Letters 5/9/19 - Dover Samuels speaking maori at school

[Kiwi Frontline]

Dominion Post 5/9/19

A HISTORY LESSON
For someone with a knowledge of New Zealand political history it is disappointing to see Dover Samuels on RNZ repeating the overused story of Maori children being punished for speaking Maori at school.

Native Schools were set up by an 1867 act of Parliament at the request of Maori elders, who wanted their children to receive a European education which would enable them to participate and prosper in an English-speaking world.

A good knowledge of the language was obviously essential, and the intent of any punishment was for not speaking English rather than for speaking Maori.

A similar situation existed in Scotland about the same time as he attended school. Children whose only language was Gaelic were required to learn English, the only difference being that the instrument of punishment was the tawse, a leather strap.

The application of a supplejack stick to Mr Samuels’ posterior doesn’t seem to have done him any harm. He became a Cabinet minister, and my Hebridean source of information went on to become a respected journalist and author.

Rather than waste his time trying to join the Maori apology bandwagon, Mr Samuels would be better to use his mana and energy to team up with someone like Alan Duff to address the high rate of illiteracy that seems to lead so many young Maori down the path to prison.
DAVID FISHER, Masterton

sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers

[Kiwi Frontline]

GOVERNMENT DAMNED BECAUSE IT DID, AND DAMNED IF IT DIDN’T

Since 1840 many Statutes have been passed with good intention to help maori adapt to European society. But today’s crop of agenda driven griever maori and their European sycophants twist these to put them in bad light.

A prime example is the Native Schools Act 1867 which decreed that English should be the only language used in the education of Māori children, today’s part-maori grievers spread the tale that ‘maori was beaten out of the children’, yes in some cases children were physically punished for speaking maori, in those days ALL children were physically punished if school rules were breached.

The opportunist grievers conveniently forget that this was at the request of the wise maori elders who wanted maori children to be equipped for the changing society and economy that colonisation brought. There was/is no law preventing maoris from keeping their language or culture alive in their own environment as many other races do.

If the government had not of helped maori learn the English language then today’s grievers and their European sycophants would be beating the door down at the Waitangi Tribunal and bleating that the govt breached the TOW in not treating maori as equal British subjects by not making the English language available to them. - Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.