November 20, 2013
Maps could endorse Maori imperialism
Te Arawa has asked the Ngati Raukawa Settlements Trust to remove a map it is trying to attach to its deed of settlement.
Te Arawa River Iwi Trust appeared before the Maori Affairs select committee last week to protest the map, which purports to show areas where the south Waikato iwi had associations with.
Spokesperson Robyn Bargh says that’s a strange choice of words in the context of treaty settlements.
She says by including the map the crown seems to be endorsing a sort of Maori imperialism.
"It seems to me that this is how people carved up Africa for example. Nations sat there in Europe and drew lines around a map and allocated pieces to themselves and this is the process that seems to have happened here. That we took a map drew a big area around where Ngati Raukawa Settlements Trust thought they could claim associations with little regard for the people who actually have had long and continuous occupation for over 600 years in those areas," she says.
Robyn Bargh says with the central North Island iwi going through a drawn out process to establish who holds mana over the various forestry blocks that came back under the Treelord forestry settlement, the Raukawa map could create major problems in future.
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