaltered, but I will expand on its contents
below.

Background

My HOD was typically hypocritical, when I mentioned in an Appraisal
interview that she used hints as a management tool. She denied this - but
then she told me to come and tell her whenever I thought she was hinting.
This amounts to saying that she was intending to continue hinting, and she
wanted feedback from me as to whether her hints were getting through to me.
She gave the impression of being a master at indirect communication. Often
her body language would give the opposite signals to the literal content of
what she was saying. I feel she was doing this on purpose in order to cause
stress in me.

My HOD has made it clear that she thinks I'm "tough" - in other words, that
I should have buckled under by now under the pressures to which I have been
subjected, but I haven't done so.

Maggie Friend

Maggie Friend a few years ago fired a French teacher, Eve Napier, who came
back later as an External Teacher (ie employed on a casual basis). Maggie
Friend explained to me at the time that Eve, who was very unpopular among
her colleagues, as it happens, had called her a "bitch".

That is a perfect characterisation of Maggie Friend, who is far and away the
most bitchy person I have ever met. Of course, she is very caring and warm
at other times, in a fake sort of way, but that is a separate issue
altogether, and does not negate her bitchiness.

She used to treat me like dirt, relying on my unpopularity and her network
of Feminist bullies to allow her to get away with it - enjoying making me
terrified of her, by employing psychological tricks. She used to keep me
waiting at her desk, for example, pretending that she didn't know I was
waiting there to talk to her.

When Ormond Tate, the CEO when I arrived at TCS, left, the new Director was
Errol Jaquiery, who is the current one (due to retire in mid-1999). He came
to a Languages meeting/function early on, and he was walking around talking
to people. Just before he moved on to me, Maggie Friend whisked him away,
as she wanted to poison his mind with her side of the story before I had a
chance to put mine. This was typical of her manipulative behaviour. She
oppressed me, and was careful to make contact with everyone around me, in
order to render harmless any accusations I might make against her. She
turned my father against me, to the extent that she got him to pursue the
line that "You'll never get rid of Maggie". In other words, whatever
Management at TCS did, they were always in the right.

In a German 200 teachers' meeting on 22.2.1999, Ruediger Mack mentioned that
a particular passage on Munich mentioned beer several times. I joked that
it was Bavaria, after all, and Inka (who is also German) laughed, but Maggie
grimaced. She made us feel that we had been politically incorrect -- but
Bavarians themselves give themselves the image of having a beer culture.

Typical of Maggie's bitchiness was the way she handled the German Form 4
Marks issue in 1999. I am in charge of the German Form 4 course, and she
knows I like the idea of putting marks on student work, which she doesn't --
except when it's essential. This year she announced that it would be up to
those in charge of courses whether marks, grades, or just comments would be
put onto the computer -- except for courses where marks were compulsory, for
external reasons. But, in the event, I had to drag the information out of
Robyn Skrzynska that no marks would be allowed for junior (including Form
Four) courses. Maggie had obviously intended this all along, but had only
made her earlier statement in order to raise my hopes, so that she could
dash them. This technique of hers of trying to raise my hopes so that she
could dash them again was one she has used repeatedly during my years at
TCS. Fortunately, I soon saw through this and learned not to care less
about such issues.

Michael Childs once made a comment about "the politics of the Languages 1
department," which shows that he knew what their politics were -- which he
could hardly fail to do. The issue, however, is whether taxpayer-funded
jobs should be used by Management to enforce a particular political
philosophy among their underlings.

Maggie does not seem to pay much attention to how well people carry out
their responsibilities, such as looking after the French, German, and
Chinese libraries (which are separate from the main TCS Library) and keeping
resources well-stocked.

One day, at a time when most of my work involved Chinese, she said, "Trust
me !"

The Early Childhood Section and the Japanese calendar

The Early Childhood Section is on the same floor as the Languages 1
Department, and several of the old-timers amongst them are extremely nasty
individuals. This core of nasties is centred around Heather Howatt, who
gives every appearance of being a Lesbian Feminist man-hater. This core of
nasties have seemed very keen to show sisterly solidarity towards Heather,
whom they seem to feel the need to protect from the most imaginary threats
(such as myself) - and their form of "protection" seems to have taken the
form of attack.

For most of the time that I have been at the Correspondence School, the
Early Childhood Section has been an exclusively female section. The only
exception was relatively recently, when there was a male teacher aide
working there for around one year. As far as I am concerned, that is
because they discriminate against men. I have heard that there was once a
male teacher there too (my son's former kindergarten teacher), but that was
before my time.

In addition, the staff there are less academic, are employed under a
different set of conditions, and have lower remuneration than secondary
teachers. There was once a petition that they circulated, relating to their
pay and/or conditions, which I did not sign - and they could also have
disliked me for that reason.

Be that as it may, I remember one incident where a Japanese exchange teacher
(which used to get every year, but which we no longer get) presented the
School with a Japanese calendar. Unlike all other Japanese calendars that
I have seen, this was not particularly attractive - in fact, it was a bit
grotesque. Unbeknownst to me, this calendar had been presented to the
School and hung up prominently in the Social Area, which used to be
frequented mainly by early Childhood staff, before they got their own
separate social area. When I came round the corner and saw this calendar
for the first time, these Early Childhood teachers were watching my face
intently for any negative expression which they could then feed back to the
Japanese Section. This was against the background of extreme deference
shown to everyone and everything Asian at the School (which affected me as a
teacher of Chinese), and an almost constant campaign by Feminists (ie the
vast majority) there to cause me problems.

The Underground Women's Network

There used to be a "Women's Network" at the School, but later that
disappeared - or probably just went underground. The majority of staff
there are women, but Feminism inculcates a great sense of persecution, and
women are unique in considering themselves as a minority - even when they
are a majority. Marion Findlay appeared to be the leader of this network
when it ceased its official existence, but I think she carried on as its
leader when it went underground.

Marion Findlay

Marion Findlay is a PPTA stalwart and her husband is a Maori meatworker's
union official. In other words, she has the classic Women-plus-Maori
background of a politically correct unionist - except that she teaches
Classics, which is usually taught by conservatives. She has two daughters,
who are Maori women - ie members of the group in society which has been
encouraged to have the greatest victim complex.

I used to be in charge of the entering the weekly attendance returns and
collecting the work (ie. no. of sets marked) returns for the Languages 1 and
Languages 2 Department (and perhaps also for the Maori Department - I can't
remember about that). These were compiled on the basis of the "pink slips"
handed to me every Friday afternoon by every teacher in the departments
concerned. If a teacher had marked no sets in that week, they wrote a
diagonal line from one corner of their pink slip to the other. Marion
Findlay, for a period of several months, used to hand in her pink slip to
me, and then describe a long diagonal slash with her arm across the air in
front of me - like some great vertical golf-swing. This was just the most
blatant of the various forms of intimidation I was subjected to, in the days
when the Leftists felt themselves particularly powerful at the
Correspondence School.

On one occasion, Marion Findlay and Maggie Friend had a conversation in
front of me about my chances of being promoted. It seemed to me that they
were trying to tell me that I would have to have political views that they
approved of if I expected to be promoted.

Equal Opportunities and Race

In this section, when I refer to "mafias", I mean groups of people who share
a collective self-interest based on ethnic or ideological affiliations AND
who cooperate/conspire against those who do not cooperate with their
furthering of their collective self-interest. Note that a person is not
necessarily an active member of such a mafia, merely by reason of his/her
ethnic affiliation. In my use of the term "mafia" I refer only to the
proactive members of such groups.

One of the most offensive aspects of the totalitarian oppression via
Political Correctness that I have been suffering is that situations have
been frequently set up (both at the Correspondence School and outside it --
eg at supermarkets) where my "goodness" has appeared to be judged by
politically correct people who I myself would not consider to be "good" or
to have the right to judge me. Networks of people exist who have seen it as
their business to try to manipulate me in these ways -- and my father and my
wife have formed part of such networks. For example, I often refrain from
telling my wife which supermarket I'm going to shop in, because of the
network of people she's connected to, who are likely carry out some sort of
manipulation there. One form of manipulation was for her to tell me to buy
some particular items, and then tell some people (eg Chinese people) who
didn't know me that they would be able to satisfy their curiosity (or
whatever) about me by looking for someone with those items in their
supermarket trolley, and accompanied by three boys.

The Maori Mafia (Maaka Jones, Linda Ohia, Hemi Waenga, Blossom Mohi, Lois
Amaru, Wiremu Haunui, Leon Hunia, Jan Fraser)

Maoris have, in my experience, not always shrunk from using the threat of
violence to achieve their political objectives. For example, the main
exterior decoration of the Maori Department since I have been there has been
a large photographical and historical display relating to the eruption of
Mount Tarawera. I do not believe that that even has any real importance in
the context of Maori language and culture -- the reference to it is purely a
threat of what might happen if certain unspecified demands of Maoris are not
met.

There are a lot of middle-class people who act as if they assume that if
Maoris want something, it is morally justified. Then, if you question that,
they switch to the argument that you have to appease Maoris in order to
avoid a Bosnian type of situation resulting. I have had implicit threats of
being run over or burgled levelled at me by Maoris -- simply because I have
proposed equality for the English and Maori languages (see below).

My point here is to present a version of situations/events which differ from
the politically correct version, which tends to be that Maoris can do no
wrong. Of course, there may be non-Maoris who subscribe to the belief that
Maoris can do no right ! My complaint is directed more against political
correctness of the Correspondence School than against the Maoris involved.
It has a policy of treating people differently according to their race and
sex. If someone has an identifiable race, or female sex, or some
disability, then they are accorded more rights than their otherwise
identical counterparts.

For most of my time at the Correspondence School, the teachers of Maori
Language, who work(ed) on the same floor as myself, never spoke to/greeted
me unless I spoke to/greeted them first. I say "never", but there was the
occasional exception that occurred approximately once a year - giving the
impression of being a deliberate act, intended to cover up the usual pattern
of behaviour. One person, Linda Ohia, even used to routinely snub me when I
spoke to her (she has now left). This may have been because I put up the
notice "tangata whenua o Nu Tirani" at my desk. Now there is a political
party (Mauri Pacific) which has it as part of their platform that all New
Zealanders are Tangata Whenua. And "Nu Tirani" is the name for "New
Zealand" which appears in the Treaty of Waitangi -- so it is the term
"Aotearoa" which breaches the Treaty.

This sort of behaviour seemed to cease around the time that the present
Director, Errol Jaquiery, took over. At least, they seem to be generally
more friendly. I don't know if the stopping had anything to do with the
change of Director. It is more likely that the hostile behaviour had been
caused by rumours and malicious gossip circulating around the Maori
department - mainly by Hemi Waenga (see below), I suppose. Once I started
learning Maori at the Correspondence School, in face-to-face classes (for
staff) that started (I think) in 1997, my proficiency in that language would
have blown out of the window any pretence by Hemi Waenga that my Maori
proficiency was bad enough to merit only 50%. That would have destroyed his
credibility. Dovey Taiaroa is a special case, and will be discussed in
connection with the Chinese Section and Michael Childs.

There were several years when bitches like Robyn Skrzynska, in cooperation
with the Maori department, seemed to act out some kind of fetish about
chocolate. In fact, one member of the Maori Department (Leon Hunia)
reverted to it once in late 1998 - apparently because I hadn't had a
friendly expression on my face when I passed him one day (being preoccupied
with the issues detailed in the present document)! I was not particularly
keen on chocolate (especially when I was younger) - especially chocolate
cake. There would be lots of morning teas and other such occasions when the
Maori Department, Robyn Skrzynska, and others would offer me chocolate, and
act as if I was expressing a dislike of Maoris by refusing to eat chocolate.
This is quite insane, of course, but the atmosphere of Political Correctness
at the Correspondence School has had this air of insanity about it all
along.

This symbolism spread to the Chinese Section, where I was made to feel I had
to drink tea, and not coffee, and that I was the "milk" in the Chinese "tea"
. In fact, one important Chinese person (I think it was the National
Chinese Adviser, Zhang Zhan Yi) once told me that Chinese people set great
store by symbolism. Barbara Wallace (who appeared to have the job of being
Maggie Friend's "right-hand-man", and at one stage sat next to Ying Li), and
others who wanted to make the powerful Chinese feel at home, often came to
work in bright yellow clothes - which were never to be seen before Chinese
teaching started at the Correspondence School.

This symbolism was used to put psychological pressure on me at work by my
superiors and colleagues, at my father's place by my father, and at home (by
my wife). Once this use of symbolism had become a tradition, as it were, it
could be used to pass messages on to me -- and I could never know or prove
if they were actually intended or just accidental.

Hemi Waenga, a Senior Teacher in the Maori Department, died in 1998. He
almost always presented me with his very dark face with an unsmiling --
sometimes glowering -- expression on it. This was an intimidating
combination of features, as far as I was concerned. It was clear that he
did not like me. Occasionally, he would make loud, rude noises, when only
he and I were present on the ninth floor of FAI House, early in the morning.
Many Maoris don't like "Honkies" - upper-middle-class whites with anglicised
accents. In fact, one day some woman in the Maori Department made a loud
and hostile "take-off" of an English accent - which Maggie Friend (who is
from England) seemed to take as being directed against her. It may have
been Maaka Jones (see below), and that may have been why she left not long
afterwards.

Some years ago, as a staff member, I was able to resume my studies of Maori
(started in 1969) by enrolling at no cost in the Correspondence School
course Maori 300. Hemi Waenga was my teacher. I did the first three
booklets, and he marked them, giving me a mark of 50% (10 out of 20) for
each ! I was very annoyed by that, because it was an impossible coincidence
for each booklet to be worth exactly the same mark - and, anyway, I have
studied more languages than some people have had hot dinners, so I knew that
I deserved more than that. My impression was that this was some sort of
protest on his part against the 50% pass mark in School Certificate, which
so many Maori students fail to reach.

One day, when I was looking at these marks on a computer screen, Jan Fraser
(a teacher of English) passed by with Hemi, looked at the screen, and
laughingly said something like, "quite right," or "good job." Jan had
spoken to me about "sitting at the feet" of Hemi - this was obviously the
only sort of relationship he could tolerate with Whites. Since that time,
Jan has made it clear to me non-verbally that she regretted her remark -
again, my quarrel is with the Politically Correct system that rewards people
like Jan for being racist in a Politically Correct direction and punishes
the few people such as myself who have the courage to stand up against it.

Years later, in 1998 (I think it was on the last day of Term 2), Hemi
intimidated me twice on the same day, by deliberately walking into my path -
just because I had put up on the noticeboard an article from the Massey
University extramural students' association magazine, which argued for equal
treatment for the English and Maori languages, as far as the pronunciation
and spelling of loanwords was concerned.

When Hemi died later that year, Maggie put pressure on me to attend a prayer
service for him in the Maori Department, but I deliberately stayed away. At
that time, I was working in Rossmore House, writing a Chinese course, and
Maggie came over from FAI House and popped her head into my office -
specifically to remind me about the prayer service. She may have had other
business to do in Rossmore House at the same time, of course.

Blossom Mohi was the first Head of the Maori Department, when it was moved
out of the Languages 1 Department and became "independent." She was
succeeded by Lois Amaru, who is a very different person. Blossom gave the
impression of being a bit dumb, and she was probably much more at home in a
Maori setting than in a White one. Lois Amaru, on the other hand, is bright
and is apparently confident in both cultures. This has perhaps led to a
change in atmosphere in the Maori Department. Blossom Mohi was briefly in
my carpool, and one day she took offence at my mentioning the darkness of
the morning - as we travelled to work in winter at our usual 6:30 am - as if
I was using innuendo to cast aspersions on her skin colour ! I could see
where her feeling "came from", but it was routine for us to comment of the
darkness, as it is not very pleasant to travel to work when it is still dark
(and wet, and cold, at times).

Lois Amaru and Senior Teacher Wiremu Haunui are both intelligent and
relatively professional people (by Correspondence School standards), as far
as I can tell, but twice they have gone out of their way to snub me when I
took a public stance (in the newspapers and/or on Usenet) that they
disagreed with. The second time this occurred, it was just after I had had
a public disagreement about the use of the term "Tangata whenua" by the
Teacher Registration Board. What they did on those two occasions was to
walk past me, as if engrossed in an important conversation, and snub me when
I greeted them. On both occasions, they were walking into my "bay"
(work-area). Though their excuse obviously was that they hadn't noticed me,
their behaviour was too contrived and atypical of them for that to be
believable. I have always got on well with Wiremu Haunui and his wife (who
also teaches there) - except when issues such as those detailed be low crop
up (as they did once). Lois Amaru, however, was not above behaving like a
typical female teacher - ie being rude to me on occasion, apparently for
holding views on sexual politics that were not politically correct.

The mobile and Maaka Jones

Maaka Jones was a middle-aged, ugly, shapeless, uncommunicative/aggressive
Maori woman, who seemed to have a chip on her shoulder. We used to have a
"mobile" (a set ot metal bookcases on rails) on our floor, whose shelves had
to be forced apart whenever we wanted to access its contents. One day I
went there, and forced it apart, as usual, and it turned out that Maaka
Jones was inside, between two other bookcases. She apparently felt that I
was squashing her, though everyone knew that it was hard to tell if someone
else was in another part of the mobile or not - unless you spent 30 seconds
or so reconnoitering beforehand, which I (and everyone else) usually didn't
bother to do. In the general atmosphere of prejudice against me in
particular, and against men and non-Maoris in general, people seemed happy
to assume that I had done it on purpose. Once (I can't remember if it was
before or after the incident in the mobile) she knocked into my legs when I
was talking to Maggie at her (Maggie's) desk. Maggie's only response was to
suggest that I ought to get shorter legs. This is typical of Maggie's
attitude to physical assaults on me by women - ie she seemed to find them
amusing.

The Treaty of Waitangi, THAR, and Maori language and culture.

The Correspondence School for racial discrimination against non-Maoris
insists that all courses which use words of Maori origin in an English
context spell them in a Maori manner (including using macrons over long
vowels), whereas it does not require that Maori language/culture courses
which use words of English origin spell them in an English manner.
Similarly, The Correspondence School insists that nouns of Maori origin be
spelled and pronounced with Maori endings (ie no "s" suffix) in the plural
in English contexts, whereas it does not require that nouns of English
origin be spelled and pronounced with English endings (ie "s") in Maori
contexts. This is gross racial discrimination, and it is humiliating to
have one's own native language (English) discriminated against in this way.
This is in breach of the spirit of the Treaty of Waitangi, according to
which Maoris and non-Maoris have the same rights as citizens.

There is also a Maori body, usually referred to by its initials (THAR),
which advises the Board of Trustees on matters that are considered relevant,
and this is now being brought into closer cooperation with the Board on
important issues. This arrangement is racist, and in breach of the Treaty
of Waitangi, according to which Maoris and non-Maoris have the same rights
as citizens. Maoris and non-Maoris both vote for members of the Board of
Trustees, so THAR is, in effect, giving Maoris double representation, as
against the single representation that non-Maoris have.

The Chinese Section and the 1998 Chinese Course-Writing, The Chinese Mafia
(Ying Li, Dollaine Young, Lirong Zhou, Amy Chen, Weng Cheong, Richard
Roberts, Maggie Friend, Mary Wood, Andrew Ball, and Robin Simenauer,
Professor Zhan Yi)

Like the Maoris, the Chinese have been at times fond of playing the threat
game, because it is a tactic that pays dividends in New Zealand. I have
heard them utter threats of moving to Australia (at a time when New Zealand
was desperately trying to prove it was less "racist" than Australia, in
order to lure Chinese migrants here and keep them here -- because of the
economic benefits this would supposedly bring to the country). The way that
Chinese participation in New Zealand's wool market was portrayed on
television sometimes made it seem that they might use this as a lever to
extract compliance from the New Zealand Government to some of their demands.

Richard Robert has been very supportive to me on Men's Issues at times.
However, his keenness to introduce the teaching of Korean at the
Correspondence School, and his general theory of New Zealand foreign policy
(!) caused him to pressure me to consider the teaching of Chinese as a
branch of the diplomatic service. My father was a diplomat, but I am not,
and have never been. My salary and perks were not those of a diplomat, for
a start ! Secondly, being a diplomat is not in my Job Description.

Richard, who sat next to me for most of the time that I was teaching
Chinese, kept passing me newspaper articles etc. that emphasised the
present and potential future political, military and/or economic clout of
China -- seldom articles on the Chinese language. He got me to go to a
Foreign Trade-type conference on China at Victoria University one day -- at
Correspondence School expense, by passing me information on it, with the
clear implication that he thought I should apply to go to it. He passed me
this sort of information more than once. Years later, when he realised I
wasn't happy about this, he tried to cover up by passing me more
language-related conference information.

In recent years, New Zealand has been notable by the way it has subordinated
human rights principles to the needs of trade -- this may be related to the
merger of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Trade and
Industry into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. I have experienced
immense pressure from people at work and elsewhere, who made it clear that
they thought my job was more about diplomatic and trade relations with China
than it was about the language.

One day I even met the then Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Don
McLean, across the road from my workplace, walking along the footpath
towards me, and he looked at me in a friendly way, as if he knew who I
was -- though that may have been his standard politician's expression, of
course. I am sure he has met my father.

One day we had a visit from a delegation form the Chinese State Education
Commission, who were being guided by a greasy creep who at that time was in
charge of some aspect of foreign languages in the Ministry of Education. I
forget his name -- I think he has been shifted away from that area since
then. I was involved in hosting them at The Correspondence School, and, at
the end of the visit, the creep gave me a kind of report card on how I had
handled the visit -- something like "fairly well". Anyone would think that
I was indeed a diplomat, and that he was my superior !

Learning Media published the racist Cantonese booklet "Among Ghosts" --
"Ghosts" being Whites, of course. The Race Relations Office, which I
complained to, agreed with me that that booklet was offensive. The books
seems to have been removed from the Chinese Library shelves around December
1998, when everyone was asked to return books they had borrowed from it --
including the copy of that book that I had borrowed.

Ying and Dollaine Young occasionally got together to impress on me, by their
manner and behaviour, the fact that I was a servant of the Chinese
community. For example, on one occasion, the two of them stood side-by-side
by the double doors from the lift lobby, through which I came back after my
lunch-hour -- facing me, but not greeting me. They were waiting for me to
greet them, but I did not do so. It seemed that Dollaine felt that I had
not been sufficiently subservient to her, so she had got Ying to impress
upon me that I was supposed to be just as subservient to Dollaine as Maggie
expected me to be towards Ying herself.

Some years ago Dollaine Young indicated to me that I would be moving out of
Chinese into Technology. She, and other Chinese, acted as if I was their
little dog, which they could intimidate with threats of dire consequences
for non-docility.

In 1998, when we were both writing a Chinese course, Ying, who was in my
office, suddenly burst out with, "He should be beaten up !" -- with
reference to no one in particular, except that she was obviously referring
to me, since I was not nearly subservient enough to her -- by Maggie's
standards. That day, or the next, I found a Chinese man wearing sunglasses
standing at the corner that I always pass by when returning to work after
lunch. However, I did not change my attitude one iota, and later my wife
(to whom I mentioned none of this) joked to me at home that I wasn't afraid
of death ! She had made it clear that she had some means of communication
with Ying (eg. Through a Thai Chinese woman, of which she knew several), and
this is one of the reasons that I'm glad that I'm not teaching Chinese any
more.

Similarly, Lirong Zhou once made (in 1998 or 1997) a threatening-sounding
remark about my eyesight being damaged --- a possible reference to the man
in Auckland who got beaten up, losing one eye, for refusing to do what a
Chinese businessman wanted. She very seldom made personal remarks about
other people, so I was bound to assume she was saying that for some reason.

Maggie is gutless and self-serving, and she calculated that the Chinese
community and the Chinese Government were much more powerful than I was (and
possibly than she was), and that therefore I should do whatever my Chinese
colleagues wanted me to do, as long as it did not violently conflict with
one of her own major goals. She had got used to being Head of department
when Maori was in Languages 1, and she took the approach there that Brown
people were more politically correct (ie more powerful) than White people,
and that therefore Brown people were always right -- unless you could con
them or get around them in some cunning way. She took the same approach to
the Chinese, substituting the word "Yellow" for "Brown".

I was expected to give my side of the story to my father, while Maggie and
the rest of Management tried to keep my Chinese colleagues happy at all
costs. Maggie, my father, my wife, and others were constantly keeping me in
a state of terror of things Chinese -- with implicit threats of dismissal
and hints of promotion on a daily basis. My right to teach Chinese was
clearly being made dependent on my being subservient to Chinese people.

Before I got involved in the nascent Chinese Section, I was introduced to
the workings of the Japanese Section, and told that the Chinese
relationships would be similar. But they weren't. The Japanese community
in NZ is miniscule by comparison with the Chinese community, and so Chinese
was allowed to develop into a community language in a way that Japanese
apparently has not been.

Zhang Zhanyi, the Chinese Adviser with the NZ Council for Teacher Education,
is typically Chinese, in the way that he simply ignored my letter to his
Newsletter, in which I disagreed with the views of a Cantonese teacher of
Chinese, who argued that we should use the word "Chinese", rather than
"Mandarin", to describe the subject that we were teaching.

When my Chinese colleagues and I went from FAI House to the recording studio
in the Portland Crescent building, they sometimes ignored me and raced
ahead, as if I didn't exist. Amy Chen did this with Ying, and Ying and
Lirong did something similar as well. I mentioned this to Maggie once, and
she said something along the lines that sometimes people acted like this
towards people of another race.

Amy Chen once stood up from her desk, looked over to me, and said, "We'll
get rid of you !" I told my father about this, he must have mentioned this
to someone senior at TCS, and Amy Chen left TCS. If I had just told Maggie,
nothing would have happened, as Maggie was incredibly subservient to the
Chinese. Amy was replaced by Ying Li, who had not had a permanent position
at TCS up till that time. Lirong Zhou came on as a part-time ("External
Teacher) after that.

Covering up 1998 by Richard Roberts and Leon Hunia.

After I mentioned to someone (a couple of members of the English department)
that Hemi Waenga had twice intimidated me by walking into my path, Richard
Roberts and Leon Hunia set up a collision between Leon and myself, so that
they could make a counter-allegation (or in order to make me see that they
could make a counter-allegation) against me. This is a typical tactic used
by Management at The Correspondence School throughout my time there. In
this case, Leon and Richard were talking to each other in the main corridor,
and I went behind Leon, saying "excuse me" as I did so. Leon leaned back
into my path, so that I brushed against him. I apologised, as I always do
when faced with this bare-faced behaviour at The Correspondence School.

Susan Wylde.

Susan Wylde - later a Senior Teacher in the English department - is one of
the examples I have in mind, when I say that The Correspondence School often
promotes unprofessional teachers. She was/is a bitter, misandristic
(man-hating) Feminist - as a result, it seems to me, of her perception of
events that occurred in her own life. I think I once overheard a reference
to such events.

One day, before her promotion to Senior Teacher, when Ormond Tate was still
running The Correspondence School, she took offence at my championing of Men
's Rights (not that I dared to carry out such activities at The
Correspondence School, in those days), and she deliberately struck up a
conversation with me, in which she maneouvred me into saying something
derogatory about Ormond Tate, so that it could then be reported to him.
This sort of behaviour ought to disqualify people from promotion, but it
might even have made her promotion more likely.

She appears to have regretted that action, as far as I can tell from her
current behaviour towards me, but hers was merely the most obvious and
memorable of frequent bitchy behaviour of this kind by various people
(Christine Bryant was another woman who behaved in this manner during one
period of time). Feminists at The Correspondence School felt angry
against men, because of all the Feminist propaganda we have all been fed
with. They have only stopped feeling angry to the extent that I and others
have been able to counter this propaganda - but those Feminists who were/are
Feminazis did their utmost to prevent non-Feminist views being expressed in
any context in which they had power. They had/have lots of power at The
Correspondence School.

Catch 22

A Catch 22 operated/operates in The Correspondence School, as far as I am
concerned. People do conspire against me in subtle and non-subtle ways from
time to time, and the catch-22 is that I have to either put up with it or be
considered paranoid -- because of the nature of some of this harassment.
For example, various people conspire to put ideas into my head, by
separately saying specific things in sequence in my hearing which (they
hope) will lead my thinking into one particular direction, which they want
it to go in. I have heard mention of a psychologist, and I surmise that
there is a Feminist psychologist (aren't they all ?) Giving them advice as
to how to manipulate me psychologically. However, it is hardly worth
mentioning this issue, because it is impossible to prove and would only make
me seem paranoid (as stated above).

Frank Romanowsky

Frank Romanowsky, the Senior Teacher of French, has gone out of his way
(whether induced by Maggie or Robyn to do this, I don't know) to protect and
cover up for Robyn Skrzynska, his fellow Senior Teacher. After it was
clear that I objected to her sexually harassing me my touching me, he once
let himself be hugged by her in my presence -- in a highly unnatural and
obvious attempt to "normalise" what she had being doing to me. I mean that
she hugged him from the back, when he was leaning over a desk.

And in 1998 he walked into me from behind, having got up from his desk in
order to do that, when I was standing in front of his desk, having a heated
discussion with Robyn about the racist set-up in the Chinese Section. He
said "sorry", but it was quite obviously deliberate -- Robyn would have
taken the line that she was frightened of me, and he saw himself as
protecting her.

Meetings and Maggie Friend

For many years, Maggie used to humiliate me at the Departmental meetings she
chaired. This was so well known that people in my carpool (who worked in
different departments from myself) used to refer to it indirectly. She didn
't treat anyone else this way, but I was obviously her anti-favourite in
meetings. After several years, someone must have prevailed on her to let me
speak without getting annoyed about it, and it has been better since then.

Speed and amount of work

At times, Management have acted as if they think I don't work hard enough.
I must say that I long ago got so angry at the way Robyn Skrzynska and
others got away with attacking and harassing me that working hard or aiming
at promotion went right out the window. My main aim was to find some way of
bringing them to justice -- which is what the present exercise is about,
really. I should also mention that the amount of work we were supposed to
do was not precisely laid down, and, anyway, Marion Findlay once told me
that the clause in the Contract which laid down a certain number of hours
per week to be worked off-site was not being enforced at the Correspondence
School. I did a lot of work at home -- not all of it core work, but mainly
reading professional material, exploring relevant aspects of technology and
the internet, and so on. Moreover, I felt that hints for me to work harder
might well be aimed at allowing me less time for Men's Rights activism.

Management at TCS seems to think it can claim credit for the work of the
staff it manages, but that it need not take the blame for any negative
impact on staff of its management practices. My attitude to my work (both
positive and negative) has been heavily influenced by the over-management,
manipulation, discrimination, abuse and assaults perpetrated on me by
Management, and I want them to be made accountable. The institution of TCS
should also be held accountable, because managers come and go, and I have
never been told that any manager has been asked to leave because of their
actions in respect of myself. Therefore I take it that all managers
enjoy(ed) the support of the institution of TCS for their actions as
concerns myself.

Moreover, I cannot now go back to working there as if nothing had happened.
The situation in the Chinese Section, to take but one example, has become
intolerable, and I have zero confidence in Maggie Friend as a manager in
that respect.

Since people did/do literally not accept that men have any rights, the
energy and time I have put into Men's Rights activism over the years has
been a very real part of my work at TCS, where people who belong to certain
categories automatically have their rights looked after by the PPTA and
general Management sensitivity. I had myself to create the environment in
which I acquired rights, as a man, by carrying out my campaigns out side
TCS, since I knew the climate of opinion within TCS would ultimately be
affected changes of opinion outside. That was my deliberate strategy, and
it has worked in practice. The anti-male feeling at TCS was initially far
too strong to confront directly -- especially as I would be confronting my
superiors, with my job being at risk.

Robyn Skrzynska and the door

Relatively early in my 12 years at the Correspondence School, when Chinese
as a subject had not yet been introduced, and Sally Rawnsley (then called
Sally Robertson) was Senior Teacher of German, Robyn Skrzynska assaulted me
with a door. We had had a Sixth Form German meeting, at which Robyn had
demonstrated her dearth of reasoning powers, and I mentioned to someone
afterwards that she was a bit thick (or words to that effect). Some hours
or days after that, she forcefully opened a double glass-door towards me
from the other side, hitting my metal watch-strap with the door-handle so
forcefully as to cause striations which are still there to this day (I have
kept the strap as evidence all these years). She then carried on past me
wordlessly, as if I wasn't there, and waited in the foyer for a lift,
ignoring me, as if nothing had happened. I phoned her up about it some days
later, but she apologised neither then nor at any other time.

I consulted one of my ex-students, who worked in FAI House in the
Engineering Section of Police Headquarters, but his opinion was that such
things were very hard to prove, so I didn't make a complaint to the Police.

The force of the blow was such that I had to use a stapler to hammer the
clasp back into its original shape. Maggie saw me doing that, and smiled
with apparent pleasure. I went to her and reported the incident, but the
only feedback I got from her about it ever was a vague remark about Robyn
having too many friends.

More or less on the day after I mentioned the door incident to my father
(which wasn't until several years after it happened), Robyn Skrzynska rushed
around a corner in the foyer of the main (Portland Crescent) building of The
Correspondence School, and crashed into the metal briefcase I was carrying.
She knew I would be there, because I had told her I was going to that
building on a work-related matter. My father had obviously met her, and had
warned her, so that she could cover up for her assault with the door by
claiming that I had hit her with a briefcase (ie making us both equally
guilty).

Around about the same time (give or take a few months) that Robyn hit me
with a door, an Island woman (who later appeared on the cover of one of The
Correspondence School's in-house magazines) knocked my glasses off near the
main (then only) FAI9 photocopier. Although this incident was probably an
accident, because I was moving at the time, so that she could not have been
certain of hitting me, it is relevant that Robyn (who was not a witness)
seemed extraordinarily and unusually amused by something at that time, and
it appeared to me to be by the fact that my glasses had been knocked off.

Robyn Skrzynska and the sexual harassment

Robyn, for a period of years, saw nothing wrong with touching me on the
forearm or upper arm, or intruding into my personal space, when talking to
me, so that I was forced to back off. Once she even came so close that she
pressed one breast against my arm.

I don't suppose that events of this nature occurred more than about half a
dozen times in total, but they were yet another aspect of her pattern of
oppressive and unprofessional behaviour.

Robyn Skrzynska and the 6th form course maintenance

Robyn seems to be particularly attached to the Sixth Form German course,
perhaps because she wrote part of the version that we have been teaching
from ever since I have been there. Early on in my time at The
Correspondence School, she was apparently told to hand over the
administration of this course to me, but she did it in as gradual, nasty,
and imperceptible manner as she could. I don't think she ever actually said
that I was in charge of it. This induced a lack of confidence in me with
regard to that course, and affected my work with respect to administering
it, which is probably what she had intended.

Robyn Skrzynska and the Goethe Society and Institute.

In my early years at the Correspondence School, I sometimes went to Goethe
Society meetings, but there I found a few rather inexplicably hostile
people -- taking the Crypto-Nazi-Hunting line that Robyn Skrzynska appeared
to take. At the Goethe Institut, I found lots of Feminists, who, in cahoots
with Robyn Skrzynska, were often trying to be nasty. When I attended German
conversation classes there, and Robyn's adult daughter (in 1998) was also
there, the two of them made it seem as if the daughter was reporting back to
her mother on my German abilities, or otherwise.

Robyn Skrzynska and SOLS

Robyn used to work partly in the SOLS (Schools Open Learning Service)
section of TCS, and she had a lot of friends there. She used some of
these -- members of her Feminist circle of friends -- to ring me up and
talk -- ostensibly about students -- in ways that would reinforce the
insecurity about my tenure there which she and others were inducing in my on
a daily basis.

Dr. Patterson

Dr Patterson, in Lower Hutt, who is now my doctor, has two Chinese
colleagues at the Kopata Medical Centre, where he works. They (or someone
else) appear to have influenced him to pry into my workplace situation more
than was warranted in the context of my consultation with him about
hypertension and possible angina. He took it upon himself to suggest to me
that my job involved being diplomatic.

Dina Viatos and Sally Rawnsley.

Dina Viatos, who worked in the Early Childhood Section on FAI House, floor 9
(FAI9), was a great friend of Sally Rawnsley, who got promoted out of that
building. They were often seen having morning tea together. Dina made it
clear she was a Feminist, trading on her relationship with Sally to imply
that Sally was one too (which she is). Dina, while always friendly, used to
take it upon herself to make clear her disapproval of any anti-Feminist
actions I had taken (in or outside of TCS), in a manner that made it seem
that she was speaking on Sally's behalf.

John Rodger

John Rodger is a thoroughly nasty specimen, who gives every indication of
being totally self-centred -- and a Christian only to the extent that being
a Christian reinforces his prejudices. He has been at the Correspondence
School almost longer than anyone else. He and Gilbert Hadfield (see below)
were for many years in my carpool. John often seemed to communicate with
Maggie Friend and work on making me perpetually afraid of getting the sack.
He also seemed to communicate with my wife behind my back.

Gilbert Hadfield

Gibert Hadfield embodies a special case of the Political Correctness that
pervades TCS. Apart from being politically correct himself, and harassing
me and oppressing me for many years (while we were in the same carpool) for
being anti-Feminist -- he is a practising Baptist and has Maori relatives,
which means that he tends to see Maoris as victims who can do nothing (much)
wrong -- his hearing has greatly deteriorated during the time that I have
known him, so that he is, to all intents and purposes, stone deaf. I don't
know how essential his skills in the Copyright area are to TCS (probably not
so essential), but he cannot attend meetings without someone taking notes
for him, which means that that person cannot contribute to the meeting in
any other way. I don't know how often that situation arises -- it seems to
me that they could and should work around his disability in some way that
did not waste human resources in that way. Although he is a Baptist, he has
been at pains to point out that he is not a Goody-goody (which he actually
is), by saying that he used to pull wings off flies when he was a child.

Anyway, his disability gives him a self-interest in the whole Political
Correctness system, because Disabled people use this system to make the
political gains that they want to make -- Gilbert has even claimed that Deaf
people are oppressed. His dependent situation (ie dependence on special
consideration from Management) is likely to make him a particularly pliable
tool of his boss, Sally Rawnsley. I have sometimes felt, in the carpool,
that he was acting as her agent as far as I was concerned.

Mary Rae

Mary Rae was Principal of the Secondary Division for most of my time at TCS.
She was obviously a Feminist, and quite possibly was the main protector of
those Feminists who attacked me, in whatever way, and possibly she was also
the instigator of much of the various forms of harassment which I suffered.
This is speculation, though. Someone suggested to me that she was a
"hatchet-faced dyke," but that was not a perception that I myself had of
her. It is likely, according to something I heard, that she got her job
because she was a woman, rather than on merit. Certainly, there were lots
of complaints about her from Middle Management.

She once poked her tongue out at me as we passed in Molesworth Street. I
don't know if I am to assume that she was, as a Feminist, annoyed at me, or
whether she was conveying some sort of message. A Maori woman whom I did
not know had apparently once taken offence that I licked my bottom lip as I
approached her -- she must have thought I was poking my tongue out at her.
Such is/was (it doesn't seem so bad under Errol Jaquiery) the power of
Maoris at TCS that you always had the feeling that they could observe you
and complain about you in that manner, and that the complaints would be
taken seriously.

Diana Chester

Diana Chester has seemed relatively professional -- not that I have had
enough dealings with her to really judge her on that matter -- except that
once she got angry enough to snub me when we passed -- near the Katherine
Mansfield Memorial, in the park near the American Embassy. I expect it was
a Feminist issue that made her angry, because I don't think I ever did
anything else to annoy her.

Kate Ford

Kate Ford, who has a very pleasant manner, has progressed relatively fast
from being an ordinary English teacher to being Senior Dean. She has long
been a PPTA activist, and one day in 1998 she was chairing a special PPTA
branch meeting to consider remits to the PPTA Annual Conference, when she
remarked that there were six women and two men present, and that that was
what she called good gender balance (or words to that effect) !

I made much of this incident, because it was a rare occasion when a Feminist
trips herself up in public by saying what she actually thinks, and
describing the basis of her own behaviour. I don't really think that
Feminists such as she actually do strive at achieving a 6:2 sex-ratio
(though the staff at TCS is not too far from that ratio, in fact), but such
Feminists are just not conscious of any real need to promote men's rights.
Don Laing made it into a huge issue by forwarding a private email from me
(which mentioned the incident) to the whole TCS staff, because of a comment
I had made about him in the email. Feminists have such a victim complex
that they actually do make remarks like this when they feel at ease -- and,
if I hadn't made an issue of it afterwards, that comment of hers would have
passed completely unremarked-on.

Counter-Attacks

It is also clear that they intend to undermine the credibility of my memory.
They have, in the past, put me under so much psychological pressure at work
that I did in fact suffer impaired short-term memory, as far as some routine
work-related matters were concerned. They appear to hope that this will
undermine the credibility of my recollections of salient events such as in
the present Brief of Evidence. Lately, they have even being trying to
pursue the same goal by occasionally changing an office routine, and then
claiming that it had always been done in that way !

A case in point is their change to the procedure for indicating which
"call-back" days we were going to work in the September/October 1998
holidays. Hitherto, we had always indicated which "half-days" we would be
working, and confirmed this later in retrospect. This time, we were only
asked to specify in advance which of the two weeks we would be working our
call-back days in. When I remarked on this change of procedure, Management
(the Senior Teacher, in this case) denied that this constituted any change.

My Senior Teacher, Robyn Skrzynska, has also reverted to her (and Maggie
Friend's) previously common tactic of unsettling me by her behaviour until I
made a mistake, and then apparently revelling in the disadvantageous
position this then placed me, as far as making a complaint against her was
concerned. They no doubt know that I am going to make a personal grievance
complaint, because I have mentioned this, in general terms, to two other
people in recent months.

A lot of my problems recently have been caused by the reaction of my
colleagues to the possibility that I would retaliate in some way (such as
legal action) against their treatment of me. Michael Childs, for a long
time the most senior figure on my floor (and now the second-most senior),
has had a habit of talking in a loud voice in my vicinity, making remarks
that could be interpreted as relating to me. Once he made a remark about
someone taking legal action. So they have been concerned to cover up their
previous actions, to intimidate me further, so as to prevent me from taking
any action, and to emphasise how long they have been at the Correspondence
School (ie how strong their personal networks are), and how hard it would be
for me to prove anything.

Late in 1998, when it became clear to Robyn Skrzynska that I was taking
personal grievance actions, I started regularly getting phone calls during
other people's lunch and morning-tea times (when I had to answer the phone
for everyone else, because I have morning tea at my desk, and I have a
different lunch-hour from most people), with the caller hanging up as soon
as I had answered. As soon as I had hung up, Robyn Skrzynska would turn up.
I am sure that she orchestrated this harassment, but I didn't complain,
because it would have been impossible to prove. It is clear that she has
enough Feminazi friends to arrange for them to make these harassing calls,
so that I could not prove that she had anything to do with it. But she
would turn up just after the calls were made, in order to make it clear to
me that she was behind it. This has always been her style -- rubbing in her
ability to do what she liked and get away with it.

Man-Hating Atmosphere at The Correspondence School

The Correspondence School has/had (I have caused some improvement in this to
occur) a man-hating ethos, which is a part of its generally
Left-Wing/Feminist orientation. This comes from staff having been subjected
to Feminist man-hating propaganda to an even greater extent than the
population in general has. Female teachers such as Diane Tourenberg have
had female chauvinist posters at their desks which extolled the superiority
of women over men. One French student's cartoon depicting domestic violence
by a woman on a man was put up on a pillar in the Languages 1 Department and
decorated with approving remarks in French by teachers. No one saw anything
wrong about it until I complained. One sticker, with the motto, "Fight the
Cuts" (also in the Languages 1 Department), was amended to read, "Fight the
Louts." I have copies/photos of some of these items.

Various women in the English department, for example, such as Sarah
Rutherford, were antagonistic towards me at times when I was active outside
TCS) on men's Issues.

The Lesbian Mafia, Elisabeth Olds-Wilson, Joan Waldvogel, Heather Howat,
Barbara Wallace, the Mailroom worker, and Helen Harraway.

I have no proof that any of the above people were/are Lesbians, or that they
(more than any other Feminists) formed a network. I can only go on what I
have been told or surmised - or on how they looked or behaved. The
Politically Correct (ie most people at the Correspondence School) divide the
world into two mutually-exclusive groups: victims and villains. Since
Lesbians are undoubtedly victims of prejudice, they could not be villains,
according to the Politically Correct. Unfortunately, this common assumption
is oversimplified. Once Lesbian Feminist are ensconced in an environment
which is focused on protecting them from prejudice, they are in a powerful
enough position to start attacking their own pet hates: men. Which they do
do.

There was one particular mailroom employee, whose job included picking up
and delivering mail in the various sections of the School, who was obviously
Lesbian. That is how she presented. I had a reputation of being pro-men
(which, of course, she would interpret as "anti-women"), and one day she
actually tried to intimidate me physically, by walking into my path, and
forcing me to sidestep, in order to avoid a collision.

I tended to assume that any woman who, though not obviously Lesbian, was
particularly hostile, for no apparent reason, was a Lesbian. I was
subjected to frequent, unprovoked, and unexplained hostility from Helen
Harraway, in particular, and also from Elisabeth Olds Wilson, who once
turned suddenly and barged in my direction, forcing me to take evasive
action.

Tony Read

Tony Read was someone I never had any reason to have anything to do with in
the course of my work at the School. I didn't used to know his name, or
what his job was. But, whenever he met me on the street, he used to greet
me wordlessly, by raising his hand in what loosely resembled a Nazi salute.
Since he had no reason to greet me, as we weren't on speaking terms, and as
there were others in the School who quite clearly used concepts like
"Fascist" to describe anyone who erred from the straight-and-narrow of their
particular brand of Political Correctness, I found this intimidating. For
example, Joan Waldvogel (who, it was hinted to me, is a Lesbian) once or
twice greeted me on the street with a quite clear Nazi salute, and this sort
of attitude has also been a feature of Robyn Skrzynska's behaviour on
frequent occasions. Robyn has/had a Jewish, anti-Arab partner, and she is
not noteworthy for either her intellect or her professional standards of
behaviour.

Maureen Robson and Tanya Duncan.

There was a period of time when even the Personnel staff used to intimidate
me. That was when they were entirely female. Maureen Robson and Tanya
Duncan, in a group of females, used to storm past me in an unfriendly and
intimidating manner, if I came across them around the School. That was at a
time when most females in the school felt comfortable with behaving like
this towards me.

Errol Jaquiery

When I first came to TCS, the Director (he actually was called "Principal",
I think) was Ormond Tate. Hardly anyone has a good word to say for him, and
I have no reason to break with that tradition. Errol Jaquiery is very
different from, and much better liked than Ormond Tate, but I want to
concentrate on the sexual and racial issues in connection with him.

One of the first things he did was to introduce a Sexual Harassment policy,
and, in a "Director's Forum", he explained, in passing, that "unfortunately,
men were guilty of this offence more often than women" (or words to that
effect). I found that a totally unnecessary, prejudicial, and possibly
untrue thing to say, and I challenged him on it -- either by email, or
verbally in public (I can't remember). He resented that. He used to be a
guidance counsellor, or something of the sort, but that cuts no ice with me,
given my in-depth knowledge of men's Issues. My point was that it made it
impossible to have a fair sexual harassment policy if the Director was
saying from the outset that he expected it to target men as potential
perpetrators. He did not take kindly to my "correction".

(See section on Richard Roberts and Betty Grey)

One day he called me in to see him, because I had protested to Maggie Friend
about the Chinese Section's library subscribing to the magazine, "Women in
China". I had said to Maggie that we ought either not to subscribe to it,
or to subscribe to a male equivalent as well. Maggie refused. I had a
chat with Errol, at which he made a point of saying that he didn't agree
with Men's Rights (which was totally unnecessary, because I wasn't asking
him to agree with the views -- just to allow them to be expressed. This
demonstrates the general tendency to allow only the expression of views
that the Establishment agrees with). He said he would allow me to set up a
stall occasionally and distribute men's publications, if I wanted. He said
he couldn't interfere with Maggie's departmental prerogative, but he said he
would balance "Women in China" by getting the main library to subscribe to a
men's publication. Later, he called me back, said he didn't think he had
promised to subscribe to a men's magazine, and said that he had been
persuaded not to get the library to subscribe to one (possibly by Mary Rae
?)

It was clear to Maggie that I was very angry at this apparent duplicity and
lying by the Director, and eventually it appeared that the Languages
Department stopped subscribing to that periodical, but it was not certain.
Nothing was said to me about it -- all that happened was that a message
appeared from Maggie on the departmental whiteboard (I guess it might have
been in late 1997), asking for suggestions as to which periodicals to order
for the coming year. There was a suggestion that "Women in China" might not
have received enough "votes", but nothing was announced. Ying hinted to me
that Maggie could have kept on ordering the magazine and given it straight
to her, so that I would not see it. Maggie is so gutless and duplicitous
that i would not put anything past her.

One day I put up on a notice-board an advertisement for a (mainly
non-political) men's gathering in the Wellington region, and some Feminist
wrote an angry comment on it about "sheilas". Errol came up to me one day
after that and tried to intimidate me by asking, "Are you inviting me to a
men's gathering ?". It was not a friendly inquiry -- more a sign that he
didn't like the advertisement. This contradicted his previous offer to let
me disseminate Men's Movement publicity at TCS.

Carlos Gonzalez and Lirong Zhou

Though I usually get on very well with Carlos Gonzalez, a Black man from
Panama, who teaches Spanish, who is very pleasant, intelligent, and has a
sense of humour, he has a tendency to align himself with Non-Whites (eg
Maoris) against Whites -- which I suppose is quite natural. Specifically,
although I have never been aware of any specific problem between myself and
Lirong Zhou, I once felt that he was aligning himself with her in some
shared feeling of hostility towards me -- for no obvious reason, and with no
obvious consequence. He has taken over from a Chilean woman as head of the
Spanish Section of the Languages 2 Department. I am quite prepared to
believe that he might be more competent than she is in some ways (I don't
know anything about the issues involved), but I have a niggling worry that
some racial/political issue might have cropped up -- in which case, since he
is Black, he would have a tendency to be judged in the right a priori.

Jennifer Ramshaw

Jennifer Ramshaw, the head of the Editors in Sally Rawnsley's Resources
Department, is the partner of Anthony Dreaver, who is responsible for Staff
Development. This "partnership" is one of the many in TCS, some of which
have involved Senior Management -- eg former Director Ormond Tate's wife,
Wanda, was Jennifer's predecessor; Sally Rawnsley was the partner of the
former Associate Director, Allan Dodds, and Assistant Principal Margaret
Gamlin, who runs the Education Support Centre, also has a partner who
teaches at TCS.

Jennifer and Anthony are what I would call "mindless Feminists". Their main
response to my raising, or being known by them to raise, Men's Issues, has
been to cast implicit aspersions on my masculinity.

Sally Rawnsley

Sally was my first, immediate boss. She was Senior Teacher German, and I
joined TCS as a German teacher in 1988. She invited my wife and me to her
place for a meal, where we met her then husband, Paul Robertson. They made
it clear that the Labour Party was the only party one could support.

In due course, she moved sideways and upwards. This coincided with her
moving in with the then Associate Director, Allan Dodds, becoming his
"partner," and separating from Paul Robertson, with whom she had had two
children. Her promotion attracted a lot of hostility, because the feeling
was that her relationship was what had brought about her promotion. I did
not participate in this feeling of hostility, since I liked her, she was
friendly with a cousin of mine in Auckland, and I had such a hatred for the
majority at TCS that I was suspicious of any rumour, such as that one, which
happened to float about.

One day after she had moved sideways, she sexually harassed me by sitting
down at a desk, wearing a low-cut evening dress, and leaned forward, while
talking to me. I only mention this in view of the prevalent doctrine that
women are blameless and only men sexually harass people.

Once she was promoted into her present, lofty position, she tried to make me
think of her in a less friendly manner, as befitted our great difference in
seniority. In 1998, when she was again my boss -- when I was writing a
Chinese course, she behaved in odd, aggressive ways. She was apt to look as
if she misinterpreted the least thing I said as being some kind of slight
against her. It is possible she thought I wasn't working hard enough, but
it seemed mainly to be that she, and all her colleagues, were Feminist, and
she was offended by my not being Feminist. Once or twice she came past me,
with one of her deputies (Jane Pountney) closely in tow, and her deputy
snubbed me each of those times. A few times she popped out of a doorway in
front of me unexpectedly, as if to startle me.

Then, one day, it was announced that she and Allan Dodds had split up, and
Allan had gone to the USA -- and we were supposed to swallow the line that
she was the injured, innocent party. I treated that idea with inner
contempt -- after all, she had left her husband for her boss, and been
promoted, so I didn't see her as a particularly innocent party.

The PPTA

Though you may consider this to be a disjoint matter (in terms of the object
of the intended action), I think it's worth mentioning here that I want to
take action against the PPTA because of their discrimination against me when
I contacted them on the Chinese Section issue(see below) -- and also because
their structures and policies have discriminated against men and non-Maoris
and they have disseminated anti-male propaganda to members at member
expense, which has been a major factor in whipping up the anti-male frenzy
that I have been the victim of. I will want to subpoena/search all the
Feminist propaganda they have distributed to branches over the years.

When I spoke to PPTA Field Officer Paul Benefield for an hour in 1998, and I
mentioned racism by Chinese people, he said "no". I found this extremely
off-putting, and I later wrote and complained to the PPTA Legal Officer,
saying that I no longer had confidence in Paul Benefield, and would prefer
to deal with her. She wrote back that she had spoken to him about it, but
she did not say what she had said or give any guarantees, so I did not go
back to the PPTA about this matter. At a TCS PPTA branch meeting on an
unrelated matter in 1999, Paul Benefield mentioned input by pressure-groups
such as Federated Farmers. I take it that farmers are influential in
lobbying for obsequiousness towards everything Chinese -- for trade
reasons -- and that Paul might have been hinting at this.

There is an implicit contract between myself and the PPTA, whereby I pay
them money to carry out certain services -- they have been acting contrary
to the spirit of that contract.

Another complaint I have against the PPTA is that they failed to reply to an
email I sent them, in which I complained about an email I had received from
another teacher, which virtually accused me of being a Nazi for being
anti-Feminist.

In this they were breaching the contract between us and showing bias.

In 1998 the PPTA National Conference decided to make one National Executive
member responsible for Boys' Issues, and in 1999 I tried, and succeeded, in
getting myself elected to the position of "Men's Contact" on the
Correspondence School PPTA Branch Executive. I had not tried previously to
get this position established, despite hints that I should do so from one
PPTA member, because the atmosphere at PPTA branch meetings was then still
extremely hostile to me and my pro-men concerns, so I felt that I would have
had no power if elected, and indeed that someone else (a male Feminist)
would most probably be elected to that position and would use it to thwart,
rather than to pursue, the kinds of policies I would favour. However, my
constant and increasingly open pushing of Men's Issues at TCS, coupled with
recent publicity about how comparatively badly boys have been doing at
school, made the atmosphere at TCS much less anti-men and anti-boys.

Other Assaults

Apart from the assaults by Robyn Skrzynska, the Polynesian lady whose name I
must look up (whose assault was probably, but not definitely, accidental),
Maaka Jones, and Frank Romanowsky, I have also been assaulted by Maggie
Friend, who has also conspired in assault-type incidents at her desk. On
two or three occasions, Maggie has stuck out a foot as I went past (at
least one of these was in the main corridor between her desk and what she
calls "the top bay") -- not sufficient to make me stumble, on any occasion.
The last time was in 1997 or 1998, when she did it near the staff mail
pigeonholes. She was standing with Maureen McIver, an External Teacher who
has a close relationship with Maggie, and is almost certain to back up
whatever Maggie says. In fact, I think Maggie did this as part of the
cover-up, in order to try to confuse the issue.

For many years, Maggie used to let her staff amuse her by their standing
close behind me when I was talking to Maggie, so that, when I left her, I
would crash into the staff-member concerned. In 1998, as part of their
cover-up/normalisation campaign, I actually saw Robyn Skrzynska out of the
corner of my eye, moving across behind me, so as to be in position for me to
crash into when I stopped talking to Maggie. And I did crash into her,
because I did not register what I saw, being engrossed in my conversation
with Maggie.

Jessie Munro banged into me in the FAI9 corridor on 24.2.1999, saying
something like, "It was neither of our faults -- the corridor's too narrow."
Judging by the unusual force of the collision, although it could have been
an accident (as I was moving at the time), it was probably deliberate.
Jessie Munro does not usually move fast enough to generate that sort of
force.

ESOL (Helen Carmody, Victoria University's English Language Teachers, and
Naa's Teacher)

All members of the (secondary and tertiary) ESOL Sorority/Fraternity whom I
met put constant pressure on me to "grease" Chinese people. Ethnic Chinese
people specifically, and Asian people in general, are a very important
source of students for ESOL teachers. TCS has an ESOL department, and
Victoria University also has ESOL staff, some of whom I know personally.
Both Maggie Friend and Sally Rawnsley (to name but two) seemed to have the
same agenda. Sally Rawnsley's office for many years, on Level One of the
Portland Crescent (main) TCS building, was decorated with a large photograph
of an Asian student. Maggie seemed to communicate with the Head of ESOL at
TCS on such matters, when the ESOL Department was in the same building as
her department (Languages 1).

Ying Li has been working in the ESOL Section, as well as in the Chinese
Section. One day I visited another department in the Thorndon Quay
building, into which ESOL had moved, when it left the building that
Languages 1 is in (FAI House). Helen Carmody, the Head of the TCS ESOL
Section, apparently felt that I was not being subservient enough to my
Chinese colleagues, or that I was responsible for her Section not having
enough Chinese students, and walked past me (alone), snubbing me when I
greeted her, with an angry expression in her face, ignoring me. A day or so
later, I came across her again, and I did not greet her. This time she was
with someone else, and no doubt she met me deliberately, in order to have a
witness.

My wife studied ESOL for a while some years ago through TCS (and she worked
briefly as a tea-lady at the Thorndon Quay TCS building). Her teacher,
Barbara Robinson, who is now in the English Department proper, was a Senior
Teacher in the ESOL Department. As far as I can tell, she exploited the
relationship with my wife to find out personal details about me to pass on
to Feminists, such as my bosses, and in order to manipulate me and my wife,
and set her against me, from a Feminist perspective. Feminists seem to
think that women should "manage" their partners, and my bosses, who are
mostly female, set about teaching my wife to "manage" me, which has done
great harm to our relationship. Maggie Friend used her to find out about my
sexual habits.

Effect on Family

The Government is responsible for race relations in this country, and it is
responsible for the atmosphere in which languages such as Chinese are
taught. The message that it was putting forth loud and clear was that
Asians were of economic benefit to New Zealand, and that doing anything to
displease them was "racism" and was detrimental to New Zealand's economy.
This was an atmosphere in which I, as a teacher of Chinese, was made to feel
subservient to my wife and children, because they have some Chinese
ancestry -- unlike myself.

Government, Aoteareo, Pansy Wong, NZ Chinese Association

The National Languages Policy document, Aoteareo, which was commissioned by
the Government, makes it clear that Mandarin Chinese is an international
language, and not a community language, like Cantonese. I have heard a
Ministry of Education official, at a New Zealand Association of Language
Teachers' Conference, affirm that that document was Government policy -- in
refutation of some people who doubted that it had actually bee adopted.

Nevertheless, I have heard that the Minister of Education has had at least
one meeting with Pansy Wong and the NZ Chinese Association (an ethnic
association), at which policy on external examinations for Chinese was
discussed. As a teacher of Chinese, I suppose I could have been pleased
that they managed to get progress on introducing a Bursary Examination for
Mandarin Chinese, but my main reaction is that it was inappropriate and
racist for Mandarin Chinese to be treated as an ethnic Chinese issue, as
that left the non-Chinese teachers of Chinese disenfranchised, so to speak.

Denys Latham (my HOD's boss)

I went to see him early on in my time at the Correspondence School, to
complain about Maggie Friend's behaviour. He encouraged me to write
everything down, and to come back and see him. I didn't write things down,
because there was so much to write about, and it would have been too
depressing, and I did not go back and see him, because he gave an apparent
put-down/disparaging glance/comment about me to a colleague when showing me
out of his office.

For many years, I often found myself driving past Dennis's parked car in the
carpark, and he almost always looked at me in a hostile, intimidating way.
This was quite clearly linked to indications I received from the then
Associate Director, Alan Dodds, to the effect that he was receiving a lot of
complaints from members of the public about my anti-Feminist activities.
The pressure from Alan Dodds, Denys Latham, and Maggie Friend was quite
clearly aimed at getting me to stop my anti-Feminist activities. They
obviously had no concept of the human right to self-expression -- especially
in respect of views which they clearly did not agree with.

Caroline Smith

I seldom came across Caroline Smith. She had a reputation as a
strong-minded woman who was able to stand up to Ormond Tate, which few
others were able or willing to do. She seemed to be a Feminist (that comes
with the territory, and is hardly worth mentioning, by now), judging by the
"Women Can Do Anything" banners which decorated the Maths Department, of
which she is joint-head.

I did come across her in Rossmore House kitchenette once in 1998. She was
in the company of Maggie Friend, and Caroline ignored me with a rigid
"I-am-an-HOD-and-you-are-a-lesser-mortal-and-I've-heard-about-you" type of
expression on her face. Maggie seemed to be siding with her, rather than
with me, though she did greet me, in an off-hand sort of way.

When Caroline was running the User Acceptance Testing of the new Xtend
computer system later in 1998, however, I found her pleasant enough, though
I didn't please her by the way I went beyond the parameters she tried to lay
down for our testing (I think I pleased Senior Management, though, with my
conclusions). What surprised me, however, was the way she appeared to fancy
me -- she kept touching me on the forearm when talking to me -- until I
mentioned it to Robyn Skrzynska, at which point she stopped this sexual
harassment. I don't bear her any grudges for this, because I don't expect
she will do it again, and I only mention it to help destroy the standard New
Zealand doctrine that only men are bad and only women are good.

Marion Findlay and Win Gilbert

Marion Findlay I have mentioned already. In the early part of 1998, she,
Win Gilbert (Head of Computer Studies) and I were all writing courses in
Rossmore House. Win was my room-mate. One day, soon after the Sexual
Harassment guidelines came out that made it a "crime" for men to look down
women's dresses or up their skirts (but not for women to reveal themselves
to men), both Marion Findlay and Win Gilbert (neither of who is particularly
good-looking or young) leant over and exposed their bras to me.

One of Win Gilbert's habits is to put words into my mouth -- eg to talk
about her "husband", leading me to reply, using the term "husband," and then
complain to third parties that I had referred to her "husband", when
everyone knows that he is her "partner". She did this once in 1998 and once
(so far) in 1999.

The Japanese Section

The Japanese section's Senior Teacher for most of my time there has been
Felicity Walker, though she has just gone on maternity leave. She and her
colleagues were constantly putting pressure on me to be subservient to my
Chinese colleagues, because they worried that any conflicts would affect the
image of their section and the numbers of their students, of course. It was
OK for them -- the Japanese community in New Zealand is tiny compared to the
Chinese one, and they did not have to defer to them as much as non-Chinese
Chinese teachers had to defer to the Chinese community. The Japanese
native-speaker teachers felt confident about behaving in an off-hand way
towards me, because they could see how powerless I was in the Chinese
section. One of them, Yuko Nguyen, is a Feminist into the bargain.

Pointing to Eyes

While I was working in the Chinese Section, I frequently got harassed by
people -- especially Maggie Friend -- touching one of their eyes, while
talking to me -- as if they were trying to convey some kind of message. I
had two alternative hypotheses as to why they were doing this, but, either
way, I would have much preferred that these people had jumped off a tall
building, in order to cure themselves of this harassing habit. Most
probably, it was feedback from members of the Chinese community, who seemed
to think that they owned me. And Pakeha New Zealanders were very keen to
act as if the Chinese community owned me, as well. All they cared about was
brown-nosing the Chinese community, for the sake of the economic benefits
that this would supposedly bring.

Anthony Dreaver

I once applied to go on a staff outing to Kapiti Island or Mana Island that
Anthony Dreaver was organising. When I went to talk to him about it, he
exchanged glances with his "partner", Jennifer Ramsbottom, and it turned out
later that the trip was "full", so I couldn't go. I was quite sure that he
had kept me out of the trip on purpose.

More recently, in 1998, I organised a talk at TCS by Eyvind Pedersen on
"Legal Self-Defence for Men." When I asked Anthony, in advance, if he would
publicise it for me, in the way that he had advertised "Self-Defense for
Women" in the Health Ministry Gymnasium, he asked me first to prove that
there was substantial interest from staff members for that topic.

I accused him of operating a double-standard, because I was sure he had not
asked for any such assurance from any other groups before publicising their
meetings. He denied operating a double standard and agreed to publicise the
talk, which he did do.

Mary Wood

Mary Wood is the Principal of the small Early Childhood section of TCS.
After Errol Jaquiery became Director, she was elevated to parity with the
Principals of the much larger Secondary and Primary sections, and thus
outranked Michael Childs, from that time on, as ranking person on FAI Floor
9. Then, in 1998, her section moved out of FAI9, and Michael Childs
reverted to being ranking person on FAI9.

As you would expect from such a person, she is of relatively limited
intellectual ability, although she is often very pleasant. At other times,
she is quick to follow up any complaint against outsiders made by one of her
staff (if my experience is typical) by getting nasty first and asking
questions never (not later !).

One example of this occurred one day when I was talking to Maggie in a
Chinese meeting, which she probably deliberately held within earshot of the
Early Childhood Section, which contained a racist Chinese person, Dollaine
Young (Maggie is very malicious in this way). I happened to mention that
Chinese bureaucrats might not be very fast in replying to letters (which was
something I had read somewhere -- and in fact I later had the experience of
not receiving any reply at all to one letter and two faxes to a university
in China). Dollaine must have overheard this, and that day, or the next,
Mary Wood came up to the tea-trolley where I was, mumbling, in an ostensible
conversation with a colleague, and when she reached the tea-trolley and me
(I was alone there), she said her only distinct word, which was "racist",
and then she went away, still mumbling in pseudo-conversation.

Peter Ashby and Pam Hancock

Peter Ashby appears to have got the job of HOD English (and later Dean of
Language), despite his relative youth, because he is a politically correct,
relatively handsome and not at all threateningly intelligent man in a
largely female department. The idea seems to be that only someone with
those characteristics can hold that large department together. He was
talking to Richard Roberts once, and sneered when he saw a copy of the
"Liberator", a US pro-men periodical, which I was showing to Richard. One
of Peter Ashby's Senior Teachers, Pam Hancock, is a rabid Feminist, and she
has a habit of trying to intimidate me whenever it comes to her attention
that I have said or written something attacking Feminism in the public
arena. Once of twice, she and Peter Ashby came over to my bay and glared at
me in an intimidating fashion. These two people are not fit to be teachers,
in my opinion, since they think that their seniority entitles them to bully
people whom they disagree with. Another Senior Teacher in that Department
is also fairly Feminist.

In 1999 Pam, as Branch Women's Contact, became more friendly, as part of the
PPTA branch policy of promoting unity in the face of industrial disputes at
the national and TCS worksite level.

Mary Grey

Mary Grey, Maggie Friend's predecessor as Head of Languages at TCS, has
spent several years in China, and can read many characters, but does not
speak the language well. Since her retirement and return from China, she
has been prominent in the New Zealand-China Friendship Society and the New
Zealand Chinese Language Association. Indeed, she has recently been a
driving force in the encouragement of the teaching of Chinese in New
Zealand. When she visited TCS, she would typically ignore me and head
straight for Ying, which I found offensively fawning. She had an agenda,
and, when she thought I was causing problems for her agenda, she went so far
as to punch me lightly in the stomach -- at a meeting of the New
Zealand-China Friendship Society.

The Cantonese

The Cantonese community has been very aggressive and possessive towards me
at times. I can only speculate that this might be because I once arranged to
learn Cantonese but was unable to turn up to the first class. Because I
know East Asia reasonably well, it is generally easy for me to distinguish
them physically from the northern Chinese. This started from the day when I
was drinking a beer in a bar in Manners Street, and a Cantonese from the
next-door Ocean Commodities shop glared at me angrily through the glass
walls -- for no reason that I knew of. It may have been caused by my
inability to attend my first (and only) Cantonese language lesson with a
private tutor back in about 1984 -- but here I'm only guessing.

In this context, I could mention Weng Cheong, Dollaine Young (see above),
and a Chinese diplomatic official, whom I met at the Chinese Embassy, and
who may have been the then Chinese Consul in Auckland.

One male Cantonese employee of Pak N Save supermarket in Petone, for
example, was full of apparently unprovoked hatred in his manner and
expression -- once colliding with me, or doing something of that sort.

Robyn and greeting while I'm recording

Robyn Skrzynska , when she comes to work in the morning (long after I have
arrived), has started, in 1999, only greeting me when I am in the middle of
recording a message to a student on my tape-recorder. She can see quite
clearly what I am doing as she comes in.

Richard Roberts and Betty Grey

Betty Grey headed the Anti-Sexual Harassment committee, which brought out a
pamphlet which included looking up or down dresses as examples of sexual
harassment. As soon as that came out, Marion Findlay and Win Gilbert
deliberately bent down and displayed their bras/breasts to me. I complained
to Richard Roberts, who was on that committee, and he got the leaflet
changed, deleting that particular one-sided element.

Barbara Wallace

Barbara Wallace, a teacher of German and (latterly) French, is a man-hater
who was so nasty to me in my early years at TCS that even Michael Childs
noticed and had a word to her about it. When she was in charge of the
German library, I once criticised her for not having the file cards in
order, and Maggie, who overheard me, got angry with me, rather than with
her. Maggie seemed to very protective of Barbara, and not very interested
in efficiency in such administrative tasks as running the departmental
libraries. Lately, she has been working to produce a more feminine image.
When I was marking the same courses as her, I noticed that she seemed to
give lower marks to male students than to female students, with whom she got
one better than male students. At some point, she seemed to acquire the
responsibility of acting as Maggie's subaltern -- after I turned down a
suggestion from Maggie to go on a training course on how to help managers
manage their staff. Since that time, she has consistently glared at me, or
behaved in other intimidating ways whenever I passed her desk -- giving the
impression that she was passing on messages from Maggie. She has only
recently stopped doing this.

Gary Morrison and Maggie Friend

My "Mentors" at TCS, who are supposed to be my "critical friend", (first
Ruediger Mack, and then Gary Morrison), have both been used by Management to
manipulate me. Gary Morrison, in our early 1999 meeting, asked me if I "got
on" with my HOD, Maggie Friend -- even though there was no context for his
asking that question, except that the present document describes her as a
"bitch". Maggie thereafter showed evidence of being offended and hostile
(for a while, anyway). This was calculated to add to my feeling of being
spied on and reported on, so as to contribute to the notion that I am
"paranoid".

The Mailman and Computer Studies/Maths

I have long been the habit of greeting an intellectually disabled
mail-deliverer (whose name I have forgotten) in German, saying "Guten Tag".
One day I met him when I was in the Computer Studies section, right next to
the desk of a Chinese teacher of Maths, and I grimaced/smiled (facing away
from him) after greeting him, because it seemed inappropriate to keep
greeting him like that in a Maths department -- especially within earshot of
a Chinese, as the Chinese don't always get on with Germans -- and the Maths
department doesn't put me in the mood for flippancy that I feel in the
Languages 1 Department at times.

Anyway, I got instant feedback along the lines that I had been observed
grimacing/laughing, and that this had been interpreted as meaning that I was
laughing at his disability. The Head of the Special Education part of the
school suddenly started turning up in my path and acting angry -- whereas I
seldom see her, normally. "

Peter Zohrab

http://members.tripod.com/peterzohrab/manucharian/ephemera.html
Domestic Violence links http://www.landwave.com/family/
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm

--
http://members.tripod.com/peterzohrab/manucharian/ephemera.html
Domestic Violence links http://www.landwave.com/family/
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm

[Robert Duke]

"Peter Douglas Zohrab" <zoh...@xtra.co.nz> wrote in message
news:FE_f8.3752$XZ.4...@news.xtra.co.nz...
Am I the only one to have read to the bottom of this?

[Col]

On Sat, 2 Mar 2002 22:17:03 +1300, "Robert Duke" <rd...@extra.co.nz> wrote:

>Am I the only one to have read to the bottom of this?

Probably and you are the only twit to repost the whole bloody thing we hope .

--
Col

Col's law.
Thinly sliced cabbage..

[Karen Hayward]

On Sat, 2 Mar 2002 22:17:03 +1300, "Robert Duke" <rd...@extra.co.nz>
wrote:

>

>"Peter Douglas Zohrab" <zoh...@xtra.co.nz> wrote in message
>news:FE_f8.3752$XZ.4...@news.xtra.co.nz...
>Am I the only one to have read to the bottom of this?

No...:-)

So what is your comment on Peter's report ?

Karen Hayward

[Peter Douglas Zohrab]

For The Record:

I subsequently sent an Appendix to my complaint to the Human Rights
Commission (the Anti-Male, Anti-White and Anti-Mixed-Race Commission), in
which I added discrimination on the basis of political opinion to my
complaint -- they rejected both the complaint and this appendix in their
response.

Peter Zohrab

"Peter Douglas Zohrab" <zoh...@xtra.co.nz> wrote in message
news:FE_f8.3752$XZ.4...@news.xtra.co.nz...

[Robert Duke]

"Karen Hayward" <kiwi...@yellowsub.net> wrote in message
news:99k18usrg1ua9hhfb...@4ax.com...

Dumbfounded and I wondered what a psychiatrist would make of it.

[Peter]

On Sat, 2 Mar 2002 19:51:53 +1300, "Peter Douglas Zohrab"
<zoh...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

Peter Z. I suggest that you go out and get a copy of Stephen Covey's
'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People' and work through it very
carefully. Better books may be available but this will do for
starters. Even if you take on a few ideas from the book, the
effectiveness of your campaigning will be greatly increased.

[Keith Whitehead]

In article <347g8.3878$XZ.5...@news.xtra.co.nz>,

"Peter Douglas Zohrab" <zoh...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

> For The Record:
>
> I subsequently sent an Appendix to my complaint to the Human Rights
> Commission (the Anti-Male, Anti-White and Anti-Mixed-Race Commission), in
> which I added discrimination on the basis of political opinion to my
> complaint -- they rejected both the complaint and this appendix in their
> response.
>
> Peter Zohrab
>

I am not surprised, but that has less to do with their attitude and more
to do with yours. Just so you know, I have been through the family
courts (and 5 years latter still paying the legals costs) but I did get
custody of the children. Yes I agree the courts have a lot to anbswer
for and I agree that there is a lot of gender bias in the media etc,
however attacking it like a raving lunatic will simply get everything
you say dismissed.

I am a strong supporter of mens rights, but I can not support your
stance, it is just as wrong as the one you are fighting. Yopu need to
calm down, realise there are some things you can not fight and find
those small things you can change clamly, rationaly. That will allow you
a platform to build from, you don't run a marathon the first day you
start walking, it takes time.

[mcreatch]

"Peter Douglas Zohrab" <zoh...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

> I sent an email to all staff,
>saying that I now considered myself free to insult anyone I chose, and I
>said I was starting off by calling the Acting Principal a "sexist dyke."
>
>10. I was suspended on full pay while an "investigation" was carried out.

Hmm...

So what do you do these days ? ( Apart from posting long tirades to
the newsgroups )

[mcreatch]

"Peter Douglas Zohrab" <zoh...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

> For example, I often refrain from
>telling my wife which supermarket I'm going to shop in, because of the
>network of people she's connected to, who are likely carry out some sort of
>manipulation there. One form of manipulation was for her to tell me to buy
>some particular items, and then tell some people (eg Chinese people) who
>didn't know me that they would be able to satisfy their curiosity (or
>whatever) about me by looking for someone with those items in their
>supermarket trolley, and accompanied by three boys.

?

[mcreatch]

"Robert Duke" <rd...@extra.co.nz> wrote:

>Am I the only one to have read to the bottom of this?

I did too.
It must be some sort of spook.

Probably an undergrad with too much free time writing the sort of
rubbish that he thinks that a right wing rat bag would write.

[mcreatch]

Karen Hayward <kiwi...@yellowsub.net> wrote:

ROFL

[mcreatch]

"Robert Duke" <dukeof...@msn.com> wrote:

>Dumbfounded and I wondered what a psychiatrist would make of it.

Delusions of persecution, probably.

[mcreatch]

Keith Whitehead <k.j.wh...@massey.ac.nz> wrote:

>I am not surprised, but that has less to do with their attitude and more
>to do with yours. Just so you know, I have been through the family
>courts (and 5 years latter still paying the legals costs) but I did get
>custody of the children. Yes I agree the courts have a lot to anbswer
>for and I agree that there is a lot of gender bias in the media etc,
>however attacking it like a raving lunatic will simply get everything
>you say dismissed.

Calling a superior a "sexist dyke" is not exactly a good way to try
and "change the system"

[Col]

Excessive paranoia ?

[mcreatch]

"Peter Douglas Zohrab" <zoh...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

>While I was working in the Chinese Section, I frequently got harassed by
>people -- especially Maggie Friend -- touching one of their eyes, while
>talking to me -- as if they were trying to convey some kind of message.

Very significant.

[mcreatch]

"Peter Douglas Zohrab" <zoh...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

>Betty Grey headed the Anti-Sexual Harassment committee, which brought out a
>pamphlet which included looking up or down dresses as examples of sexual
>harassment. As soon as that came out, Marion Findlay and Win Gilbert
>deliberately bent down and displayed their bras/breasts to me.

Now, how do I go about getting one of those booklets for my work place
.....

[mcreatch]

"Peter Douglas Zohrab" <zoh...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

>The Cantonese community has been very aggressive and possessive towards me
>at times. I can only speculate that this might be because I once arranged to

>learn Cantonese but was unable to turn up to the first class. ......

> a Cantonese from the
>next-door Ocean Commodities shop glared at me angrily through the glass
>walls -- for no reason that I knew of. It may have been caused by my
>inability to attend my first (and only) Cantonese language lesson with a
>private tutor back in about 1984

Absolutely correct..

[Mika]

On Sat, 02 Mar 2002 22:46:58 +1300, Col <jake.t...@the.marae.com>
wrote:

>
>Probably and you are the only twit to repost the whole bloody thing we hope .

LOL!

[Mika]

It's great to know that America doesn't have a corner on lunacy.
I almost forgot.

[mcreatch]

Mi...@usa.com (Mika) wrote:

>>"Peter Douglas Zohrab" <zoh...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

>>> One form of manipulation was for her to tell me to buy
>>>some particular items, and then tell some people (eg Chinese people) who
>>>didn't know me that they would be able to satisfy their curiosity (or
>>>whatever) about me by looking for someone with those items in their
>>>supermarket trolley, and accompanied by three boys.

>It's great to know that America doesn't have a corner on lunacy.
>I almost forgot.

Imagine those poor Chinese having to check all those shopping trolleys
looking for the telltale passion flower flavored yoghurt !

[mcreatch]

Mi...@usa.com (Mika) wrote:

>>"Peter Douglas Zohrab" <zoh...@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

>>> One form of manipulation was for her to tell me to buy
>>>some particular items, and then tell some people (eg Chinese people) who
>>>didn't know me that they would be able to satisfy their curiosity (or
>>>whatever) about me by looking for someone with those items in their
>>>supermarket trolley, and accompanied by three boys.

>It's great to know that America doesn't have a corner on lunacy.
>I almost forgot.

Imagine those poor Chinese having to check all those shopping trolleys

[Karen Hayward]

On Sun, 3 Mar 2002 07:40:21 +1300, "Robert Duke"
<dukeof...@msn.com> wrote:

Mmmm. Peter Z has been posting on Usenet for quite a long time. Back
in the early 90's he would at least attempt to justify his posts and
there were a few interesting discussions. He once wrote " I've heard
of a woman who went to a gang convention dressed in a bikini, and then
she had the nerve to complain to the police when she was raped. This
is a gross exploitation of the sexual differences between men and
women, which should be on the statute books as a crime, and IMHO
should be punishable by capital punishment." Caused quite a stormy
discussion at the time.

Now he tends to just make long-winded, paranoid and confusing
*pronouncements*.

I'm mildly curious as to why he didn't post this to soc.men and/or any
of the other men's groups.

Karen Hayward

[Karen Hayward]

No, Peter is a well known NZ Men's Rights activist. One could usually
find him protesting outside the Family Court in Wellington..he
possibly still does.
http://www.menz.org.nz/News%20archive/wellmar13.htm

He's well educated and also, I believe, well meaning. Unfortunately he
often tends to come across as the male version of a 'Feminazi'.

Karen Hayward

[mcreatch]

Karen Hayward <kiwi...@yellowsub.net> wrote:

>Now he tends to just make long-winded, paranoid and confusing
>*pronouncements*.

Probably not taking his medications any more.

[ti...@ohmygod.clad.co.nz]

In nz.politics Karen Hayward <kiwi...@yellowsub.net> wrote:

> Now he tends to just make long-winded, paranoid and confusing
> *pronouncements*.

This isn't the first time he has done that on this subject. The
first was at least 2 years ago, perhaps longer, and was just as
confused and paranoid. I think he was still working at the
Correspondence School then.

[Brian]

As a man concerned about mens rights, and many (but not all) of the
same issues as Peter, I truly wish his interests and advocacy were
"promoting" the Christian Heritage Party and Rape Crisis.

In the gender wars, it feels like he's on my "side", standing _behind_
me with his gun blazing towards the "enemy"

Brian

[moof]

Brian wrote:

>
> In the gender wars, it feels like he's on my "side", standing _behind_
> me with his gun blazing towards the "enemy"
>
> Brian

Pot........ Kettle .......