 all go?
And the Deflection Award for The Month goes to Gosman – for the 50th consecutive month!!
It is a rather straight forward question Frank. What happened to the Moa?
The peculiar tenacity of your questioning and the many peculiar questions that stray drastically from the original subject of the post suggests some strange complex. What are you trying to achieve?
What about other species since extinct once the “superior culture” arrived with guns to shoot them and dogs, cats, ferrets, rats and other vermine to kill them. I forgot the possum. The moa was simply an unadaptable large source of protein.
Tally the number of native species extinct or endangered before and after the colonisation of New Zealand.
Think about it this way, the moa couldn’t withstand the hunting and to a lesser extent forest clearance by Māori, do you really think they’ll be around today if Māori had not rendered them extinct?
Consider the Haast’s Eagle that also became extinct along with the moa, do you think Victorian settlers would have been pleased to co-exist with such a large bird of prey?
So I assume some think Māori deserve exceptional resentment for the demise of the moa. A resentment likened to that of an evil, wild, blood-thirsty savage murdering the beloved Big Bird of Sesame Street fame for kicks.
Irrelevant speculation. The fact is that the Maori caused the extinction both directly and indirectly of two of the most distinctive animals that were native to NZ. All this talk about how the land was abundant and the Maori worked in harmony with nature is nonsense.
So given between seven hundred and a thousand years of Māori settlement and the environment more intact than the previous less than one hundred and fifty years, you infer the Māori like many indigenous cultures didn’t observe any conservation of the environment. Given any introduced species whether human or otherwise, there’s bound to be an impact on the host environment. Some more detrimental than others.
I doubt Māori would ever had cleared the land to the extent that has occurred. If they did it would probably have taken another thousand plus years, but that’s just sheer conjecture. Unlike colonial settlement focussed on economic growth and attached to a modern global economy, what incentive would such drastic environmental change serve an isolated pre-colonial Māori culture with their own ways?

Are you back to asking gormless questions?
Despite your question having a generalised tone, my answer is no. However from experience I had the displeasure of encountering two blatantly racist teachers as assessed by their speech and attitude. One can’t discount the prospect of a very small minority who are racist.
From my experience the racism one experiences at school largely revolves around the attitudes displayed by some students so inclined.
From an early level one can find the occasional child who speaks blatantly racist sentiments, they probably don’t fully understand what they’re saying just repeating the attitude found at home. Later some who accept racist ideas as being “taught at home”. Advance through the years one can find students drifting apart into a divisive order, racist beliefs and stereotypes used by some to belittle others and define “us” and “them”. If you’re at a school where there are very few students of your ethnicity, such experiences can make one feel alienated and leave a very bitter impression of the social order as well as undermining one’s confidence.
A lot worst back in time. Easy to hear accounts of the cane for speaking Maori, and relentless racial abuse from fellow students which influenced many to leave schooling early.
Anyway, I completed secondary school over a decade ago, I can only wonder if much has changed since. Find some youngsters today with an extraordinarily tolerant attitude which is hopeful.
Low voter turnout is no different to crime. I don’t force anyone to vote or not to vote. It’s an individual decision we all make, just like whether we live a sensible existence of something out of ‘once were warriors’.
Now, to your first question. When the Europeans arrived in NZ, the average life span of Maori was around 30 years. It is now around 70, and the gap between Mari and non-Maori is narrowing rapidly.
Pre European Maori society was tribal and warring. Cannibalism was not uncommon.
Maori today enjoy exactly the same benefits of living in a 21st century society as you and I.
Maori now enjoy all of the benefits of technology, a comprehensive health system, education, significant ‘race based’ benefits (e.g. educational and employment quota), a race based electoral quota, Govt. funded language nests, Govt. funded efforts to preserve Maori culture, etc etc etc.
Like non-Maori, Maori make their own choices, good and bad. And like non-Maori that can live with those choices, and not blame every ill on some non-existent colonial hardship.
Perhaps part of the problem is that we look across “the ditch” to feel smug, because our treatment of indigenous people appears to be far superior to the Australian settlers. This contrast then allows us to continue our racist behaviour towards our fellow humans with a clearer conscience.
@ Yogibare – spot on.
Until the 1860’s Maori in NZ produced most of the food for the European Settlors they controlled most of the coastal shipping and had vessels which regularly sailed to Australia and the US trading goods.
In the 1860’s with a shift in the balance of power towards the European Settlors and the thirst for land by the Settlors, particularly their desire for the productive lands of the Waikato & the Taranaki the NZ Land Wars broke out, these lands were subsequently confiscated by the Settlor Governments.
With the loss of their homelands the Maori lost their economic clout and so began the degradation of the Maori Race and they lost their ‘wairua’. If you read texts such as Elsdon Bests “Coming of the Maori” you will realise they were a sophisticated highly organised race of people.
Colonisation and the theft of Maori Land by the State has left NZ in the position the country is in today, it is an undeniable fact and it is actually a reality. John Key is just taking colonisation to the next level, which is corporatisation which is the selling of State Assets which are basically owned and have been paid for by the taxpayers of NZ.
The trouble is they weren’t that organised. If they had been they would have had better tactics against the British beyond merely delaying the inevitable and a long term stategy put in place to gain the upper hand. Instead the British were able to gain control relatively easily and with the active support on a number of Maori who fought on the side of the Crown.
If you’re a Whitey – sure. If you’re Maori or Pacific, nope.
The trouble is they weren’t that organised.
What? Sez who?
You mean they weren’t organised like who, precisely?

Is that the “organised” you’re referring to?
Christ, Gosman, your conceit is jaw-dropping.
Your idiocy is possible only because you benefit from the *organised* colonialism of Europe. If you were a native of Sth America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Nth America, etc, your fanboi enthusiasm for Europe would be non-existent.
Frank, I have Celtic heritage. I am well aware of the effects of colonialism, both positive and negative.
Rubbish. You’re an apologist for colonialism. I see nothing in your comments here to support your claim that you’re “well aware of the effects of colonialism, both positive and negative”.
However, feel free to post “the effects of colonialism, both positive and negative”. I look forward to examples showing your “awareness” on the issue.
Gosman. Ignorance knows no bounds. Putting up opinion as fact just to have an argument. Ridiculous person!
 
All these comentators who constantly keep telling maori that theyve been badly treated are doing much more harm than any colonial rat bag ever did. 
Maori should be told point blank that its time they stopped this wailing and moaning and to get off their arses and help themselves. Of course maori leadership is probably the worst in the world. Once they get in positon of power they think only of them selves – all we need to do is to look at whats happened with treaty settlements and who is really benefitting.
The level of misunderstanding shown by Barry is symptomatic of the wide spread internalisation of the colonial mindset by the average NZer.
Instead of looking at NZ as a whole and wondering what could be down to make society better for everyone, Barry, like many, adopts an us-versus-them mindset and pits himself against what he sees as the typical Maori, apparently someone who is no longer proud of his vibrant culture and has become instead disillusioned by what he is told by his peers. What this fails to understand, however, is that this mindset is doing more damage to the Maori psyche than any treaty settlement ever could.
If society feeds the children of today it is not teaching them that society will continue to feed their children – it tells them that in our country we are not all treated equal. It shows them that we are not all born with the same opportunities. It shows me that we are failing our most vulnerable. It shows the other end of our country’s inequality spectrum, the end that needs to be ‘feed’ by society because the government controls the coin purse that doesn