A racist call
By John Robinson
Maori Party Co-leader and Te Tai Hauauru candidate Debbie Ngarewa-Packer has called for an inquiry focused on “identifying and getting rid of racist monuments, statues and names from our colonial era”.
The call is openly racist, claiming a particular link between those who came from Polynesia in New Zealand and those Americans whose ancestors came from Africa. “What we are seeing right across the world, led by our black brothers and sisters in the USA, is a global push to dismantle systemic racism, including the outdated symbols of that racism.”
Skin colour (black or some shade of brown, as “brothers and sisters”) is held to set people apart from others whose roots are in Europe.
The idea, based on that racial identification, insists on their right to decide what we (all of us, the New Zealand community) can do, and to destroy “statues and monuments that symbolise racism and oppression.”
Perverting history
One consequence is a complete perversion of history. Not so long ago the great explorer Captain Cook was incorrectly claimed to have committed wrongs. Just today Radio New Zealand reported a claim of many killed at Parihaka – which is a lie as the only casualty was one boy who had his foot stepped on by a horse. (For a true account see Parihaka: The Facts by John McLean.)
What then should be done when some historical figure who is recognised in the community by a street names, a stadium name or a statue, is held to have done wrong? That person should not be written out of history, and any difference of opinion should not give any particularly vocal group the right to remove any record of the past. The Maori Party press release wants to do that, and in doing so to create a new version of our history, with the demand to remove a street name of “John Bryce who was responsible for the murder of children and led the Parihaka invasion.” All very dramatic and emotional, but all simply nonsense.
What do we do about Te Rauparaha?
What, however, should be done when some historical figure did in fact commit atrocities? We have an important example here in Kapiti, of Te Rauparaha, whose killings around Kapiti and across the South Island are well established and widely reported. (I have written of those killings in Unrestrained Slaughter: The Maori Musket Wars 1800-1840.) Yet he is held in high regard by some whose ancestors came to safety here, escaping from the depredations of Waikato in the Kawhia area, and who then fought under his leadership.
The answer is to keep the recognition, and at the same time to understand the wrongs that he committed. So, while recognising the horrors of the wars of Te Rauparaha, I do not call for his name to be expunged. This same principle applies in the U.S. to statues of the great American Civil War General Robert E. Lee.
Don’t let mobs destroy our heritage, with its many colours. New Zealand needs to stand up against the rewriting of our history and the associated separation into race-based groups. We should become one people.
The big problem for the Maori Party going down this road is that the only enslavers in the country’s history have been Maori rangitira (chiefs). Furthermore, which iwi people belong to will determine feelings among Maori about each of them. Best to leave well alone. —Eds
Why did we never learn at school who started those ‘Maori Wars’ and why? That’s right, the victors write the histories don’t they? That is why they need re writing so that those who weren’t really heroes can be called out and those who were legitimate heroes can be honored. Another ‘hero’ honoured with a statue who needs to be called out is John Ballance known to have said the only good Maori is a dead one. He became a PM. The problem I have with these statues is the honouring of people who clearly aren’t honourable. It’s called lying. Our kids see those & learn the lies. Teach them the truth. Teach them what the passive resistance at Parihaka was really about. About those resisters being sent to SI jails without charge or trial to die far from their families & homes. All for greed & land. A crime of government. The same government that honours them by erecting statues in their memory. Same government that confiscated millions of acres. Teach them that.
And who do you suppose ‘started the Maori Wars’? who do you suppose benefited? Hint: the Bank of NZ had a leading role to play, and THAT is the hidden side of history nobody is taught. John A Lee summed up the real situation when he said, “The Maori thinks the Pakeha won the Land Wars, but he only won the debt.”
Our forefathers came from a Britain of the Work House, debtors’ jail, the slums of St. Giles, cholera, child labour…. yet what we hear incessantly it utter CRAP about “white privilege.” Engels described the situation in his 1845 book the Condition of the Working Class in England, and Thomas Carlyle in “Past and Present.” In the southern states of the USA, white labourers were thrown into destitution by being pitted in competition with Black slave labour owned by a small oligarchy, as documented by Hinton Rowen Helper. What god-damned “white privilege”? Ever heard of ‘indentured servants”? They came to NZ as well as other countries. Ever heard of the “red legs” of the Caribbean.
When is any of this history of exploitation of whites by oligarchs ever taught in schools?. Or the heroism of our pioneer forefathers? Or the savagery perpetrated on pioneers, women, children, babies? Instead it’s just ongoing denigration.
When is an appreciation of European culture – of Beethoven, Gluck, Vivaldi, of da Vinci, Galileo, Yeats, Eliot, Pound, taught to European descended youngsters. Instead they are left with MTV. Hip Hop, Rap, pop, American junk-culture and cosmopolitan banality, because cultural formlessness serves globalization, and the process of creating a mass produce and consume pseudo-culture devoid of depth and spirit. Every race in NZ is taught their culture, if not in schools then at least within their own communities. and rightly so. But heaven help anyone who ventures to try and form a cultural club for European youths. All hell breaks loose at such heresy.
Now we see the start of a global process to eliminate any vestige of European heritage of anything that does not serve a global economy. Hence the backing by oligarchs, such as Soros, Rockefeller Foundation and many others of the Black Lives Matter Movement, and its hurrah chorus in the mass media.
Today the statue of Captain Hamilton was removed from Hamilton city for prompt destruction, in an action that is akin to grave desecration. Captain Hamilton died a hero. Abel Tasman’s statue has been paint splattered in Nelson, and many other colonial monuments vandalized over the years.
As for Parihaka, Te Whiti was a psychotic who sought martyrdom Jim Jones style. He and Tohu were treated as honoured guests while supposedly being ‘punished’. If Maori wish to honour such a person, well and good; but he should not be heralded as a great national icon to be foisted as such on the rest of NZ.
Yes, I toyed with the thought of challenging that part-Maori woman who whinged on TV news about Picton, Hamilton and even (for heaven’s sake!) Captain Cook. I thought of suggesting perhaps we should rename Rauparaha Street in Paraparaumu so as not to be besmirched with the memory of that real old butcher, not to mention a whole bunch of others. But really these part-Maori and other ardent racists need to put the activities of folk of the past like Bully Hayes into context with the world in which they lived and be a bit more forgiving. The complaining women’s Maori relatives no doubt ate their share of long pig and she’s igoring that.
Pam Vernon calls for more understanding of history, more information. One, which I refer to, is Parihaka the facts (John McLean, 2020) which tells what Parihaka was really about by a careful research into documents of the time. That facts-based account corrects claims such as her “resisters being sent to SI jails without charge or trial to die far from their families & homes. All for greed & land.” This was rather armed rebellion and illegal occupancy of land. The need for accuracy in historic narrative is why I have written a number of books, such as Two great New Zealanders, Tamati Waka Nene and Apirana Ngata (2015), The kingite rebellion (2016) and Unrestrained slaughter, the Maori musket wars 1800-1840 (2020). Kapiti features prominently in the latter two, being where northern tribes led by Te Rauparaha of Ngati Toa came in the 1820s to slaughter residents and take the land. It is also where the first phase of rebellion started. An argument among Te Atiawa about whether to sell land at Waitara was taken to Taranaki in 1848, leading to gang warfare and killing there until Governor Brown promised law. When, in 1860, Kingi refused to accept a legal decision and took armed possession, warriors came from the king movement in the Waikato to join in. That movement was not accepted by many Maori in the Waikato, having been turned down by large hui in 1847 and 1848. The new king, Te Wherowhero, had welcomed the 1847 Government offer of assistance, but he died in in 1860. Fighting began in the Waikato in 1863 when Rewi Maniapoto led an insurrection with attacks on Government agents. There were also a number of attacks by armed bands on settlers south of Auckland that year.