INDEPENDENT NEWS

Compensations & cultural decolonisation for Maori

Published: Mon 23 Feb 2004 11:14 AM
More compensations and cultural decolonisation for Maori People
His Holiness RAEL the founder and spiritual leader of the International Raelian Movement, wishes to express His support to the Maori Community who suffers a new surge of anti-Maori feelings following the recent declarations of opposition leader, Don Brash.
As it is the case for the Jewish people who still receive compensation from Germany for the killing and the looting of Jewish properties, the Maori people who still bear the scars of their invaders’ oppression and discrimination must be compensated adequately by the generations who benefit from the crimes of their ancestors.
Mr Don Brash must have conveniently forgotten that the wealth and prosperity of non-indigenous New Zealanders comes from the appropriation and the ransack of the Maori land by their forefathers. A prosperity which Maori people have not benefited from equitably due to widespread discriminatory practices that have long existed and are still rampant and apparent today.
Mr Don Brash and his supporters should also be made aware that without a revalorisation of indigenous culture, the fate of the Maori people will follow the one of similar colonised indigenous people who are progressively disappearing, dying from suicides, alcoholism and drugs, brought on by the despair of losing their identity.
The worrisome signs of Maori’s decline - suicide rates, alcoholism and drug abuse- show that not less but more is needed to help the Maori People survive their colonisation.
Therefore, His Holiness RAEL wishes to renew his appeal to the Maori people for a religious decolonisation:
"I call upon the Maori People to apostatise from the religion of their colonizers and to rediscover their roots and original religions, those of their ancestors, from which they were forcibly converted. For a Maori, to continue to be Christian is to betray their own people, it is an insult to the memory of their ancestors.”
This religious decolonisation is essential to give the Maori people their identity back and survive their cultural genocide.

Next in New Zealand politics

Die In for Palestine Marks ANZAC day
By: Peace Action Wellington
Penny Drops – But What About Seymour And Peters?
By: New Zealand Labour Party
PM Announces Changes To Portfolios
By: New Zealand Government
Just 1 In 6 Oppose ‘Three Strikes’ - Poll
By: Family First New Zealand
Budget Blunder Shows Nicola Willis Could Cut Recovery Funding
By: New Zealand Labour Party
Urgent Changes To System Through First RMA Amendment Bill
By: New Zealand Government
View as: DESKTOP | MOBILE © Scoop Media