26 LISTENER MARCH 7 2020
T
he news last week that
the Māori Council wants
“racism out” by 2040 raises
the question of why we have
racism at all in Aotearoa.
An important reason is
that the history taught in our
schools has been seriously
deficient. It has not necessarily been a
deliberate lie, but rather history by omission.
It is always the victor who writes the history
and it’s written from their perspective. The
trick is to retrospectively recognise and
honestly accept what has happened here
in Aotearoa.
However, it’s very difficult when Pākehāhave never experienced colonialism
themselves. I got an insight into that when,
in 1973, I quit my job as a reporter with the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation and
went backpacking through Asia.
Soon after arriving in India, I attended a
“sound and light show” at the Red Fort in
Delhi. It traversed India’s history until we got
to a point at which I realised they were talking
about the English. It was a story of shocking
exploitation. Then, in 1947, the hated foreign
occupier was finally forced to scuttle home.
Sitting there quietly in the dark on the
North Indian Plains, reflecting on thatSINS OF
OMISSION
Do we fully understand the effect of the colonial process
on Māori in which their land, economy, language and
spiritual beliefs were taken from them? by DAVID NICHOLSON
OPINION
nation’s experience of colonialism, it
suddenly dawned on me: “That’s probably
how Māori felt.” Indeed, some still do.
We here in Aotearoa will never shake
off the baleful yoke of racism until all of
us are honest about the colonial process. It
was not accidental. By the time they got to
Aotearoa, the English were well experienced
at destroying indigenous cultures on the
basis that they were inferior or were the
wrong religion – they practised first on the
Irish, then the Scots.
After Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army
defeated the Irish, the English passed the Act
for the Settlement of Ireland 1652, resulting
in the mass confiscation of almost all Cath-
olic-owned land. Does that sound familiar?
In Scotland, they drove the Highlanders off
their land by burning down their crofts, then
pursuing them on horseback. The confiscated
land was then given to the English king’s
supporters. A familiar ring again.
The colonial process is also characterised
by the deliberate destruction or debasement
of indigenous cultural and spiritual values. In
the Christian churches, the leaders are called
ministers, bishops, priests, etc. Indigenous
spiritual leaders are described as “witch
doctors”. Christianity is a true, civilised
religion – indigenous religions are “mumbo
jumbo” or based on “voodoo”.
The Tohunga Suppression Act 1907
resulted in the suppression of Māori spiritual
practices – a manifest denial of religious
freedom.
We tend to use euphemisms to disguise
historical reality – that can be seen in our
use of the words “settlers” and “pioneers”.
They were nothing of the sort. Aotearoa wasalready settled. The pioneers who settled it
arrived between 1250 and 1300. In reality,
the English were refugees. My first forebears
to arrive here, in 1862, were escaping the
English class and economic system that
ruthlessly exploited those who were “born
to be ruled”.
After being thoroughly screwed by the
landed classes, they then shamelessly
abandoned whatever principles they may
have held and eagerly accepted land stolen
from Māori by the confiscation process.
From exploited to exploiters over a mere
three-month voyage.
The destruction of indigenous culture is
at its most aggressive in the suppression oflanguage. As in Ireland and Scotland, where
their versions of the Gaelic languages were
almost extinguished, Māori school-children
were punished for speaking the language of
their forebears. It mattered little, as Māori
belonged to the uncivilised past and were
on their way to extinction.DELIBERATE AND UNABASHED RACISM
I will digress a little here and observe
that it must be perplexing to Māori that
a Pākehā woman, Jennifer Ward-Lealand,
has just been made New Zealander of the
Year for, among other things, her commit-
ment to te reo Māori. Without denyingThe pioneers who
settled New Zealand
arrived between 1250
and 1300. The Englishwere refugees.
The authorities in Mumbai
took all the colonial
statues in the city and
relocated them to the zoo.