See - how you feel uncomfortable already.
Yeah - it's a thing. Suck it up buttercup.
As it is - the Establishment are not too concerned about the discussion of Tribal Wars - because everyone has wars - and winning one has a lot of kudos associated with it.
As for me as an essayist - I am constantly trying to find better ways of expressing that simple social equation.
Which must include the way Maori Culture was when Europeans found it - and how it is now after 200 years fully immersed in European Civilisation.
It was amazing in the circumstances - that they managed to survive at all - but they did - and sometimes they thrived.
But this issue desperately needs honesty - and some of that needs to come from academia - because recent events show that they are mired in ideological stupidity and ignorance - made worse by fanciful racial theories that have nothing to do with actual realities.
The fact is - that that void of information left by the elimination of Cannibalism and other realities from the discussion - provides the space in the Narrative for the establishment’s greatest weapon against actual truth - and the corollary of that is - that it causes bitter resentment because unthinking but angry Maori can believe that colonisation is the source of all their problems.
It means they can always blame the white man instead of themselves for some of their shortcomings - and ignore the FACT - that the white man brought the CIVILISATION - that they crave and live in and enjoy with all the rest of us as citizens - IN THE ENTIRE CIVILISED WORLD.
The question is - was it colonisation - or civilisation that we brought them - and was it possible to bring them civilisation without colonisation - or are they both actually one and the same?
Did we colonise them and fail to give them civilisation?
Like they say - you can’t have one without the other - and that means that this topic needs to be top and central of any discussion about colonisation - and I am not sure that our current academia are linguistically and intellectually capable of that.
I know there are at least seven who would be - but as for the rest - they are captured by ideology - just like the Germans were.
I have almost said it a dozen times - and because of my educational shortcomings have never quite got it right - but I have asked again and again - what if we didn’t bring them civilisation with the colonisation? What if we left them to their own devices?
They would never have achieved civilisation without us and all the centuries of the evolution of ideas and inventions - that we have pressed in the space of two generations into their once savage lives. No matter what some academics say or think - civilisation was the property of the Europeans until they spread it around the world - and it was never going to arrive here without their intervention.
Let’s call that intervention - instead of an “invasion” or a “colonisation” if that would make them feel better about themselves - because that is the truth of it - and if we did that we would all feel better and the resentment would surely pass.
That “colonisation” argument is a thing - that with the help of a few disingenuous white liberal academics - Maori can believe was the cause of all that ails them. It is an excuse - not a reason. We need to change that narrative to "welcoming the Arrival of Civilisation" - because that is a better way of expressing what did actually happen - and we could all move on in a positive frame of mind.
I cannot believe that even the silliest of liberals could argue against the arrival of civilisation - because like it or not - that is what Maori enjoy as a lifestyle today - courtesy of the Europeans - but it seems some of them prefer to hold on to the still valuable ogre and excuse of Colonisation to whinge about and feel sorry for themselves about - thereby ignoring their own contributions to their own problems.
They need to go back in time - and consider - that as soon as they began adopting European tools - they had capitulated to civilisation - and perhaps the false idea that they were stealing it rather than being offered it - would make them feel better about it.
Which ever way we look at it - right now it is very screwed up.
Could those idiot liberal professors in Universities actually get up and say that we should not have brought Civilisation to the indigenous peoples of the world - because basically it seems that is what Critical Race Theory is saying - and such an idea is ridiculous.
Denis Hall describes himself as an old man and an artist - a thinker - a writer - and a commentator. He does what he does - for the love of it.
But this issue desperately needs honesty - and some of that needs to come from academia - because recent events show that they are mired in ideological stupidity and ignorance - made worse by fanciful racial theories that have nothing to do with actual realities.
The fact is - that that void of information left by the elimination of Cannibalism and other realities from the discussion - provides the space in the Narrative for the establishment’s greatest weapon against actual truth - and the corollary of that is - that it causes bitter resentment because unthinking but angry Maori can believe that colonisation is the source of all their problems.
It means they can always blame the white man instead of themselves for some of their shortcomings - and ignore the FACT - that the white man brought the CIVILISATION - that they crave and live in and enjoy with all the rest of us as citizens - IN THE ENTIRE CIVILISED WORLD.
The question is - was it colonisation - or civilisation that we brought them - and was it possible to bring them civilisation without colonisation - or are they both actually one and the same?
Did we colonise them and fail to give them civilisation?
Like they say - you can’t have one without the other - and that means that this topic needs to be top and central of any discussion about colonisation - and I am not sure that our current academia are linguistically and intellectually capable of that.
I know there are at least seven who would be - but as for the rest - they are captured by ideology - just like the Germans were.
I have almost said it a dozen times - and because of my educational shortcomings have never quite got it right - but I have asked again and again - what if we didn’t bring them civilisation with the colonisation? What if we left them to their own devices?
They would never have achieved civilisation without us and all the centuries of the evolution of ideas and inventions - that we have pressed in the space of two generations into their once savage lives. No matter what some academics say or think - civilisation was the property of the Europeans until they spread it around the world - and it was never going to arrive here without their intervention.
Let’s call that intervention - instead of an “invasion” or a “colonisation” if that would make them feel better about themselves - because that is the truth of it - and if we did that we would all feel better and the resentment would surely pass.
That “colonisation” argument is a thing - that with the help of a few disingenuous white liberal academics - Maori can believe was the cause of all that ails them. It is an excuse - not a reason. We need to change that narrative to "welcoming the Arrival of Civilisation" - because that is a better way of expressing what did actually happen - and we could all move on in a positive frame of mind.
I cannot believe that even the silliest of liberals could argue against the arrival of civilisation - because like it or not - that is what Maori enjoy as a lifestyle today - courtesy of the Europeans - but it seems some of them prefer to hold on to the still valuable ogre and excuse of Colonisation to whinge about and feel sorry for themselves about - thereby ignoring their own contributions to their own problems.
They need to go back in time - and consider - that as soon as they began adopting European tools - they had capitulated to civilisation - and perhaps the false idea that they were stealing it rather than being offered it - would make them feel better about it.
Which ever way we look at it - right now it is very screwed up.
Could those idiot liberal professors in Universities actually get up and say that we should not have brought Civilisation to the indigenous peoples of the world - because basically it seems that is what Critical Race Theory is saying - and such an idea is ridiculous.
My opinion is - that they feel within their rights to call us out for bringing colonisation - while ignoring the fact that what we really brought was Civilisation. So what’s the difference mister professor - and try to keep your answer in the context of the late seventeen hundreds - if you are able.
Otherwise they are like people at a table trying to eat off someone else’s plate.
Sometimes Intelligence manifests itself as cunning - and there are a few of those in Parliament.
Sometimes Intelligence manifests itself as cunning - and there are a few of those in Parliament.
Denis Hall describes himself as an old man and an artist - a thinker - a writer - and a commentator. He does what he does - for the love of it.
6 comments:
It's not about common sense though. The new woke culture is to make victims and an oppressor and put everyone into boxes. It is fashionable to hate white people and democracy. No wonder the aliens bypass our planet as a bunch of crazies.
it is likely that many similar views were expressed in the submissions on the schools history(s) curriculum. But the submissions are being kept secret. Moana Jackson was champion of the imagining decolonisation nonsense; since his demise have not heard it mentioned on RNZ but the handbook remains very popular. One of the few countries to resist colonisatin over the decades is Afghanistan. The term colonisers embraces all imports. Early arrivals in Haiti later also rejected colonisation, as has Zimbabwe.
I love the idea that "civilisation" should replace "colonisation" in the narrative. It is really offensive to me as the descendant of immigrants from Britain and Denmark to be pigeon-holed into a group that imposed its culture on a primitive race that hadn't even discovered the wheel and were incredibly violent (cannabalism). European principle of law and order, medicine, agriculture, and science made this country what it is today. The early settlers toiled through tremendous hardship to craft their communities into productive places where all races thrived.
What is most disturbing is the wokeness of academia and most media in not challenging the Cancel culture that blames Maori's position at the bottom of the social heap on the civilisation that our forefathers brought to NZ. It is about time that they took responsibility for their own shortcomings. When I went to school the Maori kids had the same opportunities as the rest of us. That their parents didn't value education as a way of advancing themselves isn't something that I have to apologise for.
Maori enjoy the lifestyle today that was introduced by Europeans. Why are they whinging about that lifestyle?
Maybe Willie Jackson should give all his wealth to the poorer Maori if he is so concerned about being the recipient of colonisation.
A bit tired of the C word tossed around so thoughtlessly. Don't we have to go further back in the argument? Nobody owns the planet. Some people set sail from an island off the main "Asian" continent some time in the far distant past, roamed the large southern ocean settling here and there - a small number finally alighting in what is now NZ, where they lived in isolation from any other human culture for some 4-500 years - we think. They had enough to live on but very little extra 'stuff' It seems tribes interacted with one another - often with frightful hostility, but there is no evidence of a consciousness of nationhood - communal ownership -'title' to the land as a whole.
When other humans, much later, in their turn sailed down from the North, bringing lots of very desirable 'stuff'- how should they believe that the current 100,000 occupants 'owned' all the 100,000 square miles of land? What is the nature of 'ownership'? The latecomers 'owned' the blankets and the muskets because they had copied or stolen them from others, had invented and/or made them. They brought the pigs, potatoes and lots more food for their own use - but shared. Seems there was a mutual benefit - as has happened all over the planet since humanity came down from the trees!
Seems to me te tiriti, though well -intentioned, was not soundly based, and has been more trouble than it is worth. THINK people!
Of course, there were mutual benefits and the basis of te tiriti was fine, just a pity it was done in haste and there were few too many versions about but, essentially it served its purposes and was (or should have been) dead in the water by the end of 1840. It’s the mythical “principles” and reinvention of it many generations later wherein the problem lies - all turbocharged by mischief making activists, politicians, legal eagles and the woke of more recent times. The suggestion of replacing “civilisation” whenever we hear the now derogatory term “colonisation” is a good one, as we need to call out our unjustified grievance industry at every opportunity.
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