Waitangi Day

Press, 8 February 1986, Page 18

Waitangi Day

Sir,—To commemorate the Queen’s visit the much-discussed and misused Waitangi agreement should be laid to rest once and for all. This treaty has been manipulated and used over , the years for political and personal reasons and has tended to divide the two cultures instead of producing a united front. Over the last 140 years it has been instilled in the Maori population that this treaty makes them a subjected race and nothing convinces them otherwise. Since those early days, New Zealanders, with the co-operation of the true Maoris, have built up this country into a modern international State matching any country in the world of similar size. The advantages to the Maoris through the Waitangi Treaty far outweigh the disadvantages and the trouble-seekers should remember this. — Yours, etc. L. WESTNEY. February 6, 1986. Sir,—The political bias of. your newspaper is clearly presented by the headline on Fri-

day’s front page — “Anger mars Waitangi Day on Peninsula.” Another viewpoint would suggest that the marring is done by the celebrations themselves. The gross arrogance and Insensitivity of publicly celebrating the signing of a treaty which has not been honoured mars the month of February every year, for some of us. The intentions of justice and full sovereignty rights for the Maori people, expressed in the fine language of the treaty and in the good faith in which it was signed by Maori chiefs, have been blatantly marred ever since by the failure of the pakeha system to carry out those intentions. This has left us with a deeply entrenched legacy of institutional racism which daily mars our history, and to which, by its very nature, most of us are blind. Little cause for celebration. — Yours, etc., JANE SEVERN. February 7, 1986.