Most of the attacks on ‘colonisation’ in present day New Zealand are really attacks on the inescapable reality of modernity, the modernised world all peoples are navigating.
A Maori person who was born in the same year as I was has the same experience of the modern globalised world as I do. We both have had to navigate the progress and innovation that has occurred through the decades, the change and progress that accelerated through the course of the 20th century. He wasn’t teleported here from 1840 and I wasn’t given a manual on what are purportedly ‘Pakeha institutions’ prior to my birth. Neither of us have any special instinctual knowledge that would advantage one over the other. We both have been learning to navigate a modern globalised world since we were birthed.
Moreover, there is no such thing as ‘Pakeha medicine’ that modern day Maori are often caricatured as approaching with some mixture of awe and fear: the medicines and healthcare structures we have today are the product of the collective input of countries right around the world and have taken many decades to develop. All humanity has witnessed this, no matter where you are located around the globe: a medical researcher in Japan is no doubt contributing as much as one from anywhere else around the planet, and we all benefit from the global drive to improve our collective lot.
The health system that we have arrived at is not some alien ‘Pakeha colonist system’: you will find it has wide-ranging commonalities with any such system anywhere in the world. Healthcare is one example of this global commonality, but of course there are many other examples as modern societies order themselves in very similar ways as regards the provision of schooling, policing, and the other fundamental institutions and services countries provide for their populations.
We are currently having a bizarrely irrational and inherently negative view of our modern nation imposed on us by homegrown academics, and we need to push back against that by deploying logic and reason and our knowledge of the wider world of which New Zealand is a part.
Aaron Spencer is a writer and truth seeker from the Bay of Plenty. This article was first published HERE
Moreover, there is no such thing as ‘Pakeha medicine’ that modern day Maori are often caricatured as approaching with some mixture of awe and fear: the medicines and healthcare structures we have today are the product of the collective input of countries right around the world and have taken many decades to develop. All humanity has witnessed this, no matter where you are located around the globe: a medical researcher in Japan is no doubt contributing as much as one from anywhere else around the planet, and we all benefit from the global drive to improve our collective lot.
The health system that we have arrived at is not some alien ‘Pakeha colonist system’: you will find it has wide-ranging commonalities with any such system anywhere in the world. Healthcare is one example of this global commonality, but of course there are many other examples as modern societies order themselves in very similar ways as regards the provision of schooling, policing, and the other fundamental institutions and services countries provide for their populations.
We are currently having a bizarrely irrational and inherently negative view of our modern nation imposed on us by homegrown academics, and we need to push back against that by deploying logic and reason and our knowledge of the wider world of which New Zealand is a part.
Aaron Spencer is a writer and truth seeker from the Bay of Plenty. This article was first published HERE
8 comments:
All very reasonable Aaron; it also goes without saying that the wheel, metallurgy, a written language, the empirical scientific method and rule of law are among many disgusting features of colonization that the less technological and civilized among us are all too ready to ignore.
Maori are able to dismiss almost everything as colonisation and by "imagining decoloinisation" as exhorted by Moana Jackson, Motu and co can thereby justify to themselves almost any a course of action which suits their fancy.
If we look at one event in pre-colonial history, on November 16th 1831, William Yale penned a letter to King William, signed by 13 Ngapuhi chiefs saying ....."we pray thee to become our friend and guardian of these islands.." and the Treaty of Waitangi , which over 500 chiefs eventually signed, came from this. The British colonization of NZ was by invitation.
Very clear and very obvious to any reasonable person.
The racist ranters from TPM and Waitangi Tribunal are the agents who are pushing the separatist, apartheid agenda.
Re: Anon 1:47, it was not unusual for native tribes ruling over a swathe of territory to ask a European power to protect them from the designs of other powers, both European and regional. This would involve the imperial power claiming the place as a possession of sorts, but local political power often remained with the native elite. Over 350 'treaties' of such a nature were signed by the British in the Niger Delta alone as the European imperial powers carved up the continent among them. Here in NZ, the French were showing a lot of interest and the Maoris were mostly of the view that a British presence was preferable to a French one.
Indeed, Aaron. Isn’t it interesting how those that are usually most vocal in claiming the victimhood of colonisation are typically those that enjoy the comforts produced as an output of that activity and almost invariably preach from a pulpit of privilege.
And the things that they seek in their quest for decolonisation seldom involve foregoing those creature comforts but, unfailingly, involve the attainment of more power and that filthy colonial Pakeha concept of exchange: money.
Barend, it is my understanding that the request for protection was from the other tribes. Nga Puhi had been the first to obtain a large number of muskets and had raged a rather violent campaign against other tribes. The tables were then turning and revenge was going to be exacted, this leading to the request for protection.
I could certainly be mistaken and it was more a concern about the french. My only doubt is there had been little real contact, good or bad, between Maori and French, so where did the concerns come from. My guess would be the whispering of the missionaries in the ears of various chiefs.
@CXH > Not content with dispatching Marion, about 1500 tribesmen assembled to attack the hospital the French had set up on Moturua Island. Greatly out-numbered, the French defended themselves valiantly, using their firearms of course, and, with no further losses, killed about 250 of the attackers including many chiefs who were very conspicuous amongst them.
From this episode, the tribes quickly learnt two lessons. The first was an enduring mortal fear of the "tribe of Marion", confirmed ninety years later by Rev. John Warren.[3] It was one reason of many chiefs for signing the Treaty of Waitangi though to terminate the carnage of the Musket Wars which followed was another.
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2015/02/bruce-moon-before-1840.html
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