The failings of colonial past

The language about colonisation and its legacy is used by the ideological left and indigenous activists around the world to vilify the past. The evils of colonialism and colonisation have never been in doubt as far as I am concerned.

There is no better example than the Spanish in Mexico. Initially, the Aztecs welcomed their visitors and treated them well. Later, the Spanish, led by conquistador Herna´ n Corte´ s, violently overthrew the Aztec Empire and in 1521 captured, tortured and killed its last great ruler, Tenochtitlan, and stole all the gold and other precious objects they could carry away.

Everywhere in the world that European powers went from the 16th to the 20th centuries they destroyed local cultures, wrecked previously functioning civilisations, plundered resources, set indigenous people against each other and imposed their own supposedly superior morality and system of government.

Rarely, if ever, can it be said that European powers left the totality of a country better off than before their arrival.

For example, Karl Marx considered the British treatment of the Irish as the ultimate example of how colonialism works to the disadvantage of the colonised.

Common features of colonialism as practised by all European powers were to see the indigenous people as inferior (so slavery was common); their lands and assets as being there for the taking, and using force to suppress rebellion and dissent.

The Portuguese and the Belgians were probably the worst, but the record of the Dutch, French, British and others is nothing to be proud of. The British added a typically hypocritical twist; they talked of the colonies as ‘‘the white man’s burden’’, and their churches spoke of the ‘‘civilising mission’’ of Christianity.

In the early 1970s I read The Wretched of the Earth, by black French psychiatrist Frantz Fanon. Written in 1961, it provides a devastating critique of the dehumanising effects of colonisation upon the individual and the colonised territory.

So, what of New Zealand? I have never doubted that the subjugation of Ma¯ ori has not been to their benefit. At the end of the 19th century there were grave fears about whether the race would survive, such were the effects of whisky, tobacco, muskets, syphilis, influenza and the stripping away of land, taonga and mana.

Today I want to see Ma¯ ori (and Pasifika and other ethnicities) functioning as healthy, happy, prosperous communities not disproportionately represented in the ‘‘bad statistics’’, and I think almost all New Zealanders agree with that.

What annoys people of good will (and I include myself in that) is the claim from some quarters that to deny any request is ‘‘racist’’. And that those who don’t accept the ‘‘colonialism is destiny’’ approach are ignorant at best and closet racists at worst.

Let’s remedy the failings of the past, and, to use a biblical phrase, ‘‘raise up’’ the downtrodden, but let’s also remember that

Pa¯ keha¯ alive today are not personally responsible for the sins of our forebears.

They should have the opportunity to discuss and debate how best to accommodate the aspirations of Ma¯ ori (and others) in our society. I want to see temperate discussion about ways forward. Labels aren’t helpful. Sensible discussion must prevail.