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19th
FEB
Anger at Holmes’ Waitangi remarks
Posted by karere under Maori News
Broadcaster Paul Holmes’ role as presenter of TVNZ’s Q&A Sunday morning current affairs show is being questioned after a “racially offensive” column he wrote about Waitangi Day.
AUT indigenous studies adjunct professor Dr Rawiri Taonui has joined Mana Party leader Hone Harawira and broadcaster Willie Jackson in questioning Holmes’ suitability for the role.
“It’s a sad day when a great writer repeats the prejudices of the past, but Holmes’ offer on Waitangi Day is a fall from grace,” Taonui said.
Taonui, a regular Sunday Star-Times columnist, said Holmes was an intelligent writer, but said his article in the Weekend Herald, contained a “staggering number of half-truths and stereotypes”.
“In a tirade he depicted Maori as ghastly, smug, politically neurotic, uneducated, violent child-bashing, greedy fat over-eating weirdos filled with hate,” Taonui said.
“While racially offensive, he has a right to his views, and talkback radio clearly shows many hold similar ones. But before the Treaty of Waitangi, when Europeans depended upon their indigenous hosts, Maori were ‘Noble Savages’. Then as they expressed concern about what was unfolding, prominent European writers began describing them as ungrateful, depraved, polluted, immoral, degraded, vain, arrogant and cowardly uncivilised savages lacking moral courage.”
Holmes said Waitangi Day was a “repugnant national holiday” that had produced hatred, rudeness, and violence against Prime Minister John Key, and he described protesters as hate-fuelled, calling Waitangi a “loony Maori fringe self-denial day” no more relevant than Halloween.
Mana Party leader Hone Harawira replied, calling the column mean-spirited when Holmes must have known it would hurt a lot of people. He said it harked back to a day when Maori played guitars and nobody complained.
He said Maori still lagged behind in health, welfare, education, employment, housing and justice statistics, and that was not something “to wave pom-poms at”.
Jackson said he had seen enough to know what a talent Holmes was, but he had a “dark side” when it came to Maori issues. “The same goes for Michael Laws, Paul Henry and Leighton Smith. They’re all talented, but they share a toxic mix of arrogance and ignorance about our history.
“There have been times when the show pony has taken over and he’s performed for the rednecks in his audience. That’s what he’s done in the Herald,” Jackson wrote in his own newspaper column.
Taonui said our history included the NZ Settlement Act, which confiscated land from “evilly disposed natives”, and protests over the Native Land Court system, which MP Robert Bruce praised as an “ingenious method for destroying the whole of the Maori race”. “Fast forward to 2004, when Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples led the hikoi against the Foreshore and Seabed Act and Prime Minister Helen Clark described them as `haters and wreckers’.”
He said Holmes was reinforcing prejudice. “He generalises all Maori as child bashers. There is a serious problem when between 2002 and 2006, 28 Maori kids were killed. We know their names. But who remembers the names of the 48 Pakeha children who suffered a similar fate?”
TVNZ current affairs head John Gillespie told the Herald last week an opinion piece would not undermine Holmes’ position as Q&A presenter.
Attempts to contact Holmes yesterday were unsuccessful.
Read all the news [here]
Funny how Paul Holmes’ article on the Herald website had comments switched on, where as AUT Professor Taonui’s article has comments switched off. . . Taonui’s article was so one-sided, it’s worth touching on some of his points:
“The theory of White Privilege explains how dominant European groups consciously and unconsciously maintain the advantage of the inter-generational wealth they accrue from the subjugation of subordinate ethnic and indigenous groups.”
- This explanation is not relevant to modern NZ. It’s merely more apologist claptrap and excuses from Maori such as Taonui for a disproportionately large percentage of his people refusing to look to the future and achieve. The “advantage” he mentions is called personal responsibility and hard work. Intergenerational wealth comes from financial literacy (from commitment to study and education) and hard work. If these ‘disaffected’ Maori began respecting themselves, looking to the future and not the past, and sought to better themselves through personal responsibility and hard work rather than tax payers’ money, they would find they too have the intergenerational wealth he speaks of.
“They do this by lauding their domination as progress, denying history. . . ”
This is exactly the point. It is history. It’s the past. Those ‘disaffected’ Maori should look to an inclusive future with the rest of NZers, not divisive ‘protesting’ and constant chasing of the tax payers’ dime.
“Mr Holmes laments the behaviour of protesters towards Pakeha dignitaries, but is blissfully unaware of the vilification and ridicule Maori human rights advocates face on a daily basis.”
Holmes is quite right – those ‘protesters’ behaved in a depraved and (ironicaly) uncultured fashion. Taonui mentions “savages” in his writing – well that aptly describes the rabble ‘protesting’ that day. They look to dwell perpetually in the past and to fuel the I Want It (IWI) treaty gravy train. The PM and any sensible NZer should refuse to engage with such heaving idiots.
“Between 2002 and 2006 28 Maori kids were killed in this way. We know their names. But who remembers the names of the 48 Pakeha children who suffered a similar fate.”
Interestingly, Taonui doesn’t put these figures into percentage terms – if he did, we all know that the 48 Pakeha children would be a vastly smaller percentage of that population subset. Again, perhaps a large dose of self respect, personal and community responsibility, commitment to paid work, and looking to the future (rather than the past and a handout) might help solve the problem. But no, it’s all Whitey’s fault and the tax payer must keep on paying.
“Treaty settlements which now total $1.3 billion are less than the $1.77 billion paid to compensate mainly Pakeha investors in South Canterbury Finance.”
So there were no Maori investors ? Why would that be ? A widespread lack of financial literacy (from no commitment to study and education) and hard work perhaps ? See my comments above on how to remedy this.
“As with our Pakeha forebears, he wants Maori to be good, meaning silent.”
No Taonui misses the point yet again (or perhaps doesn’t want to listen ?) – Holmes wants Maori to look to the future, to stop chasing the taxpayers’ dime, to respect themselves and be inclusive in society, and to take personal responsibility rather than blaming everyone but themselves for their problems.
“Protest has been the principle driver of improvements in our race relations over four decades. Nothing has been freely given. Protest is a powerful force for positive change because it raises the consciousness of the disempowered, the awareness of the silent majority and emancipates bigotry. Protest is by nature mobile and will easily accommodate changing the name or location of Waitangi Day. As long as there is injustice there will be protest.”
Rubbish. Maybe it started out this way. But not anymore. These ‘protestors’ Taonui speaks of merely wish to milk the taxpayer for all they’re worth. They want to avoid working for living and personal responsibility. They want a perpetual handout.
Holmes’ views echoed around the country and have clearly a ground swell of support. Most of the country is sick of this sort of behaviour and ‘guilt’ talk about the past. Maori should clean up their act, move on, and include themselves in our country, not look to the past and fuel divisiveness.