July 08, 2019
TUIA 250 reminder of colonisation’s cruel impact
A Gisborne environmentalist says the Tuia 250 commemorations are treating colonisation as a historic issue rather than something that continues to affect Māori today.
Tina Ngata says the arrival of the Endeavour with Captain James Cook 250 years ago set in train events and experiences that changed everything for Māori.
She says rather than repeating historical fictions told to justify colonisation, the goal should be racial justice and an end to imperialism in Aotearoa.
"And that's the imperialism that manifests in a corporate sense, the way in which corporations have a sense of imperial entitlement to our waterways and resources as well as well as the ways we exercise entitlement upon each other and all of that has a heritage and a route that goes all they way back to Cook," Ms Ngata says.
She says many Māori feel conflicted with the idea that when they welcome waka hourua later this year, they will also welcome back a replica of the Endeavour.
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