We seem to be beset by narratives about ‘colonisation’ and its purported ongoing evils in this day and age. On close inspection, the confected outrage regarding colonisation in our contemporary world should not stand up to scrutiny.
Most of the attacks on ‘colonisation’ in present day New Zealand are really attacks on the inescapable reality of modernity, the modernised world all peoples are navigating.
A Maori person who was born in the same year as I was has the same experience of the modern globalised world as I do. We both have had to navigate the progress and innovation that has occurred through the decades, the change and progress that accelerated through the course of the 20th century. He wasn’t teleported here from 1840 and I wasn’t given a manual on what are purportedly ‘Pakeha institutions’ prior to my birth. Neither of us have any special instinctual knowledge that would advantage one over the other. We both have been learning to navigate a modern globalised world since we were birthed.
Moreover, there is no such thing as ‘Pakeha medicine’ that modern day Maori are often caricatured as approaching with some mixture of awe and fear: the medicines and healthcare structures we have today are the product of the collective input of countries right around the world and have taken many decades to develop. All humanity has witnessed this, no matter where you are located around the globe: a medical researcher in Japan is no doubt contributing as much as one from anywhere else around the planet, and we all benefit from the global drive to improve our collective lot.
The health system that we have arrived at is not some alien ‘Pakeha colonist system’: you will find it has wide-ranging commonalities with any such system anywhere in the world. Healthcare is one example of this global commonality, but of course there are many other examples as modern societies order themselves in very similar ways as regards the provision of schooling, policing, and the other fundamental institutions and services countries provide for their populations.
We are currently having a bizarrely irrational and inherently negative view of our modern nation imposed on us by homegrown academics, and we need to push back against that by deploying logic and reason and our knowledge of the wider world of which New Zealand is a part.
Aaron Spencer is a writer and truth seeker from the Bay of Plenty.
Just fyi - that 'road to perdition' matter referred to in my previous comment: https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2024/09/professor-robert-macculloch-nz.html
A good article Aaron, Winston will love you for it.
One small issue, Te Tiriti was quite restrictive in who could partake in those land transactions but, dare I say it, in principle, you’re essentially right.
The only other problem I have with it is “So what's the answer?”
Personally, I believe the Treaty should be parked in a museum; all references to “the Principles” and the ToW Act abolished; and, consequently, the Waitangi Tribunal disbanded if we ever want the grievance industry gravy train to stop and for race relations to have any chance of settling.
But, to all those that think all, or any, of the above will transpire anytime soon (as the famous protagonist,…
Thanks for such a sensible analysis Aaron. But we must find a way to wrest back the narrative and just saying 'it isn't so' won't do. Clearly there is a common believe amongst some Maori that their stituation in life is a.) less than pakeha and b.) a result of colonisation. And this leads to the conclusion that by taking control of more resources things will turn around.
This is then linked to a further belief that the way to do this is to return to an ancient Maori view of the world in which all the deities of that ancient world view both control things and can make things better.
It needs to be shown that despite the social…
A relevant and significant piece of common sense from Garry Judd KC today -
Return of the primitive
Reversion to a world of ignorance and superstition
An affected Northland farmer has sent me Te Panonitanga o te Mahere Wai Māori Hukihuki: Kōrerotia mai o whakaaro The draft Freshwater Plan Change: Have your say, issued by the Northland Regional Council. This “draft blueprint for improving freshwater” tells its readers on page 6 that
Te Hurihanga Wai (the water cycle) describes how through whakapapa Māori view freshwater “…as a living being that derives from ngā atua.” 1 The concept that freshwater should be treated as a living being with rights to be healthy and to flourish, and to be respected as an…
Let’s be very clear. The early white settlers didn’t bring colonisation, they brought civilisation. That’s what the signatories wanted, they had enough of tribalism as had the rest of the world many years before. It was no partnership, Māori wanted Civilisation and all its benefits. There was no concept of a United Maoridom, it didn’t exist.