Post by Kiwi Frontline on Mar 5, 2017 7:02:12 GMT 12
Dear Sir (Sent to the NZ Listener 22/2/17)
Regarding the article “Inglorious Dastards” by Dr Vincent O’Malley.
Dr O’Malley’s contribution to the latest edition of the New Zealand Listener is so full of pejorative allusions it would take a small book to address each one and point out aspects of historical context which he wilfully ignores. However, some online searching of, for example, the web site founded by his colleague Dr Jock Phillips - Te Ara - The Enclyclopedia of New Zealand, might be of interest to people who would like more balanced information.
It is not a matter of “owning up” to our troubled past. Actual history is what it is and any rational person should be able to acknowledge that.
The problem is the current tendency for supposedly professional historians to make claims devoid of sober historical context. I confess I have no idea what their motives might be for doing this.
Dr O’Malley’s article does very little to shed light on “what really took place at Rangiaowhia”. It does, however, provide a very good example of the sort of revisionist hyperbole which needs to be debunked before it is possible to have a mature conversation about New Zealand’s colonial past.
Sadly, in the current climate of political correctness, few have the guts to publicly challenge the assertions made by people like him.
CHRIS LEE
Tauranga
Dear Sir, (Sent to the Taranaki Daily News 22/2/17)
It is disappointing that so many victims of political correctness continue to advocate the compulsory learning of Maori language in our schools. If there were any real wisdom remaining in outer society it would be known that " for all things there is a season", and that no power on earth can stop the Maori culture and language from eventually passing
away. We call it evolution.
Maori culture, in the pre colonial sense, has indeed already long since passed into history. Human cultures and societies are at every moment in a natural process of dynamic metamorphosis, even without the impact of dominant colonising civilisations.
If we had an education system worthy of the name, it would be general knowledge that scores, perhaps hundreds of cultures and languages in the course of history have become extinct, or have changed beyond recognition by blending with other cultures, the both becoming the richer for it.
Let us not forget that even the mighty Roman empire, the dominant and leading culture of the then known world, has, together with its language (latin), passed away. How many past civilisations, races, and languages have synthesised and evolved to become the modern
language and culture we know as English? And this too shall pass, " in its season".
The demise of ancient cultures should, ideally, be neither be hastened nor prolonged, but be allowed to pass in dignity and gratitude and not be kept artificially alive as humiliating caricatures of their former reality.
If the anti-western, pro-tribalism activists possessed any trace of the old Maori consciousness they would know that it is the fruits of the past which we carry forward with us into the future, not the trappings. Such agitators have no wish to arrive at the truth since they suspect this may not be to their advantage, they only wish to win the argument.
All that was true and beautiful in past civilisations and cultures, including that of the Maori, we carry on with us as qualities of soul. Nothing of true worth is ever irretrievably lost, thus mankind progresses.
COLIN RAWLE, Dunedin
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Dominion Post 19/2/17
The Maori Language Act 2016, praised by Ngahiwi Apanui, (18/2/17) is a flagrant example of retrospective legislation which grossly distorts the meaning of the Treaty of Waitangi. An act declaring that lead is gold would be no worse. Is Mr Apanui aware that in 1820, Hongi Hika defined “taonga” as “property procured by the spear”, in 1831 Ngapuhi chiefs stated that their “taonga” were “nothing but timber, flax, pork and potatoes”, two of which they owed to Europeans, and by 1840 it included material goods and no more?
Again, his claim that the act creates a partnership is nonsense. The Crown may employ Maori speakers (including Mr Apanui no doubt) to give effect to its acts but that is no “partnership”. If the lives of some Maoris are “enhanced” by using te reo, so be it, but plenty do not care. Legislation will not make it “an important part of New Zealand’s national identity”, whether he likes it or not.
BRUCE MOON, Nelson
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers/unpublished-letters
Regarding the article “Inglorious Dastards” by Dr Vincent O’Malley.
Dr O’Malley’s contribution to the latest edition of the New Zealand Listener is so full of pejorative allusions it would take a small book to address each one and point out aspects of historical context which he wilfully ignores. However, some online searching of, for example, the web site founded by his colleague Dr Jock Phillips - Te Ara - The Enclyclopedia of New Zealand, might be of interest to people who would like more balanced information.
It is not a matter of “owning up” to our troubled past. Actual history is what it is and any rational person should be able to acknowledge that.
The problem is the current tendency for supposedly professional historians to make claims devoid of sober historical context. I confess I have no idea what their motives might be for doing this.
Dr O’Malley’s article does very little to shed light on “what really took place at Rangiaowhia”. It does, however, provide a very good example of the sort of revisionist hyperbole which needs to be debunked before it is possible to have a mature conversation about New Zealand’s colonial past.
Sadly, in the current climate of political correctness, few have the guts to publicly challenge the assertions made by people like him.
CHRIS LEE
Tauranga
Dear Sir, (Sent to the Taranaki Daily News 22/2/17)
It is disappointing that so many victims of political correctness continue to advocate the compulsory learning of Maori language in our schools. If there were any real wisdom remaining in outer society it would be known that " for all things there is a season", and that no power on earth can stop the Maori culture and language from eventually passing
away. We call it evolution.
Maori culture, in the pre colonial sense, has indeed already long since passed into history. Human cultures and societies are at every moment in a natural process of dynamic metamorphosis, even without the impact of dominant colonising civilisations.
If we had an education system worthy of the name, it would be general knowledge that scores, perhaps hundreds of cultures and languages in the course of history have become extinct, or have changed beyond recognition by blending with other cultures, the both becoming the richer for it.
Let us not forget that even the mighty Roman empire, the dominant and leading culture of the then known world, has, together with its language (latin), passed away. How many past civilisations, races, and languages have synthesised and evolved to become the modern
language and culture we know as English? And this too shall pass, " in its season".
The demise of ancient cultures should, ideally, be neither be hastened nor prolonged, but be allowed to pass in dignity and gratitude and not be kept artificially alive as humiliating caricatures of their former reality.
If the anti-western, pro-tribalism activists possessed any trace of the old Maori consciousness they would know that it is the fruits of the past which we carry forward with us into the future, not the trappings. Such agitators have no wish to arrive at the truth since they suspect this may not be to their advantage, they only wish to win the argument.
All that was true and beautiful in past civilisations and cultures, including that of the Maori, we carry on with us as qualities of soul. Nothing of true worth is ever irretrievably lost, thus mankind progresses.
COLIN RAWLE, Dunedin
Dear Editor, (Sent to the Dominion Post 19/2/17
The Maori Language Act 2016, praised by Ngahiwi Apanui, (18/2/17) is a flagrant example of retrospective legislation which grossly distorts the meaning of the Treaty of Waitangi. An act declaring that lead is gold would be no worse. Is Mr Apanui aware that in 1820, Hongi Hika defined “taonga” as “property procured by the spear”, in 1831 Ngapuhi chiefs stated that their “taonga” were “nothing but timber, flax, pork and potatoes”, two of which they owed to Europeans, and by 1840 it included material goods and no more?
Again, his claim that the act creates a partnership is nonsense. The Crown may employ Maori speakers (including Mr Apanui no doubt) to give effect to its acts but that is no “partnership”. If the lives of some Maoris are “enhanced” by using te reo, so be it, but plenty do not care. Legislation will not make it “an important part of New Zealand’s national identity”, whether he likes it or not.
BRUCE MOON, Nelson
sites.google.com/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers/unpublished-letters