A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Opinion
Like many thousands of comments in Aotearoa New Zealand, your editorial on Monday rightfully acknowledges Prime Minister Ardern in leading compassion and empathy and indeed practical, “hands on” support for the victims of the Friday massacre, and for all Muslims and potentially other ethnic communities in our country. Rightfully, also,
the supportive role of the parliamentary opposition is acknowledged.
Nevertheless, despite humble reminders from tangata whenua quarters, your editorial last night states, “This atrocity is like the two world wars and the Hawke’s Bay and Christchurch earthquakes, in that it should never be forgotten or allowed to become just history.”
I agree, the Friday Christchurch massacre will be defining, and hopefully any positive outcomes may go some way to alleviating the tragedy and pain suffered. But your reference to other adverse events seems to specifically avoid the most long-standing sources of tragedy and ethnic grievance in Aotearoa NZ.
The passive and rightful resistance to British colonial aggrandisement and the subsequent suffering of the people of Taranaki is one example. The massacres, illegal land confiscations and imprisonment without trial of the people of Turanganui a Kiwa is another. The tragic slaughter and pogroms inflicted on the people of the Waikato is a third.
Land confiscation and ethnic cleansing has spread like a shroud across the beating heart of Maoridom for generations. It is an integral part of racism in this country and needs to be acknowledged as such, and expunged. The provision of the history of Aotearoa NZ as a required school, university, local authority and government agency curriculum topic might provide a significant step towards this.
