Bruce Moon: Prepare For A Dirty War

“The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief.”
- Jacques Ellul

The observation by French philosopher Jacques Ellul which we quote above could hardly be more accurate than as a description of the relentless fabrication about the Treaty of Waitangi and New Zealand’s history by many a part-Maori commentator so freely featuring in the news media today.  Such a one is “treaty educator” Te Huia Bill Hamilton with a long article in E-Tangata for 27 August 2023.  In it he starts by claiming that “Opposition to co-governance is fuelled by racism, ignorance and fear. And it continues the colonising which asserts European superiority over Indigenous peoples.”

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Since he mentions me by name a little later, along with that true scholar, John Robinson, perhaps it is in order for me to respond, given that Hamilton claims that books I have written about the Treaty are ‘full of racist rhetoric” ... “discredited by historians in the education system.”  Well, all alert New Zealanders who care about our children’s future should become aware at once, if they have not already done so, of the perversions and straight lies about our country’s history which infest the recent syllabus these people have concocted to be compulsory learning in our schools.  If they need to find out more, which perhaps they should do urgently, they may refer to “New Zealand’s History Curriculum Education or Indoctrination?”, a recent book by Roger Childs, a veteran of forty years’ standing in the field.[1]

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We may start by saying that the “co-governance” which Hamilton and his fellow-travellers, the “National Iwi Chairs Forum”, so loudly espouse is the antithesis of democracy and it holds in contempt the Treaty of Waitangi by which “All the rights will be given to ... all the Maoris of New Zealand ... the same as [the Queen’s]  doings to the people of England.”[2]

The treaty, let it be said loud and clear, was a remarkable{3] act of enlightened generosity for its day.  New Zealanders at large may indeed be proud that they have in their time responded to the letter and the spirit of the Treaty and been on occasions at the forefront of the development of democracy with equality for all.[4]

But to Hamilton: “Opposition to co-governance is fuelled by racism, ignorance and fear. And it continues the colonising which asserts European superiority over Indigenous peoples.”  Well, let me tell Hamilton that the opposition of us New Zealanders is to the very racism espoused by “co-governance” and apologists like him and we are neither ignorant nor fearful in saying so.

Moreover his assertion that “it continues the colonising which asserts European superiority over Indigenous peoples” is no more than a dirty bit of politicking which holds in contempt Article Third of the Treaty and also implies the fake claim, frequently heard,[5] that Maoris are “indigenous”.  (There may be a few truly indigenous people surviving in New Zealand, e.g. Ngati Hotu, but most were annihilated by Maori tribes, even in post-Treaty times – we do not pursue this here.)  We know whence, when and how Maoris got here – they are colonists or their descendants like the rest of us.

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I leave it to others more directly concerned to report on the interaction of the police with those attending Julian Batchelor’s meetings, falsely described by Hamilton as “racist rallies” but I can report that at the meeting I attended, persons who appeared to be part-Maoris did tear down Julian’s placards and notices of meeting – hardly the “peaceful protesting” which Hamilton would have us believe.

Hamilton proceeds to “define” co-governance as “sharing decision-making over assets, resources, or issues where the government and whānau have shared interests based on the Treaty of Waitangi. For example, there are shared interests in protecting and developing our water supplies, our responses to climate crises” and so on but these “interests” are not specifically those of our part-Maoris but of all citizens, while dragging in the treaty as a sort of mantra at this stage is just a cheap shot.

Hamilton proceeds with “Co-governance recognises that mātauranga Māori (a Māori worldview) can contribute significantly to the decision-making process and offer solutions that aren’t otherwise available to those in governance roles”, yet another unsubstantiated bit of political propaganda.

By this time in full flight he continues: “It also recognises the relationship created by the Treaty when rangatira invited the Crown to share our land, resources, culture. Māori never ceded our authority over our lands, territories and resources, but instead of respecting the offer to share, the Crown took everything through the process of colonisation.”  This, friends, is a piece of raw political propaganda, a tissue of lies which any corrupt politician anywhere in the world might admire.  And this man is “a Treaty of Waitangi and human rights specialist and a lead adviser for the National Iwi Chairs Forum. He has spent 25 years educating Pākehā and tauiwi about Te Tiriti through his company Treaty Solutions.”  One truly wonders at just how much damage to the truth he has managed to do in all that time!

So: “rangatira invited the Crown to share our land, resources, culture.”

False.  Hobson on behalf of the Queen, offered all Maoris (their many slaves included[6], slavery being a major component of their culture) the protection of the Queen from the French, other foreign powers and themselves, provided that the chiefs ceded unconditionally to her such sovereignty as each possessed.  They ceded it.  “Culture”?  Treaties are simply not about culture!

“Māori never ceded our authority over our lands, territories and resources, but instead of respecting the offer to share, the Crown took everything through the process of colonisation.”

False: The chiefs ceded sovereignty – ultimate authority – as the words of many on 5th February make crystal clear.[7]  Colenso’s record of proceedings on that fateful day tells the real truth, very seldom quoted by the treaty-twisters and ignored by Hamilton.  Read it! 

Land?  Hobson was scrupulous to sort out pre-treaty land deals by which Maoris almost fell over themselves in their eagerness to exchange it for European consumer goods.[8]  On the very day after his arrival he issued a formal proclamation to this effect.[9]  In due course a Maori Land Court was set up to review all such sales which in many instances were nullified and the land returned to the original Maori owners.  Nowhere in Hamilton’s tirade can I find any mention of these activities.

He then proceeds to claim that his wild  “interpretation” of the Treaty is “an act of rangatiratanga based on manaaki and aroha.”   These last two words I translate as “friendship and love”.  Well! Well!  I can find little evidence of friendship and love in intertribal relations prior to 1840.  When 2000 Ngapuhi armed with muskets took the Mauinaina pa at Tamaki on 5th September 1821, the number of deaths outnumbered all the deaths in the intermittent tribal rebellions of the entire colonial period.  The victors remained on the battlefield for a cannibal feast until driven off by the smell of decaying bodies of men, women and children.[10]

 When the Waikato tribes took the Taranaki pa of Pukerangiora in 1831, Te Whero Whero is said to have killed 150 captives personally.  Huge numbers were gutted and pit-roasted over fires with some Waikato tribesmen dying, it is said, of gluttony.[11] Then of course, there was the Ngati Tama/Ngati Mutunga invasion of the Chatham Islands with the whole population barring a meagre few dozen being killed and eaten.[12]  That, friends, was but a sample of colonization, Maori style! 

And slavery?  From one foray to the East Coast, Ngapuhi are said to have returned home with 2000 Ngatiporou and Ngaiterangi slaves.  That does not count those killed en route as fresh meat “on the hoof”.[13] 

The foregoing is but a sample of events from the almost incessant warfare of the pre-colonial period.  Indeed so much of the breeding female population was killed that the total Maori population declined in the early colonial decades, slowly recovering with extensive interbreeding with the immigrant colonists.[14]

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And “rangatiratanga”?  It is a common trick of the racists amongst us to slip an apparent Maori word into a text otherwise in English.  For example, this occurred in the infamous 1975 “Treaty of Waitangi Act” sponsored by Matt Rata and accepted by a complaisant Parliament.  The meaning can then of course be adjusted to suit!  Repeal of this act is an imminent necessity.

In fact, it is not a Maori word at all but was coined by Henry Williams in his endeavours to translate Busby’s paper tiger, the so-called “Declaration of Independence” into the Ngapuhi dialect.  As Parkinson has said, “Kawharu’s mistranslation of “tino rangatiratanga” as “unqualified exercise of chieftainship” is not merely erroneous but preposterous”. [15]

When the Williams translated Article second of Hobson’s final text in English, for “possession” (of “lands, dwellings and all their property”) in default of a classic Maori word for the concept of  personal possession of anything, they chose  “tino rangatiratanga”.  Moreover – get this – it was guaranteed to “tangata katoa o Nu Tirani”, that is, unequivocally, “all the people of New Zealand”,

And “all” means “all”.

As Parkinson has noted further, it never became common usage, noting “a single late and remarkable exception” of Queen Victoria being addressed as “tino rangatira”, until revived by modern treaty twisters with their own fake meaning for it as they wave around their so-called “tino rangatiratanga” flag – empty braggadocio for which a more earthy synonym will occur to many New Zealanders!

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Need we go further to demonstrate the flagrant propaganda purveyed by this person, Te Huia Bill Hamilton?  Real concern must be established for the many innocents he has brainwashed already. It is on such false arguments that the bid to destroy democracy and establish “co-governance” is based.  New Zealanders must speak up in defence of the hard-won rights of all our citizens.

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We conclude with a recent personal experience;  I had occasion to telephone the Nelson Public Hospital on a matter of some urgency, albeit not critical.  On the page specifically allocated to “Medical Practitioners etc.” I searched in vain under “N”,”P” and “H”.  Finally I found its number over the page obscurely listed under “T” for “Te Whatu Ora”!!

This, I conjecture, is a pseudo Maori word for “hospital” which never existed in classic Maori society because they never had hospitals but it is more important today apparently for officialdom to score political points than to care for the health and well-being of citizens.

If we, those citizens, allow this madness to continue, on our own heads be it – quite literally.

References:

1. R Childs, Tross Publishing, 2023, ISBN 9781872970882.  (I declare a non-remunerative interest; my work is referred to eight times in the text.)
2. Official translation by T.E.Young,1869.  Word sequence altered only for easier readability here.
3. And, indeed unprecedented, as far as I know
4. Universal suffrage with full voting rights for women is an example of which we may be proud.
5. E.g. by Claire Charters with a doctoral thesis on “the legitimacy of indigenous peoples’ norms”
6. Recall that even until quite a short time before 1840, bloody intertribal fighting had led to the slaughter of nearly a third of the population. War parties would on occasions force slaves to accompany them as fresh meat “on the hoof”.
7. W Colenso: http://www.waitangi.com/colenso/colhis1.html
8. Records of 179 such sales in the South Island alone are held in Sydney.
9. M Doutré; “The Littlewood Treaty ... Found”, ISBN 0-473-10140-8, 2005,p.83 shows a copy
10. Details here are a summary of information from “The Encyclopedia of New Zealand”
11. VUW, “History and Traditions of the Maoris of the West Coast, North Island of New Zealand prior to 1840”
12. M King, “Moriori”, ISBN 0-670-82655-3, 1989, pp. 63ff
13. J Robinson, “Unrestrained Slaughter”, ISBN 978187290680, gives more details.
14. ibid., “When two cultures meet”, ISBN 1-872970-31-1, pp 63ff. Infanticide was another factor
15. P.Parkinson, “Preserved in the Archives of the Colony”: the English drafts of the Treaty

Bruce Moon is a retired computer pioneer who wrote "Real Treaty; False Treaty - The True Waitangi Story".