MARCH 7 2020 LISTENER 27
that recognition, what acknowl-
edgement has there been for the
thousands of Māori who have
fought for the language over the
past 180 years?
Setting that aside, it has been
through the failure of our educa-
tion system that we are largely
ignorant of the colonial pro-
cess. However, there is more to
it than just process. There is our
ignorance of the deliberate and
unabashed racism of the English.
Here are three examples.
In 1917, the British Cabinet
decided it would take Indians 400
years to learn to rule themselves.
That’s right, if Indians were to tentatively
raise their hands and request independence
- “Please, sahib, may we drink deeply from
the cup of English civilisation so that one
day, in the far-off future, we might be able
to rule ourselves” – then by about 2300 they
might be able to take over from the man in
the pith helmet.
In the second instance, British field mar-
shal Lord Roberts, Commander-in-Chief,
India, from 1885 to 1893, once argued that
“native officers can never take the place
of British officers. Eastern races ... do not
possess the qualities that go to make good
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leaders of men.”
The final example is directly
pertinent to us – it’s the famous
painting by Charles Goldie and
Louis Steele, The Arrival of the
Maoris in New Zealand. It implies
Māori arrived here inadvertently
after being blown off course in
a storm. The sails of the waka
hourua are torn, those on board
are haggard and thin – they are
lucky to have survived.
English racism was so blind
that the fact that Polynesians
had already conquered the entire
Pacific, the largest ocean in the
world, 600 years before Goldie
and Steele put paint to canvas,
did not occur to them.
Even today, when racism is close
by, we often fail to acknowledge
it. In Wellington, a grandiloquent memorial
to Prime Minister William Massey overlooks
the harbour – predictably, there’s no mention
that he was the leader who declared that
“nature intended New Zealand to be a white
man’s country”.
BEING HONEST ABOUT OUR PAST
In aggregate, the deliberate process of
destroying the Māori economy, its culture
and spirituality has produced a group in
our society that is prone to poor health,
low incomes and sub-standard living con-
ditions. Their recovery from the wickedness
of colonialism and racism has been patchy
and slow, but it can be accelerated if we are
all prepared to be honest about our past.
Britain’s present degeneration into a
politically dysfunctional small island off the
coast of Holland is a good time for us to start
to decolonise our history and culture. Over
the past few years, the long black cloud of
the British Empire has been lifted from our
shoulders.
After the brilliant independence speech
of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal
Nehru – “At the stroke of the midnight hour
when the world sleeps, India will awake
to life and freedom” – the authorities in
Mumbai took all the colonial statues in the
city and relocated them to the zoo.
It may be tempting to do that with the
statue of Queen Victoria in Wellington’s
Cambridge Terrace, but it is not necessary. It
would be much better if we were all honest
about our past and support the Māori Coun-
cil in banishing racism from the hearts and
minds of all people in Aotearoa. l
David Nicholson is a Wellington journalist.
Britain’s present
degeneration is a
good time for us to
start to decolonise our
history and culture.
- The Arrival of the Maoris in
New Zealand, a painting by
Charles Goldie and Louis Steele. - Lord Roberts. 3. William
Massey. 4. Jawaharlal Nehru.
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