Your views: Readers' letters

Halloween: Haunting tradition

Halloween in New Zealand has become an excuse for shopkeepers to flog off costumes and lollies so the local kids can take part in an out-of-season American autumn ritual, but it can serve a useful purpose.

Halloween, or All Hallows' Eve, comes just before All Hallows' Day, or All Saints' Day. This is the traditional day for remembering all the good people, now dead, whose work and example moulded our lives for the better - our caring parents, dedicated teachers, kind neighbours; and those who dedicated their lives for the betterment of all - Whina Cooper, Michael Joseph Savage, Waitotara GP Arthur Harvey, Suzanne Aubert, Apirana Ngata and hundreds more.

On the other hand, Halloween, the evening before All Saints' Day, is a time to remember those in our lives who tried to help us but left scars in our psyche, the parent who got drunk, the harsh schoolteacher, the overbearing boss. The bad memories of their actions can still swirl around in our heads like those trick-or-treat ghosts swirling down the street wrapped in old bed sheets.

But we repay the little devils at our door with kindness, and as they depart down our driveways with a handful of lollies (or healthier grapes or oranges), our own unhappy ghosts can depart along with them, allowing us the next day to concentrate on celebrating the memory of the good people in our lives, and imitating their example for the rest of the year.

JOHN ARCHER
Ohakune

Maori rights: Trick or treaty?

A recent Saturday Chronicle featured an article on "Mean and nasty treatment of Māori" in colonial times. It was also a testament to the true character of our Māori ancestors.

But the great irony is that nothing has changed. Lack of clear direction and mean and nasty treatment of Māori continue. The race card and the numbers game still hold sway here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

We heard again that Māori are a minority and that the Māori seats in parliament are race-based and therefore non-democratic. Well, bless my soul! Any treaty must be agreed to by two or more equal parties. But in 1840 Māori outnumbered Pakeha by 10 to one. Then 10 per cent of the population decreed that 90 per cent did not have the right to vote. So nothing has changed since 1840.

There were excuses made up for this flagrant violation of Māori rights. They were a pack of lies. Māori had both the right and the ability to fully participate in the democratic process. Hell, that's what the marae and meeting house and all of the traditions that go with them are all about. Debate and decisions with full participation.

So I say that, in fact, Māori have the right to establish their own party with equal powers to create and implement legislation in conjunction with non-Māori representatives and Māori or descendants of Māori in parliament. Equality would be upheld with the condition that any NZ citizen could stand for election to either Māori or "other" seats.

Then Māori could have the equality that the Treaty was meant to preserve, and all of our human and customary rights could be returned. And the mana motuhake (self-determination) that our Māori ancestors, and every other part of the human race, valued so highly could be returned.

The UN declaration of indigenous rights confirms the fact that we do have the right to practise - ie live in - our culture and be a little different.

And, let's face it, the Westminster System should have stayed in Westminster. All it's made here is a bloody mess.

POTONGA NEILSON
Castlecliff