Why I cannot give the All Blacks the moral high ground. In 1994 I visited the Massey family in New Zealand. Anyone who has been to New Zealand will immediately recognise the surname - Massey University, Massey Memorial. Their great grandfather had been Prime Minister of New Zealand. Anyway, I got to hear firsthand from this family how the New Zealand Rugby Union had split the country in half in 1981 by breaking the Gleneagles agreement to boycott SA sport and inviting the Springboks to tour New Zealand. I also learnt about the history of conquest and racial tensions in New Zealand. I discovered that one of the reasons the Maori have been able to resist the theft of their resources and achieve restitution is because of the Treaty of Waitangi, which their ancestors had signed with Queen Victoria and which gave them certain rights, incl. ownership of vast natural resources. We never had this.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Oct 2013 06:16:23 +0000
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