We have been told that it is unacceptable to say that Maori had a stone-age culture (despite that being a historical fact) and that anyone who dares to say that they did will get cancelled. Today’s face of the day should be called bullshit artist of the day for the following historically inaccurate statement.
[…] “We were growers of our own kai, cleaners of our own rivers, and developers of our own land. That is not a stone-age culture, that is a sophisticated society.”
Matthew Tukaki
Yes, Maori grew their own sweet potato ( Kumara) but that was the full extent of their farming. The rest of their Kai was sourced from the sea and from their hunter-gathering. Like many hunter-gatherer cultures they would move to another area once they had run out of game and depleted the other Kai in the area. We all know that they hunted the Moa to extinction.
They did not clean their own rivers. What a whopper of a lie that claim is. Did Matthew Tukaki actually have a straight face when he said that? He is trying to romanticize Maori as environmentalists which is a common re-write of history that I have heard before.
They did not develop their own land unless you consider a fortified pa that was necessary because they were such a warlike people to be a development.
If Tukaki thinks that a warlike people who were hunter-gatherers (with the exception of their kumara plots) with only tools and weapons made of wood and stone were “a sophisticated society” then he seriously needs his head read. That is the opposite of a sophisticated society that is a prehistoric, stone-age society.
On another note in relation to Oranga Tamariki…
Tukaki said the Crown would act on more Maori values.
rnz.co.nz/news/national/435242/new-four-person-board-to-oversee-oranga-tamariki-overhaul
What are “Maori values” and why would they be any different to the values of Western culture and civilisation?
Just as European culture has changed over the years obviously Maori culture has also changed. Given that Maori are New Zealanders just like everyone else and are now part of a sophisticated Western civilisation what values exactly does Matthew Tukaki think that Maori have that are so different from Western cultural values?
They must be very different if he thinks that they need to specifically be applied by the Crown. I am dead serious when I ask this.
Does he believe that family values are specific to Maori? Does he think that Western culture values family less than Maori do?
At the risk of being cancelled, I would suggest that the statistics say otherwise. Oranga Tamariki doesn’t need to be more aligned to the Treaty Of Waitangi. It needs to do its job and protect the vulnerable and the abused. I don’t care what colour or race or culture an at-risk baby is; my Western cultural value is that the child must be removed from an abusive and or dangerous environment and to hell with the politics of the situation.
Put the child’s safety first.
For those who are outraged by the very pertinent point being made by the above cartoon take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror.
Ask yourself this question.
Should I be outraged by a non PC cartoon making the point that families who abuse children are ultimately responsible for the abuse or should I be outraged that New Zealand has a shocking child abuse problem?