If the British immigrants to New Zealand
had killed, eaten, and enslaved the previous Polynesian and Melanesian
immigrants to New Zealand, the British would now be the indigenous inhabitants
of this country. As I point out in my
article on the term "Indigenous", this word is
almost never used with integrity, and is essentially a confidence-trick
by activists and university lecturers (who are often just activists,
anyway). They attach the term "indigenous" automatically
to any group of people who say they were in a particular place before
White colonialists arrived, although this group of people may well have
been colonialists in the past.
It is racist to refer to anyone living
in a given stretch of land before the arrival of Europeans as "indigenous"
or "native", unless those people:
People who use the term "indigenous" are racists and transportists,
because they discriminate between colonisers on the basis of race and
the of the type of transport which they used to get to where they live.
If they are White and arrived by sailing vessel, then they are "colonisers",
but if they are Brown and arrived by canoe, then they are "indigenous".
The Maoris did not constitute a political or cultural unity before
the arrival of Europeans, since they were divided into warring tribes.
Moreover, they possibly arrived at different times from different
Pacific islands, which were themselves politically and culturally distinct.
Moreover, the Maoris' genetic make-up shows that their
ancestors were both Polynesians and Melanesians,1 with
the Polynesians having started island-hopping from Taiwan. So
there was no Maori political entity there which could be called "indigenous"
to New Zealand as a whole, although various tribes and sub-tribes might
have a slightly stronger claim to being "indigenous" in their
own local areas. We also do not know which of the component tribal
entities was the first on the scene, or if indeed they wiped out the
really "indigenous" people who may have preceded them.
A few weeks ago, Maori Party Hone Harawira was on the TVNZ programme
"Q+A", where he came across as a very angry and direct fellow
-- and I respect him for that. Certainly, he
is right to call the Foreshore and Seabed Act racist. However,
he himself is clearly an anti-Asian racist. On the proposed Auckland
"super-city" council, he wanted separate Maori representation,
on the grounds that local Maoris are "indigenous" to the area.
He also wanted separate representation for Polynesian Islanders, which
is a group with which the Maori Party obviously want to forge an alliance
with. However, he refused to contemplate having separate representation
for Chinese and Indian people.
Asian immigrants have a reputation for working hard and doing better
than the White majority, in socio-economic terms. This is a bitter
blow to Maori activists, who have long tried to place the race card
-- claiming that racism was what held Maoris back, socio-economically.
However, if Asians can do it, why is it that most Maoris can't?
(Of course, many Maoris can -- and do -- succeed in socio-economic terms).
In addition, since the ancestors of the Maoris probably fled to Taiwan
and other islands to escape the advancing Han Chinese, it must be a
bitter blow to see these same Han Chinese following them out to New
Zealand and undercutting their best argument for pity and hand-outs!
The Foreshore and Seabed Act should be repealed,
and Maoris should be encouraged to compete and achieve, like the rest
of us. Meanwhile, if Hone Harawira doesn't like it here, maybe
he should go home to Taiwan!?
1 Although
the researchers speculate that the Melanesian genetic input came when
Melanesians acted as guides for the Polynesians, this is an unnecessarily
cosmetic explanation. Given the warlike nature of the Maoris (and
every other human group on the face of the globe), the more likely explanation
is that a war-party of Melanesians attacked a Polynesian village, killed
off all the men, and took the Polynesian women as wives. This
may have happened on more than one occasion.
