National amnesia cited as education failing

Press, 23 September 1987, Page 21

National amnesia cited as education failing

“Why are Maori people so concerned with the past? Why don’t they just get on with the future like the rest of us?”

These questions are common enough but the speakers rarely consider that they are unlikely to forget the injustices In their “own” past: the family farm a few generations back which was never “rightfully” handed down, the heirlooms sold off or given to the “wrong” people, items of sentimental value which were stolen forever. Few can forget such things.

In most cases those committing such “felonies” were

people within the wider family. For some it turned into a feud; others forgave but never quite forgot So why don’t Maori people forgive? Simply because the issue which is at stake is slightly different They believe they were cheated out of the land, their spiritual heritage, the link with their past and resource for development in the future, by the Government

The Government has created an act which allows them to present their claims of past injustices and land denied. The case is being heard, the evi-

dence considered, cross examinations will be made by the Crown, and a recommendation made by a panel of professional women and men.

When an historian, Harry Evison, first tried to research Ngai Tahu land rights nearly 40 years ago, he talked to elders whose voices have since been silenced by death. He painstakingly copied by hand the words on manuscripts. Oh, for the ease of a Xerox machine. He had the door slammed in his face when he asked for access to historical documents. A senior official at the De-

partment of Maori Affairs told Harry Evison that Maori people should be looking to the future, not the past “I tried to explain that I was doing a history degree and that was concerned with the past — it made no difference. He did not think people should use that material; therefore no-one got it” The library system is open now. The national archives preserves historical documents which are passed on from Government departments. But in many cases the attitude is the same. “People don’t think the past matters. If they

don’t know it is there they can hardly think it is very important Admittedly, the colonial history which used to be taught was very one-eyed but at least it gave people the realisation that things did happen in those days,” says Harry Evison. Now Increasing proportions of people are walking around with no idea what happened in the nineteenth century or even earlier this century because their own history is not being taught in school. “I think the education system is seriously failing. A man that does not know the past is like a

man without a memory. He can’t account for his actions. It is a form of national amnesia.” On the other side of the coin, the people who suffered the most in the past were the great grandparents of Ngai Tahu people who are living today. “The suffering in those days — the 1880 s and 1890 s — was terrible. One could say that nowadays Maori people are driving cars and living in houses, although obviously the unemployment is higher amongst Maoris,” says Harry Evison. “But I would say that when

the lives of great-grandparents are dominated by great injustices the effects will be carried on to successive generations. He points to the troubles in Northern Ireland as a classic example of the past haunting the present. “Because of the injustices committed in the seventeenth century there are people in Ireland today who are tearing each other apart. “People who say this is so long ago it doesn’t matter are barking up the wrong tree. History says the longer injustices are left unattended the more destructive they become.

“This country, Fm sure, if the Injustices are left unattended, will end up like Northern Ireland — there is nothing surer.” An elderly man with a broad Scottish accent gave the NgalTahu Maori Trust Board a piece of advice at a public meeting held at the Christchurch WJELA. centre this month, c i-s “Don’t let what happened to us happen to you. The English took lands and language throughout Britain with no compensation for our losses. Don’t let that happen here in New Zealand,” he said.