One version to rule us all

As a Pākehā amazed by the so-called Māori renaissance, I feel very motivated to comment on Danyl McLauchlan's article “Entreaties of Waitangi” (February 10). First, it refers many times to the “ambiguity” of the treaty. But any Pākehā who has learned a non-Indo European language – that is, one unrelated to English – will notice ambiguity abounds there. It is very disorientating and it requires some effort to moor oneself and reach anything like true understanding.

Second, the article says the English language version was lost and had to be patched together. This surely denotes carelessness, even a lack of sincerity of commitment to the agreement. The version that lasts after having travelled around the country for signing must be the respected version. The two key terms of te tiriti seem to be rangatiratanga ‒ the meaning of which over time refers to chieftainship, domain of a chief, attributes of a chief and has come to mean sovereignty for Pākehā and Māori ‒ and kāwanatanga, originally said to be the Māori word for governor, kāwana, plus an abstract suffix, and said to mean giving the British right of governance. The lost latter-day English version apparently contradictorily conveyed the meaning of Māori ceding sovereignty but it cannot fairly, in my Pākehā view, be belatedly read that way.

Of course, I am no authority, but it seems these words contain the

“ambiguities” that Act leader David Seymour, whom I’ve never heard spontaneously utter an original sentence in te reo, and his fellow travellers have to get their heads around.

Since by 2040 a third of children will be Māori, as Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer forecasts, if te reo is allowed to flourish, the anniversary of te tiriti seems to me the perfect opportunity to begin a true blend of Māori and Pākehā cultures.

Keith Burgess (Christchurch)

Looking at that wretched scrap of paper on the Listener cover, one has to wonder why it wasn’t looked after better if it is, supposedly, of such importance. By comparison, the Magna Carta from 1215 (more than 800 years old) or the American Declaration of Independence from 1776 (almost 250 years old) are preserved in perfect condition to this day.

Furthermore, most of those who signed it could not read (or write) and presumably had to be told what they were signing. Who told them what this was about? What were they told and what did they, in turn, tell their offspring?

I dare say that so many different versions of verbal descriptions over the years cannot possibly be the same document to all these people and their descendants.

And lastly, three paragraphs do not a treaty industry make. The verbal befuddlement of yesteryear, on the other hand, has well lent itself to countless “interpretations” of this document and the gravy train we have today.

Bernd Reber (Clarks Beach)

ANTI-CAR FIXATION

Charlotte Grimshaw’s Diary ( January 13) had an anti-car theme that needs to be challenged. Why have “climate-change solutions” become fixated on promoting an idealistic model of cities where cars are eradicated, and which consist of pedestrian precincts, cycle ways and public transport? This model suits a demographic who work in centre-city offices and live in apartments or densely packed townhouses. It ignores realities like where many other people work and excludes demographics, such as parents with babies in strollers, the disabled and the elderly who cannot ride bikes or walk many blocks to get to the shop/dentist/ optometrist they need. Even zealots promoting car-free cities know it’s not easy to get heavy bags of groceries home on a bike or crowded bus with kids in tow. An anti-car future prescribes that we all buy online and rely on deliveries (presumably by drones), and that we can get wherever we need to go on public transport.

Solutions that rely heavily on more public transport will not be feasible in New Zealand until somebody figures out how to fund and organise it so more people will use it. The message that we need to “catch up with overseas cities” ignores the fact that the cities held up as examples are centuries old, mostly flat and densely populated, with wellestablished services heavily subsidised by municipalities.

All of this ignores a glaring global hypocrisy that no one talks about. If climate change is caused by CO₂ emissions resulting from fossil fuels, why are governments and international agencies like the UN not insisting giant international oil companies pay for climate change mitigation? Their huge profits trump what can be squeezed from tax revenues and by lecturing the public that we have to pay for climate change, by learning to “despise and relegate” cars. Kathryn Ennis (Auckland)

WINNERS MAKE HISTORY

Paul Little is correct (“Past & present tensions”, February 3) that history is an area of dispute and many aspects of its narratives are justifiably coming under challenge and change. Historical accounts tend to be dominated by those who “win”, especially those societies that are literate and thus can document their accounts.

Unfortunately, the use of particular interpretations of the past is at the root

of a number of present-day conflicts such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Northern Ireland’s troubles and the violent conflicts in former Yugoslavia.

Viewpoints vary when looking at both actions and actors, depending on constructed national and cultural narratives. Good examples of this are the Vikings, who are part of the romantic mythology of Scandinavia but viewed as destructive demons in most of Europe. Equally, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane are revered in Mongolia but viewed with animosity in neighbouring China and the Middle East.

What is considered important can change in retrospect, and judging the past by today’s norms is loaded with peril. Unfortunately, politicians and activist academics are particularly prone to presentism (“uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes, especially the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and concepts”) in pursuit of particular political agendas. We need to acknowledge that “the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there” and, while acknowledging its weight, find a way not to be dominated and determined by it to the detriment of the present.

Julius Williams (Palmerston North)

It boggles the mind that a history lecturer would view history as a malleable phenomenon. If this conflicted “way of thinking” is the result of postmodernism in the humanities, then a general intellectual assault is indeed well overdue.

We do well to shelter the impressionable minds of our children from such an abhorrent nihilistic ideology.

Jordan Millar ( Katikati)

PUPPY LOVE

Oh dear, Nigel Roberts ( Letters, February 10), do loosen up a bit. Of course, kiwi are important but no more so than dogs and if the latter can engender such respect and affection in their owners, as Danyl McLauchlan’s Ripley does, the world is not such a bad place after all.

I guarantee that all over New Zealand, dog owners, as well as those whose great misfortune it is to not have known the company of a dog, would have smiled when McLauchlan relates how, when he scolded his little dog for tangling herself repeatedly in her lead, her terrified trembling and fearfulness caused him to say he was sorry, “whispering so that no one in the house would hear me apologising to a dog”.

Bearing in mind we have one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the world and understanding that a contributing factor is young children witnessing animal cruelty, isn’t it worth reminding ourselves of the words of Gandhi that, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated?”

Judy Morley-Hall (Raumati Beach)

FOR THE BIRDS

The bird call has been going a lot longer than 50 years, as you mention in your article “Hold the line, caller” (February 10). My father, Frank Barnett, who was a technician at what was the New Zealand Broadcasting Service in Dunedin, was recording bird song that was played on 4YA in the 1950s and later on all the YA stations when they became a network. The photo ( below) shows Frank with his recording equipment, the L2B portable tape recorder, loaned to him by the NZBS to allow this to be achieved. Before this, he used one of the NZBS mobile recording studios.

In the mid-1950s, I accompanied him on recording trips to the Eglinton Valley in Fiordland, where many different bird recordings were made.

Most of his recording was done purely out of personal interest and with the hope that, by hearing the songs of our native