What To Say When Maori Play The Victim Card
Julian Batchelor M.Ed (Hons), B.Th, Dip.T’ching Stop Co-governance
A Maori made a comment on one of our videos and he said the following:
Wow, as a Maori I have not heard anything about Maori wanting to take over anything. Maori are purely stating where successive Governments have failed. Are you Maori? What happened to other nations around the world who suffered the same issues as Maori are now facing. The colonisers who have settled here in New Zealand have reaped the luxury and wealth of this nation ,while Maori struggled for almost 180 years to make life better for our Maori families. i know the suffering they went through the trauma,the loss of land etc,so I blame governments and politicians for not responding to Maori needs I am a product of that generation.
What you are saying, Edward, is that life in New Zealand before the Europeans arrived was wonderful, and you want to get back to that. You are saying that the arrival of Europeans traumatised you. They lived in luxury and they stole your land, and you have been suffering ever since. Trauma is the word you used. You are saying that governments since 1840 are to blame.
But is what you are thinking actually the truth?
Think it through Edward.
Before any Europeans arrived here, Maori had been here on their own, apart from Moriori, who Maori killed and ate or enslaved. There is considerable evidence that other people were here before Maori and the Moriori, but let’s leave that for another day.
So Maori had been here, let’s say, on their own for 600 years. That’s a long time. But what does history show? It shows that in that time, Maori were constantly fighting, they were disunited (i.e. they couldn’t govern themselves), they destroyed millions of acres of New Zealand’s bush before the Europeans even got here1, in doing so exterminated 35 species of birds and animals.2
The Maori population was in gradual decline due to war, cannibalism, slavery, and infanticide. Life expectancy for a Maori was 25 prior to European contact. Robinson writes “The life expectancy of Maoris, which was around 25 years at the time of first contact with Europeans”.3
When the British ‘found’ you in 1800 (i.e. Maori) you were in a sorry sorry state. Most historians describe Maori as “stone age” men and women.
For example, historian Bruce Moon writes: “Whoever the earliest settlers were, the face of New Zealand was changed for ever with the intermittent arrival of about 1500 immigrants from the Western Islands of Polynesia around 1350AD. New Zealand was then isolated from the rest of the world for a further three hundred years, the new inhabitants developing a unique tribal Stone Age culture of their own. Proud, haughty and quick to take offence, they evolved a warrior society with increasing conflict between the tribes as their areas of settlement expanded so that they came into contact and competed for resources. That they were 1 https://teara.govt.nz/en/interactive/11674/deforestation-of-new-zealand. NZ is 26.8 million hectares. When Maori arrived here, 80% of the country was bush or 21.44 hectares of bush. Maori burnt 6.7 million hectares of this 21.44 hectares. They set fire to the bush to flush out Moa and other birds / animals they wanted to eat. As I said, Maori destroyed 6.7million hectares. 6.7 as a percentage of 21.44 is 31.25%. So Maori destroyed almost 1/3 of all the bush in New Zealand before the Europeans got here.
2 Matthew Wright. Illustrated History of New Zealand. David Bateman Press. 2013. p17
3 Dr John Robinson. Twisting The Treaty. The Tribal Grab For Wealth And Power. Tross Publishing. 2014. Page
ready to attack for the slightest reason, Tasman found out quickly to his cost when he arrived in 1642.” 4
Maori prior to the arrival of Europeans were the bottom of the barrel in every respect Edward.
They were an example of humanity at its worst. Woman and children were treated worse than animals. Men were bred for war. Maori sanitation practices were diabolical. They had not invented shoes, or the wheel. Maori had no written language. They lived with constant fear and anxiety, not knowing when another tribe would pour over the hill to kill, eat, or enslave them. Paul Moon identifies the existence of a terrifying paranoia in Maori communities. “They lived in ‘almost unbearable anxiety’”5 The drawing below shows Maori cooking another Maori alive, with Captain Cook watching on.
What a hell of a life.
So everything you have heard about how terrible the colonisers were / are, and everything you’ve heard about how marvelous Maori life was before the colonists arrived is a lie. You’ve been fed these lies all your life Edward and you’ve ended up with a victim mentality which is destroying you and your people.
I would also say this.
Not all Maori see themselves as victims. There are many Maori who have done very well financially, they are hardworking, and they have or are contributing to New Zealand in a marvelous way. E.g. the Act MP, Karen Chhour (right) , Alan Duff the author, Howard Morrison the singer, Sir Apirana Ngata the politician, Michael Campbell the golfer. These are just five of many.
None of them would agree with anything you have said in your comment.
Simply putting blame on colonisation includes a confusion among the many very different forms of colonisation. The British did not bring hardship. They ended tribal warfare and slavery, as all became free British citizens. How many of today’s Maori are descended from those many slaves who gained their freedom? Most Maori welcomed and worked with the new national government, but considerable harm was done by those who rebelled, wanting to return to the old tribal ways.
In other words, in our history, there are many examples of Maori traumatising Maori. Here is just one example.
In 1857 Governor Gore Brown (right) went to Rangiriri and asked what the people of Waikato wanted. They asked for runangas, a European magistrate, and laws, and the Governor agreed to all. Waikato Maori were delighted and the leading chief, Te Wherowhero, declared that he would be guided by the Governor’s advice; he was a dying man, and should bequeath his people to the Governor’s care. When later that year, and again in 1858, a proposal from some for a Maori king was turned down, the rebel group went away and set up their king, taking Te Wherowhero, then ailing, into captivity as a 4 Bruce Moon. New Zealand. The Fair Colony. 2nd Edition. 2022. Page15 5 Moon, Paul. This Horrid Practice. p149.
supposed king in a sad case of elder abuse (he died in 1860).
In 1863 they declared a separate nation and rejected the assistance that the British were providing. The actions of those few Maori prevented the government from responding to Maori needs.
And even in the 1920s members of the king movement in the Waikato were refusing government-provided hospitals and health care. It is simplistic and foolish to blame all past problems on one party alone without a full understanding of the facts. That is to say, many times in our history, Maori created terrible hardship for other Maori.
Think about this also.
Can you name one thing Maori can’t access that everyone else can access? There is not one thing. So what can we conclude from this? Maori have had the same opportunity to succeed as everyone else. In fact, they have often had much more than everyone else. But in spite of this, they have still not succeeded. Yet, Maori are still at the bottom of the barrel.
For example, they top the stats for suicide, obesity, incarceration rates, child abuse and neglect, family violence, dependence on the state for money, cruelty to animals and a whole lot more. Watch THIS video. This in spite of Maori being given billions in cash and assets over the last 180 years.
What I am saying is that Maori are a failing people group, and they have no excuse for this other than that they are a failing people group. Maori can’t blame “colonisation” or “white man” or “government” or anything else because like I have said, you have had the same opportunity as everyone else, and in many cases more opportunity, more cash, more assets, more land given to you than anyone else in society. With all this, and all these benefits, why are Maori not succeeding?
Answer? Something is wrong with Maori. Very wrong. I can tell you what it is. Read THIS
Tell me Edward– why would Maori succeed with governing a country when they have proven beyond doubt that they cannot govern themselves? They can’t stop committing crime, being cruel to animals, overeating, not exercising, being violent to their family members, not wanting to go to work, having children illegitimately, and depending on the state. And you and your people want to be in charge of the country?
You can’t be serious.
If Maori had proved faithful in the little things, then maybe they can be trusted with bigger things. But as it stands, they can’t be trusted, and they must not be trusted.
What’s the message?
Maori need to clean up their own house before they can be trusted with anything. They need to take full responsibility for where they are at as a race of people, and own it. Stop blaming everyone else. Stop acting like victims because you are not victims.
You are the recipients of tremendous and lavish blessings bought about by colonisation. Look around you. Everything good and useful and helpful has come from the colonists. For example, electricity, clean water from a tap, roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, medicine, houses, home appliances, power tools, outboard motors, cars,
call phones, computers. The list is endless. Edward, you had none of these things before the British got here. You had 600 years to invent them, but you didn’t.
As the great Sir Apirana Ngata said “Let me acknowledge first that, in the whole world I doubt whether any native race has been so well treated by a European people as the Maori.”
So why are you so ungrateful? Why do Maori never say ‘thank you’ when anything is done for them? When they are given money, or land, or settlements, or help? This just goes to show how dysfunctional Maori as a race of people really are. Saying ‘thank you’ is a fundamental basic courtesy, common to all humanity, yet Maori can’t lower themselves to say the words ‘thank you.’ In this sense, out of all the nations of the world, Maori are unique, but unique in a bad way. Edward, why are Maori like this?
But I have yet other thoughts on this matter.
Even if Maori did this, cleaned up their act, humbled themselves, gave thanks for colonisation, developed character, counted their blessings, took full responsibility for their lives, and so on, it’s not mandated in the Treaty that they can rule the country. Why? Because they ceded sovereignty, ‘completely and forever’ in Article 1. “Ceding sovereignty” meant that Maori gave up the right to rule and reign in 1840.
Edward, why not drop your victim mentality, and take full responsibility for your life? Other Maori have done it like Sir Apirana, David Seymour, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and the five others I mentioned earlier. Never once in their whole lives did they say what you said, namely:
“What happened to other nations around the world who suffered the same issues as Maori are now facing. The colonisers who have settled here in New Zealand have reaped the luxury and wealth of this nation ,while Maori struggled for almost 180 years to make life better for our Maori families. I know the suffering they went through the trauma,the loss of land etc,so I blame governments and politicians for not responding to Maori needs I am a product of that generation.”
And by the way, if you want to know how Maori are planning to take over the country, read Dr John Robinson’s book “He Puapua. Blueprint For The Break Up Of New Zealand.” You can get it from Tross Publishing. Google it. Take responsibility. Learn, read, study, climb up and out of the bottom of the barrel. The greatest thing you could do with your life is lead your people out with you.
I noticed that you wrote about Maori land too.
Maori land was not ‘stolen’ it was sold. “Where is the proof!?” you say? It is HERE.
Here is my final thought to you Edward.
What say we, all the non-Maori, walked out of New Zealand and left you to it? This means only Maori would be left to do everything and run everything in our country. What would happen? Within five years or less, literally everything would collapse: our finances, our roads, infrastructure, schools, universities, food supplies, crops,
farming, health systems, police, nurses, emergency services, electricity and water supplies, and so on. Nothing would survive. Maori would start fighting with each other again, blaming each other for the collapse, and we’d be back to pre-European life in New Zealand. Then you’d start crying, pleading for the non-Maori to come back to take back the country and run it because you would have found out that Maori are just as Willy Jackson says “Lagging behind in every area.” Why would anyone give leadership to a group of people, or indeed anyone, who is “lagging behind in every area?”
Finally, you say that the colonisers lived in luxury. You obviously have no idea about how hard they worked, breaking in the land, pioneering to make the country what it is today. Study the photo on the right. These people are showing off their luxury work place.
On the left is another photo of settlers working hard in the bush, extracting Kauri. Notice all the luxuries, like knee deep mud, having to clear paths in the deep bush with axes only (no such thing as chain saws or bulldozers), and managing and feeding a bullock train. Notice the McDonalds and Subway right there for a quick lunch.
But this is not all Edward.
Many Europeans were butchered by Maori. Maori have never apologized for these atrocities. Edward, you can read about the terrible behaviour of your own people HERE.
But this is not the only issue non-Maori want investigated and compensation for.
Many Europeans bought land off Maori only to find out that the Maori they bought from had ripped them off. That is to say, the person buying thought he was the only one the Maori had sold the land to. As it turned out, the Maori had sold the same piece of land to five different buyers on the same day. None of the buyers knew the land they had bought had been sold to four others. Yet, the Maori received the cash from all five buyers, ran back into the bush, leaving the five Europeans furious that they had been ripped off. Did you know about this kind of thing Edward?
Why is the Waitangi Tribunal not holding Maori to account for ripping off early settlers and butchering so many? We are working to make this a reality. We are going to call it “The Settler Tribunal”. Today’s tribes will be investigated, and will have to compensate settlers as handsomely as Maori tribes have been compensated through the Waitangi Tribunal for their claims. Tit for Tat. This is coming. Watch.
Here is an example of Maori ripping off settlers: “A 1878 letter from chiefs Ihaia Kirikumara and Tamati Tiraura stated that some Taranaki land had been sold
three times [to different buyers on the same day, each buyer not aware others had also purchased it] and records exist in one case for five sales.”
Edward, how would you have liked that if you were one of those five settlers? Would you feel traumatised? I would. Especially if I had given my life savings to the Maori who ran off into the bush, never to be seen again.
Conclusion? You are chasing a rainbow if you think life in New Zealand with Maori in control would be better. It’s a mirage, a phantom, a trick.
And as for colonists being all bad, and all governments being the same, this too is a great lie.
But the biggest lie of all is that you are a victim.
Sadly, you, Edward, have fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.
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