tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19962237.post8004967207475831482..comments2024-03-04T16:39:30.609+13:00Comments on Lindsay Mitchell: Describing Maori to allay the fears of potential immigrantsLindsay Mitchellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04437693272797130833noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19962237.post-60392360309993199832012-04-05T20:48:38.089+12:002012-04-05T20:48:38.089+12:00Thank you Lindsay - that spoke volumes in the posi...Thank you Lindsay - that spoke volumes in the positive about you! I do read what you say and am very interested. I work for iwi and believe the negative statistics can be changed. Maori have plenty to offer NZ. A lot of the negatives I believe are from low self image, no aspirations, not believing that they can add value in our NZ society, no role models, weakened families and of course the assimilation into the British culture over such a short time. Kia kaha.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19962237.post-9826601927244832222012-04-05T20:22:23.121+12:002012-04-05T20:22:23.121+12:00Bugger. And I meant to add, thank you for reading....Bugger. And I meant to add, thank you for reading.Lindsay Mitchellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04437693272797130833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19962237.post-89811168511022173612012-04-05T20:21:24.655+12:002012-04-05T20:21:24.655+12:00Dunno. My Mum said I was attracted to Maori as a c...Dunno. My Mum said I was attracted to Maori as a child. My closest friend was Polynesian, but Pacific. We remain good friends in our 50s. My first boyfriend was a Cook Islander. Maybe I'm just drawn to brown people with attractive facial features? <br /><br />If I blog about Maori statistics negatively it's factual. And I want those stats to disappear. So I track them. The positive things I could write would be personal and off-limits. <br /><br />Some of the Maori I paint are friends who sit for me and I reciprocate by doing paintings for them, perhaps of their children. Others are my versions of black and white historical photos I dig up from places like the Alexander Turnbull Library.<br /><br />Generalizing Maori, they fascinate me. The way they have adapted to colonisation over a relatively short space of time. Their cultural collectivism and inner turmoil with individuality. Their musicality, their humour. Their wit. (Oh dear, more stereotypes.) Anyway, the good and the bad. <br /><br />Obsessed? That might be an exaggeration. Is it wrong to take an especial interest or find a particular race of people attractive? Racist maybe? But wait, I can find examples of Maori people I don't particularly like (on what I see). How about Cindy Kiro and Metiria Turei and Shane Jones?<br /><br />As for my latest post, as you said it's "opinion". That's all.Lindsay Mitchellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04437693272797130833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19962237.post-39852734717682101892012-04-05T18:51:09.916+12:002012-04-05T18:51:09.916+12:00Dear Lindsay I read your column every couple of da...Dear Lindsay I read your column every couple of days. What I would like to know is why are you so obsessed with Maori? Its not just about Maori being in the lowest health statistics, or the highest crime statistics or the highest benefit statistics, you seem to want to get inside them?? You paint pictures of them (do Maori actually pose for you or are the paintings some collective image you bring together) and you are obsessed with blogging about them in the absolute negative - completely one side not balanced at all. If you only spoke to 'debunking the welfare myth' ok but you spread you opinion further. Now you are speaking about history - written history from Pakeha only - as I said not balanced really is it. I ask again - why are you so obsessed with Maori???Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19962237.post-21202682924042072822012-04-05T09:23:20.358+12:002012-04-05T09:23:20.358+12:00Exactly. In the same way Maori are free to memoria...Exactly. In the same way Maori are free to memorialise those Pakeha who have stood up for Maori interests.<br /><br />We are constantly told that ideals, principles or even base self interest should trump tribalism and race,this is an early possibly enlightened example of that.FFnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19962237.post-78138176116347454422012-04-05T09:22:04.335+12:002012-04-05T09:22:04.335+12:00Yes, the two paras are by Twain. He does a fine jo...Yes, the two paras are by Twain. He does a fine job, I think, of providing us with a slightly more nuanced view of the Maori Wars.<br /><br />JCJChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00875768024598278750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19962237.post-27637890913065428712012-04-05T08:56:19.130+12:002012-04-05T08:56:19.130+12:00Oh I misunderstood.
Anyway I heartily disagree wi...Oh I misunderstood.<br /><br />Anyway I heartily disagree with Twain. Maori had every right to choose who to fight alongside. The brutal inter-tribal warring that went on pre-European times hardly paints a picture of potentially united patriots.Lindsay Mitchellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04437693272797130833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19962237.post-18591444466714295622012-04-05T08:11:45.333+12:002012-04-05T08:11:45.333+12:00Both paragraphs are Twain's. The second one, ...Both paragraphs are Twain's. The second one, about the monument to kupapa, is an excellent summing up of what that monument expresses.Psycho Milthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00779500926576047736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19962237.post-69590390456756394702012-04-04T20:50:58.643+12:002012-04-04T20:50:58.643+12:00JC If I read you right you would blow up the 2nd m...JC If I read you right you would blow up the 2nd monument which has inscribed the names of 20 Maori who were loyal subjects of Queen Victoria and who fought alongside Volunteer settlers defending themselves from rebel Maori? Blowing up a memorial sounds like fanatacism to me.Don McKenzienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19962237.post-67104183777021726092012-04-04T19:18:05.089+12:002012-04-04T19:18:05.089+12:00Sorry JC. I am lost between Twain's observatio...Sorry JC. I am lost between Twain's observation and yours. Twain opens referring to a "couple" of war-monuments but talks only about one. You refer to "the other".Lindsay Mitchellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04437693272797130833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19962237.post-27063998254544766912012-04-04T16:15:38.549+12:002012-04-04T16:15:38.549+12:00But perhaps the migrants and visitors weren't ...But perhaps the migrants and visitors weren't so easily fooled.. hears Mark Twain in the 1890s (HT Eric Crampton):<br /><br />December 8. A couple of curious war-monuments here at Wanganui. One is in honor of white men "who fell in defence of law and order against fanaticism and barbarism." Fanaticism. We Americans are English in blood, English in speech, English in religion, English in the essentials of our governmental system, English in the essentials of our civilization; and so, let us hope, for the honor of the blend, for the honor of the blood, for the honor of the race, that that word got there through lack of heedfulness, and will not be suffered to remain. If you carve it at Thermopylae, or where Winkelried died, or upon Bunker Hill monument, and read it again "who fell in defence of law and order against fanaticism" you will perceive what the word means, and how mischosen it is. Patriotism is Patriotism. Calling it Fanaticism cannot degrade it; nothing can degrade it. Even though it be a political mistake, and a thousand times a political mistake, that does not affect it; it is honorable always honorable, always noble - and privileged to hold its head up and look the nations in the face. It is right to praise these brave white men who fell in the Maori war - they deserve it; but the presence of that word detracts from the dignity of their cause and their deeds, and makes them appear to have spilt their blood in a conflict with ignoble men, men not worthy of that costly sacrifice. But the men were worthy. It was no shame to fight them. They fought for their homes, they fought for their country; they bravely fought and bravely fell; and it would take nothing from the honor of the brave Englishmen who lie under the monument, but add to it, to say that they died in defense of English laws and English homes against men worthy of the sacrifice - the Maori patriots.<br /><br />The other monument cannot be rectified. Except with dynamite. It is a mistake all through, and a strangely thoughtless one. It is a monument erected by white men to Maoris who fell fighting with the whites and against their own people, in the Maori war. "Sacred to the memory of the brave men who fell on the 14th of May, 1864," etc. On one side are the names of about twenty Maoris. It is not a fancy of mine; the monument exists. I saw it. It is an object-lesson to the rising generation. It invites to treachery, disloyalty, unpatriotism. Its lesson, in frank terms is, "Desert your flag, slay your people, burn their homes, shame your nationality - we honor such."JChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00875768024598278750noreply@blogger.com