sr71

Not taboo at all regarding the history, but any form of disrespect shown to any people who fought for us in the 1st and 2nd World Wars really irks me.

Genesis

NZ has no history??????????????????????? WTF?????????????????

englishheaven

All i am saying is that Galliopli was no more a NZ campaign that a British one. Its just that for the British it is only one in a very long line of military actions whereas NZ has very little to be proud of in history being a young country.

Officer Dibble

You would be lynched for saying that in Australia.

Not by me though....

sr71

Actually it really is the Aussies who are completely obsessive about it as it was the first combat that they were involved in at all.

NZ had already been involved in the Boer war and of course the Maori land wars.

Bo-Jangles

The dark side of New Zealand, domestic violence, Tony Veitch and the pathetic judiciary system that gave this TV personality 300 hours community service for breaking a woman's back.

Mgee

I've been following this thread with curiosity and I must admit that I am really surprised at suggestions of NZ not having a long history or a history to be proud of.

I'm sorry, but claiming that young(ish) nations cannot be proud of their history is laughable -and to some extent also offensive. History is traditionally written and defined by the conquerors, and claiming that a place had no history to be proud of before it was conquered in one way or another, is just plain ridiculous. My country was first part of Sweden for centuries and then a part of Russia for about a century, yet it is not the history or culture of those nations but our own that we are proud of and by which we define ourselves. We are proud of our unique fenno-ugric culture and language, and to define our history by any other criteria would be wrong: we were conquered but it does not mean we do not have a history reaching to the time before that. Just like the Maori, we existed a long time before the Swedes or Russians decided to invade, and just like them we have a long history that we can be proud of. As a nation state, we are only 91 years old (92 in December), but the Finnish culture and language have existed for thousands of years -even though the foreign rulers did their best at times to suppress both. Claiming that a young nation does not have a history has no basis whatsoever: the existance of a nation as a state and its history are not directly related to each other.

In any case the nation state as a concept is only about 150 years old: The idea of "one nation one state" only really took on in the mid-19th century. Before that, cultures with their own history, language and customs used to belong to whichever multi-cultural kingdom, empire or country that happened to cover the area and the borders of the countries tended to change a lot. Thus talking about history of a nation state is more or less arbitrary in any case -it is almost always the history of people and their culture in a certain area that we should talk about. Even the history of United Kingdom is a combination of the histories of the Celts, the Anglo-Saxons, the Picts, the Welsh, the English, the Scots, the Manx, the Cornish etc. going back way before anyone was talking about the United Kingdom or even England or Scotland. In the similar manner New Zealand's history extends beyond the "discovery" of it or before it was named first as Staten Land and later as New Zealand. And the modern NZ's history is also a history of the Scots, the Irish, the English, the Germans and of countless other nations and cultures whose people have contributed to the history of NZ and to the Kiwi culture as it is today.

My point: it is not possible to select a moment in time and declare that a history of a certain place begins there and say that before that the place had no history. The history of a place began long before anyone was there to witness it or call it a history. The version of history we learn at school tends to be more or less biased and based more on political history than cultural history, and thinking that a place doesn't have thousands of years of history just because us Europeans were not yet there is erroneous. NZ most definitely has a long history and the Kiwis should be proud of it.

THR

Does someone in NZ or Australia get offended being told that some houses in London are older than the entire history of your country? So what would be the appropriate answer.

dorrick

THR - the appropriate comment is usually - yes, you are into history but we are still doing geography

sr71

No, they shouldn't be offended. It's more a comment on the person that is saying it than anything else. It is petty, boorish and unintelligent.

Bellasmum

If I was you I would go back and slowly read the post you responded to.

By the way NZ has a very colourfull history, maybe not a long one but none the less an interesting one which I happen to be very proud (even my colonial lot). Most families I know are similar to my own with complex heritage.

If there was any part of my heritage here I would question it would be my NH bones that came here in 1819.

Bellasmum

well said. I am hopeful that other posters will take the time to read your post.

History is traditionally written and defined by the conquerors

The only real NZ history I learnt during my schooldays was from my own family.

Both geography and history lessons were focused on the NH. Our Maori history was leaning Waiata and stick games and how lucky we were that Pakeha came to civilise us

What many see as racism in NZ is a race of people reclaiming their right to be who they really are after years of immersion into a culture with alien concepts and values.

Bellasmum

As someone who works in the CJS may I respectfyully point out that you consider more than the media hype in relation to any criminal procedures.

Grizz

Mgee that was very well put.

After the 1745 rebellion the English banned the wearing of Tartan and the Bagpipes in Scotland, they made every attempt they could, to suppress the culture and history of the Scots. This was the norm' for any conquering nation, and now some are claiming a lack of history. Any culture that is as unique as the Maori and Aboriginal culture is surely evidence of a history going back thousands of years.

MrCFD

I think that there is some confusion on this thread as to what history actually means.

History is a study of the past with particular reference to written/visible records and evidence. A number of the posts on here are referring to culture and mythology rather than history. The Maori did not have any written records of their arrival in NZ, and the verbal records are limited at best.

I agree that it may be somewhat arrogant to discount their culture and beliefs, but referring solely to their history as a record of past events (the way in which the term has been used since the 15th century), then their history is indeed limited. They existed before the Europeans arrived, but visible historical evidence is very much lacking relative to European cultures. There is no denying that fact, just as there is no denying the fact that there is more historical evidence of WW2 than there is of Pythagorus writing his theorem in the Sahara Desert for the Martians to see how intelligent we are.