Post by Kiwi Frontline on Jan 22, 2017 7:28:40 GMT 12
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Rotorua Daily Post 14/1/17)
Ryan Gray's letter (Post,13/1/17) shines a spot-light on an age-old cause of human conflict.
His irrational sympathies and antipathies have completely destroyed his sense for truth. Hence he vents his spleen by fanning the flames of divisive racial propaganda.
Don Brash's Orewa speech was only "infamous" to folk like him. In fact it was a rare ray of light amidst a wilfully engineered miasma of divide-and-rule misinformation.
There were never any" illegal land confiscations" or "attempts to abolish Maori culture". Quite the opposite, and anyone who does a little honest research can confirm this for themselves.
The last thing that spell-bound folk like Mr Gray want is the truth, and thus they will powerfully resist googling this link : www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEYVCNgYA6s
wherein the facts about racism are explained by a decent, honest, and intelligent black man.
C R
Dunedin
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 12/1/17)
H Norton (Letters 12/1/17), argues his information source is better than mine like a peevish school kid.
When Norton can provide valid figures that clearly confirm more maoris perished pre 1840 from European-introduced diseases than were slaughtered in the Musket Wars then I and no doubt other readers may take his claims seriously.
I wonder how many of his so called renowned historians are also cringing at his misinformation?
GEOFFREY T PARKER
Whangarei
Dear Sir, (Sent to the Northern Advocate 9/1/17)
A new broom sweeps clean, as an old saying goes. With a new Prime Minister, and new faces in Cabinet, we might just see some important changes in Government thinking, but I won’t hold my breath.
A wine amendment bill allows Maori rights to control and name wine! This sets a dangerous precedence! What will be next? You can guarantee that it will not stop with wine! We could even name a new town after it – Waipiro! We could not call it Te Kauwhata, of course, because that comes from three English words: The Cow (aaah) Broke Wind!
Nor could we call it Taihape Wine, because that comes from two English words. When the North Island Main Trunk railway line was being built, people from various places in the world gathered to put it through. Chinese built a part, Irish another part, and the Scots built the Taihape section.
Obviously, where there are Scotsmen, there will be scotch whisky. During their tenure, they gave some to the local Maoris, and they went away to “Die Happy”!
The battle to control fresh water will, no doubt, continue next year as well.
This is all to do with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. But wait! What are these principles? The only principles, if that is what you call them, are that the Maoris give up fighting, cannibalism, and slavery, and for that they would become British citizens, and we could all live happily ever after. Wouldn’t that be nice?
KEVAN G. MARKS
Kaipara.
Dear Sir, (Sent to the Northern Advocate 9/1/17)
Well, it did not take long in the new year for somebody to take umbrage at a so-called racist remark, did it?
You can do a thousand things right, and not hear too much about it, but one wrong, and the media ghouls are into you like pigs into swill.
Who could take offence at what Sir Peter Leitch said after what he has done for sport, among others seeking help?
Shakespeare would have had a field day: “Much Ado About Nothing”!
If we were one people, as Captain William Hobson said at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi 177 years ago, would this have happened?
Somebody asks how do we pull the community together? Here are my thoughts on the subject:
1.) Stop being so damned thin skinned!
2). Toss out the Labour and National Governments. They are equally responsible for this whole debacle. Why? Because it helps keep one in Parliament, and the other out!
3). Toss out the racist Maori seats in Parliament, as John Key promised.
4). Abolish the Waitangi Tribunal. It is an “albatross round our necks”.
5). Stop kowtowing to the Maori elite. It is embarrasing to many Maori.
Dame Susan Devoy says that it is not the end of the story. I agree. Dame Susan could start the ball rolling by acknowledging that the Patupirarehe, Waitaha, and Turehu people were here a thousand years before Maori. Let truth defeat deceit!
Kawena Hori Maka
(KEVAN GEORGE MARKS)
Kaipara.
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Waikato Times 9/1/17)
I agree with Peter Holbrook (Times, 9/1/17) that local usage may not be the “right” way to pronounce placenames. In English we pronounce “Paris” with five differences from a Parisian. What determines pronunciation is the native language of the speaker and for nearly all of us in New Zealand we are fortunate that that is English. English, unlike Maori, is accented, with many syllables ending in consonants, many diphthongs and many more sounds. It is inevitable that this will always influence pronunciation.
Moreover, historically there is considerable difference in Maori usage throughout the country and it would be wrong to suggest that there is the only one right one. We have only to look in the Treaty of Waitangi, whose translators were excellent speakers of the Ngapuhi dialect, to find “land” translated as “wenua” and “February” transliterated as “Pepueri” - not a “wh” or “f” in sight! This indicates, if it does not prove, that changing the name of Wanganui against the wishes of the great majority, now pronounced with an “F” by most TV and radio announcers, is pure puffery. We need to replace pretence by some realism.
BRUCE MOON
Nelson
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers/unpublished-letters
Ryan Gray's letter (Post,13/1/17) shines a spot-light on an age-old cause of human conflict.
His irrational sympathies and antipathies have completely destroyed his sense for truth. Hence he vents his spleen by fanning the flames of divisive racial propaganda.
Don Brash's Orewa speech was only "infamous" to folk like him. In fact it was a rare ray of light amidst a wilfully engineered miasma of divide-and-rule misinformation.
There were never any" illegal land confiscations" or "attempts to abolish Maori culture". Quite the opposite, and anyone who does a little honest research can confirm this for themselves.
The last thing that spell-bound folk like Mr Gray want is the truth, and thus they will powerfully resist googling this link : www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEYVCNgYA6s
wherein the facts about racism are explained by a decent, honest, and intelligent black man.
C R
Dunedin
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Wanganui Chronicle 12/1/17)
H Norton (Letters 12/1/17), argues his information source is better than mine like a peevish school kid.
When Norton can provide valid figures that clearly confirm more maoris perished pre 1840 from European-introduced diseases than were slaughtered in the Musket Wars then I and no doubt other readers may take his claims seriously.
I wonder how many of his so called renowned historians are also cringing at his misinformation?
GEOFFREY T PARKER
Whangarei
Dear Sir, (Sent to the Northern Advocate 9/1/17)
A new broom sweeps clean, as an old saying goes. With a new Prime Minister, and new faces in Cabinet, we might just see some important changes in Government thinking, but I won’t hold my breath.
A wine amendment bill allows Maori rights to control and name wine! This sets a dangerous precedence! What will be next? You can guarantee that it will not stop with wine! We could even name a new town after it – Waipiro! We could not call it Te Kauwhata, of course, because that comes from three English words: The Cow (aaah) Broke Wind!
Nor could we call it Taihape Wine, because that comes from two English words. When the North Island Main Trunk railway line was being built, people from various places in the world gathered to put it through. Chinese built a part, Irish another part, and the Scots built the Taihape section.
Obviously, where there are Scotsmen, there will be scotch whisky. During their tenure, they gave some to the local Maoris, and they went away to “Die Happy”!
The battle to control fresh water will, no doubt, continue next year as well.
This is all to do with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. But wait! What are these principles? The only principles, if that is what you call them, are that the Maoris give up fighting, cannibalism, and slavery, and for that they would become British citizens, and we could all live happily ever after. Wouldn’t that be nice?
KEVAN G. MARKS
Kaipara.
Dear Sir, (Sent to the Northern Advocate 9/1/17)
Well, it did not take long in the new year for somebody to take umbrage at a so-called racist remark, did it?
You can do a thousand things right, and not hear too much about it, but one wrong, and the media ghouls are into you like pigs into swill.
Who could take offence at what Sir Peter Leitch said after what he has done for sport, among others seeking help?
Shakespeare would have had a field day: “Much Ado About Nothing”!
If we were one people, as Captain William Hobson said at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi 177 years ago, would this have happened?
Somebody asks how do we pull the community together? Here are my thoughts on the subject:
1.) Stop being so damned thin skinned!
2). Toss out the Labour and National Governments. They are equally responsible for this whole debacle. Why? Because it helps keep one in Parliament, and the other out!
3). Toss out the racist Maori seats in Parliament, as John Key promised.
4). Abolish the Waitangi Tribunal. It is an “albatross round our necks”.
5). Stop kowtowing to the Maori elite. It is embarrasing to many Maori.
Dame Susan Devoy says that it is not the end of the story. I agree. Dame Susan could start the ball rolling by acknowledging that the Patupirarehe, Waitaha, and Turehu people were here a thousand years before Maori. Let truth defeat deceit!
Kawena Hori Maka
(KEVAN GEORGE MARKS)
Kaipara.
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Waikato Times 9/1/17)
I agree with Peter Holbrook (Times, 9/1/17) that local usage may not be the “right” way to pronounce placenames. In English we pronounce “Paris” with five differences from a Parisian. What determines pronunciation is the native language of the speaker and for nearly all of us in New Zealand we are fortunate that that is English. English, unlike Maori, is accented, with many syllables ending in consonants, many diphthongs and many more sounds. It is inevitable that this will always influence pronunciation.
Moreover, historically there is considerable difference in Maori usage throughout the country and it would be wrong to suggest that there is the only one right one. We have only to look in the Treaty of Waitangi, whose translators were excellent speakers of the Ngapuhi dialect, to find “land” translated as “wenua” and “February” transliterated as “Pepueri” - not a “wh” or “f” in sight! This indicates, if it does not prove, that changing the name of Wanganui against the wishes of the great majority, now pronounced with an “F” by most TV and radio announcers, is pure puffery. We need to replace pretence by some realism.
BRUCE MOON
Nelson
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers/unpublished-letters