Bruce Bisset: Better talk fast, Pākehā

A global groundswell is calling for statues celebrating colonialism and racism to be removed. Marton's Captain Cook statue is currently under wraps.

It's difficult not to be conflicted by the rush to demonise colonialism and tear down monuments of the past, especially when you're one of the colonisers and the history being rewritten is that of the victors - that is, yours.

Of course that's how it always is, with history. Those who win write the narrative; those who lose are reduced to bit-parts and footnotes.

So their descendants can hardly be blamed if, in the fullness of time, they regain enough power to ask for a revision. And then to demand one. And then to simply make it happen.

But as much as the grief and rage fuelling the tearing-down of colonial monuments can be understood, as also that many of those memorialised would not be so remarked today, there's an inherent danger in letting an overflow of emotion lead such revision, lest it go too far.

By which I mean, lest the lessons of history become obscured or forgotten in the rush to "cleanse" them. Even bad people remembered for the wrong reasons tells us something.

Which leads to the vexed question of where to draw the line.

Bruce Bisset: "We, on the other hand, have done little to earn (Maori) respect - except to enforce our ways upon them. "

As a boy I read thrilling accounts of the "dashing" Gustavus von Tempsky who "invented" guerilla warfare by leading an elite force behind enemy lines and engaging Māori at their own game within the arboreal forests – gung-ho stuff of heroic proportions.

That he was a mercenary with an extremely racist view of Māori, who took part in "scorched earth" raids that saw even "loyalist" women and children slaughtered, was conveniently left out of those stories.

But there is no evidence von Tempsky himself carried out any atrocities, and several accounts of him protesting them; moreover, views of him from the iwi side were mixed, with many of his enemies holding him in high regard.

How do you best treat such a complex character? Given his impact on both the Land Wars and society of the time, he certainly does not deserve to be forgotten – and our collective history would be the poorer if he were.

But how many people have heard of Riwha Tītokowaru, the leader on the Māori side of the South Taranaki War of 1868-9, who twice defeated strong colonial forces, including while defending his strong point at Te Ngutu-o-te-manu – where von Tempsky died.

It almost does not need to be said that the memorial of the battle erected on that site contains the names of the 26 colonial troops killed – but none of the Māori who died, on either side.

Nor that the colonists were defeated; the memorial merely says they died "in engagements with" Māori.

See what I mean about bit-parts and footnotes?

It's fair to say we've come to this point because we Pākehā have collectively ignored - or worse, denigrated – many of the parts Māori have played in forming the nation known as Aotearoa New Zealand.

Not least by failing to properly recognise that they were here first – and have the right to our respect for that alone.

We, on the other hand, have done little to earn their respect – except to enforce our ways upon them. And there is both lots of right and lots of wrong in those ways.

There's much to debate around what things to keep and what to throw out, on both sides, before we reach any sort of amicable agreement on history.

And there's lots of flow-on pieces to this puzzle that need debating, too.

But we'd best start talking, and fast, because no surprise if after 150 plus years patience has run out.