#JohnKeyHistory

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John Key has done it again.

This week our lovely Prime Minister has showed us how little he knows about the history of the country he is supposed to be running. Apparently “New Zealand was settled peacefully”. Was it really? Because I know plenty of people who would disagree.

In saying this however, I also know people who would agree with this statement and Key’s remark highlighted how little some Kiwis know about Maori-Pakeha race relations from the 19th Century to the present day. It’s so nice to live in a bubble where we tell ourselves that this country has a racially peaceful past but comforting yourself with lies and fabrications can never have a good outcome.

This is where education plays a primary role. I remember sitting in a high school classroom learning about the Treaty of Waitangi in the most boring way possible year after year, the same information with such little depth. It almost stops at the two different translations, unless things have changed since I was at school. It isn’t until year 13 history when you really gain a comprehensive understanding of the realities of the historical events and their repercussions. And of course, by then it’s an optional subject.

The number of times I’ve heard people say that Maori complain unnecessarily and question why they think they’re so entitled is disgusting. Such people know nothing about structural racism. It’s like people who say that sexism and misogyny doesn’t exist anymore, or those who say that people with disabilities no longer have any societal limitations. Only people who live the realities of being marginalised everyday will understand how ridiculous these claims are.

If we don’t open our eyes and start to see such grievances as serious and legitimate issues, nothing is ever going to change. But to build a socially conscious society where people can understand why things are the way that they are and why they need to change immediately, we need to understand the significant role the schooling system plays in making that happen.

14 COMMENTS

  1. John Key’s shallowness is becoming more and more apparent and history is not his only “f” subject. The truly scary thing is not so much what he does not know or want to know it is how far too many people could not care less.

  2. Maybe a bit late for handwringing over Maori entitlements.
    With the New World Order and John Key presumed to be handing over NZ to America or China or both,we will all realise what Maori went through when the British arrived and tried to commandeer NZ.
    Maori fought to keep their land as we would fight if we are handed over.
    Of course we would be persuaded it would be for our betterment and promises made, but like promises or treaty to Maori the promises we would be given would most likely not be kept.
    We later settlers appreciate the Maori claims but it was the British Crown who caused the problem, thats who should address the claim, most “pakeha” are not much better off than Maori financially , but its us the taxpayers who are made to pay. The Queen has massive resources but to ask her to pay would be classed as not right, well its not right that we are asked to pay either,we had nothing to do with treaty.
    The reneging of the treaty by the Crown or the Crowns representatives has caused great devisions between Maori and Pakeha, if promises had been kept we would probably be one people now as we should be .
    Maori were not indigieous to NZ just earlier settlers, others were here before,but that’s another story.
    If Maori and Pakeha united we could maybe be able to stop the John Key attempts to make us all serfs to the One World Order,but devide to rule has always been the elites rule.
    The elite of Maoridom seem to be the main beneficiaries of treaty settlements, not much trickle down there , and there should be.
    Both Maori and Pakeha are being taken for a ride by the ones in charge.

    • “Maori were not indigieous to NZ just earlier settlers, others were here before,but that’s another story.”
      Māori are indeed indigenous to New Zealand, if you are referring to Moriori, – they were an early Māori tribe (here with Māori) who fled to the Chatham Islands after intertribal fighting. They were attacked by another tribe during the Musket wars but there are still descendents of Moriori living today.
      The story that the Moriori were a distinct earlier race of people killed off by Māori is as true as John Key’s history.
      Of course you may be referring to something else but I’m sceptical about that too.

      • Moriori were first settles long before Maori, but Moriori were wiped out by Maori.
        The Maori came in canoes long after Morioris arrived. They both might have been Polynesian ,but killing off earlier arrivals dosnt make Maori indigenous.

    • Maori were not indigieous to NZ just earlier settlers, others were here before,but that’s another story.

      Hmmm, I doubt that. Stories of Celts, Egyptians, Chinese, et al, visiting our shores have a ring of the fantastic about them – but of little value.

  3. Thousands of Maori killed for the control of land
    Women children and aged people slaughtered in the land grabs,
    by English bobbies, in their 6 month tour of duty
    brought out to quell the natives.
    Nothing peaceful about the colonization of NZ and Maori,
    Today it is 23/11/2014 and we need to move on in a real, peaceful
    and positive way and as the song goes,
    “Come on Maori people stand up, stand up for your rights”
    make sure our tamariki aand mokopuna know of their history,
    the one that is handed down through generations
    the Real story of the Colonization leading up to today,
    We may have lost our land our language and our tinorangatiratanga,
    We have not lost our voice,
    John Key is trying to rewrite history, sound familiar.
    Sorry johnkey but nothing about being colonized is peaceful.
    We can live in peace with the truth,
    definitely not with repression and persecution.

  4. Thanks Latifa.

    The colonial wars were extremely violent, to the extent many Maori tribes were virtually alienated. Most of us are familiar with NZ’s settlement history. But not John Key it seems.

    If it’s not to do with self promotion, money, asset theft and corruption, Key doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to know. He’s not interested.

    Key’s existence as PM is wrapped in a fabricated lie of denial, this issue being a prime example of the fact!

  5. John Key’s ignorance is breathtaking.
    You can look at the history of any country in the world for the last 2,000 years and see a succession of invasions by conquering armies and/or settlers. It seems to be a human trait. Aotearoa was one of the last to undergo this experience simply because it was so far away from anywhere else.
    Occupation here may have been marginally less brutal for the tangata whenua than in some other countries, but it was still horrendous at times, or else sneakily achieved by so-called legal means. Whether we identify as Maori or Pakeha, we live with the consequences and will continue to do so for well into the future.

  6. I think John Key is taking his “relaxed” approach to things a tad too far…

    What next? The horrors of trench warfare in WW1 were not as bad as some make out?!

    Un-f*****g-believable.

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