Guest Post – Waitangi Day, build a bridge and get over it

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, February 6th, 2015 - 30 comments
Categories: culture - Tags:

A guest post by David Meech republished from the Jafacentral blogsite.

Nearly time for Waitangi Day again.

Some say we need to simply celebrate the day the way the Aussies do. Fire up the barbies, shake out the picnic blankets and crack open a really good wine and simply enjoy a nice day out at the beach.

But that wouldn’t be traditional. Traditionally we mark our national day by crouching around a t.v. at news time waiting for a big fight to break out up at Waitangi.

It makes for a good break in NZ politics. All that red vs. blue, nice to get in a bit of white vs. brown.

It’s frustrating that we haven’t put the emphasis back on British colonialism yet. The British are a proud people. They will stand up for their country. They will fight for and defend their country.

Sadly very few seem to want to still live in their country.

Ancient Polynesian cultures were cute and interesting yet nowhere near as flash as Captain Cook who actually went ahead and discovered them. Certainly the younger generations of suburban hip-hopsters find it increasingly difficult to maintain tribal beliefs in ancient mythical tales of demi-gods, magical abilities, heavenly and worldly inter-travel and rampant blood-lust compared to the steadfast, more truthful European histories of Jesus Christ, King Arthur, Robin Hood, Bilbo Baggins, Pinocchio and Santa Claus. Nevertheless Maori continue to make steady progress towards technological civilisation to the point where they actually do now buy into these rapidly drying pools of British colonial subculture, especially the tales about Robin Hood, who was indeed a nice generous guy despite his noted habit of robbing and shooting people.

We are a humble race we Pakeha. Not like the Maori flashing their bums about and poking tongues at royalty – some of whom are now weaning themselves off state welfare. We are proud of our achievements but we don’t need to overly show off about our culture. When Sir Ed climbed that mountain we didn’t need to spoil the show by draping our flag all over that mountain did we? How dare the Aussies claim Split Enz as Australian when we all know perfectly well that they left New Zilland to make it big – not Australia. No wonder Australians are somewhat dumbfounded by our remarkable understatements of achievement.

Maori have been pushing out into the foreground and spilling right over the bloody foreshore in the last few decades and are due for a decent tidal turn. Recent research has emerged that a bunch of discarded old stones found in the corner of a field near Hokianga are conclusive proof that Polynesians were once ruled by a Celtic master race. There is no conceivable way in which ancient Polynesians, renowned for world class feats of sea navigation, warfare and oral mastery, could possibly have randomly put stones on top of one another.

Ancient oral culture has been unable to defend itself against this well respected yet loosely documented ideology, coming as it does from an expert who, through sheer coincidence, happens himself to have a distant Celtic background. This same academic, now well into his last sherry, also postulated that the magnificent Great Zimbabwe fort, though positioned squarely in the middle of Africa, must surely be evidence of wandering lost Jewish tribes as distantly mentioned in a remote version of the bible, which he never got around to finishing, or wandering Aryans who, having raced half way across the globe, suddenly needed to stop and built a big old fort in the middle of nowhere before they rapidly disappeared up the annals of time. Or if not Aryans then maybe aliens, or Phoenicians, maybe the lost tribe of Israel but definitely not black Africans.

Maori are also notoriously fracticious, tribal and warlike. This does not bode well compared to the noble array of Saxons, Jutes, Picts, Britons, Romans, Pakistanis, Celts, Vikings, Chavs, Norman French and Jamaicans that underpin the unified Britain of today. Not the Jews since they were all kicked out. Clearly Maori have tended to bicker amongst themselves and need to learn from their European colonisers, the British and Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish (they don’t get full club membership) and Irish who very seldom tend to bicker , and if they do quickly get over it with either a referendum or a few religious riots or bombings. And yes the odd football riot, a few of which managed to extend over into Italy (which of course was not fully unified until 1918 unless you include the Vatican and then okay it is still not actually unified). Clearly Maori lacked the technological abilities of these uber-races, and after Maori stupidly laid their guns down some 130 years ago, they failed to really push on and learn from the continuation of superior and more technological violence extending as it does from the mass encampment of innocent civilians in the Boer War; a neat little town square massacre in India; the Spanish Civil War; deadly conflicts centered on mass extermination in France and Belgium, (which by the way seemed to disappointingly escalate into 2 sadly global world wars against the Germans who were of course once our allies); the resultant soulless extermination of Poles and Jews; the firebombing of innocent civilians in London and Berlin and the inevitable desolation of Russia as we know it, terminating with the nuclear annihilation of thousands of Japanese at Hiroshima (did you know they used to be our allies ?); and on through the sectarian religious tribal viciousness of the troubles in Northern Ireland; mass ethnic exterminations throughout Bosnia and Serbia; threatened nuclear conflicts with the Russians (hey they used to be our allies); and a minor yet entertaining side-scuffle over a couple of windswept southern sheep farming islets remarkably close to Argentina.

Oh and of course the oil wars.

Yes, yes Afghanistan, Malaysia, Korea and the big 60’s musical production over in Vietnam.

Whereas most Maori conflicts seemed to be over pathetic things such as food resources, territorial domination or survival, European conflicts have mostly held far loftier, noble and civilised causes, including, yet not limited to; “the war to end all wars” (see World Wars I and II); Christianity; Empire; the spread of freedom; measles; civilisation; democracy; Dr. Who and real estate franchising.

Clearly these Maori, though often entertaining at barbecues, are a violent, belligerent people whose former treachery must forever be held in suspicion.

waitangi treaty signing

Maori need to move on from the past, and stop living in the past, whilst never for a moment forgetting that they are all actually derived from untrustworthy wild savages. These radical Maori should really stop deriding the rapidly drying pools of British colonial sub-culture when it is well known that, if not for the heroic efforts of British medicine they would surely have all died from the brutal and tidal onslaught of disease and pestilence as brought over by the early fleets of thoughtful and caring Christian real-estate agents. The cannibal thing can be forgiven, but never forgotten, and it needs to be brought up fairly consistently. Lacey and Danzinger in the No 1 bestseller “The Year 1000″, a clever snapshot of life in England at the time, mention on page 183, “there were horrendous famines which forced men into cannibalism…” Shocking isn’t it? Clearly this seems to suggest that in or around the Year 1000 AD Maori somehow embarked by canoe or Polynesian pirogue, navigated across distant voids, against tidal current and prevailing wind, found their way right unto the distant corners of Europe, disembarked upon the soft sandy shores of Albion and then proceeded to systematically and greedily feast themselves upon the innocent and unsuspecting carcasses of civilised English children.

They certainly had an uncanny maritime ability didn’t they?

Thank goodness Maori are all Christians now and can instead focus on all that I am the blood of Christ stuff.

Maori also need to stop reminding us about that silly old treaty. Yes we wrote the scratchy old thing; made the promises; guided the trembling hands over the burnished parchment; paid the glass beads; meticulously recorded it all, and then somehow failed to deliver on certain central key terms. It may be easy to stand there and say, “You stupid bloody colonial sheep-herding plonkers” – but constantly dwelling on this is annoying. Just because you were here first does not mean that you can’t share. Look at Ngati Whatua – they shared and they even got some of their land back, now that we’ve let them out of prison. Just build a bloody bridge and jolly well get over it. Stop living in the past. Even though you are historically warlike tribal cannibals at heart. If those Europeans had not arrived, grabbed most of the good land, cut it free from the developmental bugbears of rahui and rohe, chopped down all the trees, covered it over in sheep grazing and pine forest, polluted waterways and leeched land to the point where it is no longer good for anything bar residential subdivision by bankrupt, white-shooed, coke-snorting property developers from Queensland, we could never have brought this hallowed Western concept of ecological conservation and restoration that is now rapidly overtaking our good nation.

By holding back the construction of hospitals and schools in the Tainui region, and then forbidding the use of their language in public, we were actively forcing them on into civilisation and jolly well letting them know that they should be thankful that they were not colonised by South Africans or something. Or even worse, and God forbid, by those annoying French people, with their complicated concepts of fashion, cuisine, artistic endeavour, social housing, universal education, social equality, health schemes, amazing variety of perfumes and aftershaves, world class cellars of wine, focus on quality, beautiful table manners, pensive architecture, scientific and intellectual endeavour, concepts of beautiful design, gourmet mayonnaise and the uncanny ability to dress astoundingly well in the morning. Maori today may find themselves penniless, asthmatic, unemployed, wearing jandals and renting a partially insulated leaky home off the daughter of a Chinese Party member, but they should always be thankful for the introduction of meat pies, marmite sandwiches and the superior technological advantages of no.8 wire.

Look we all know they weren’t really here first. The steadfast refusal of academic Maori to acknowledge the only partially debunked myth of Moriori (Maru-Iwi?), a small statured race of dark-skinned space invaders, who arrived moments after the boatloads of flax-haired Celtic Kings, is bloody annoying to say the least. How can you possibly refute the existence of an entire race of people when clearly you can’t even get their name right? Maori today refuse to watch the documentaries, listen to the talkback shows or watch the YouTube posts, and spend far too much time watching Homai te Pakipaki.

Look putting it bluntly Maori just need to buck up. Like their friendly British-based real estate franchisees and colonial roastbusters, they need to formulate wordy European-type verbal and ideological constructs which launch far up and away into the air soaring high and right over (and barely recognising or relating to) the relevant facts or detail pertaining to the historical issues of our time.

So let’s just bloody well build a bridge and get over it.

Copywright David Meech

30 comments on “Guest Post – Waitangi Day, build a bridge and get over it ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. JanM 1
    6 February 2015 at 9:06 am

    🙂 You’ve made my day – Love it!

  2. Chch_Chiquita 2
    6 February 2015 at 9:57 am

    Classic!

    • left for deadshark 2.1
      7 February 2015 at 9:59 am

      Classic..
      Mr Meech, If you teased this out a bit you have a best seller,I’d buy a copy ,or at least download it off the interweb for free, thats if they haven’t bought all the bandwidth with those glass beads,Ha. 😉

  3. Chooky 3
    6 February 2015 at 11:03 am

    …and from Bomber Bradbury with a sledge hammer…ah dont you just love Waitangi Day!

    ‘Waitangi Day 2015 – 175 years of wilful ignorance and blind privilege’

    By Martyn Bradbury / February 6, 2015 / No Comments

    “175 years since Maori and Europeans signed a a Treaty aimed at allowing both cultures to live on these lonely cragged Isles at the ends of the earth…”

    http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/02/06/waitangi-day-2015-175-years-of-wilful-ignorance-and-blind-privilege/

    • Chooky 4.1
      6 February 2015 at 11:32 am

      very good!…like it!….and lets hope certain politicians get given the reception they deserve on Waitangi…we need some entertainment

  5. music4menz 5
    6 February 2015 at 11:16 am

    I guess that this is satire.

    The TV One online poll last night said that for 66% of the respondents Waitangi Day had no significance whatsoever.

    I don’t think that was satire.

    • Chooky 5.1
      6 February 2015 at 11:35 am

      these 66% are lazy thinking, irreverent, pretend ignorant slobs who just want the day off to drink beer and lounge around….but they love Waitangi Day!…as we all do , except maybe some politicians

    • weka 5.2
      6 February 2015 at 11:41 am

      “The TV One online poll last night said that for 66% of the respondents Waitangi Day had no significance whatsoever.”

      They’ll be happy to give up their stat holiday then.

      “I don’t think that was satire.”

      Call it satire, or call it biased journalism by running an inflammatory question in a self-selecting, online poll which is inherently full of bias by default.

    • Tracey 5.3
      6 February 2015 at 5:14 pm

      which probably only proves the writers point about how the real picture has been skewed to comfort a section of nz

  6. NZJester 6
    6 February 2015 at 1:10 pm

    What I can not believe is that john Key used his annual Waitangi Day breakfast speech to make a pitch for a new flag again. Is there some big scandal happening right now that he needs to distract the media from? (Read this with a heavy dose of Sarcasm in your voice!)

    • Chooky 6.1
      6 February 2015 at 1:53 pm

      how about sending a whole lot of Maori off to fight ISIS?

      …or what he knew and when, about Nact MP Sabin’s scandal …. necessitating Sabin’s resignation…. and now the Northland bi-election…with Winston possibly winning?

  7. SPC 7
    6 February 2015 at 2:25 pm

    I wonder what the problem with celebrating a national holiday here is.

    Initially commemorating the arrival of Hobson on Jan 29. But this was not a holiday.
    Otherwise we became a self governing colony in 1841. And a dominion in 1907. Neither commemorated by a national holiday.

    “According to Dame Silvia Cartwright, eighteenth Governor-General of New Zealand, in a speech given at the New Zealand Centre for Public Law in 2001:[4]

    This event passed relatively unheralded. It attracted little comment. This illustrates that what may appear as a constitutional landmark, particularly from this point in time needs to be seen in its context. And so, although new Letters Patent and Royal Instructions were issued in 1907, and the requirement to reserve certain classes of Bill for His Majesty’s pleasure was omitted, New Zealand certainly didn’t embrace dominion status with the vigour of a young nation intent on independence.”

    Commemorating the signing of the Treaty Feb 6 – Waitangi Day only began in 1947. But was not a holiday, and as New Zealand Day, until 1974. It became the national holiday Waitangi Day for the first time in 1977 after legislation changing the name back in 1976.

    We have no tradition of embracing our independence and nationhood with a national holiday prior to 1974.

    For that Waitangi Day is not culpable but a legacy of less than out and proud New Zealand identity, more proud as a colony in the South Pacific of the home country.

    In the negative reaction to Waitangi Day as our national day we have the legacy of proud colonial settler whose allegiance is to the home country, Crown and flag and securing and maintaining control of the settlement from Maori. In that sense our national identity is in the disrespect for Waitangi Day and honouring the Treaty by continuing policy of token settlement payoff and keeping Maori from real partnership status – all while subsuming them within democratic majority governance.

    • fisiani 7.1
      6 February 2015 at 10:11 pm

      Maori were and never have been Treaty partners. This is a common and sloppy linguistic error. Maori were parties to the Treaty. That’s an undeniable legality. It;s amazing how many people confuse the the two terms.

        • fisiani 7.1.1.1
          7 February 2015 at 1:24 pm

          There are no agreed principles of the Treaty. There is just the Treaty.

          • Sacha 7.1.1.1.1
            7 February 2015 at 2:57 pm

            As I say, educate yourself. You’re an embarrasment.

            • fisiani 7.1.1.1.1.1
              7 February 2015 at 3:13 pm

              The Treaty was signed in 1840. Show me any reference to “The Principles of the Treaty” before 1940. 100 years without any reference to such principles. Show me any reference before 1970. Don;’t show me a fanciful invention of the late 20th Century. Repeating this fanciful judicial invention does not give it any greater validity.

              You give a link which contains the following
              “There is no final and complete list of treaty principles.”
              Nuff said.
              Game Set and Match to Fisiani as always.

      • North 7.1.2
        6 February 2015 at 10:39 pm

        It’s you who’s confused and thick as pigshit Fizzy Anus……insufferable dolt. Who was the other party to Te Tiriti then……19th century Martians for Christ’s Sake ?

        Haven’t heard about a moonship settling down at Hararu Falls in the 1830s-40s dork. Just because TheFuckWitKey emabarrasses the shit out of himself and Aotearoa/NewZealand doesn’t mean you have to.

      • Tracey 7.1.3
        7 February 2015 at 12:30 pm

        your views while common are sloppy.

  8. fisiani 8
    7 February 2015 at 1:26 pm

    Care to point out in any version of the Treaty where the term partnership is mentioned. The parties to the Treaty were the British Crown and the Maori chiefs. Game Set and Match to the always correct Fisiani.

  9. Jay 9
    7 February 2015 at 3:05 pm

    The principles of the treaty are as follows:

    1.The chiefs of nz cede sovereignty to the Crown, forever.
    2.The Crown assures the people of nz possession of their lands, forests etc, and their personal possessions (taonga, which actually meant “possessions”, not necessarily “treasured possessions” as it almost exclusively means today). Land can only be sold to the Crown.
    3.Maori in nz have all the rights and privileges of British subjects

    The treaty was a vehicle to establish a government in nz, which was seen as necessary for a number of reasons.

    I can’t see how the principles outlined in that link have been drawn from the treaty, which despite controversy over the Maori and English versions for me is a very simple document. The versions certainly aren’t diametrically opposed and my reading of the Maori version makes it clear that Maori did cede sovereignty.

    Anyhoo, thanks for a refreshing piece of satire with barely a trace of soul destroying nastiness or poisonous ill-will to be found. And no that’s not sarcasm!

    • One Anonymous Bloke 9.1
      7 February 2015 at 3:09 pm

      *sovereignty.

      Bzzt! Wrong.

      Kawanatanga best translates as “governorship”.

  10. SMILIN 10
    10 February 2015 at 5:05 pm

    A wry smile at a most well thought article
    The bit that always hurts is war and that is the problem with the human race since the beginning

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