Post by Kiwi Frontline on Feb 13, 2019 5:07:29 GMT 12
Otago Daily Times 13/2/19
TREATY OF WAITANGI
OUR TV presenters, radio jocks and newspaper journos say Waitangi Day is a celebration of the signing of the Treaty in 1840.
Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed on February 6, 1840, but the Treaty that Maori celebrate today is the reconstructed and reinterpreted document that now reads of ‘‘principles, partnerships, forestry and fisheries’’ etc. None of these words can be found in Te Tiriti o Waitangi signed by 565 Rangatira.
My question is, how can an innocent document signed 179 years ago between two cultures become, over time (1975 - 2019), such a racially divisive and historically distorted document?
MAUREEN ANDERSON, Tauranga
Dominion Post 13/2/19
CANCER RATES: ADDRESS MAORI’S NON-HEALTH ISSUES
Duncan Garner (Wellbeing Budget nonsense when we’re dying early, Feb 9) is concerned that survival rates for cancer in New Zealand are poor compared with Australia. One of the reasons for the disparity is that Maori, who constitute 15 per cent of our population, die from cancer at 1.5 times the rate of Pakeha.
To improve our cancer survival rates, we may be better to address the economic and cultural issues that face Maori with cancer, rather than hassling Pharmac to provide new expensive drugs for which the effectiveness has not yet been demonstrated.
Disclosure: I’m a Pakeha cancer survivor who has benefited from excellent cancer care in the public system, including access to a number of new drugs.
ALASTAIR SMITH, Aro Valley
NZ Herald 13/2/19 (Also in the Dominion Post 13/2/19)
WAITANGI DAY
I have just spent a week in the Bay of Islands and while there attended part of the Treaty celebrations programme on the Treaty grounds. It certainly was not a New Zealand Day, it was a Them and Us day, a day of protests and divisions. Those who wanted to express a counter view to the general theme were just drowned out by protesters. Freedom of speech was very limited.
Some speakers spoke about issues of concern to the wide New Zealand community, like water and pollution, and were greeted by respect from all. Others paraded around the flagpole and through the crowds, chanting and waving flags clearly designed to be offensive, including the NZ flag upside down and below a Maori-designed flag.
What I found particularly interesting was placards denouncing 1080 as a killer of innocent animals, but none condemning domestic violence and highlighting the number of innocent women, children and men killed each month by it in New Zealand.
Clearly we desperately need a New Zealand Day that allows we Kiwis to celebrate our achievements and the values system that has allowed us to grow into the nation that we are today — a classless society where freedom of speech and association are closely guarded and diversity, tolerance and respect for all, if not perfect, remain our aspiration.
BRIAN MAIN, Hamilton.
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers
TREATY OF WAITANGI
OUR TV presenters, radio jocks and newspaper journos say Waitangi Day is a celebration of the signing of the Treaty in 1840.
Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed on February 6, 1840, but the Treaty that Maori celebrate today is the reconstructed and reinterpreted document that now reads of ‘‘principles, partnerships, forestry and fisheries’’ etc. None of these words can be found in Te Tiriti o Waitangi signed by 565 Rangatira.
My question is, how can an innocent document signed 179 years ago between two cultures become, over time (1975 - 2019), such a racially divisive and historically distorted document?
MAUREEN ANDERSON, Tauranga
Dominion Post 13/2/19
CANCER RATES: ADDRESS MAORI’S NON-HEALTH ISSUES
Duncan Garner (Wellbeing Budget nonsense when we’re dying early, Feb 9) is concerned that survival rates for cancer in New Zealand are poor compared with Australia. One of the reasons for the disparity is that Maori, who constitute 15 per cent of our population, die from cancer at 1.5 times the rate of Pakeha.
To improve our cancer survival rates, we may be better to address the economic and cultural issues that face Maori with cancer, rather than hassling Pharmac to provide new expensive drugs for which the effectiveness has not yet been demonstrated.
Disclosure: I’m a Pakeha cancer survivor who has benefited from excellent cancer care in the public system, including access to a number of new drugs.
ALASTAIR SMITH, Aro Valley
NZ Herald 13/2/19 (Also in the Dominion Post 13/2/19)
WAITANGI DAY
I have just spent a week in the Bay of Islands and while there attended part of the Treaty celebrations programme on the Treaty grounds. It certainly was not a New Zealand Day, it was a Them and Us day, a day of protests and divisions. Those who wanted to express a counter view to the general theme were just drowned out by protesters. Freedom of speech was very limited.
Some speakers spoke about issues of concern to the wide New Zealand community, like water and pollution, and were greeted by respect from all. Others paraded around the flagpole and through the crowds, chanting and waving flags clearly designed to be offensive, including the NZ flag upside down and below a Maori-designed flag.
What I found particularly interesting was placards denouncing 1080 as a killer of innocent animals, but none condemning domestic violence and highlighting the number of innocent women, children and men killed each month by it in New Zealand.
Clearly we desperately need a New Zealand Day that allows we Kiwis to celebrate our achievements and the values system that has allowed us to grow into the nation that we are today — a classless society where freedom of speech and association are closely guarded and diversity, tolerance and respect for all, if not perfect, remain our aspiration.
BRIAN MAIN, Hamilton.
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers