I’m a naturalized citizen in NZ. Meaning my kids are aware of and somewhat interested in their American heritage as well as their NZ history. So my daughter’s school was having a Diversity Day where students from different backgrounds were encouraged to show off parts of their culture. Parents were invited to see the event and explore what diverse cultures were at the school.
My daughter decided that since most Kiwis are exposed to a huge amount of American culture on a routine basis she would team up with her friend from an Asian country to showcase her culture instead. They worked on a couple of ways to do this, demonstrating the writing and language as well as showing off clothing and some food. They worked hard on this over a few days.
So Diversity Day comes and the students who were doing projects such as my daughter were invited to set up stands in a couple of classrooms almost an hour and a half before the parents were supposed to be there. There were lots of cultures, Turkish, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, South African, Indian, Vietnamese, Maori, French and Russian. Then students from about half the classes in school were invited to tour around and explore the stalls and see what was there. 30 minutes later it was all done, students to clean up and go to workshops. No parents to see what had been worked on and what amazing things the children had done.
What did happen was the students were sent off to study diverse arts and crafts in workshops set up by the school and helpers. The workshops covered such a wide range of topics as various Maori arts and crafts, Kapa haka, Maori singing, Maori language, Maori cooking, Maori myths and history and then there was an Aboriginal face painting class. At the end of this time the students were ushered into the hall for the public celebration of Diversity by the school. This was a showcase of the range of diverse cultures made up of the school Kapa haka group, The Maori dance troup, the Kapa haka groups from 2 other schools and a Pasifika performing arts group performance.
My daughter came home in tears. She said she worked so hard on everything and it was all shoved aside to make room for more time for the same kapa haka groups that perform at every school function, every event and that get special showcases at the school once a term. Multiple students were upset over the fact that they didn’t get to show their parents how their stations looked and to show off to other parents as well. My daughter said she never wants to bother working on anything culture related at school again as this is a similar occurence to how the primary school dealt with the diversity situation.
As far as I’m concerned the school is working to alienate students and tell people from other cultures that they don’t matter, don’t count and that they will not be given the time to express themselves or showcase their varying culture or history within the NZ system. That as far as education is concerned there are 2 cultures: Maori, then everything else. While I want to emphasize the importance of promoting Maori culture as it is a uniquely NZ culture and worthy of preservation I find it hard to support the method of doing that by squashing and essentially insulting every other culture that has arrived here. I have faced similar culture disparities in various training classes and instructional environments but am able to deal with them in my own way as I was an adult before I moved here so will always have an element of ‘outsider’ to my thinking. To have that feeling put in to my daughter’s mind while she has lived her entire life here enrages me to a point I don’t want to think about. It reinforces the attitudes that I faced when I was told that it was acceptable for Maori students to not call me by my first name as English wasn’t their first language (spoiler: it was their first language) but that it was racist and I could be given written warnings if I got their names wrong despite attempting to learn Maori as my 4th language.
To all those who think any kind of monoculture can mean Diversity:
“You keep using that word, I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
So Diversity Day comes and the students who were doing projects such as my daughter were invited to set up stands in a couple of classrooms almost an hour and a half before the parents were supposed to be there. There were lots of cultures, Turkish, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, South African, Indian, Vietnamese, Maori, French and Russian. Then students from about half the classes in school were invited to tour around and explore the stalls and see what was there. 30 minutes later it was all done, students to clean up and go to workshops. No parents to see what had been worked on and what amazing things the children had done.
What did happen was the students were sent off to study diverse arts and crafts in workshops set up by the school and helpers. The workshops covered such a wide range of topics as various Maori arts and crafts, Kapa haka, Maori singing, Maori language, Maori cooking, Maori myths and history and then there was an Aboriginal face painting class. At the end of this time the students were ushered into the hall for the public celebration of Diversity by the school. This was a showcase of the range of diverse cultures made up of the school Kapa haka group, The Maori dance troup, the Kapa haka groups from 2 other schools and a Pasifika performing arts group performance.
My daughter came home in tears. She said she worked so hard on everything and it was all shoved aside to make room for more time for the same kapa haka groups that perform at every school function, every event and that get special showcases at the school once a term. Multiple students were upset over the fact that they didn’t get to show their parents how their stations looked and to show off to other parents as well. My daughter said she never wants to bother working on anything culture related at school again as this is a similar occurence to how the primary school dealt with the diversity situation.
As far as I’m concerned the school is working to alienate students and tell people from other cultures that they don’t matter, don’t count and that they will not be given the time to express themselves or showcase their varying culture or history within the NZ system. That as far as education is concerned there are 2 cultures: Maori, then everything else. While I want to emphasize the importance of promoting Maori culture as it is a uniquely NZ culture and worthy of preservation I find it hard to support the method of doing that by squashing and essentially insulting every other culture that has arrived here. I have faced similar culture disparities in various training classes and instructional environments but am able to deal with them in my own way as I was an adult before I moved here so will always have an element of ‘outsider’ to my thinking. To have that feeling put in to my daughter’s mind while she has lived her entire life here enrages me to a point I don’t want to think about. It reinforces the attitudes that I faced when I was told that it was acceptable for Maori students to not call me by my first name as English wasn’t their first language (spoiler: it was their first language) but that it was racist and I could be given written warnings if I got their names wrong despite attempting to learn Maori as my 4th language.
To all those who think any kind of monoculture can mean Diversity:
“You keep using that word, I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
12 comments:
This is managed grooming - and excludes parents from observing the action.
The writer should immediately discuss this incident in person with his /her Electorate MP.
But if this MP is from an Opposition party, file a written complaint with copy to Erica Standford, National's Education Minister and any Coalition MP who ran in that electorate.
At the same time, get a face to face appointment with one of these List Coalition MPs who ran in that specific Electorate and is aware of its issues.
Mr Farrar or NZCPR could help locate these List MPs for the writer.
So sad.
Maori culture is not New Zealand culture.
Multiculturalism does not work. Goodbye what was once the best country in the world.
This is disgusting..Kids don't see other other by race at all..An example is a tv program n the uk where a little 5 yesr old blond girl and a 5 year old indian child were asked what was different about them both? The wee blond girl said " he doesn't like to eat apples but I like apples" or something similar. Why are are teachers in nz indoctrinating kids? It is 1930s germany part two..
Talk to the principal as going to your MP/politician isn't going to help. Some people don't even realise that they are doing this to the children - they have blinkers and the only way to change that is to talk to them directly. The pendulum is on the swing to the extreme - Maori culture was denigrated for so long - but it needs to find its way back to the middle, which would be nice, we still get to enjoy maori culture but make space and respect for all our other cultures as well.
This is a disgrace! Definitely needs to be brought to the MPs - every day we are witnessing shameless indoctrination mascaraded as news, science and social events. But nothing is worse than peddling it to children!
I bet if the mother does complain to the school principal, that he or she will say that it is in fact the mum who is racist and is thinking through her vanilla view of the world. Radical maori don't actually want other races here.
This part-Māori sees no value in Māori culture.
‘ME WARRIOR!’ IT’S JUST TIKANGA I
The last thing this country needs is more encouragement via kapa haka towards primitive, violent behaviours and attitudes among people already culturally inclined to violence.
A culture that institutionalises violent display, ritualised confrontation, and naked aggression as markers of group identity will always breed violent thugs and bullies.
Many New Zealanders—white and brown alike—find Māori culture ugly and unappealing for that very reason.
The more "Maori" someone is, the more I’ve noticed he tends to define himself by how much of other people's space he can aggressively shove his way into.
Never on his own, mind you. Only ever a tougharse with his bros to back him up.
Or within his own family, where Jake the Muss gets to lord it over his missus and kids.
A big arm is more important to such subbos than a big heart or a big brain.
As one of Allan Duff's characters says in a rare moment of introspection: "Us Maoris, we love our staunchness. Dunno why, juss is."
I do.
Natural selection over centuries of inter-tribal warfare meant the small, the weak, the sensitive, and the contemplative soon ended up in the hangi pit.
Only the strong and brutal survived to pass on their genes and values to succeeding generations.
Where victory in battle was a matter of life and death, the highest status in pre-European Māori society went to the brave and successful warrior.
Allan Duff paints a candid picture of such throwbacks in “Once Were Warriors.”
The bar room talk between the bros is all about fistic prowess, who "smacked over" whom.
Want your missus to cook a bro some eggs? Someone give you a ‘smart look’? Want to stop your baby crying? Want to derail a Treaty referendum?
Just use violence.
ME WARRIOR!’ IT’S JUST TIKANGA II
Since Maori culture cannot hold up a single discovery or invention that has come out of it to the betterment of mankind, the only tūrangawaewae its adherents have is “Me Warrior!"
Duff again: “There’s a culture of violence that runs through Māoridom.”
That's why Maori TV promos always feature aggressive group haka by way of collective self-definition.
And why Anzac Day on Maori TV is a self-congratulatory circle jerk celebration of the exploits of the Maori Battalion, as though only those boys served with bravery and distinction, those boys won the war on their own, and many New Zealanders of Maori descent didn't choose to serve in non-racial units with their fellow-countrymen.
One wannabe I’ve argued with online has a profile pic of whanau males striking staunch poses and showing off medals presumably won at amateur boxing.
Nothing wrong with sports. Many in my family (myself included) have participated in various sports to at least provincial age group representative level.
But if my part-Māori family were to publish a group photograph of what we most identified with having achieved, it would be a bunch of people in academic dress brandishing our university degrees.
Not bare-chested in piupiu, rolling our eyes like mad dogs, contorting our faces, poking out our tongues, and brandishing taiaha.
See my point?
The ability to punch the sh#t out of someone is no measure of the man where I come from.
The dynamic I’ve observed in many of the more "Maori" whanau -- and in the more "Maori" male mateship circles -- is that of a dog pack.
There's a "top dog" based on who can throw his fists around the best and hardest.
Everyone else in the pack knows their place in the pecking order: who they get to growl and snarl at, and who they have to kiss up to.
In an environment in which violence is rewarded with power and status, children soon learn that one moves up the dog pack ladder by being harder and more brutal than those one intends to supplant.
And how to gang up to pile onto outsiders.
Then they bring ‘Me Warrior!” to our schools, streets, bars and nightclubs, late night takeaway outlets, gas station forecourts, footy field sidelines, and road rage incidents.
It’s not just dudes.
There’s girls on this trip too, cursing and brawling like men.
That’s just nasty.
How ugly and unfeminine these so-called ‘wahine toa’ are.
It's a racist school. Let's name and shame the board and teachers / organizers. True racists. The good people are here to hold these type of racists to account.
Sadly, it's everywhere. While lighting the fire with a newspaper from April, the following caught my eye..."What does it do to our mindsets to keep harking back to a Eurocentric way of life most of us have no real connection to at all?" (In relation to celebrating Easter in April and not mid-winter) and..and...
"We threw off the emotional shackles of the Commonwealth long ago..."
Excuse me? What planet do these seemingly "uneducatos" live on?. "Euro-centric" brought us electric power, cars, ice creams, pantyhose, Mellowpuffs and power-tools. Oh and Easter and Christmas holidays. But Stuff seemed okay with publish and be damned, along with lashings of "anti-colonialist" commentary. The silent majority lambasted again just for existing outside the Maori bubble.
Slightly off topic but...
(The simple standard definition of Easter is that it is the first Sunday after the full Moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox. If the full Moon falls on a Sunday then Easter is the next Sunday.) Just saying in my own purile Eurocentric way...
Yes! It Is pretty disgusting that ONLY one culture is exposed.
My daughter worked in the Internatioal school in the Netherlands.
Once a year they had a international day, with food and culture from all over the world. Families showed their art and cooking, just fabulous.
In 1984 we came to NZ I have always feld a foreigner.
Maybe my attitude made it like that. I am seen as "" arrogant "" and taking a Kiwi job away.
What is wrong in this country??
OK, I refuse to learn a fift language called maori, Which by the way is almost 100% made up.
It is pushed through our throat as if we have nothing else to swallow.
When I get an official letter from council or anywhere else and it is spiked with foreign words.
I write them all down and ask a translation. And ask the sender: please, write in Swahilly AND a translation in English.
So I know what you are on about.
Anybody greeting me with Kia Ora, I answer in my own language.
This breaks my heart, I see the same thing happening across schools throughout NZ. I'm a half maori mum with kids at primary school. I really want my kids to learn and embrace their Maori heritage as much as their European heritage, but find myself disparaging the school's efforts because it's rammed down everyone's throats (NB: none of the teachers are Maori) at the complete exclusion of all other cultures, cultural experiences and thousands of years of valuable world history. NZ's education system is doing our children, and the future of NZ, a massive disservice :(
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