Submission on ‘Aotearoa New Zealand’s Histories in the New Zealand Curriculum’
By Tim Wikiriwhi.
Hamilton.
twikiriwhi@yahoo.co.nz
AotearoaNewZealandhistories@education.govt.nz
Ministry of Education
P O Box 1666
Wellington 6140
My submission on the curriculum is written from several perspectives.
Firstly, that of a Father and Grandfather whose children will be subject to this curriculum, thus I speak in exercising my parental responsibility and rights.
I am also a private student of New Zealand history, and have studied it with passion my whole adult life and so it is a subject close to my own heart.
My studies have been carried on independent of any curriculum. I have wandered through the pages of our history wheresoever my mind has carried me.
This is an important fact that goes a long way to explain why I am able to write what follows.
Secondly I speak as a citizen and active participant in our democracy with respect to what We the people expect from our servants… the government.
Thirdly I speak as a Kiwi of both Maori and Pakeha descent who is acutely aware of the radical separatist politics which is currently running amok, subverting the truth for political gain and causing massive racial division and strife.
My Libertarian principles enlighten me to the Ideal that there ought to be a constitutionally protected separation between the State, and the education of our youth.
This is because the State being a political power is disposed to propagate the political ideology and agenda of the people and parties in power, this inevitably threatens the integrity and objective quality of what is instilled into the minds of the innocent, when the truth is seen as being antagonistic to the ambitions of those in power.
Given opportunity the State will misuse the Education system to influence the next generation of voters to benefit their own political aims.
This is why allowing the State to control the education system and to dictate the curriculum is extremely dangerous to truth, freedom, and democracy.
The threat is not only real, it can easily be seen in action today on a variety of subjects.
This ought to be a grave concern to all honest and enlightened parents and teachers alike.
Most people know this type of political indoctrination is commonplace in Totalitarian States like North Korea, and China.
Far Less will admit the current bunch of MPs in the Beehive demonstrate the very same tendencies.
There is great cause for alarm at what is going on across the spectrum of education, yet in no other subject is politicisation more insidious than in the mutilation of our epic colonial history.
Any public discussion on a history curriculum cannot be undertaken without keeping this dangerous reality at the forefront of our concerns, and working to insure separatist politics do not absolutely corrupt this enterprise.
There are powerful vested interests at work seeking to hijack this curriculum and twist it to serving their own political advantages, which depend upon the perpetuation of racial angst and divide.
This is the real reason our politicians seek to make New Zealand History a compulsory subject.
It’s called mass social conditioning.
My submission below will give a few examples of the political sleight of hand going on via historical revisionism, yet will also set down a few ideas about how despite the many dangers involved, it could be possible to mitigate them, and make this enterprise conform more closely to the professed intention of teaching actual New Zealand History rather than a politicised false narrative.
There is no way that I could have made this submission without first stating these uncomfortable things, and yet still, having sent my own son to a public primary School for the past 5 years, and participated school activities, I must declare that I have been very happy with the way my son has been taught, and nurtured there.
I do not have anything but good things to say about the teachers and quality of my son’s time at primary school.
I hope this statement quells any notion that I have no appreciation of the quality and integrity of the average teacher and school.
My purpose in writing this is not to undermine good people with the best of intentions and genuine vocational aspirations, doing a good job.
My criticisms and warnings are system and ethos based, not personal, save for the politically corrupt actors with nefarious designs embedded both above and within the structure who seek to use the education system to indoctrinate our children in their own woke partisan political opinions. .
I do not harbour any delusions that Nanny State will divest itself from education any time soon, and so it would be pointless to write a submission that hinged upon such a forlorn hope.
I would not waste your time if that was the heart of my submission.
The best I can hope for presently is to make some positive suggestions that might aid the good teachers and staff at schools to be able to provide the best quality education and history under the circumstances.
To the genuine teachers of History and sociology, this submission is written in your defense, to assist you in having a curriculum that you can be proud to teach… because of adherence to truth, and the value it adds to student education.
I myself spring from a family of civil servants, and educators who instilled in me some of their zeal for civic duty and a desire to serve their communities.
Let me now begin my Submission proper.
Such weighty matters cannot be ‘breezed over’, yet still I will keep my submission as succinct as possible.
The love of power and money is the root of every form of evil.
How easily Machiavellian political operators turn outwardly noble intentions into tools for exploitation.
When we raise the prospect of Governments teaching children what to believe about their own heritage, we are treading upon quicksand.
There is every reason to lament that what will be taught to future generations of Kiwi via compulsory ‘New Zealand History’ will not be history at all, but a heavily partisan political re-hash in which the truth takes second place to a preferred constructed narrative, that is not only a litany of falsehoods but also will inevitably tend to deepen racial divides… which is the intended purpose of the revisionism.
To sow discord, to poke tender spots, to enflame fires that have all but run their coarse, to invigorate political tensions to ensure these troubles are inherited by future generations… perpetually… thereby shoring up the foundations of the various Racist Apartheid political institutions that we have gullibly established, bequeathing these monstrosities to posterity.
Instead of well written and nuanced objective history, the curriculum is in grave danger of being subverted to teach radical revisionism which has sprung up via the Treaty Settlement process involving hundreds of millions of dollars.
Paid, credentialed, ‘historians for hire’ have tailor-made narratives for the express purpose of gaining large settlements.
In no way has this process been an attempt at objective history, but by their very nature these ‘histories’ are purposefully ‘adversarial’ designed to sway proceedings in the here and now, attempting to claim injustices have been suffered by the claimants, and to foist blame for pitiable outcomes upon the ‘White dominated colonial New Zealand State.
These cases themselves have not been herd in genuinely objective courts nor subjected to anything nearing rigorous legal scrutiny to determine whether the claims are well founded, but instead have been herd by the notoriously un-objective Waitangi Tribunal.
Under such heavy motivation to skew the truth in one direction, this is not how objective history can be ascertained and then recycled as the basis for a national curriculum!
Yet this is precisely what is going on!
We are talking about Politicised history.. not objective history!
Such Historians as Dr Vincent O’Malley have made a career out of writing such skewed narratives for commission to be used in the Political arena.
What is at stake for our nation besides the exchange of large sums of taxpayer money, the deepening corruption of our Legal system and government with Race based Laws and institutions… all things detrimental to the future wellbeing of our nation. In Truth nothing short of our National heritage and Identity itself is under mortal attack!
Will there be a Hamilton City in the future?
Will there be any monuments to Captain Cook?
Or will the only culture allowed to be celebrated here in New Zealand be a false Idealised Maori culture?
Must all Pakeha be ashamed of their roots?
Will such hollow myths as ‘Maori being the caretakers of the land’, become canonised?
There is no real history in these things, but pure woke politically correct propaganda.
The politisisation of New Zealand history and the threat it poses to our National Identity can be observed via recent events in Hamilton City whereby the City Council in partnership with Tainui employed professional historian Dr O Malley to produce a ‘Historical report’ to ‘help city councilors’ evaluate the claims of Radical Activists that have been harasing the city and vandalising one of it’s colonial monuments.
These Activists protest the name of Hamilton City, and the names of several streets as ‘offensive memorials to colonial oppressors and war criminals’ who are said to have participated in atrocities against their forefathers in an unjust war.
The Activists demand the name of Hamilton to be stripped from the city, and replaced with ‘Kirikiriroa’.
The streets Grey St, Bryce St, and Vontempsky st, are to be renamed.
Though having no mandate from the people of Hamilton city to pursue such radical propositions, the spineless Council removed the ‘offending statue’ of Captain Hamilton from the town square, and by engaging the services of Dr O Malley Hamilton City Council demonstrated they were giving all this craziness serious consideration!
When Dr O Malley tabled his report, as predicted his narrative 100% endorsed the claims of the Maori Radicals!
Is it any wonder the report contains such prejudice given one of the principle parties which commissioned his report was Tainui, one of the antagonists in the war of the 1860s, and who were defeated?
Being a trained and credentialed ‘Historian’ Dr O Malley’s report is supposed to be historically ‘Authoritative’, and yet it was compromised from the very beginning.
The Report stated that the war was an invasion, and wholly motivated by lust for Taunui lands.
This narrative paints the Pakeha as being greedy and corrupt and guilty of atrocities.
Absent was any culpability for the war on Tainui’s part.
Hamilton City Council was then going to hold a public hearing to receive public submissions upon the report, before deciding what would be done.
This process was interrupted by Covid 19.
I myself wrote an extensive (yet not exhaustive) rebuttal of the O Malley Report which can be found on line here.
I presented well documented records and accounts of the war and character of the accused that was in sharp contrast to what Dr O Malley had tabled, and that there were good reasons why these men were honoured and memorialised with monuments, and that these memorials must stand as a testimony to our rich history for future generations to ponder.
So here we have a demonstration of how politically charged the subject New Zealand history is.
We have the Truth, and we have Radicals seeking to pervert history for their own political and financial gain.
Protesting, feigning grievance at the hands of Pakeha has netted Tainui elites Hundreds of millions of dollars.
Will our School history classes now be used to facilitate this extortion racket… to a greater degree than is already the case?
New Zealand historian Paul Moon talks about this very thing in an article he wrote ( Stuff Sep 13, 2019)
“Given this importance, the Government’s decision to ensure all school students will be taught our country’s history is to be applauded.
Perhaps the most common response to emerge from the announcement is “which history?” or the more prejudicial “whose history?”. And there’s the rub. History is no mere list of dates and facts. It is often a contest between sometimes different ways of seeing the past, and what particular events in that past ought to be more pronounced. Many of these interpretations tend to chafe on contact with each other, resulting in history being a discipline that has to accommodate a wide range of views. Maybe this is why successive politicians have been reluctant to support compulsory New Zealand history in schools – it seems too contentious. Of course, there are risks that, if done poorly, compulsory history in our schools could veer into the realm of indoctrination. It is no coincidence that one of the first functions authoritarian regimes undertake on assuming power is to produce new history books in order to emphasise the “correct” version of history that is passed on to students. “
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/115753287/compulsory-new-zealand-history-is-a-turning-point-for-our-schools-and-society
“He Iwi Tahi Tatou”. “We are now one people”.
This is what Governor Hobson said as he shook the hand of each chief who signed the Treaty of Waitangi.
Dr O’Malley would do well to remember this historical fact.
The Treaty united Maori with the rest of New Zealand under British sovereignty.
The modern politically driven construct of ‘Treaty partnership’ contravenes the first clause of the Treaty of Waitangi whereby sovereignty was ceded to the British Crown.
Instead the nefarious school of thought to which Dr O Malley subscribes claims sovereignty was never ceded but supposed to be shared.
I will provide historical validation that sovereignty was ceded from no less an authority than Sir Apirana Ngata shortly, yet from the fundamental fallacy of ‘Treaty partnership’ Dr O Malley insists that the Kingitanga movement was not a breach of the Treaty… despite this being exactly how it was seen by the British government and settlers at the time, and from this false determination he then proceeds to make a case that the cause of the wars were fundamentally that of colonialist greed for Land, rather than what History proper records… That the Kingitanga movement was a rebellion against the Treaty and that it was Tainui who began the war preparations, and instigated the dispute.
The war in the Waikato with the Kingites was about sovereignty not greed on the part of the settlers… not lust for land.
It was about the establishment of A Maori Kingdom separate from the British Empire… a clear breach of the treaty and why the war with Britain was provoked.
To better understand all this I encourage the committee to read my rebuttal of the O Malley Report (link above)
Revisionist historians like Dr O’Malley for the last 50 years have eroded our nations pioneering pride and sense of unity to the degree that Treaty partnership concepts, and the notion that colonisation as a whole was one gigantic racist crime… (Marxist Dogma) have become ‘official doctrine’ via a shameful process of successive political parties and governments retreating and pandering to radical separatist Maori activism… for the sake of gaining the support of the radicals occupying the Maori seats in parliament which so often have held the parliamentary balance of power.
All this politics makes for very poor history.
New Zealand has been in the throes of systematic indoctrination for the past 50 years, and this is why today the legacy of these great men, Sir George Grey, Bryce, Hamilton, and Von Tempsky and others like Captain Cook are under relentless attack.
“Some have said that the land confiscations were wrong and they contravened the articles of the Treaty of Waitangi, but the chiefs placed in the hands of the Queen of England, the sovereignty and authority to make laws. Some sections of the Maori people violated that authority. War arose and blood was spilled. The Law came into operation and land was taken in payment. This in itself is Maori custom-revenge-plunder to avenge a wrong. It was their chiefs who ceded that right to the queen. The confiscations cannot therefore be objected to in the light of the Treaty ”
Extracts from “The Treaty of Waitangi, An Explanation.” by Sir Apirana Ngata
Lets look at Maori History…
In an article published on line by the NZ Herald 16 June, written by Peter Jackson talking about what is going on here in Hamilton.
Ngapuhi Leader David Rankin is quoted as having… ‘turned the whole Black Lives Matter trend on its head as he called for Tainui’s Turangawaewae Marae to be torn down’.
“Black Lives Matter-inspired demonstrations against symbols of history, in New Zealand and around the world, have focused on monuments to Europeans, but Ngapuhi leader, David Rankin, has called on Tainui to take down Turangawaewae Marae, which, he said, his iwi had long regarded as a symbol of enslavement and oppression.
The marae, he said, represented a dark period in the iwi’s history, when Tainui slavers abused his people to build their marae and grow crops for them.
“For us in the North, Turangawaewae Marae is a symbol of that slavery, murder and cannibalism, and so needs to be pulled down,” he said.
“The wealth that Tainui generated was made on the backs of Ngapuhi slaves.”
He had the support of his Te Matarahurahu hapu, whose ancestors were among those captured by Tainui, and used as slaves. Sometimes slaves had become part of the communities of their captors, but in this case they were eventually killed and eaten.
“Tainui famously acquired corn by disembowelling my ancestor and removing the kernels in his stomach for seed,” he said.
“Tainui has a moral obligation to pull down that marae, which for us is a symbol of cultural hatred, and if they don’t pull it down, then we will come down and do the job for them.”
This article seems to have been too hot for the NZ Herald to keep in the public eye, and it was soon deleted, yet excerpts can be found here
It is at this point I ask… Will the true nature of Pre-colonial life and intertribal warfare be taught in the NZ curriculum? or instead will that all be revised and rehashed too into some politically sanitised and idealisd mythical race of Nobel Savages?
Only if the truth about what life was like for the average Maori in pre-European times is understood, can any real judgement be made about whether or not subsequent British colonisation was a boon or a great evil upon the Maori race.
As an Independent thinking Maori I quite enjoy life in 21st century New Zealand!
I certainly prefer it to living in a reed hut with dirt floors in constant fear of being attacked by neighboring tribes and eaten!
When the truth is understood, only ignorant or prejudiced minds can maintain that British colonisation brought evils upon Maori.
That perspective cannot stand in the light of day!
Given there is a radical political revisionist narrative being imposed upon our nation how can it be hoped that a new history curriculum will be a benefit to our children?
How then can conscientious History Teachers save themselves from becoming the indoctrinators of Radical Political propaganda, as has already become the case in so many other subjects, and threatens to expand in to such areas as Gender Identity?
What follows are a few ideas which could serve to help teachers maintain professional integrity as teachers rather than State indoctrinators.
My proposal for the curriculum.
We have established that there are competing views of New Zealand History.
Because modern historical revisionism is currently being heavily imposed upon our society at all levels, it’s too much for me to expect this heavily politicised false narrative be kept out of our nations history curriculum.
This being so I propose this perspective be counterpoised by the far more well established ‘classical interpretation’ of New Zealand history *also* being included in the curriculum.
This would be an education in itself as it would at least teach students the importance of critical thinking skills because of the reality that there can be more than one perspective of history, and that they must honestly weigh up which narrative is best supported by the facts… an undertaking all thinking people ought to be doing rather than simply and unquestioningly swallowing what ever single narrative they are being spoon fed.
I perceive how these conflicting viewpoints might be interwoven into a single class of quality education, should the caliber of Teachers be of high enough character to do objective justice to two different perspectives, placing them in juxtaposition so that students can perceive the nature of the controversies. Thesis, and Antithesis.
Alternatively the History Curriculum could be divided in two sections, The Classical perspective class, and the so-called Modern Revisionist perspective.
This would be interesting because when both perspectives are laid side by side, this would test the integrity and tolerance of School faculties, the advocates of each perspective having to refrain from demanding the opposite perspective be suppressed.
I can already predict that those who desire the youth to prefer the modern revisionist perspective will also be the party that will be most antagonistic, and prone to attacking those of the classical perspective.
Given that both perspectives ought to be on equal standing, so that the students themselves can ponder which perspective is best supported by the facts, or whether a third perspective grows up… a Synthesis might develope… who can tell?
As things stand these renewed disputes are far from settled.
This is a controversy that must be debated in the public sphere and unless political pressure is used to give advantage to the fables of modern revisionism, free and open debate will ensure the true history ultimately prevails, and the politicised false narrative will fall by the wayside.
Part of the genius of my proposal (forgive my vanity) is that for such a scheme to work would require all parties, teachers, administrators, and students to co-exist and co-operate on the basis of Equality and tolerance… two very valuable virtues for students to attain, and vital for a free society in which people of different perspectives agree to peacefully co-exist in community with one another, respecting each others equal dignity and freedom.
This is how New Zealand used to be until a mere handful of decades ago before Leftist Racist Radicals began their shrill agitation that gave birth to Treaty separatism.
I do not believe the factions promoting Treaty separatism have the strength of character to be respectful and civilized should the Curriculum provide a balancing counterpoise to their prejudiced views.
Schools in a Free society ought to focus on teaching children how to think, how to apply principles, and discover truths for themselves rather than being factories of indoctrination and telling students what they must think.
This distinction is stark, because in a free society the ‘Zeitgeist’ or culture of that community will be ‘organic’ and free to modify itself at will… and founded upon reason rather than coercion, whereas indoctrination is the norm under Totalitarian States whereby the State dictates what the subjects must think… or else.
The dire situation we face today however is there are Radical Socialists in parliament who are actively rendering our nation less free, and more akin to Totalitarian Police States like North Korea and China whereby the Governments dictate what shall be taught with less and less dissenting views allowed.
We may already have moved past the point whereby our National Freedoms might be saved, because the current Government and a large activist, noisy portion of our population are already radicalised to the point whereby they will not countenance any views being expressed that challenge their own narrow woke radical views.
What the future will be for our Children and theirs will be determined by such important decisions as are being considered here and now.
The form our future government and laws will take shall be determined by what sort of ideas and perspectives our children are presently taught.
“He who controls the past, controls the future” warns George Orwell.
The Radicals know this as well as I do and that is why they will fight like demons to insure their ‘revolutionary propaganda’ holds a monopoly over the minds of future generations.
Indoctrination and conditioning being the order of the day.
This is the very opposite thing to having a Free and independent thinking population of self reliant and self responsible citizens.
Currently Politically correct politicians seek to create a herd of indoctrinated sheeple, incapable of thinking outside the box those in power have socially engineered.
Censorship, Deplatforming, and Laws which allow people to be punished for ‘wrong think’ are the hall marks of Tyranny…yet this is the way our society is heading under the guise of a caring Nanny State.
Jails will begin to fill with those who defiantly continue to dissent in the public square from the official line.
I implore the committee to consider my proposal for the history curriculum. To understand the very real dangers for our Nations future I have expounded upon in my submission, and be honest and objective enough to insure our children understand *Both perspectives* so that they may judge for themselves.
Let us foremostly instruct them in the truth that history is a subject that is open to all sorts of interpretation and therefore they must question and take the time to ponder rather than simply thinking a single perspective can be safely swallowed whole.
If you only succeed in helping youth understand this *one truth* you will have given them a very powerful tool with which they will be able to navigate themselves in life with respect to history and given them a principle whereby they can guard themselves against False historic narratives written for tyrannical ends.
Schools and universities in Western Nations used to be the vanguards of Free Speech and open debate upon the sharp Political questions of the day.
Sadly those days are quickly fading.
Instead we now have Universities etc which seek to shut down debates, and De-platform the voices of dissent and critisism, , while promoting the Politically correct and woke narratives of the powers that be.
In this way our schools have become far more like those in totalitarian states whereby only the official line is permitted to be advocated on campus.
It is not uncommon these days to see students marching for more Tyranny, less Freedom!
This is what happens when Schools are dictated to by political agenda.
PM Jacinda Ardern seeks to use the education system to condition future generations into accepting the establishment of a full blown Apartheid State under the guise of fulfilling the principles within the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights.
Re: The He Puapua Report.
Should public submissions and appeals like mine fall upon deaf ears, and the forthcoming history curriculum turn out to be nothing short of an absolutely corrupt Radical Anti-colonial Historic revisionism, accompanied with it’s Global counterpart, the psychotic Neo-Marxist Radical doctrine of ‘Critical Race Theory’, I would hope such toxic doctrines and Fake history will be met with mass parental protests.
Unless the History Curriculum is so framed as to present an honest account which does not patently serve to politically radicalise our children, Parents ought to unite and organise themselves to boycott any School which is so ideologically sloped as to try and use their history classes to brainwash our children.
Currently there is a rising backlash from communities all around the globe calling out Critical Race theory for the Marxist Toxic Racism that it is.
This includes many Parents of ethnic minorities who are sick to death of being used as a Left wing political football.
I would hope that good teachers would also stand in solidarity with parents to resist the Political pressures to use History classes to peddle political propaganda.
The true history of New Zealand from the 19th century is a fabulously enlightened story of the unification of two worlds, and the forming of one Nation.
There were some serious bumps in the road yet our Nation was born in an age in which Britain had ended slavery and recognised the brotherhood of all humanity.
It is a history that all New Zealanders can be proud of.
The spirit of unity as New Zealanders is the true current that flows through the pages of the New Zealand story.
We must not allow the bigotry and falsehoods of a tiny minority of racist radicals and Marxists destroy our Colonial monuments and rob us of such a fine and proud heritage.
Ironically, this recent period of Racist radicalism and historic revisionism, has itself become part of the overall history of our nation which it may be hoped future generations will look back upon these times as an aberration not to be repeated. A period in which The New Zealand dream came under threat by dangerous Marxist activists and radical politicians, and this knowledge will arm future generations to defend themselves should this evil ideology attempt to rise again from the dead.
The price of Liberty is Eternal vigilance.
I make myself available for answering any questions, and offer my ongoing support and critique in constructing a truly educational curriculum of New Zealand history, doing justice to all sides.
Tim Wikiriwhi.