FACTS, NOT FANTASIES

Over the years I’ve seen repeatedly how some people prefer to sink clinging to an elegant fantasy of their own making rather than float with an ugly fact. 

Those who ignore the ugly facts of historical and contemporary crown thefts from whanau hapu iwi provide a case in point when they talk or write about fantasies like “the Ngapuhi settlement”, “the Ngati Kahu settlement,” or other events that don’t exist outside of their own imaginations. 

Fantasy has its place, but as a means to excuse crown criminals or abuse those who fight them – it doesn’t float. 

Here are the plain facts without any analysis or opinion.  Neither Ngapuhi nor Ngati Kahu have settled with the thieves. 

Ngati Kahu has laid out what it will take to fully and finally settle, and anything less will be a partial settlement.  The thieves have made an offer, and Ngati Kahu will respond to them in due course.  Ngapuhi, on the other hand, are still debating whether to engage in the mandating stage of the thieves’ process, or to continue engaging in the claim stage of that process.

This is my brief analysis of those facts.

Under current National and Labour leadership, Ngati Kahu are highly unlikely to settle with the thieves, and even less likely to let them dictate the terms of any future settlement.  Nor is it likely that Ngati Kahu will let the thieves and their allies forget their crimes, however long it takes them to admit and make reparation for them. 

In the meantime the demographics of the country and of the world in general are providing a number of partnership and development options with groups other than the thieves.  At the same time, the strategic application of tikanga is ongoing in Ngati Kahu.  Tenei te hakapumautanga o nga hapu.

As for what the thieves are doing in Ngapuhi, I am reminded of a very ugly historical fact from the Irish side of my whakapapa in which two brothers got into a debate and then a punch up over how to deal with a common enemy. 

It had happened before, and normally both the fight and the debate would have been settled without bloodshed.  Except this time their common enemy stepped forward and held a knife between them.  What an evil thing to do. 

That is what the crown has done with Ngapuhi and Ngati Hine in offering an inducement that guarantees one will be buried by the other while their common enemy remains in control of everything it has stolen from them.  Tena te pānekenekeana o nga hapu.

In closing I note that the thieves kept meticulous records which, along with numerous oral histories, are laid out in great detail in the Muriwhenua Land Report of the Waitangi Tribunal.  

As a result, unlike the claim that Ngapuhi and Ngati Kahu have settled, the claim that the Crown are thieves is proven fact, not fantasy.