Post by Kiwi Frontline on Mar 3, 2020 12:10:53 GMT 12
Northland Age 3/3/20
NOT TRUE
Tom Roa, Associate Professor at Waikato University, is reported as saying many things about the Rangiowahia affray that are not true and which he ought to know are not true.
First, there were no "atrocities" at Rangiowahia, an action planned by the humanitarian General Cameron to destroy the food supplies of the rebels in the strong fort at Paterangi and avoid a direct assault, with many casualties on both sides.
Second, Rangiowahia was British sovereign territory in the hands of rebels. It was entirely legitimate for government forces to act to recover it. Roa makes the false claim that they "invaded" it.
Third, almost all the women and children were allowed to escape safely to the home of Thomas Power before a shot was fired. Roa's claim that "numerous Maori were killed. including women, children and the elderly," is yet another falsehood.
Fourth, Roa states that "Several houses were burned down with villagers inside," which is also untrue. In fact the only significant action was at one whare, which Roa has claimed elsewhere was a "whare karakia," which was fashioned as a gunpit, containing about a dozen rebels armed with loaded muskets. One man, with his wife and child, escaped when invited to do so, but when Sergeant McHale entered to call for the surrender of the remainder, an old fool called Hoani Papita shot him at point-blank range. In the short, sharp action which followed, Hoani and his fellow rebels and five of the troops were killed.
But for that one incident, the capture of Rangiowahia would have been an almost bloodless and merciful action leading not long afterwards to peace being restored in the Waikato.
BRUCE MOON Nelson
DIVISIVE NONSENSE
Caroline Pukeroa-McKinney (Shape up or....., letters February 27th) touches on ‘Contra Proferentem’. This is a self-serving argument used by treatyists, and is a doctrine of contractual interpretation providing that, where a promise, agreement or term is ambiguous, the preferred meaning should be the one that works against the interests of the party who provided the wording. The unfortunate reality for treatyists is that there is no ambiguity in Te Tiriti. The only ambiguity is that introduced by 1980s re-interpretations.
How can English and Maori Treaty versions be accepted in Aotearoa? – There is no such place! Aotearoa is not mentioned in the non-event 1835 Declaration of Independence or Te Tiriti.
Readers should ignore her Waitangi Tribunal validation as they are a racially stacked organisation and Ngapuhi elder David Rankin says “The Tribunal makes up history as it goes along.....”
Racism? As a colleague once wrote “Principled opposition to unearned racial privilege is not racism. Racism occurs where a group of prejudiced individuals get together to create a system of special privilege affording them unearned superior, separate or different rights to everyone else solely on the basis of group membership. I will leave it to readers to decide if NZ is a racist country, and if so, which group benefits from this racism”.
General consensus is that Maori arrived here around the 1300s, and with tribal pillage, plunder, slavery, cannibalism, feast and famine, in places and at times bitterly cold conditions, they did not live the idyllic lifestyle Pukeroa-McKinney portrays.
In the 1700s with leading nations exploring and extending their realms Maori and New Zealand could not stay isolated, so inevitably were discovered by others. In 1831 Ngapuhi chiefs wrote to King William IV of England begging for protection primarily from the French who Ngapuhi feared a reprisal after an earlier stoush in 1772. Maori were not invaded, the British were invited, then an agreement was signed......
She says Maori were trading internationally prior to Europeans arriving – love to see her evidence on this, apparently the only sail recorded in New Zealand before the 1800s was the double spritsail, a V-shaped sail lashed to spars on each side, which cannot sail to windward.
Pukeroa-McKinney accuses previous correspondents, who patriotically raised concerns about issues relating to biculturalism, of being racists, yet she clearly defines people by race ie “... one nation with two peoples, Maori and everyone else” - perhaps it is her that is ‘racist?.
Today many are ‘Maori’ as a result of a statute passed in the mid-seventies when definitions were changed from ancestry and blood quantum to ‘I feel Maori’.
It is laughable that Pukeroa-McKinney, whose preferred ancestors only ever discovered New Zealand, talks of ‘world views’. It seems the ‘Maori world view’ consists of despising colonisation and all it’s benefits, and the world owes them a living (especially colonists who are blamed for all Maori woes today), and that tribalism is superior to democracy – NZers would be wise to oppose this divisive nonsense.
GEOFF PARKER, Kamo
NOT TRUE
Tom Roa, Associate Professor at Waikato University, is reported as saying many things about the Rangiowahia affray that are not true and which he ought to know are not true.
First, there were no "atrocities" at Rangiowahia, an action planned by the humanitarian General Cameron to destroy the food supplies of the rebels in the strong fort at Paterangi and avoid a direct assault, with many casualties on both sides.
Second, Rangiowahia was British sovereign territory in the hands of rebels. It was entirely legitimate for government forces to act to recover it. Roa makes the false claim that they "invaded" it.
Third, almost all the women and children were allowed to escape safely to the home of Thomas Power before a shot was fired. Roa's claim that "numerous Maori were killed. including women, children and the elderly," is yet another falsehood.
Fourth, Roa states that "Several houses were burned down with villagers inside," which is also untrue. In fact the only significant action was at one whare, which Roa has claimed elsewhere was a "whare karakia," which was fashioned as a gunpit, containing about a dozen rebels armed with loaded muskets. One man, with his wife and child, escaped when invited to do so, but when Sergeant McHale entered to call for the surrender of the remainder, an old fool called Hoani Papita shot him at point-blank range. In the short, sharp action which followed, Hoani and his fellow rebels and five of the troops were killed.
But for that one incident, the capture of Rangiowahia would have been an almost bloodless and merciful action leading not long afterwards to peace being restored in the Waikato.
BRUCE MOON Nelson
DIVISIVE NONSENSE
Caroline Pukeroa-McKinney (Shape up or....., letters February 27th) touches on ‘Contra Proferentem’. This is a self-serving argument used by treatyists, and is a doctrine of contractual interpretation providing that, where a promise, agreement or term is ambiguous, the preferred meaning should be the one that works against the interests of the party who provided the wording. The unfortunate reality for treatyists is that there is no ambiguity in Te Tiriti. The only ambiguity is that introduced by 1980s re-interpretations.
How can English and Maori Treaty versions be accepted in Aotearoa? – There is no such place! Aotearoa is not mentioned in the non-event 1835 Declaration of Independence or Te Tiriti.
Readers should ignore her Waitangi Tribunal validation as they are a racially stacked organisation and Ngapuhi elder David Rankin says “The Tribunal makes up history as it goes along.....”
Racism? As a colleague once wrote “Principled opposition to unearned racial privilege is not racism. Racism occurs where a group of prejudiced individuals get together to create a system of special privilege affording them unearned superior, separate or different rights to everyone else solely on the basis of group membership. I will leave it to readers to decide if NZ is a racist country, and if so, which group benefits from this racism”.
General consensus is that Maori arrived here around the 1300s, and with tribal pillage, plunder, slavery, cannibalism, feast and famine, in places and at times bitterly cold conditions, they did not live the idyllic lifestyle Pukeroa-McKinney portrays.
In the 1700s with leading nations exploring and extending their realms Maori and New Zealand could not stay isolated, so inevitably were discovered by others. In 1831 Ngapuhi chiefs wrote to King William IV of England begging for protection primarily from the French who Ngapuhi feared a reprisal after an earlier stoush in 1772. Maori were not invaded, the British were invited, then an agreement was signed......
She says Maori were trading internationally prior to Europeans arriving – love to see her evidence on this, apparently the only sail recorded in New Zealand before the 1800s was the double spritsail, a V-shaped sail lashed to spars on each side, which cannot sail to windward.
Pukeroa-McKinney accuses previous correspondents, who patriotically raised concerns about issues relating to biculturalism, of being racists, yet she clearly defines people by race ie “... one nation with two peoples, Maori and everyone else” - perhaps it is her that is ‘racist?.
Today many are ‘Maori’ as a result of a statute passed in the mid-seventies when definitions were changed from ancestry and blood quantum to ‘I feel Maori’.
It is laughable that Pukeroa-McKinney, whose preferred ancestors only ever discovered New Zealand, talks of ‘world views’. It seems the ‘Maori world view’ consists of despising colonisation and all it’s benefits, and the world owes them a living (especially colonists who are blamed for all Maori woes today), and that tribalism is superior to democracy – NZers would be wise to oppose this divisive nonsense.
GEOFF PARKER, Kamo