Post by Kiwi Frontline on Mar 20, 2019 9:17:59 GMT 12
Dominion Post 20/3/19
DAME ANNE SALMOND
It is extraordinary that an historian with a worldwide reputation has used the tragedy in Christchurch to give a highly biased and subjective view of our history.
Anne Salmond’s ‘White supremacy is a part of us’ is full of unsubstantiated generalisations unworthy of an acclaimed academic. For example, after a statement on the 1840 Waitangi Treaty she writes: ‘‘This promise (of equality) was utterly smashed by the incoming settler government, which proclaimed and practised white supremacy.’’
She provides no evidence to back this claim and knows that many governors and politicians, such as Grey and Gore Browne, worked hard to fulfil the promises of fairness and equality for Maori. There were some bigoted MPs at the time, as in all parliaments since, but these were a minority.
She makes no mention of the chaos in Maori society during the decades leading up to the Treaty. These were times of inter-tribal warfare, slavery, cannibalism, rape, abduction and the slaughter of thousands of innocent men, women and children.
To use Salmond’s phrase – there is plenty of evidence that Maori were lucky to be colonised as tino rangatiratanga had meant war, male supremacy and insecurity.
ROGER CHILDS, Paraparaumu
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers
DAME ANNE SALMOND
It is extraordinary that an historian with a worldwide reputation has used the tragedy in Christchurch to give a highly biased and subjective view of our history.
Anne Salmond’s ‘White supremacy is a part of us’ is full of unsubstantiated generalisations unworthy of an acclaimed academic. For example, after a statement on the 1840 Waitangi Treaty she writes: ‘‘This promise (of equality) was utterly smashed by the incoming settler government, which proclaimed and practised white supremacy.’’
She provides no evidence to back this claim and knows that many governors and politicians, such as Grey and Gore Browne, worked hard to fulfil the promises of fairness and equality for Maori. There were some bigoted MPs at the time, as in all parliaments since, but these were a minority.
She makes no mention of the chaos in Maori society during the decades leading up to the Treaty. These were times of inter-tribal warfare, slavery, cannibalism, rape, abduction and the slaughter of thousands of innocent men, women and children.
To use Salmond’s phrase – there is plenty of evidence that Maori were lucky to be colonised as tino rangatiratanga had meant war, male supremacy and insecurity.
ROGER CHILDS, Paraparaumu
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers