Treaty Gate blogger John Ansell posted the image of Rotorua kapa haka group Te Matarae I Orehu together with a caption calling Maori culture "primitive".
Treaty Gate blogger John Ansell posted the image of Rotorua kapa haka group Te Matarae I Orehu together with a caption calling Maori culture "primitive".
John Ansell's view of Maori as primitive highlights ethnocentricity at its worst (Rotorua Daily Post, April 8).
It is centred on the notion of a hierarchy of races. It is a discourse Ansell's forebears brought to Aotearoa and who perceived that physical differences (hair, skin colour, physical features) between themselvesand Maori, as equating to Maori cultural and social inferiority.
Maori however, never saw themselves as insignificant to settlers. Believing in the superiority of Pakeha culture, governments set about implementing it. The process that Ansell refers to as ' civilisation ' was actually assimilation. Our education system was the vehicle for the systematic eradication of Maori values, mores, beliefs and language. Its purpose was to change Maori into Pakeha. Maori would live in a society governed by Pakeha social, cultural and political norms rather than their own.
The outcome has been that Maori have lost themselves, drowning in an ocean of negative statistics and identity theft, just as many other colonised peoples world-wide have experienced.
Ansell says his post was criticism but of what? The photo he added of Te Matarae I o Rehu kapa haka group depicts power, precision and beauty. It is a source of great pride for the kapa themselves and for Te Arawa. He sees only primitivism, a view based on the archaic, antiquated racial framework his tupuna left for him to cling to.
The movement has been partly dismantled due to the earthquake strengthening of the tower and iSite.
The clock which was made in 1903 is in excellent condition and will probably be of service to the Rotorua community for another 100 years. The winding up of the clock could be altered to an automatic system if money was available.
Re the sound system, the present bells sound so much better than any electronic could ever be.
