After years and months of rumbling, a quick succession of anti-bicultural statements recently leaves one wondering why and why now? Has the “rumpus” over He Puapua brought things to a head, or it is just that a number of Pākehā retirees have fallen over the political bandwagon and decided to go public?
I’ve commented previously on the Michael Bassett, Don Brash, Rodney Hide’s “exposures” (pn721) and their Hobson’s Choice petition to remove just about everything bicultural, and on Graham Adams’s history and conspiracy theory (pn719).
Now we have a newcomer to their stable, Emeritus Professor Martin Hugh Devlin, former Massey’s head of Master of Business Administration, now turned amateur historian, with an article “The NZ Schools History Curriculum – a rare and welcome opportunity for truth”.
He wants a multi-cultural curriculum that tells the story of all our 122 cultures —as indeed do many of us— and thinks the He Puapua report, which is not yet even an official discussion document, much too bi-cultural. I would agree.
Like many such brash (sic!) claimants he prefaces his remarks by saying he seeks an impartial truth, and then proceeds to demonstrate the opposite by ...
Declaiming Aotearoa as our country’s name, stating falsely that it was not used until the late 19th century.
He writes of how pre-European settlement Māori destroyed our fauna and flora.
Of how the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal “re-invented histories.”
He describes historian Claudia Orange’s opinions on the Treaty, with which he disagrees, as “highly personalised opinions” while Keith Sinclair, with whom he agrees, was a “highly respected” historian. Sinclair is known for his general histories; the Treaty was Orange’s lifetime work.
He claims Māori knew they were signing away their sovereignty —but makes no mention of the difference between kawanatanga and rangatiratanga.
He says Māori killed 40% of their own population (the estimate is a guess) in the Musket Wars —but does not mention who supplied the guns.
He writes of the killing of the Moriori, without asking who supplied the transport to the Chathams.
Of Te Kooti and the Matawhero massacre, failing to say that “The violence was savage, but not random. Te Kooti was exacting utu for indignities heaped upon him since he had been accused of aiding Pai Mārire adherents in 1865. On his return from the Chathams, local magistrate Reginald Biggs – the man who had exiled him – rejected his request for safe passage to Waikato. Biggs and his family were among those killed at Matawhero.” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/te-kooti-attacks-matawhero
Of those arrested at Parihaka who some Maori oral tradition (wrongly) says were kept in chains and imprisoned in Dunedin — but he makes no mention of the invasion of Parihaka itself, and why and how Te Whiti and others were arrested.
He says Māori land was not stolen; it was “legitimately purchased. ” This statement "trumps" all. (Pun intended)
And that colonisation should not be blamed for today’s social inequalities because “benefits to all ensued.” Yes, for some, after disease, the Land Wars, confiscation and depopulation broke the spine of the Māori economy marginalising and impoverishing many Māori.
Yes, we do want our history to truly reflect our many heritages, but not as the ilk of Professor Devlin seem to wish — at the expense of heaping negatives on our Māori heritage.
[One last word, Prof Devlin’s terminology and English history need attention. He writes, “Even the English were colonised, by the Romans, then the Normans, Irish, Scots and Poles.” Huh! The Romans and Normans conquered and colonised England; some of the others progressively settled there some time later —and the Poles even later!]
-- ACW
P.S. I suppose I'm also an amateur historian but I have an undergraduate degree in Geography and History with papers in Māori language and culture, and Asian Studies, a masterate that included one paper in Pacific and NZ history, and a PhD in population geography. Professor Devlin, I wouldn't dare write anything about Business Administration.
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