Mitch Morgan: The Man Who Saw The Future

In 1949 a gentleman named Eric Blair published a book that was destined to open the eyes of the world to techniques employed in the art of social engineering; techniques that were used to control the opinions and actions of citizens who remained in a state of blissful unawareness that their thoughts were being covertly manipulated.

The author adopted the pen-name of George Orwell and his novel entitled ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ remains among the worlds’ best-sellers to this day - and the adjective ‘Orwellian’ has become synonymous with official deception and the falsification of recorded history by a totalitarian state.

The novel is set in a future Great Britain ruled by the ubiquitous and omniscient  figure of “Big Brother”; a land in which any signs of individualism and independent thinking are persecuted as ‘thought crimes’ and the perpetrators ‘re-programmed’.  

The anti-hero, Winston Smith, is employed by the Ministry of Truth and his task is to ‘correct’ historical records to align with the Party’s current pronouncements.

It is, of course, an ironic portrayal of the Russian political system of that era yet some of Orwell’s prophesies have disturbing parallels in events that have occurred during the past few decades in our own country.

It would be very difficult for the young people of today to envisage the New Zealand that existed in the mid-20^th century; a country recovering from a terrible war that had seen Maori and Pakeha united in defending our freedom; a time in which scant notice was taken of whether one’s skin was white or brown; and a national sense of pride at being the world leader in racial equality. Apartheid in South Africa was regarded with distaste and the idea of two races in one country having separate laws and privileges because of the colour of their skin was abhorrent to most fair-minded New Zealanders. History was an open book, schools and history books openly acknowledged Moriori as the original inhabitants, and the Treaty of Waitangi ideal of ‘one nation, one people’ had not yet been contaminated by the introduction of ‘indigenous rights’.

International bodies were promoting racial harmony, with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) releasing the following statement in 1950:

“The biological fact of race and the myth of ‘race’ should be distinguished. For all practical social purposes ‘race’ is not so much a biological phenomenon as a social myth. The myth ‘race’ has created an enormous amount of human and social damage. In recent years it has taken a heavy toll in human lives and caused untold suffering. It still prevents the normal development of millions of human beings and deprives civilization of the effective co-operation of productive minds. The biological differences between ethnic groups should be disregarded from the standpoint of social acceptance and social action. The unity of mankind from both the biological and social viewpoints is the main thing. To recognize this and to act accordingly is the first requirement of modern man.”

How different are things today.

The people of those yesterdays would have been aghast and incredulous had they been able to glimpse what the future held in store.

The re-writing of New Zealand’s past surfaced in 1975 when the creation of the Waitangi Tribunal provided us with our own equivalent of Orwell’s ‘Ministry of Truth’ and authentic evidence was often overruled by ‘verbal tribal history’.

New-age historians announced, “Our old historians got it all wrong” thereby denying the existence of pre-Maori inhabitants, with governments adding their support by placing embargoes on 105 sites that showed indications of non-Maori origin.

The manifestly clear objective of the Treaty of Waitangi to unite two races as one people, with equal rights under one common law, has been gradually undermined by re-interpretation of key words in that document, citing modernistic meanings that did not apply at the time treaty was signed.

Maori/English dictionaries exist dated both before and after the signing of the Treaty; the Grammar and Vocabulary of the Language of New Zealand being compiled by Ngapuhi Chieftain Hongi Hika in collaboration with Cambridge University’s Professor Samuel Lee in 1820 and the Dictionary of the New Zealand Language penned by William Williams in 1844 - just four years after the 1840 agreement was signed. Thus a comparison of the two books will ascertain without any doubt exactly what the Maoris understood the Treaty to mean at the time of signing when definitions from both lexicons coincide.

An oft-quoted example is the meaning of the word taonga, with the 1820 definition being ‘property obtained by the spear’ and in the latter simply as ‘property’. In their wisdom the Waitangi Tribunal re-invented taonga  to include the Maori language and anything regarded as being of value to the Maori people, spiritual or material.

Children are being taught in public schools that ‘Maori are special’, thus creating a social divide, and an unfortunate few are consigned to ‘Total Immersion Maori Schools’ wherein speaking the English language is forbidden and youngsters grow up unable to communicate with 90% of their fellow countrymen.

Christianity is another casualty in our educational system and children are being indoctrinated instead with Maori spiritual beliefs and rituals.

Visitors to our country are being confronted by painted ‘warriors’ issuing a hostile challenge instead of being greeted with the customary smile and handshake, and some of those who were demonstrative opponents of apartheid in a foreign land are now actively promoting separate development (apartheid) in their own country.  

Phrases such as ‘tangata whenua’, ‘equal partnership’ and ‘Aotearoa-New Zealand’ are reiterated as incessant mantras – an application of social engineering based on the idea that if a datum is repeated often enough it will eventually stick and become accepted as truth.

Manipulation of our democratic principles and traditional values is sending our

once proud and free nation down the road to becoming an Orwellian dystopia.

In just a few decades New Zealand has descended from unity to divisiveness, from shared ideals to individual agendas, and from a nation with a common language to one in which people may no longer understand each other.  

More than 200 years ago another great author, Sir Walter Scott, encapsulated New Zealands’ present day controversies involving translations, racial identity and history itself in his incisive epigram: 

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”

Mitch Morgan, an equal rights advocate and critic of social engineering and political correctness, is a regular newspaper commentator.