June 11, 2020
Dark history cause for dialogue
Don't tear down monuments. Build more.
That's the response from Auckland University of Technology Māori advancement director Ella Henry to calls to pull down monuments to colonial figures, following on from Black Lives Matter protests where statues of Christopher Columbus and a Bristol slaver have been toppled.
Dr Henry applauds the world talking about the history of colonisation and imperialism and tyranny.
But she says in Aotearoa that conversation could include something alongside the statues of the colonisers telling the Māori story.
"If we're going to be truly a bicultural nation, which many of us have aspirations for a truly shared bicultural nation, then we have to have both histories alongside each other, and the dark history of white colonisation in this country has to be told alongside the celebratory history of the settlers coming to this country," she says.
Dr Henry says too many Pākehā have amnesia about New Zealand's dark history, and that truth needs to be told.
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