Post by Kiwi Frontline on Jul 18, 2019 5:00:59 GMT 12
Dominion Post 18/7/19
WE ARE ALL KIWIS
Racism is a word that slips too easily off the tongue and pen. So it was with Glenn McConnell’s July 16 column. Glenn seemed to be suggesting that any critical comment about Maori or less than positive historical observations were racist. He referred to Don Brash’s accurate statement about pre-Treaty Maori being cannibals as ‘‘incredibly inflammatory’’.
However, as every New Zealand historian knows, cannibalism was an element of Maori tikanga before 1840, and in the hundreds of intertribal battles, warriors knew that if they were killed or defeated, they were likely to be eaten. As for the women, they might suffer the same fate or, at best, be abducted or enslaved. This was the way it was.
The vast majority of Maori people today also have European/British forebears. We New Zealanders are all mongrels of mixed origins as every person who has had their DNA investigated, knows.
All citizens in the country need to think of themselves and others first as New Zealanders, not Chinese, Tongans, Samoans, Maori, South African. People can still identify with ethnic cultural groups, but fundamentally we are all Kiwis. There were no ethnic issues when it came to supporting the Black Caps.
ROGER CHILDS, Raumati Beach
INSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOUR
Before Glenn McConnell (Get real, this country is racist to the core, July 16) devotes any more energy to berating himself, and every other Aotearoa-New Zealand resident, for being ‘‘racist to the core’’, maybe he should ask himself where ‘‘racism’’ originates.
Most people realise, early in their lives, that humans everywhere are inclined to be ‘‘racist’’, in that they prefer to associate with their ‘‘own kind’’, however that is defined. Other modern animal species are similarly inclined.
Similar behaviour would have been selected for, in the evolving genes of Homo sapiens, during the millions of years when our ancestors shared this planet with up to 10 other species of the genus Homo. During these years, ‘‘our kind’’ of human gradually out-competed all the others.
Almost certainly, our incipient fear of and hostility towards ‘‘other types’’ originated back then, perhaps even earlier. It will take more than a few newspaper columns, editorials and letters to overcome that.
BILL SUTTON, Napier
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers
WE ARE ALL KIWIS
Racism is a word that slips too easily off the tongue and pen. So it was with Glenn McConnell’s July 16 column. Glenn seemed to be suggesting that any critical comment about Maori or less than positive historical observations were racist. He referred to Don Brash’s accurate statement about pre-Treaty Maori being cannibals as ‘‘incredibly inflammatory’’.
However, as every New Zealand historian knows, cannibalism was an element of Maori tikanga before 1840, and in the hundreds of intertribal battles, warriors knew that if they were killed or defeated, they were likely to be eaten. As for the women, they might suffer the same fate or, at best, be abducted or enslaved. This was the way it was.
The vast majority of Maori people today also have European/British forebears. We New Zealanders are all mongrels of mixed origins as every person who has had their DNA investigated, knows.
All citizens in the country need to think of themselves and others first as New Zealanders, not Chinese, Tongans, Samoans, Maori, South African. People can still identify with ethnic cultural groups, but fundamentally we are all Kiwis. There were no ethnic issues when it came to supporting the Black Caps.
ROGER CHILDS, Raumati Beach
INSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOUR
Before Glenn McConnell (Get real, this country is racist to the core, July 16) devotes any more energy to berating himself, and every other Aotearoa-New Zealand resident, for being ‘‘racist to the core’’, maybe he should ask himself where ‘‘racism’’ originates.
Most people realise, early in their lives, that humans everywhere are inclined to be ‘‘racist’’, in that they prefer to associate with their ‘‘own kind’’, however that is defined. Other modern animal species are similarly inclined.
Similar behaviour would have been selected for, in the evolving genes of Homo sapiens, during the millions of years when our ancestors shared this planet with up to 10 other species of the genus Homo. During these years, ‘‘our kind’’ of human gradually out-competed all the others.
Almost certainly, our incipient fear of and hostility towards ‘‘other types’’ originated back then, perhaps even earlier. It will take more than a few newspaper columns, editorials and letters to overcome that.
BILL SUTTON, Napier
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers