A Prison Without Bars

Maori and Family Violence

We have become immune to seeing the appalling statistics which shows a massive over-representation of Maori in acts of family violence. Nowadays, because of the dominance of egg-shell like political correctness, the uber-vigilance of the Human Rights Commission, the febrile superficial sensationalism of the media, and the overwhelming predominantly left-wing, statist, socialist orientation of the country's universities, such statistics tend to be reported in small print, and then largely left. No-one wants to engage in commentary, reflection, or public debate. It is sort of like the embarrassing open secret that everybody knows, but nobody talks about.

An example occurred recently when Simon Collins of the NZ Herald was reporting on a recent University of Auckland study on the frequency of abortion broken down by ethnicity. The last line of the article said: “Maori women were much more likely to have suffered violence during pregnancy (22 percent) than Pacific women (7 percent), Europeans (6 percent) or Asians (1 percent).” Thank you, Simon. And now, the sports news.

A plethora of pseudo-explanations for this correlation between Maori and family violence has surfaced over the years, all designed to excuse it in some way or other. None has really captured the field. It would appear, however, that the most acceptable explanation to Maori themselves is “victimology”—that is, the cause of (and therefore the blame for) the grossly disproportionate over-representation of Maori in family violence statistics is that they had their cultural and societal roots stripped away from them by marauding European colonialism. The subsequent loss of cultural identity has meant that their traditional family structures were unable to sustain them: caught between two worlds, Maori have simply fallen apart, socially speaking.

A typical example of this ideology was provided by Tariana Turia, co-leader of the Maori Party, when, during the national furore over child abuse that surrounded the Bradford Bill, Mrs Turia blamed the predominance of Maori violence toward their children upon the missionaries of the nineteenth century. Apparently up until Christianisation, the Maori loved their tamariki and indulged them, not needing to correct them. It was the missionaries who persuaded Maori to use corporal discipline upon their children—thus, starting the descent into violence we see today.

This kind of blame shifting is as old as the Garden of Eden (“it was the woman's fault . . . ; no, it was the serpent's fault . . .”); it is part of the universal human condition of sin, so it should not surprise us to see it recrudescent here. However, such explanations or justifications for evil behaviour are acceptable only to the superficially minded or the guilty looking for excuses. “You have got to be kidding,” is the appropriate response.

So, let's try to be a bit more profound than Mrs Turia, and offer some better analysis.

Firstly, we are convinced the problem is not racial. Race is a huge red-herring. To say that Maori family violence is a produce of race is to say that it is genetically in-bred into Maori. Some geneticists have claimed, in recent years, to have isolated a “violence” gene in Maori, or a genetic configuration that predisposes Maori to violence. Even if that were true such a gene would be ethically neutral; it is how it is channeled or expressed that is at issue here.

We have no doubt that if there is a “violence” gene, of itself it is an excellent thing. We have desperately needed warriors in the past (witness the Maori Battalion) and we will no doubt need them again. There are many historical examples of warlike peoples and warrior cultures—but they were not necessarily known for beating their wives and children. It is all to do with how the aggression is channeled and controlled.

Secondly, we do believe the problem is cultural. Culture is the externalisation of one's world view. What you believe determines is the final determinant of how you live and act. Moreover, cultures are communal, not racial. When people believe together, when they share beliefs, their acting out of those beliefs becomes more overt and prominent because a belief held in common with a community is easier to apply and work out. The community encourages the practices, endorses them, approves them, and assists in them. World-views (and therefore cultures) are combinations of beliefs that are true and false, good and evil, correct and wrong. To the extent that a community “takes on”, then externalises, false, evil and wrong beliefs, its culture will be weak, sinful, and degenerate.

So, what might be some of the wrong, false and evil beliefs held in common amongst Maori communities and consequently externalised in their lives? (We should add that these beliefs are not unique to Maori—but are common to all mankind to one extent or another. Severe problems will only arise when such false beliefs are strongly held or widely shared in particular families, communities, or groups—whether socio-economic, ethnic, or geographic). We believe, in no particular order, the following wrong or false beliefs are reaping a bitter fruit:

1. Bitterness over historical injustices; grievances due to past events. Becoming a victim of injustice or hardship is universal throughout human history; bitterness over it is not. Virtually every people, every culture could find examples in their past when their ancestors were raped, pillaged, hounded off their land, and unjustly persecuted. It has been a universal human condition. But the vast majority of peoples and cultures moved on.

One only has to reflect upon the extreme deprivations and gross injustices inflicted upon the Scottish Highlanders and the Irish peasants during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the British—even to the point where their culture was outlawed—to see that any historical deprivations experienced by Maori in New Zealand were neither unique nor particularly extreme. We mention the Scottish and the Irish deliberately, because within two generations they had scattered over much of the known world, but their subsequent cultural, social, political, and intellectual impact upon the world has been prodigious. (The Scots Highlanders are particularly instructive because of their warlike and violent history.)

These people “moved on”. Yes, what happened to them was grossly unjust. Yes, they lost family members to persecution, disease, starvation. Yes, their culture was oppressed and rent. Yes, they lost their ancestral lands. But they believed the future was more important than the past, and they left their homelands to grasp it--just as many Maori, incidentally, have left to grasp a better future in Australia. (We have not seen any research, but we would expect that were some credible work to be done, we would find that the Ngati-roo are far more future orientated than their families in New Zealand, and far less pre-occuppied with historical grievances).

The Scots and Irish did not believe (probably because they were not told) that they were victims who needed compensation. They did not allow themselves to become bitter. They went on, in their own way, to make a better living for themselves. One of the most debilitating false beliefs a person can ever entertain is that they are damaged goods because of what has happened in the past, and that they will therefore never amount to much, unless they are apologised to and compensated in some way. This false belief makes the past a prison.

2. A tolerance and acceptance of state welfare. Sir Apirana Ngata, during the parliamentary debates on state welfare when it was first introduced to New Zealand by Michael Savage prophesied that it would be the death of his people. He has been proven right. State welfare is a poison pill because it makes one economically, and therefore culturally, dependant. It enslaves. In fact, it is the worst form of slavery imaginable, insofar as the chains become internal not external; and the slavery is of the heart.

Under historical slavery, at least the enslaved could take a modicum of pride in what they did, what they achieved each day. State welfare enslaves without chains. It makes one dependant, and strips away even the self-respect that comes from the achievements of work.

State welfare has other destructive effects. It undermines and rots family structures. When men are on welfare, they become redundant and “past their use-by date” for the family duties and responsibilities. Their wives and their children will be taken care of whether they are there or not, whether they work or not, whether they earn a living or not. Moreover, since welfare is related to children and is child-based, mothers become the primary conduit of income into the family. The prevailing redundancy, irrelevance, and useless of men under state welfare is one of the most destructive influences upon social and family fabric.

To the extent that state welfare is more predominant amongst Maori communities, to that extent Maori families are weakened and torn apart. But, don't blame the state welfare system: the blame needs to fall squarely on the false belief that accepting income from the state is OK. It's not OK! It's deadly.

There are many other wrong or false beliefs which are bearing rotten fruit amongst Maori people—leading to the over-representation in family violence, crime, and other socially destructive behaviour. As we said above, these false beliefs are not unique to Maori, they are not errors or weaknesses of race; they are, however, cultural falsehoods. They have to be addressed: clearly, firmly, unequivocally.

Who might address them? Clearly not the left-wing intelligensia. Clearly not the government and its various departments of state. Clearly not the media. These are all part of the problem. They largely share the same false world-view that is causing the problem. It needs to be addressed by individual Maori leaders who are prepared to stand up and tell the truth to their own.

We await more Maori leaders who will stand up and say, “It's not OK to believe that you are disadvantaged and oppressed. It's a lie.” Or, “It's not OK to live on state welfare. It's slavery. Get off it. Get a job.” Or, “It's not OK to live in envy of successful family members. Imitate their example—sure—but it's not OK to put the hand out to them.”

Those Maori who have stood up and spoken—and there are numerous examples—we believe are the true heroes and heroines of their people. We salute them, and hope that many follow in their train.