Native Land Court and Aotea Maori Land Board Building, corner Rutland St and Market Pl. Photo / Bevan Conley
Native Land Court and Aotea Maori Land Board Building, corner Rutland St and Market Pl. Photo / Bevan Conley
Demolish or refurbish?
I was in Whanganui over the weekend enjoying a reunion with old friends from my school days in the city.
Dr Danny Keenan's comments on the Native Land Court building [Chronicle, 15 October] were drawn to my attention because I am the author of a book onthe Native Land Court that Dr Keenan cited in his op-ed piece.
Should a building that housed a court noted for its dispossession of Māori from their ancestral lands be demolished or refurbished?
I am strongly of the view that demolition would encourage amnesia of our past.
Amnesia about uncomfortable aspects of history suit many Pākehā who suggest we should forget the past and focus only on working together as 'equals' in a more harmonious future.
A better option is to preserve buildings like the Native Land Court building while being mindful of the past when re-purposing them for the future.
I offer two examples of historic buildings I have visited where Indigenous peoples are re-claiming their heritage in buildings with painful pasts.
The office of the 'Protector of Aborigines' in Perth, Western Australia, which implemented the 'Stolen Generations' policies illustrated in the film 'Rabbit-Proof Fence', was in a 1912 building that has been restored and refurbished. It is now an Aboriginal Rights Centre in a campus of the Curtin University Law School.
In Canada, most of the residential schools infamous for cruel assimilationist policies that blighted the lives of First Nations' children have been demolished long ago.
However, at Brantford in Ontario, the Woodland Cultural Centre is in a 1904 building that preserves historical evidence of the Mohawk Institute Indian Residential School.
At the same time, it is now a museum dedicated to the history and culture of the Iroquoian and Algonkian peoples and offers gallery space for special art and historical exhibitions.
I hope those responsible for the future of the Native Land Court building in Rutland Street will explore possibilities for recognising its history whilst preparing it for future uses.
DAVID V WILLIAMS Auckland
Bus shelter shame
I have always been proud of our beautiful city which overall presents a neat and tidy appearance.
Sadly, at present, the state of our bus shelters leaves a lot to be desired.
The district council is responsible for the cleaning of these. This is just not happening, not even in the inner city where the shelters are well used.
I travel on the bus at least twice a week and therefore am in a position to know how dirty and dusty the glass ones look.
I reported a white splash of paint on the Wicksteed St one nine weeks ago and have complained several times since, but it is still there! Not a good look at all!
The state of the Pak'nSave one is awful, as apparently it is misused all the time.
Ratepayers are paying a considerable sum for the shelters to be looked after properly and they need to be serviced well.
FIONA DONNE Aramoho
Farmers clean up your land
Why are so many farmers whinging and moaning about cleaning up their act and their land?
Look at your progressive brothers who are moving to organic, clean and green methods.
Their production increases and their costs plummet. They are breaking the mould of the corporates dictating what chemicals they must pour on to their land and animals and proving how wrong that culture is while saving hugely by cutting out those costs.
Why wouldn't you follow in their footsteps and reap the benefits also?
Aotearoa New Zealand is a rare gem, in this extremely polluted world of ours, in that it hasn't totally polluted and poisoned its farmland.
Can farmers not see how we could become the world's only clean, green, chemical-free, supermarket?
China has already warned us that they will not purchase chemically laden product.
International buyers would queue up at our door and pay high prices for such a pure product.
We would no longer need to enter spurious trade agreements which favour foreign interests over that of our farmers.
We could desist from spinelessly selling our souls, our sovereignty, and our land to those foreign entities.
Open up your minds, farmers, let your imaginations free rein and you could control your own destinies and demand high prices for the same amount of work at a far lesser cost.
