Happy Genocide Day Cobbers!

Written By: - Date published: 5:18 am, January 26th, 2016 - 20 comments
Categories: australian politics, colonialism, International, Media, racism, war - Tags: , ,

Aussie journalist Stan Grant says what needs to be said: the Australian dream is built on racism. Happy Australia Day, cobbers, you’ve got a long way to go … and saying sorry isn’t the end of the matter, it’s barely a good starting point for change.

And, readers, don’t think NZ isn’t immune from being delusional about our past, either. We may not have been as directly brutal nor as slow to change as our ANZAC cousins, but Aotearoa was taken from its occupants under duress too.

Bugger the flag referendum, a pointless, empty gesture. When are we going to acknowlege those who fell in the conquering of our country? When are we Kiwis going to really accept the multi generational impact of loss of sovereignty for the tangata whenua?

Are we really all that much better than the Aussies at accepting, respecting and making good our past?

 

 

20 comments on “Happy Genocide Day Cobbers! ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Gangnam Style 1
    26 January 2016 at 8:19 am

    Great speech. Though New Zealanders are racist at least we are embarrassed about it.

  2. maui 2
    26 January 2016 at 8:33 am

    We need a lot more attention put onto the New Zealand Wars, as kiwis we think we don’t really have a history, but so much happened in that period, and so many places have local histories with an amazing story to tell. We should embrace it, learn why Maori were aggrieved and what the consequences were for them. Time to be honest with ourselves I reckon.

    • northshoredoc 2.1
      26 January 2016 at 8:53 am

      I agree Maui.

    • pete 2.2
      26 January 2016 at 9:14 am

      Completely agree.

      If you ever pass through Blenheim, take a look at the old cannon outside the courthouse. Blenkinsops cannon. Incredible story behind that and classic tale of total misunderstanding between cultures. Only trouble is, one culture had the cannon and the weapons, so many deaths resulted.

      Highly recommend checking it out on Web.

    • Tautuhi 2.3
      26 January 2016 at 11:05 am

      Unfortunately they don’t teach NZ History at schools in NZ.

      People should read the book The Hanging Sky and what happened to Volkner in Opotiki fascinating read.

      • pete 2.3.1
        26 January 2016 at 11:21 am

        I shall do that. Yeah, it ridiculous that kiwis travel to the uk and marvel at the history there, yet we have it all right here.

        Some of those old pa sites are amazing, and the gold mining sites and the Chinese miners in central otago, industrial history west coast and so on. As a child we used to fosik along the clutha river, used to find many old opium pipes. Real story behind each I am sure.

      • D'Esterre 2.3.2
        27 January 2016 at 1:02 am

        Tautuhi: people should also read “The Fox Boy”. Among other things, a shocking account of ethnic cleansing in that area of country between South Taranaki and just north of Wanganui.

        • Tautuhi 2.3.2.1
          27 January 2016 at 4:24 am

          Agree another fascinating read, it is linked to Te Rauparaha’s exploits in those areas, I have always wondered what happened to the Fox Boy and whether he had any descendents, I guess someone within Maoridom may have some clues?

          The Musket Wars written by a pakeha lawyer from Blenhiem should be compulsory reading for those seriously interested in NZ History.

  3. weka 3
    26 January 2016 at 11:00 am

    That’s a potent speech by Stan Grant. Good video too, showing people as they listened to him.

  4. Tautuhi 4
    26 January 2016 at 11:00 am

    Evidently the natives are getting restless in Australia as well, some rednecks are promoting flag burning ceremonies?

    • Tautuhi 5.1
      26 January 2016 at 12:26 pm

      Good laugh reading that, should send it to the relations in Oz.

    • greywarshark 5.2
      26 January 2016 at 4:28 pm

      There are some sweeping statements made there about Oz. To be effective and understood as the truth, there needs to be a source for each of the OTT points which should have a footnote number beside it. Otherwise it just sounds like someone making stuff up for force the whites to grovel.

  6. Magisterium 6
    26 January 2016 at 11:59 am

    The very first time ever that Buzzfeed has posted something worth reading.

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/allanclarke/invasion-day-survival-day-australia-day#.lwlwmJJ8q

  7. Rosie 7
    26 January 2016 at 2:34 pm

    Many years ago Maori TV aired a six part documentary series called First Australians. It was presented by Aboriginal academics who told the history of the First Australians since the arrival of Europeans with such eloquence, pride and pain that each episode was a very difficult watch, but essential for learning the impact the history of such a brutal colonisation on a very old civilisation of indigenous people. Worth a look if you can find it on the internetz.

    It’s hard not to look at White Australia at not be critical at their deeply entrenched racism but that would have shades of kettle calling the pot black. For example, Stan Grant referred to the Adam Goodes event of winter last year:

    http://www.thestar.com/sports/football/2015/07/31/racism-erupts-on-australian-football-pitches-as-crowds-boo-aboriginal-adam-goodes.html

    One of the two reasons he was booed was because of a “traditional war dance” he performed on the pitch. Here in NZ, the AB’s perform a haka on pitch and everyone cheers. That doesn’t necessarily make us more enlightened than the Aussies. If I were cynical I would say that we feel we can have buy in to the haka, as one aspect of the haka is that it is a tourist commodity, and we allow ourselves a moment of faux nationalist pride
    But perhaps the pride begins and ends there for some, possibly due to a lack of education – re Maui’s comment about our indigenous and colonial history not being taught – maybe it’s taught in schools now days but it wasn’t when I was a kid, apart from local history, which we did learn about, but only from a Pakeha perspective.

    What do the Australians learn at school? Nothing either? Not even recent history like the White Australia policy? (My British born in laws emigrated to Australia under that policy and the shades of ethnic superiority never left them. In the privacy of the living room in their house their talk sounds like a rehearsal for the keynote speaker for an EDL rally).

    Finally, in an interview in a Mojo magazine article I read last year, David Bowie stated that when he was living in Australia he felt it was the single most racist country in the world, outside of South Africa.

    Yep, Happy Australia day.

  8. vto 8
    26 January 2016 at 7:17 pm

    Current thinking indicates two waves of our human species walked out of Africa. One about 70,000 years ago from the horn of Africa, passing around the northern Indian Ocean leaving populations in that area, Australia, indo-new guinea, Micronesia (and no doubt further afield, possibly even here). Second wave about 40,000 years ago up into Europe and east through to asia and down into the pacific to aotearoa arriving about 6-700 years ago. This lot wiped everyone they could and still do today.

    There are few peoples who can claim moral superiority in this arena if an appropriate length of history is considered.

  9. Tautuhi 9
    27 January 2016 at 4:17 am

    There are two types of people in society those with open minds and those with closed minds?