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Today I have been hiding under the table with a bag over my head due to having scored the most ‘own’ of embarrassing own goals – to hoots of laughter from my dearly beloved. It all began on Thursday when I got an email out of the blue from an old school friend whom I’d not seen in thirty years. They were in town for a visit; did I want to meet for a wee drinkie and catch up?
Needless to say, I accepted. There was just one itsy bitsy matter which hadn’t occurred to me (other than the possibility that I am incredibly shallow and judge people entirely on their good looks) – my vision of this person was a ‘frozen in time’ view from when we used to hang out (amongst other enjoyable activities!) as teenagers. So I arrived at the appointed time and discovered to my horror that nature had taken its course! One quick drinkie, polite conversation and I then fled into the night.
The same sort of thing is regularly undertaken by successive governments with regard to Maori. They have a frozen in time view of warrior tribal people who no longer exist. A painting by Goldie and The Governor TV series, with dollops of legends and supernatural powers thrown in for good measure, version of Maori.
(Insofar as such things ever existed) It certainly bears little relation to modern-day Maori.
To flog a dead horse and have successive governments outdoing each other to try to be seen by history as the most ‘pro-Maori’ is only hurting one group of people. Can you guess which group it is?
If handouts, welfare payments, “co-governance” (whatever that is), Treaty settlements, and other laws-of-economics-defying matters led to prosperity then why aren’t Maori the wealthiest group of New Zealanders instead of the poorest?
It has always been my firm view that the ‘real’ con game goes something along these lines:
1. Geoff Palmer discovered “partnership” and other principles in the Treaty by magic circa 1987.
2. That’s about the time our immigration policy was changed to let in the entire world instead of just Aussies and 10-pound Poms.
3. In due course somebody from a refugee camp would arrive in New Zealand dressed in rags.
4. 10 years later he’d be a millionaire.
5. Many others would follow.
6. He might then start asking pesky questions.
7. Such as “If I can make it in New Zealand, what’s your problem Rangi?”
8. Vigorous head-nodding and sneering from the white middle class would result.
And that would never do, would it, comrades? The game would really be up then! So Sir Geoff Palmer et al. decided to rig the game. Henceforth (i.e. from circa 1987 onwards) Maori were a special case and it was basically socially unacceptable to do any annoying “Emperor’s New Clothes” stuff (i.e. telling the self-evident truth).
Oh no, it was far easier to invent a ‘new truth’, one which could never be disproved or even debated. Make the illusion seem real by inventing huge numbers of fake Maori words, then get school children brainwashed and in on the act.
That huge changes have taken place over two centuries; that vast numbers of Maori children in current generations have no real future; that consigning 15% of the population to poverty and hopelessness is a pretty rotten thing to do: matters not one jot compared with that knighthood and a slobbering history book lauding you for being more “pro-Maori” than anyone else.
