Attention: the Vice-chancellor
My name is Dr Barnett Bond - Alumni ID 13971
You wrote to me an undated letter which I received today, and you asked me to donate funds to the university for scholarships and other things.
But a short time ago you announced that you were spending 1.3 million dollars changing the name of the university to have a new (changed) Māori name. Really? 1.3 million? Can you give me a cost break down on that? Which individuals and which organisations do re-branding work that costs 1.3 million?
How many additional doctors would $1.3 million train? Teachers?
My own extended family has lots of Māori and lots of non-Māori in it. It is quite clear to me that there is not just the one Māori world-view that you write about on your web site. There are many Māori views and none of my Māori whanau want to see New Zealand divided along racial lines. None of them think that a victim-oppressor view of European migration is in the slightest helpful to relationships in our family and nation today. All my Māori whanau think that the outlawing by the European migrants of Māori inter-tribal slavery and cannibalism was a very good thing.
There were two Māori students in my classes when I was at Otago University. I had many Māori friends at primary school and high school and in my sports teams. My father’s battalion fought with the Māori Battalion in WWII at Monte Casino. My father was in the signals corps and he crawled on his belly night after night from the base near the railway station, weathering German sniper fire from the Casino on the hill to deliver fresh batteries for the field telephones of the Māori Battalion on the front lines. He had nothing but respect for their incredible bravery in battle and they had enormous respect for his putting his life on the line night after night for them.
My favourite brother-in-law is Māori. My niece is Māori. None of us regard each other as different. We all regard ourselves as part of a single family and we are all New Zealanders, and we love and respect each other. I work in a medical practice where more than 60% of my patients are Māori. Many of them cannot afford to buy groceries and many others are homeless and sleep in the streets of Auckland. I am additionally responsible for chairing a group of doctors and nurses at Starship Hospital that is focused on just one disease, Acute Rheumatic Fever, which affects only Pacifica and Māori. I work very hard to make a difference for these patients but not because of their race. If I was given an additional 1.3 million dollars, I would not spend a cent of it on a branding exercise.
But you on the other hand are spending an eye-wateringly large sum of donors’ money to make sure that we all think that racial differences are important. $1.3 million worth of importance. Your actions divide our university along racial lines and, as students graduate, you will have indoctrinated them with attitudes that will divide our nation along racial lines. You will no doubt grant privileges to some students based on their part-Māori ancestry. You dress this up as “equity”. You try to justify it as combating the effects of colonisation. You write of adhering to Te Tiriti principals; principals invented by the Waitangi Tribunal and not mentioned in the original text of the Treaty of Waitangi, nor agreed by New Zealanders at large.
You must be intelligent people to hold the positions that you do in the university, but you are not very smart. You spout a particular oppressor-victim version of “history” without seeming to understand that you will create an attitude of victimhood in some of your students, and a sense of guilt and responsibility among another group of students. Neither group chose their ancestors. Imagine for a moment the effects of your university’s teachings about colonisation on the relationships within my mixed-race family.
Imagine for an additional moment what the relationship between my father and the Māori battalion would have been if your victim-oppressor attitudes had been successfully inculcated in New Zealand society before WWII.
I am at a time in my life and stage in my career and businesses when I am well off financially. Any thought I might have had about donating to the University of Otago has been scuppered by your pronouncements and decisions over the last several years. It fills me with sadness to see the neo-Marxist race-focussed direction my alma mater is being led in. I loved the University of Otago that I graduated from, and it pains me greatly to see what you are doing to it. There are plenty of places you could spend $1.3million that would make a lot of difference to the lives of the most disadvantaged Māori in New Zealand, but re-branding the university is not one of them.
Please delete my name permanently from all your mailing lists; I do not wish to be reminded again of your profligate waste of precious educational money on race-based virtue-signaling.
Dr Barnett Bond.
Auckland
Dr Barnett Bond is a General Practitioner at the Calder Centre Auckland, he is also the Chair of a group of doctors and nurses at Starship Hospital.
13 comments:
Jolly well said. I hope this is the beginning of an avalanche of similar letters.
If the legacy msm ran articles such as this they would likele see their audience increase (and hence advertising and revenue). Are they still drawing on the PIJFund? Have the condition been softened yet?
Such commonsense and a reflection of how so many NZer’s think, but unless Luxon has the courage to support his coalition partners and delete all references to the Treaty of Waitangi from law, our country will continue down a slippery slope. Several times lately, in discussion with friends, mention has been made of part Māori enrolling on the Māori roll in order to take advantage of monetary and lesser educational standards offered to gain university placements. In each case all agreed morally it was wrong but…
Thank you, Dr Bond, for an interesting letter. The word Otago is, apparently, the English pronunciation of the Maori word Otakau, which comes from ancient Ionian Greece, Takau meaning "ice", and the O in front meaning "a place of", hence "A place of ice". Could it be that much of the Maori language came from ancient Ionian Greece? But that is a completely different story! This change of name for the Otago University would cost them nothing but, as my Auntie May used to say when playing euchre over 70 years ago, for money of course, "All donations thankfully received".
Kevan
Dr Bond. Well said, sir. I have no doubt that Otago uni have labeled you a racist. We all know however, it is them who are implementing these divisive policies who are the true racists. Flip the script, replace 'maori' with 'European', then is it racist? If so, then it's racist policy.
I too will not support this university. Actually any university as they are too far left leaning imo.
I am an Otago PhD. Used to gloat about the uni's international ratings especially with respect to research...... I like to think of Otago U as the university that was rather than the preposterous travesty it now is.
To Dr Barend V and the author, Dr Bond. We have 2 Otago uni Dr's already postingng here about the old Otago uni and the woke admin office that it is now. I wonder how many others actually feel this way but just hide as the woke continue with their woke agendas.
Imagine how great otago uni would become if they channeled their woke efforts into education excellence. They might return the university back into the 1% it was instead of the administration marketing company it now is.
An excellent letter clearly written from the heart and, I suspect, with little hope of any improvement at Otago University. There is no doubt in my mind that Dr Bond would do a far better job of spending $1.3m of public money than anyone running Otago U.
Which brings me to the question as to why don't we hear from anyone at the university regarding these matters? Is the answer that it really is managed and staffed by dullards, wowsers and propogandists as the evidence strongly suggests?
I expect that some students at Otago are not going to complete their degrees there, and will do their last papers elsewhere, so that their CVs are not too contaminated by this racist crap.
BTW, are students asking for this racist indoctrination, or is it being forced on them by the head nodding , pounamu wearing, woke academic administration ??
Well said. I am an Otago alumna. I wrote to the Chancellor condemning this rebranding expense and informed him I will no longer be doing an annual donation. Probably won't go to future alumni functions either. Each function is opened with about 10 minutes of a language most of the aging attendees don't understand. This is virtue signalling to an extreme and is an insult. It would be acceptable on a Marae but not at an alumni event.
Wellshaw perhaps you should all attend the next alumni gathering, and at the opening address in te reo, all walk out .
How else are you going to get the message across to the academic woke "management" ?
The virtual signalling is coming from YOU Doctor Barnett Bond in writing this. Check out your privilege and ignorance of decades pf inequality . Shame on you
Likely 1.3 million for the logo image file, then another 10mil or so for applying the new branding onto eveything.
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