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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 37, Number 2. 13th March 1974
Education must compensate for a century of defamation
Education must compensate for a century of defamation
New Zealanders, Maori and Pakeha, learn their history and their understanding of society in schools which teach from the point of view of the dominant white culture. This creates ignorance and intolerance on both sides. Pakehas learn no respect for Maori culture past or present and many of them end up racists. Maoris learn little that gives them identity and pride in their race, and many of them end up knowing neither their history nor their rights.
Over the next few weeks we will be reprinting the full submissions of the Maori Organisation on Human Rights to the Educational Development Conference. The submissions were written in support of the NZ Race Relations Conciliator's emphasis on the need "to play a positive role" in promoting racial harmony, going beyond the "purely negative terms" of the 1971 NZ Race Relations Act. . . to implement the UNO International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Secondly, they support the NZ Maori Council's emphasis, in its submissions to the Minister of Education, on the priority need for NZ's education system to put a positive evaluation on Maori identity. And thirdly, they support the repeated call from Maoris for the re-writing (and teaching) of NZ history to set the record straight on Maori-Pakeha relationships.
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The submissions of the Maori Organisation on Human Rights to the Education Development Conference
| A) | That the prime responsibility for promoting positive evaluation of Maori identity by adopting the 'immediate and effective measures" referred to in Article 7 of the Convention rests with the NZ government's education system which has the capacity to act on a country-wide scale—
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| B) | That this calls for the education system to take conscious positive compensatory measures under Section 9 of the Race Relations Act (See Page 6 of the Report) to correct the effects of a century of defamatory stereotyping in history books and social studies and restore a positive evaluation to Maori identity - for example:
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That such compensatory stress is urgently needed—if, from February 6, 1974 Waitangi Day is to become New Zealand Day in fact and not a hollow mockery (a day of mourning for some, a day of reckoning for others, a holiday for the rest).
Without such compensatory stress the communication gap between those on the receiving end of racial discrimination and those who are not (and who consequently do not understand its existence or its meaning can only widen dangerously. And it will be impossible to heed the final warning of the Conciliator's Report): "It is important that any tendency on the part of the news mediat to present news in such a way that ethnic groups are associated with bad news should be checked.
D) That such compensatory measures by the education
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system under Section 9 of the Race Relations Act should aim to change attitudes in a limited period. The Conciliator's report describes the terms of the Act as "purely negative", concerned with behaviour and not with attitudes or with feelings, aiming "not to end prejudice".... (our italics—Moohr).
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A protesting Maori stands in his canoe off-shore near New Plymouth while marauding sealers plunder a rookery. One American ship took 60,000 skins in 1806 and indiscriminate butchering of bulls, cows an and pups soon led to virtual extinction of mainland herds.
To date NZ government discrimination "in favour of the Maori" has failed to restore equality between Maori and Pakeha.
There is cause for alarm rather than congratulation, therefore, in the Conciliator's approval for the Act's departure from the terms of the International Convention (see p.6 of the Report) where he deals with "discrimination in favour" of persons on a racial basis "where these persons need such assistance in order to achieve an equal place with other members of the community" (= Section 9: Measures to Ensure Equality) and continues: "This principle is now a permanent feature of our law, whereas the convention, which is strangely lacking in respect for minority cultures, provides only for special measures for a limited period."
If Measures to Ensure Equality do not achieve equality in a limited period, then they will simply perpetuate the paternalistic "assistance" which prevents a minority culture from achieving equal status and standing on its own feet.
The NZ Act's permanent provision for such paternalism reflects an attitude strangely lacking in respect for Maori ability—and particularly for the capacity shown by the Maori to run their own affairs and survive all attempts to Europeanise or destroy them, relying on their own strength in movements from Kotahitanga and Kingitanga to Ringatu, Ratana, Nga Tamatoa (like the Polynesian Panthers) today. Such movements like the flourishing Maori community and schools under Te Whiti O Rongomai at Parihaka (raided and destroyed by Pakeha Armed Constabulary in 1881—See Cowan, NZ Wars, Vol 2 pp 476—85, 517) rarely receive positive emphasis in NZ school history books.
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Te Rauparaha.
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Te Rangihaeata.
Under Section 9 of the Act they should now receive compensatory emphasis so that mana maori stands equal with mana pakeha; so that New Zealanders respect Tawhiao, Te Ua, Te Kooti, Te Whiti, Ratana as much as they have been taught to respect Sir Apirana Ngata, Sir Maui Pomare, Sir Peter Buck.
These knighted members of the Young Maori Party received Pakeha honours and demonstrated that the Maori is the equal of the Pakeha. Sir Maui Pomare, a child of Parihaka, because NZ's Minister of Health in 1924-25. But they also demonstrated that to achieve mana pakeha is not enough. (Cf Henderson, Ratana, p 15 & c)
If it had been enough, then Pakeha cabinet ministers would have done as much as Maori cabinet ministers to change Crown policy towards Maori land. If it had been enough, it would be NZ government departments that took steps to close their statistical gap between Maori and Pakeha to raise the percentage of Maoris at universities (still less than 2%) and lower the percentage in penal institutions (still from 30 to 90%; in 1972/3 five out of six Paremoremo D Block were Polynesian).
Instead the main positive impetus still comes from Maoris, including today particularly Maori youth such as Nga Tamatoa, Te Huinga Rangatahi o Aotearoa, Te Reo Maori. Their 1972 petition to restore the Maori language to schools achieved more than the Currie Report a decade earlier. In 1972 the Nelson Race Relations Action Group, headed by the chairman and secretary of the Nelson Maori Committee, proved that the "Maori crime rate" could be dramatically lowered by providing legal representation (government had already diagnosed the need); in 1973 Nga Tamatoa Tuarua was still taking more direct action than government to fill this need.
One example to illustrate how negative the effects of paternalistic government "assistance" can be: In 1970 government spent over $3000 on each individual Maori offender imprisoned in some gaols, but only $2892 on its subsidy to the NZ Maori Council for the whole of its nationwide work under the 1961 Maori Social and Economic Advancement Amendment Act and the 1962 Maori Welfare Act.
(The figure of $3000 was quoted, with additional costs to the family of the offender and to society generally, by the Secretary of Justice, Mr Missen. The figure of $2892 was quoted by the Secretary of the NZ Maori Council.)
The negative results and confusion generated by such "permanent" paternalism to date are especially evident in government policies on the status of the Maori language and education and in government control, through its Maori Trustee and Maori Affairs Department etc, of Maori Lands and Maori Monies.
Confusion is compounded by the fact that in 1973—like Sir George Grey and many more in the 19th century—NZ officials and ministers of the Crown continue to appear primarily concerned to deny the existence of racial discrimination. This year the Ministers of Justice, of Education, of Immigration have all publicly made such denials—which can only encourage racial prejudice perpetuating the vicious circle of racial discrimination because the NZ public is left with the impression that (since there is no discrimination ) then Maoris, Polynesians, Islanders deserve higher offending rates, expulsion rates and the assessment that their immigration should allegedly be restricted because they cannot "adapt" and make their way in a Pakeha/European environment.
Next instalment: "What puts a positive evaluation on Maori identity?"