Scott Hamilton RTM Profile picture
Nov 28, 2021 9 tweets 4 min read Read on X
1/7 Paul Verdon is a rugby writer. Altho he likes the All Blacks, he thinks the team should drop the Ka Mate haka, because its author Te Rauparaha was a 'murderer' 'on a par' with Hitler. Does Verdon also call for the abandonment of the NZ flag? It was authored by a mass killer.
2/7 In a piece for Muriel Newman's far right NZCPR site, Verdon calls Te Rauparaha a 'pathological monster'. He highlights Te Rauparaha's part in the Musket Wars, but ignores the facts that Te Rauparaha didn't start those wars, & in fact eventually helped end them.
3/7 Te Rauparaha's last years saw him repairing some iwi r'ships, & promoting Christianity. This final phase in TR's life makes him a somewhat more sympathetic historical figure than, say, Hongi Hika. But if we nevertheless abandon Ka Mate, shouldn't we also junk NZ's flag?
4/7 NZ's flag was designed by Albert Hastings Markham, an officer in the UK royal navy. In 1871 Melanesians from the tiny island of Nukapu killed the Anglican bishop JC Patteson, mostly likely in revenge for slave raids. Markham was sent on a revenge mission.
5 Patteson had been a persistent opponent of the bloody Pacific slave trade. But some slavers impersonated him, donning clergymen's robes & waving Bibles to persuade islanders to board their vessels. & it is possible that Patteson's white skin was enough to condemn him on Nukapu.
6 Markham took the British warship Rosario from Auckland to Nukapu. He shelled the island from a distance, then landed a party of marines on its shores. The marines shot at anyone they saw find & torched the island's village. One contemporary estimate said 70 Nukapuans died.
7 The raid on Nukapu was debated in Britain's parliament & criticised in a number of newspapers. In 1869 Markham had designed what has become NZ's national flag. In was initially used only on Crown ships.
8 If Paul Verdon were being consistent, then he would suggest the scrapping of NZ's flag as well as Ka Mate. But authors at sites like NZCPR tend to recognise bad only when it is done by folks with brown skins.
9 As a rugby historian, Verdon ought to be interested in the raid on Nukapu. During their stopover in Auckland to collect supplies for their revenge mission, the crew of the Rosario played a game of rugby with locals. It was NZ's first international rugby fixture.

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More from @SikotiHamiltonR

Jun 29
1/5 Pacific history is always part of global history. When three young Niueans hacked their tormentor Cecil Hector Larsen to death in his bed in 1953, many palagi interpreted their act thru the prism of Kenya. The Mau Mau, they feared, had come to Niue. Image
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2/5 I’ve been reading Caroline Elkins’ book to get a sense of the way the empire’s defenders were feeling in 1953. It’s hard not to find parallels between the dystopia Resident Commissioner Larsen ran on Niue & the Kenyan order the Mau Mau wanted to smash. Image
3/5 Today Niue’s prison rarely has more than a couple of guests. In 1949, tho, Larsen, who was judge jury & government on Niue, convicted 1,500 islanders of crimes. He put prisoners to work building roads, growing his food, & building him a golf course. Image
Read 13 tweets
Dec 27, 2024
1/7 MAGA is melting down as the movement's lumpenproletarian base rages against tech bros' talk about American mediocrity & the superiority of migrant workers. I'm reminded of a story Tongan-based American sociologist Maikolo Horowitz told me about Trumpism. Image
2/7 Horowitz grew up in NYC's Trotskyist community; Allen Ginsberg was a playmate. Later he hung out with Warhol & Lou Reed & turned down a job managing the Velvets. He was too busy helping run legendary protest group Students for a Democratic Society. Image
3/7 He's spent most of the last 30 years in Tonga, & collaborated for many years with its great educationalist & philosopher Futa Helu. Horowitz used a memory of his SDS youth to illuminate the frustration & resentment that fuel MAGA. Image
Read 10 tweets
Nov 17, 2024
22/30 No one familiar with the history of Aotearoa in the 1840s could take the bill's claims seriously. One only has to read William Colenso's notes of the discussions in Waitangi to see the absurdity of the idea that Maori surrendered all claims to sovereignty in 1840. Image
23/30 No chief talked about giving up sovereignty. Rangatira talked obsessively about the chaos & land loss caused by Pakeha settlers in the north, & the need for Hobson to control his people. But Act's bill is not about history. It is about psychology. Image
24/30 By pretending that Maori entered into a mystical union with two thousand Pakeha settlers in 1840 Act has created a sort of origin myth & psychic balm for Pakeha conservatives still unwilling to face the fact of Maori difference, & still in denial about colonialism. Image
Read 17 tweets
Nov 17, 2024
1/30 Te Pati Maori's haka in parliament has been greeted with disgust, anger, & fear by many conservative Pakeha. Like Act's Treaty Principles Bill, this response to the haka is the expression of a massive, long-brewing identity crisis. Image
2/30 Since the 19thC Pakeha have shown an intense ambivalence towards Maori culture. Lacking a culture unique to these islands, we have alternately suppressed and appropriated Maoritanga. Image
3/30 During the wars of the 1860s Maori culture was dangerous. Wharenui were burned & wahi tapu systematically desecrated. By the end of the century, tho, Pakeha were turning to Maoritanga as they tried to define themselves. Image
Read 22 tweets
Sep 10, 2024
1/4 Act could help settle the debate about the Treaty of Waitangi by republishing & circulating this little book by William Colenso, which contains his detailed notes on the speeches Maori chiefs made at Waitangi in 1840. But the debate wouldn't be settled the way Act wants. Image
2/4 Act claims the chiefs inexplicably ceded their sovereignty to a handful of Brits at Waitangi, but anyone who reads Colenso's notes will notice that the chiefs never mention doing that. Nearly all the korero focuses on the problems caused by settlers in the north. Image
3/4 Riotous behaviour by some settlers & the alienation of land are themes. It is very hard indeed to read Colenso's notes & not feel that the pro-Treaty chiefs wanted to empower Hobson to govern the settlers, not the rest of Aotearoa. That's why many Pakeha disliked the Treaty. Image
Read 11 tweets
Aug 15, 2024
1/60 Martin Phillipps contained multitudes. He leaves an oeuvre that is vast & varied, & that can be interpreted in various ways. I see him as someone who extended & updated a distinctively Pakeha cultural tradition. Image
2/60 Like the music of Douglas Lilburn, the poems of Ruth Dallas, Charles Brasch & Allen Curnow, & the paintings of Bill Sutton & Rita Angus, many of Phillipps' best songs are powerful responses to the land & seascapes of southern NZ. Image
3/60 I'm not arguing that Phillipps was necessarily directly influenced by the names I've mentioned. He didn't need to be. He responds to the same landscape, is part of the same history, and dealt with the same dilemmas. Image
Read 55 tweets

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