Poor Defenceless Stone Age

An article appeared in New Zealand Herald last week. It is a good example of lack of public discussion nowadays and the sad state of our journalism.

The article mentions two “offenders”: a man called Richard who called to a radio show hosted by the former Auckland mayor John Banks. Richard said that Maori were “victims of their own genetic background. They’re genetically predisposed to crime, alcohol, and underperformance educationally.” and that he was not interested in learning about, or having his children learn about “their stone-age culture”.
John Banks endorsed the view, particularly the part on “the stone-age” culture.

Various parties expressed their disagreement and disgust. Most parties labelled the views as racist. Not much was said what was racist and why. Only Māori Council executive director Matthew Tukaki’s views were quoted: “At the end of the day, Māori culture was rich and strong before anyone else came along,” said Tukaki.

“We were growers of our own kai, cleaners of our own rivers, and developers of our own land. That is not a stone-age culture, that is a sophisticated society.”

I don’t know Richard, I am not a fan of John Banks and I never was. However, I am more disappointed by Matthew Tukaki’s response. Why? The big GG (Google Gossip) reveals he is an achiever, a skilled businessman. Yet when he defends his people against a verbal attack, he ignores the obvious false opinions and denies perhaps the only true part of the attack.

Let’s look into the details. First Richard says that Maori people are victims of their genetics and that they are predisposed to crime etc. These are points for a discussion and we’ll get to them later. Alas, Matthew Tukaki stays silent on them.

Then Richard continues that he is not interested in Maori stone-age culture. A couple of points for discussion again: He is not interested in Maori culture and Maori culture is from stone-age. Mr. Tukaki’s response touches only the last point and unfortunately is completely wrong.

The “stone-age” label does not say if a culture or era is good or bad, achieving or behind. It simply states that particular culture did not know metal, particularly metal suitable for making tools and used stone for that purpose. Jericho was a city with a stone wall and most probably a complex society structure, yet it was built in stone age. From that perspective Maori culture was of course a stone-age culture when the first European settlers arrived. It does not matter if Maori people were sophisticated or not. They used stone tools so they lived in stone age.

It sounds like Mr Tukaki’s position shows little respect to old stone-age cultures from the other parts of the world. Which is quite unfortunate as his own culture came out of that era quite recently.

Now let’s get back to those other points; to be honest I would prefer Mr Tukaki have addressed them.

Richard says he is not interested in Maori stone-age culture. Maori people did live in stone age when they met Europeans, but since that time they lived in a constant interaction with the industrial world of Europe, in the interaction of challenges, hopes and disappointments. They ceased to be a stone-age culture a long time ago. Richard also says he is not interested in the culture of “his neighbours”, the people he shares this land with. It is a very egocentric state of being, probably doing more harm to him than to his “neighbours” who he doesn’t want to know. He has a right to have that attitude, however, it is nothing to be proud of.

Richard says Maori people are victims of their genetics and predisposed to crime etc. Most of the comments labelled this view as racist, I am not sure why. He neither discriminate anybody based on their race nor he suggests anybody else should. He states what he believes. Do not get me wrong. When I say Richard’s view is not racist I am not defending him. I believe his view is worse than racist. He does not discriminate, he damns. He damns an ethnic group and its individuals to “hell”, he says they have no future, there is no hope for them. This is incorrect from the points of view of both genetics and anthropology. It is also morally wrong, I hope we all can agree on that.

At the start of this article I mentioned the lack of public discussion and the sad state of our journalism. Perhaps I used strong words. What I meant was this. The responders did not argue, they only expressed their disgust and labelled as “racist” those opinions that they did not like. That seems to be a standard nowadays. Opinions I don’t like are racist or discriminatory. And I am disgusted.

The state of our journalism is sad because the journalist copies and pastes a bunch of opinions without any reflection on the topic and ideas surrounding it and publishes the piece as an “article”. No opinion on what is right or wrong, what is true or false, and why, is expressed. Just emotions. The louder group wins.