We often talk about "the system" as if it’s a faceless machine, but our tūpuna and the prophets who walked this land before us had a much sharper name for it: Babylon. As Bob Marley famously sang, we need to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, because while they can’t stop the time, they certainly try to steal our energy. Today, we stand at a crossroads in Taitokerau where we have to choose: do we stay in the "Leaky Bucket" of Babylon, or do we finally build Zion?

In the traditions of the Ringatū and Ratana movements—much like the Rastafarian faith—these names aren't just religious labels; they are descriptions of opposing economic and spiritual operating systems. Babylon represents the "Newtonian Error," the idea that we are all separate, isolated particles just trying to grab what we can. In modern Northland, Babylon looks like the log trade: we export 61% of our raw timber—our "embodied energy"—to the other side of the world, receiving fiat currency that we immediately spend on imported goods. It’s a state of high Entropy (disorder) that leaves our roads broken and our whānau struggling while the "order" is realised offshore.

I was “passengering” to Mt Manaia with my bro and sis the other day listening to Unity Pacific’s “Thou We Are”, and it hit me how much of our story in Te Tai Tokerau is tied to a land thousands of miles away. Most people see the red, gold, and green flags at Waitangi and think it’s just about the music. But if you look deeper, those colours are signals of a shared "Quantum Entanglement" with a global struggle for sovereignty.

The connection isn't accidental. Back in the 19th century, our prophets like Te Kooti and Ratana saw something in the scriptures that the missionaries didn't want them to see. They looked at the story of Israel and didn't see a lost people needing British "salvation"—they saw themselves. They claimed that identity of a "Chosen People" with a direct covenant to Io, bypassing the spiritual authority of "Babylon" or the British Empire.