Anti-Māori sentiment
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Anti-Māori sentiment, broadly defined, is the dislike, distrust, discrimination, and racism directed against Māori people as an ethnicity and Māori culture. Various scholars have characterised anti-Māori sentiment as stemming from the colonisation of New Zealand by Britain.[1][2]
Assimilationist policies pursued by successive early New Zealand governments were all marked by anti-Māori sentiment, often justified through false claims Māori were "dying out". Anti-Māori sentiment developed as views of Māori among Pākehā evolved, from the earliest notions of "noble savages" to 20th-century stereotypes of Māori as being fat, lazy, dirty, happy-go-lucky and unintelligent, or as criminals.[3] Although racial segregation was never legally sanctioned in New Zealand, some towns practised it anyway until the 1960s. Anti-Māori bias in the media is well-documented and extensive.[4] In 2020, media giant Stuff, which owns the Dominion Post and The Press, formally apologised for anti-Māori coverage in its newspapers dating back 160 years.[5][6]
In the 21st century, anti-Māori sentiment has become more prominent and widely alleged as Māori culture has become more revitalised in public life, and Māori issues of greater concern among non-Māori. As of the 2023 census, one in five New Zealanders are of Māori descent.[7] The 2004 Foreshore and Seabed controversy led to a resurgence of the Māori protest movement, which in turn was used by the political right to challenge tino rangatiratanga, or Māori sovereignty, as illegitimate or racist in itself.[8] Such movements include Hobson's Pledge, an anti-Treatyist lobby group founded by former National Party leader Don Brash to oppose Māori treaty settlements and affirmative action, as well as Tross Publishing, Whale Oil, and elements of the ACT New Zealand political party.[9][10] This is part of a wider trend against the Waitangi Tribunal and increased Māori political agency and biculturalism, including tropes of "Māori privilege",[10][11][3][12] Other examples include a wider backlash towards Māori language revitalisation, alleged "Māorification" of Pākehā societal norms, and co-governance.[13][14] A rise in anti-Māori sentiment, particularly against Māori women, was reported in the lead up to the 2023 New Zealand general election.[15][16]
There are also marginal extremist groups, such as the defunct New Zealand National Front and active Action Zealandia, who are white nationalist in character and deny Māori are indigenous.[17]
History
[edit]Anti-Māori sentiment originated with the arrival of Europeans. As New Zealand transitioned from a collection of self-governing Māori polities to a British colonial possession and then self-governing country, anti-Māori attitudes were soon present in both administration and among Pākehā (European New Zealanders). Although Māori are well regarded in popular culture as having been treated better than other indigenous people,[18] anti-Māori sentiment has been a constant fixture of New Zealand society since colonisation.[2]
Denigration of Māori law and customs
[edit]Some 19th century legislation acknowledged traditional Māori practice and custom.[19] One of the Māori laws that the Crown undermined was the principle of collective ownership of land. The first efforts to circumvent Māori law regarding ownership was the pre-emption clause in Article Two of the Treaty of Waitangi. This gave the Crown the right of first refusal, to prevent the sale of Māori land to anyone other than the Crown. This was justified by British officials as necessary to protect Maori interests in land dealings with settlers and other colonial powers, such as France.[20][21] Pre-emption allowed the acquisition of tribal land by the Crown, the undermining Māori culture and law and helped achieve substantive British sovereignty. This was especially so in the "golden age of Māori enterprise", the period in which Māori outnumbered the first Pākehā, controlled the economy, and were generally in a position of strength.[22][23]
Māori were also discriminated against in suffrage. Although the Māori version of the Treaty of Waitangi gave the Crown the right to govern British subjects, Māori who wanted to partake in the earliest New Zealand democracy were largely shunned due to the land-ownership franchise, which restricted the right to vote to men aged 21 and over who owned property worth least 25 pounds. Since most Māori land was communally owned, very few Māori had the right to vote.[24] This changed in 1867, when the Māori seats were established, but there were only four, when Māori would have been entitled by population quota to between 14 and 16. Māori were prevented from switching between the Māori and General electoral rolls until 1975, meaning they were under-represented for more than a century.[25]
The Native Lands Act 1865, the successor to an 1852 act, established the Native Land Court, whose primary purpose was to aggressively expand land purchases for British and Irish settlers in the North Island through individualising Māori land title in English law. This method of outlawing collective ownership by refusing to acknowledge multiple property owners was justified by Minister of Justice (and first Prime Minister) Henry Sewell as essential for "the detribalisation of the Māori – to destroy, if it were possible, the principle of communism upon which their social system is based and which stands as a barrier in the way of all attempts to amalgamate the Māori race into our social and political system." This manifested through land confiscations (raupatu) during the concurrent New Zealand Wars. The Waitangi Tribunal's 1996 Taranaki report emphasised that the Taranaki raupatu "carried the germ for cultural genocide".[26] In 1867, colonial politician Isaac Featherston said "the Maoris are dying out fast, nothing can save them; our plain duty as compassionate colonists is to smooth the dying pillow of the Maori; then history will have nothing to reproach us with."[3]
The Native Schools Act 1867 soon followed, to strongly discourage the speaking of the Māori language in New Zealand schools. Although children were to be encouraged to speak English, there was no official policy banning children from speaking Māori. However some native school committees made rules banning this,[27] and Māori children were sometimes physically punished for speaking their native tongue at school.[28] This practice, which persisted for decades after the act was introduced in 1867, contributed to the Māori language's steep decline, and further alienation of Māori from Māori culture.
Evolving views of Māori
[edit]Māori were subject to a patronising line of analysis by Pākehā ethnographers, who viewed them as "noble savages",[29] who were "dying out". This was a flawed and sometimes welcomed interpretation of Māori population decline, caused by the introduction of European diseases to which they had no immunity, as well as the Musket Wars and New Zealand Wars.[30][31][32] In 1898, New Zealand politician William Pember Reeves wrote that "the average colonist regards a Mongolian with revulsion, a Negro with contempt, and looks on an Australian black as very near to a wild beast; but he likes the Maoris, and is sorry that they are dying out." As a result of the more mild view of Māori inferiority, racial intermarriage was accepted and widespread.[29]
Although belief in white supremacy was widespread, it was based less on an assumption of genetic superiority than one of British cultural superiority. It was believed that if Māori culture was suppressed and Māori people were forcibly assimilated, they would be equal to British settlers.[32]
Māori were increasingly made into comical figures in the Pākehā imagination. Historian Peter Gibbons has described how "Māori themselves and their cultures were textualized by Pakeha, so that the colonists could 'know' the people they were displacing. It is not too much to say that the colonists produced (or invented) 'the Maori', making them picturesque, quaint, largely ahistorical, and, through printed materials, manageable."[33] Racial slurs such as hori are an example, with the term originally referring to a stock character of an uneducated, lazy Māori man.[34]
Open discrimination in society
[edit]Unlike in the United States or South Africa, New Zealand never enforced formal racial segregation. However, racial segregation did exist in some places in a formal or local level against Māori, to favour Pākehā and Asians.[35] From 1925 to the early 1960s in Pukekohe, a small town now within South Auckland, Māori had designated sections of cinemas to sit in, refused service from taxi drivers, barbers, and most pub landlords, prevented from accessing swimming pools except on Fridays, forced to stand for Pākehā bus passengers, and were forced to live in slums where preventable diseases were rife. More than 200 Māori infants and children are recorded to have died from measles, diphtheria, whooping cough and tuberculosis, linked to slum living conditions, including 29 in 1938 alone.[35] Pukekohe was also home to the country's sole racially segregated school, which operated from c. 1952 till its closure in 1964.[36] Other cities enforced some minor segregation, such as segregated public toilets in Tauranga in the 1940s and libraries in Kaitaia.[35]
The Battle of Manners Street in 1943 was one memorable event of Pākehā protest against anti-Māori segregation, in which New Zealand Army soldiers fought American Army soldiers who were allegedly attempting to prevent Māori servicemen from entering the Allied Services Club on Manners Street, Te Aro, Wellington.[37]
Modern day
[edit]Relationship to co-governance
[edit]The crossover between anti-Māori sentiment and opposition to co-governance has become harder to distinguish in recent years, as prominent Māori right-wing figures, such as Winston Peters and David Seymour, are some of the most prominent opponents. In March 2024, Peters controversially compared co-governance to Nazi Germany and Nazi racial theories. His remarks were described as offensive by Ben Kepes, a spokesperson for the Holocaust Centre of NZ, and Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins.[38]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Pack, S., Tuffin, K., and Lyons, A. (2016) Accounting for Racism Against Maori in Aotearoa/New Zealand: A Discourse Analytic Study of the Views of Maori Adults. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol., 26: 95–109. doi: 10.1002/casp.2235.
- ^ a b Spoonley, Paul (7 June 2018). "Ethnic and religious intolerance – Intolerance towards Māori". Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- ^ a b c Matthews, Philip (3 June 2018). "'Cunning, deceitful savages': 200 years of Māori bad press". Stuff. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- ^ Moewaka Barnes, Angela et al., 'Anti-Māori themes in New Zealand journalism—toward alternative practice', Pacific Journalism Review, Vol.18, No.1, 2012
- ^ "Stuff apologises for its coverage of Māori issues". RNZ. 30 November 2020. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
- ^ "Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono: Stuff's apology welcome but overdue – Assistant Māori Children's Commissioner". Stuff. 4 December 2020. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
- ^ "Nearly one million identify as being of Māori descent – Census 2023". 1News. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
- ^ Meihana, Peter, 'The Anti-Treatyist Response to the Recognition of Māori Treaty Rights', pp. 267–282, in La Rooij, Marinus et al., Histories of hate: the radical right in Aotearoa New Zealand (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2022)
- ^ Simon, Hemopereki Hōani, YOU’RE GIVING ME A HEADACHE: A Political–Cultural Textual Critique of Alt/Far-Right Anti-indigenous Thought on Indigenous Issues in Aotearoa New Zealand (Sites: New Series · Vol 17 No 2 · 2020)
- ^ a b "Treaty of Waitangi partnership a 'misinterpretation', David Seymour believes". NZ Herald. 2 June 2024. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
- ^ Simon, pp. 98, 115–118
- ^ "You want a rock-star economy? Māori have done it". www.thepress.co.nz. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
- ^ "Exclusive: New report shows anti-Māori sentiment on the rise". 1News. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
- ^ "'No need to fear us': Ngāpuhi parents challenge anti-co-governance roadshow". NZ Herald. 2 June 2024. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
- ^ "Wāhine Māori a 'familiar target' for anti-Māori attacks and disinformation – report". Te Ao Māori News. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
- ^ "Exclusive: New report shows anti-Māori sentiment on the rise". 1News. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
- ^ Daalder, Marc (10 August 2019). "White supremacists still active in NZ". Newsroom. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
- ^ Meihana, Peter, 'The Anti-Treatyist Response to the Recognition of Māori Treaty Rights', pp. 267–275, in La Rooij, Marinus et al., Histories of hate: the radical right in Aotearoa New Zealand (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2022)
- ^ Taonui, Rāwiri (20 June 2012). "Te ture – Māori and legislation – Māori traditional law". Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- ^ Waitangi Tribunal, The Muriwhenua Land Report 1997, Wellington, GP Publications, 1997, p. 5, in Daamen, Rose, The Crown's Right of Pre-emption and Fitzroy's Waiver Purchases, Waitangi Tribunal (August 1998)
- ^ * Orange, Claudia (1987). The Treaty of Waitangi (Second ed.). Wellington: Allen & Unwin. p. 20. ISBN 9781877242489. Archived from the original on 4 May 2020. Retrieved 27 May 2020.
- ^ Keane, Basil (11 March 2010). "Te Māori i te ohanga – Māori in the economy". Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- ^ Anderson, A, Binney, J, Harris, A, Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2015), Chapter Eight: 'Rangatiratanga and Kāwanatanga', pp. 227–245
- ^ McLean, Gavin (2006). The Governors: New Zealand's Governors and Governors-General. Dunedin: Otago University Press. p. 46. ISBN 1-877372-25-0. Archived from the original on 24 June 2013. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
- ^ Taonui, Rāwiri (15 July 2016). "Ngā māngai – Māori representation – Effect of Māori seats". Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- ^ Waitangi Tribunal, The Taranaki Report Kaupapa Tuatahi, p.139
- ^ "Educating the Maori: the Native School system". New Zealand Herald. 29 January 1908. Archived from the original on 5 May 2022. Retrieved 6 May 2022 – via Paperspast.
Maori committees are very enthusiastic sometimes. They make such rules as " Only English to be spoken in the playground."
- ^ "A mutilated tongue". Auckland Star. 24 May 1933. Archived from the original on 1 August 2022. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
- ^ a b https://teara.govt.nz/en/european-ideas-about-maori/page-1
- ^ Pool, Ian, and Jackson, Natalie, 'Population change – Māori population change', Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/population-change/page-6 (accessed 1 June 2024)
- ^ Smale, Aaron (27 November 2023). "From dying race to urban segregation". Newsroom. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
- ^ a b "Māori and European population numbers, 1838–1901". Manatū Taonga — Ministry for Culture and Heritage. 28 May 2024.
- ^ Peter Gibbons, 'Cultural Colonisation and National Identity', New Zealand Journal of History, Vol. 36, no. 1, 2002, p.13
- ^ "Dropping the H-bomb?". Linguistics and Second Language Teaching, Massey University. 5 June 2008. Archived from the original on 3 April 2015. Retrieved 2 April 2015.
- ^ a b c "Stuff". www.stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
- ^ "26 May 1952". kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
- ^ Banning, William (1988). Heritage Years: Second Marine Division Commemorative Anthology, 1940–1949, Volume 1 (1988 ed.). Turner Publishing Company. p. 40. ISBN 9780938021582.
- ^ Pearse, Adam (17 March 2024). "NZ First leader Winston Peters compares co-governance to Nazi Germany, says promised tax cuts 'not impossible'". The New Zealand Herald. Archived from the original on 17 March 2024. Retrieved 19 March 2024.