There’s been a bit of talk about rape and pillage recently.
Our Maori Party parliamentary colleague says it’s been our land, foreshore and seabed that have been raped and pillaged.
I see community leader and Black Power life member Dennis O’Reilly believes the real battle today is the fight against the drug P.
Others will say that something else is the issue for Maori. None will be wrong.
The fact is bad stuff has happened to Maori over the last couple of hundred years which has led to Maori being at the bottom of the heap. We are generally dumber, sicker, poorer, more pissed, drugged and pregnant than any other group of people in New Zealand. We know the problem, but what’s the solution?
Well let’s repeal the Foreshore and Seabed and put the F&S into Maori title. We can be dumber, sicker, poorer, more pissed, drugged and pregnant at the beach. That’ll make all the difference. At least we’ll be dumber, sicker, poorer, more pissed, drugged and pregnant on our own turf and surf.
Let’s get rid of P. That crap is a scourge and along with alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana is killing our people. But it’s still only a symptom of what the real issues are.
The real issue for Maori is ourselves.
We generally live with this big chip on our shoulders.
I’m Maori, so I have every right to be a victim. Personally, I can’t be bothered.
We can accuse all and sundry of raping and pillaging our land, foreshore ad seabed – but we as Maori have done a helluva a lot to ourselves too. We would do well to hold a mirror up to our own faces, but it’s a helluva lot easier to blame those bloody pakehas.
We have a really simple solution to all our woes. It goes like this – every Maori child born from the start of this new decade (and earlier) be loved, fed and educated so that he or she may go on to become a successful leader, and become extremely wealthy and/ or influential. Then when he or she see an injustice against our people, use that wealth and influence to correct the situation.
That’s what pakeha do. We could learn from them.
Didn’t Sir Apirana Ngata say something along these lines a few years back? If we’d listened then we wouldn’t be in this mess.
By 2040, the 200th year after the signing of The Treaty of Waitangi we could have thousands of wealthy and influential 30 year old Maoris. Imagine that – a generation of Maori capable of leading the world.
By all means keep up the fight to correct injustices – but can we honestly say we’ve put an equal effort into sorting our own crap out?
Feeding, loving and educating our kids is a good start.
Our apprenticeships into the world of wealth and influence need not be by way of drugs, violence, alcohol and court appearances.
Of course we could carry on like we are – and be even dumber, sicker, poorer, more pissed, drugged and pregnant,.
But at least we’ll have our Foreshore and Seabed.