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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 36 No. 5. 29 March 1973
Museum Piece
Museum Piece
Sir,
Last Friday at a Faculty of Arts meeting a motion was introduced concerning the present conditions under which the Maori language is taught at this university. What happened to this motion is most probably irrelevant, but I think that the comments made by Professor Munz bear repeating, for his views exhibited a degree of cultural imperialism that I had considered dead in the University.
| 1. | That the Maori had no pre-European literature and |
| 2. | That he had no objection to the establishment of a Marae on campus as a sort of museum |
I shall not comment on these remarks.
As I left the meeting the Professor engaged me in conversation and informed that what was happening to the Polynesian people today, was a repeat of that which had happened to the English agricultural labourer 150 years ago, "they are becoming proletarians".
This analysis is undoubtedly true in many respects (i.e. creation of a labour force by forcing labourers off the land) it alarmed me to see that the Professor passed no adverse value judgement on this process and that he failed to distinguish a change in the class structure of English Society, and a change which also involves the interaction of two distinct cultures.
Dave Cunningham.