by Roger Childs
Today the vast majority of those involved in research on human variation would agree that biological races do not exist among humans… –Robert Wald Sussman, author of “The Myth of Race: The troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea”
The Polynesian link
Many Māori people today pride themselves on having a connection to the immigrants who came to New Zealand many centuries ago, from different parts of the Pacific.
Some of these folks are one eighth, one sixteenth, one thirty-second Māori, but this ethnic link seems to be paramount for many of them. (It is equivalent to someone calling themselves French, on the basis of a great-great grandmother born in Toulouse.)
Today to be Māori, whatever the amount of Polynesian blood, can be the gateway to rewards, riches and reputation. Some iwi leaders are far more Irish, English and Scottish than Polynesian, however it is the Pacific connection that has allowed them to become very wealthy, especially those administering Māori trusts and businesses which have often been set up using settlement money determined by the Waitangi Tribunal on the basis of grievances, and paid for by the taxpayer.
Meanwhile at the other end of the social continuum, far more numerous lower class part-Maori, struggle to get adequate housing, employment, health care and education.
Much difference?
Māori women were the focus due to their high smoking rate: 32.5 per cent, compared with the country’s total rate of 13.8 per cent. –Stuff, 6 May 2019
Does this comparison actually mean anything useful? Picture a Wellington flat which Jenny and Hanna share. They are both smokers and their respective parents were born in New Zealand. Jenny has forebears from England, Scotland and Dalmatia, and Hanna has ancestors from Wales, Ireland and the United States, but also has a Māori great, great grandfather.
In smoking rate statistics Hanna would feature in the Maori category, but not Jenny. Does that make sense?
All people who categorize themselves as Maori are actually descended principally from colonist and settler fore bears. So when we read or hear of Maori having far worse educational qualifications, housing, life expectancy, health etc… does that really mean anything useful?
Democratic representation?
In October the nation’s voters will be electing people to represent them in local authorities.
Surely all the candidates should be elected, as this is the democratic way. We are all New Zealanders, immigrants or descended from immigrants, and belonging to a particular ethnicity should not entitle an elite group of people to be elected for councils by voters of a particular ethnicity, rather than by all voters.
Equality and fairness are principles we should value above all else in society. Wherever we have come from and whatever our mix of ancestors, we should all be treated the same and no particular group should have special privileges.
Time to end so-called ethnic population categories
John Robinson has observed in many articles on WW that New Zealand has an apartheid system. It is less extreme than the original apartheid policies in South Africa after 1948, but there are many similarities between the two countries. Whereas in the South African Republic the minority Whites were the dominant group, in New Zealand Māori have the superiority and special rights.
A key piece of legislation which under-pinned the apartheid system in South Africa was the Population Registration Act which categorized people by race/ethnicity. (Ironically if any Maori had been in the Republic at the time, they would have been classified as Coloureds.) All subsequent apartheid Acts were based on the racial classifications – e.g. A Native …is in fact or is generally accepted as a member of any aboriginal race or tribe of Africa.
Isn’t it time we dropped our “population registration” and as former Health Minister Shane Reti said in 2022, we should treat people on the basis of need not ethnicity. The categorisation of people is in fact meaningless especially as Maori are descended principally from settlers and colonists.
In the past I have been annoyed by organisations who have classify me as New Zealand-European. I have no known European ancestors and am simply a New Zealander or Kiwi, like every other citizen of the country.
I couldn’t agree more. Well, put. If we don’t stop all this race-based nonsense Māori will keep on claiming victimhood and that will hold them back from being happy and getting the best out of life. We are all the same, Kiwis, no matter what our genetic makeup. You often hear Māori say, oh you don’t know how it is to be Māori. How we carry the scars of our past. We all have pasts and thing in our past we could have done without. Time to move on I say.
Thank you Roger for this very important article . What year was it decided your inclusion in the Maori race could be based on less than 50% ? This marked, for me the beginning of all this complete stupidity .
Every day Maori are hard workers like all the rest of us Kiwis but we have a minority that are dependent on social welfare and have no ambition to further themselves and the Māori elite stir the pot and agitated them to fight their cause for fear of losing the gravy train handouts.