Post by Kiwi Frontline on Sept 10, 2019 14:46:30 GMT 12
An Open Letter to Mr Dover Samuels 10/9/19
Dear Mr Samuels,
You are reported on Radio New Zealand on 3rd September as saying that “the Crown” should apologise to Maoris who had been beaten as children for speaking in Maori at school and that this “had been a deliberate policy on the part of the Crown to disempower [your] generation.” You have received support from Hon. Kelvin Davis who is reported as saying “that the issue of ... discrimination against Māori children is a significant one.”
Well now, may I say for a start that I am totally opposed to any violence towards children, having supported Sue Bradford in the “anti-smacking” referendum. However the issue which you raise has a significant past which is seldom mentioned in discussion today. There are two important facts which should be accepted right at the start.
First: in the early days of universal education, considerable efforts were made to provide appropriately for Maori children and a number of “native schools” were established.
Now a most significant development was that very many Maori parents decided that it was necessary that in these schools all instruction should be in English and no Maori was to be spoken.
Clearly these parents – in contrast to many today – understood correctly that if their children were to have the best opportunities in the modern world, it was necessary for them to be proficient in English.
Thus, at least two considerable petitions were presented to Parliament. One such was the 1876 petition of Wi Te Hakiro and 336 others that “[T]here should not be a word of Maori allowed to be spoken in the [native] school”. “The Crown”, that is the educational authorities of the day, responded positively to such clearly expressed wishes of Maori parents. It would surely be absurd to apologise today, 143 years later, because it did so!
Second: much is made by some today of the corporal punishment of children caught speaking Maori, ignoring the fact that in those less enlightened days it was applied for all breaches of school rules, not simply by Maori children but by all. There was no “discrimination against Māori children.” In my own schooldays, the cane was in frequent use irrespective of the ethnicity of its victims and no doubt some of them still feel resentment and hurt.
So – we cannot bring back the past and amend its behaviour to that which we consider appropriate today. It had its rights and wrongs as so, surely, do we. But the “deliberate policy on the part of the Crown” was to meet the wishes of Maori parents seeking the best outcome for their children, not to “disempower” your generation. I suggest that you and the Minister accept this and let it go.
BRUCE MOON, Nelson
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers
Dear Mr Samuels,
You are reported on Radio New Zealand on 3rd September as saying that “the Crown” should apologise to Maoris who had been beaten as children for speaking in Maori at school and that this “had been a deliberate policy on the part of the Crown to disempower [your] generation.” You have received support from Hon. Kelvin Davis who is reported as saying “that the issue of ... discrimination against Māori children is a significant one.”
Well now, may I say for a start that I am totally opposed to any violence towards children, having supported Sue Bradford in the “anti-smacking” referendum. However the issue which you raise has a significant past which is seldom mentioned in discussion today. There are two important facts which should be accepted right at the start.
First: in the early days of universal education, considerable efforts were made to provide appropriately for Maori children and a number of “native schools” were established.
Now a most significant development was that very many Maori parents decided that it was necessary that in these schools all instruction should be in English and no Maori was to be spoken.
Clearly these parents – in contrast to many today – understood correctly that if their children were to have the best opportunities in the modern world, it was necessary for them to be proficient in English.
Thus, at least two considerable petitions were presented to Parliament. One such was the 1876 petition of Wi Te Hakiro and 336 others that “[T]here should not be a word of Maori allowed to be spoken in the [native] school”. “The Crown”, that is the educational authorities of the day, responded positively to such clearly expressed wishes of Maori parents. It would surely be absurd to apologise today, 143 years later, because it did so!
Second: much is made by some today of the corporal punishment of children caught speaking Maori, ignoring the fact that in those less enlightened days it was applied for all breaches of school rules, not simply by Maori children but by all. There was no “discrimination against Māori children.” In my own schooldays, the cane was in frequent use irrespective of the ethnicity of its victims and no doubt some of them still feel resentment and hurt.
So – we cannot bring back the past and amend its behaviour to that which we consider appropriate today. It had its rights and wrongs as so, surely, do we. But the “deliberate policy on the part of the Crown” was to meet the wishes of Maori parents seeking the best outcome for their children, not to “disempower” your generation. I suggest that you and the Minister accept this and let it go.
BRUCE MOON, Nelson
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers