A great letter in the Wanganui Chronicle 28/11/14 PC NONSENSE Every time I read the newspaper, view TV or listen to the radio I am inundated with Maori this and Maori that, and I have had a gutsful. To be fair, this is now a global problem, not just re-stricted to Maori,encompassing indigenous peoples across the planet. Suddenly ethnic groups are finding they have been taken advantage of through colonisation over hundreds/thousands of years. The argument that ignorant natives have been ripped off by clever non-natives has some merit, but it is the offspring of those non-natives who have educated the ignorant native progeny to the extent that they are capable of questioning the treatment afforded their forebears. The really unfortunate issue is that in recent decades the requirement to appear unbiased and politically correct has resulted in indigenous people being constantly favoured regardless of the credibility of their claims. This raises the question of who really are the indigenous people of New Zealand: Egyptians, Swedes, Eskimos, Chinese or some Polynesian mob from somewhere in the Pacific? Language similarities may even suggest a Southeast Asian link. Without doubt, Maori were not the original occupiers of Godzone. The question of sovereignty (as seized upon by Potonga Neilson, following a predictable and unsubstantiated pronouncement by the Waitangi Tribunal), is just rubbish. There was no sovereignty among Maori as a collective group. If Maori, collectively, cannot decide what a haka is really all about, what right do they have to dictate anything to the rest of the countrys population? I have seen all sorts of definitions of the haka and where it was to be performed and to what purpose, ranging from a welcome, a celebration of a persons life, a concert item and even a ballet performance.The fact that some iwi want payment from groups using their haka sums up what appears to be the prevalent attitude among an increasing number of Maori: forget tradition and culture, just show me the money. Lets forget all this racially inspired, politically correct excrement in a bull paddock and get on with being a nation. (Abridged) D P Wanganui Other great letters can be read here > https://sites.google/site/kiwifrontline/letters-submitted-to-newspapers
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 20:11:33 +0000
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