pn631. Is apologising for racial wrongs really the point? UPDATED NOTE.

 

Media giant Stuff, after a protracted study of its own history, has announced that much that it has published on Maori has been racist.  It has apologised for this and introduced guidelines (a Treaty of Waitangi-based charter) to improve its record.

  Surprisingly, left-leaning journalist Chris Trotter has condemned these initiatives, saying apologising for your history is to admit you don't understand it (with which I disagree) and that the apology is likely to result in a White backlash, with which, unfortunately,  I cannot disagree.

But he appeared unconcerned or unaware of the  ongoing Maori backlash evident since at least the 1950s. He did not mention Nga Tamatoa, Bastion Point, the Land March, the Raglan and Wanganui protests, the foreshore and seabed issues, or the creation of the Maori Party.  

He wrote of rewriting history while failing to recognize that it had in fact already been rewritten, by commission and omission— by Pakeha. 

Only relatively recently have the "Maori" Wars and the Wairau "Massacre" been renamed the Land Wars and the Wairau Affair. 

Until relatively recently the Treaty of Waitangi was considered meaningless, and a number of influential Pakeha still think so. 

What is more, Maori are still being held solely responsible for the consequences of the Pakeha rewriting and resultant marginalisation: their poor health and crime rates, poor education levels,  family breakdown, child abuse, drug use, and on and on. 

Chris said to rewrite is to not understand, but the appalling story of Parihaka that he mentions in passing was not even known to Pakeha until Dick Scott, who died this year aged 97,  wrote The Parihaka Story (1954) and its expanded Ask that Mountain (1975). 

Te Whiti o Rongomai

In 1881 some 1600 troops equipped with cannon  invaded the village on the slopes of Mt Taranaki (Mt Egmont?) in response to Maori removing surveyor pegs and ploughing confiscated land. The ploughmen and leaders Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi were arrested and imprisoned without trial. Te Whiti was arrested again in 1883 and 1886.

Today, if you see Taranaki women wearing white feathers in their hair it is in memory of Parihaka and Te Whiti whose repeated  peaceful passive resistance has been likened to that of Mahatma Gandhi. 

Not too long ago, no Maori language, cultural mores  or history were taught in our secondary schools (indeed, there were few Maori teachers) and the universities were little better. 

I well remember a quite heated argument with my History lecturer at Vic, Mary Boyd, in the early 1960s. She maintained the Treaty had no validity or use. I only got a 'B' in that paper!

I remember also the PPTA Journal article in 1970  concerning teachers' college students who researched Wairau. They concluded Maori had ambushed the NZ Company starting the killing, ignoring the fact that it was only after Te Rangihaeata's wife had been killed that the Maori responded in earnest; the fact the NZ Company had illegally provoked the affair, hoping to forestall Commissioner Spain's enquiry that was likely to determine the NZ Company's title was invalid. It was Maori land that they had invaded. 

This is not what those teachers' college students were taught, or what they would teach to their pupils.  I know because one of them was a  young colleague of mine. 

The Journal printed my response ("Another View of the Wairau Affair") but much of the damage was already done  What was taught in our schools and universities, if it was taught at all, was this sort of a Pakeha version of history. I'm sorry, Chris. We definitely need to rewrite history, if only to correct what  little we know.

Thoughts on the Stuff's Charter

 Stuff's charter  recognises the media's "enormous impact in shaping public thought ... and societal norms".  It claims to be "a brave new era for NZ's largest media company" Click here to read.

The intentions of the Charter are commendable but there's no  mention in the Charter of Maori editors, columnists and journalists, only a separate acknowledgement by the CEO to redress their under-representation.

Also, there appear to be no explicit Maori organizational structures within the organisation, and no mention of any Maori inputs to the Charter. I wonder if any Maori helped to write the Charter, or whether this is another example of well wishers hoping to do things to and for Maori? Without these structures and "by Maori" inputs, good intentions may not amount to very much.  We'll have other Oranga Tamariki sagas (see pn629).

But it's a start in the right direction for which Stuff should be congratulated. I wonder how many other organisations will follow its example.

--- ACW

The latest from Stuff's Stuff's Maori staff

More from Chris Trotter

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