Category: New Zealand

Another government-funded organization encourages staff to chant Māori prayers

July 19, 2024 • 9:30 am

Some of you may be wondering why I persistently post on the efforts of New Zealand to interpolate local superstitions and lore into science classes and other government endeavors.  This is not because I hate New Zealand, but because I love it.  I hate to see the country brought down, especially scientifically, by sacralizing the superstitions of the indigenous population. Yes, I admit that the local “way of knowing,” Mātauranga Māori (MM), does contain some empirical trial-and-error knowledge, though most of that knowledge should be conveyed in anthropology and sociology classes. But what’s going on in the country now is the world’s most pervasive form of “wokeness,” though it’s not purely performative because it actually damages the country. And the authorities have ensured that no objection to this ideological capture will be tolerated.

So my occasional reports about New Zealand on this site are meant to let Kiwis know what’s really going on in their country in the hopes that rationality and science won’t be held hostage to the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. Many residents know already, but many also send me documents that can’t be criticized publicly because the sacralization of the oppressed has reached the point where New Zealanders who criticize the intrusion of legend, superstition, and local religion into the workplace are liable to be fired or punished.  I can’t tell you the number of emails I get from Kiwis urging me on, but saying that I can’t publish their names for fear of reprisal.  But since I’m in the U.S., I can at least mention this foolishness without fear of retribution. That’s why some NZ outlets, like this one, simply reproduce the posts I’ve written about what seems to be the world’s worst and most dictatorial form of DEI.

So here is yet another email from a New Zealander wanting me to report on this mishigass, but asking to remain anonymous.  So be it.  The other day I reported how the staff at some locations of Health New Zealand, a government health-promoting agency, were encouraged to say Māori prayers or chants (“karakia“) daily. This practice was originally reported on a NZ website, but the link was sent to me anonymously. The author, A. E. Thompson, noted that “voluntary” prayers aren’t really that voluntary if you’re pressured to say them:

Sure, the email to health staff only used the word “encourage” but really, when your employer issues an email saying that, you know it will be expected and that ignoring or opposing it will be held against you and may cost you your job.

Pressuring state employees and even private company employees to participate in karakia sets a dangerous precedent in eroding separation between state and religion. As we speak, Muslim immigrants in Europe are deliberately imposing their religious practices on non-Muslim populations by having their distorting loudspeakers call dozens or hundreds of faithful to prostrate themselves in prayer on public footpaths and roadways (even though nearby mosques are plentiful). The practice reflects their belief that Islam is so important that everyone either needs to convert to it or be discriminated against or killed.

This is why, in the U.S., “voluntary” prayers are banned in school. This not only violates the First Amendment, but pressures kids to conform to public prayers lest they be ostracized.

Well, now New Zealand has done it again, this time in a hospice largely funded by the government, and in the southern part of the country. The hospice even suggests some prayers, which seem to be Māori.  This was sent to me by someone who requests anonymity for fear of losing their job.

Note that this was sent to the staff of a hospice, not to the residents, and, as usual, it’s full of Māori words (I’ve bolded them) that are there simply as a performative act, since they impede understanding (everyone speaks English, but few, even Māori people, speak the indigenous language). In this case, most have already been translated into English. You can look the words and pharses up in the Maori dictionary, but karakia I’ll define for you (here’s part of it):

incantation, ritual chant, chant, intoned incantation, charm, spell – a set form of words to state or make effective a ritual activity. Karakia are recited rapidly using traditional language, symbols and structures.

It can also refer to Christian prayers, but note in the second paragraph that this effort is being guided by a Māori advisory group. Note as well that the introduction of the karakia are being timed to coincide with the new Moon (the phases of the moon have great significance for Māori life).

The email:

Kia ora team,

I’m emailing you all ahead of a change in the way we manage karakia for our IDT hui/meetings.

I want to acknowledge that karakia to begin and end our IDT hui/meetings started quite abruptly to begin with, and it is my hope, and that of the Māori Advisory Group (MAG), to provide some context and to guide this part of our day in a way that is supportive and makes sense.

Firstly I’ll speak to why work places might look to introduce karakia into everyday activities, such as the IDT meeting. Karakia are an integral part of te ao Māori (the Māori world).

On a functional level karakia:

– Provide a predictable structure to everyday interactions i.e. beginning, middle, end;

– Enable the everyday exchange of whanaungatanga (managing relationships/relationship building) and manaakitanga (hospitality).

– Support the normalisation of te reo me ngā tikanga Māori (Māori language and customs), which I believe in turn lends to:

— The development of skills that enhance our capacity to provide culturally safe care to Aotearoa New Zealand’s indigenous people.

— The development of perspectives that foster cultural humility in our engagements with all.

On a deeper level karakia:

– Support us to collectively connect with and focus in on the context (kaupapa) of the interaction;

– Navigate tapu and noa (separate but corresponding states of being within te ao Māori. Inappropriate association between things that are tapu and noa can impact all dimensions of wellbeing) safely.

– Fortify our holistic wellbeing by engaging with Te Taha Wairua (the spiritual dimension of wellbeing).

Making space for karakia within our workplace is particularly important given the intensity of the mahi (work) we are engaged with as individual clinicians, and as a collective. Our mahi straddles the ordinary and the extraordinary: we support patients, whānau and caregivers as they navigate the threshold between life and death, and support each other to provide this care.

We are going to begin refreshing the IDT karakia (or whakataukī – proverb) in concordance with Whio – the New Moon – as an opportunity to consider and acknowledge both the maramataka (Māori lunar calendar) and pūrākau (stories/legends/myths) inherently relevant to our work at the hospice.

 Our hope is that incorporating such an initiative into OCH processes will support us to:

·        Normalise the use of te reo Māori.

·        Enable the everyday exchange of whanaungatanga and manaakitanga.

·        Grow in our personal and organisational understanding of Māori world views within the palliative context.

·        Equip the team with knowledge that may support us to be more culturally responsive.

·        Foster a sense of interest/curiosity in learning more.

So, with this in mind, and given that the next new moon is July 6th, we will be setting this new initiative in motion on the next working day which is Monday 8th July. On the 8th I’ll speak to the initiative briefly, and then provide some context regarding the new karakia or whakataukī, and we’ll go from there. For those that feel comfortable joining in with reciting the karakia – please feel free to join in – otherwise, please feel free to sit back, relax and tune in to the kupu (words) and the kaupapa of the karakia, kei a koutou (its up to you)!

You will find copies of the karakia or whakataukī we are going to use for the next month attached to this email for your reference.

If you are curious about learning more please check out the piece I have contributed to this months OCHeye coming out soon!

The two karakia enclosed are both Māiru incantations: here’s a screenshot of one:

 

Yes, these are non-religious and could be considered as Māori haiku, but the point is that these are “suggested” incantations, and they are Māori.  Note that these are being introduced to the hospice to bring it into “the Māori world”, and one of the stated reasons for the introduction is “The development of skills that enhance our capacity to provide culturally safe care to Aotearoa New Zealand’s indigenous people” and to ·       “Grow in our personal and organisational understanding of Māori world views within the palliative context.”  Now of course one must be sensitive to the culture of hospice patients, and not insult or agitate them, but prayers aren’t the way—they should use Måori healers or spiritual leaders to do this—and I doubt that everybody in the hospice is of indigenous ancestry.

This is in fact one attempt to indoctrinate the staff with the spiritual aspects of Māori culture. Yes, the prayers are “optional”, but you know what that means, and woe to the person who writes to the boss to object to this effort! What is this doing in a hospice? Are there any atheists or Christians there? In the U.S., this kind of effort would be prohibited as discriminatory and perhaps a violation of the First Amendment. Chaplains are allowed to visit hospitals and say prayers with the patients, but hospital staff are not given “suggestions” to say prayers. But this admixture of superstition and government-funded institutions is not prohibited in New Zealand. Many residents object to it, but they’re so cowed that they can’t even voice their objections for fear of punishment. All over the country, speech has been chilled.

So it goes. I hate to think of what New Zealand will look like in thirty years, when this kind of ideological capture has become the norm.

******

I’ll add that in 2021 the leadership of the University of Auckland, Vice Chancellor Dawn Freshwater, promised that there would be seminars, panels and debates on the virtues of teaching MM as coequal to modern science in university science classes.  That was three years ago, and absolutely nothing has transpired. I’m told that the Māori moiety of the administration has prevented any such debate, but I don’t know for sure. All I know is that when I wrote Dr. Freshwater reminding her of her promises, and asking when this important debate would take place, I got no reply.

Repost with evidence: Health New Zealand “encourages” its employees to say Māori prayers daily

July 18, 2024 • 9:30 am

NOTE:  I put this post up the other day, but then got a very irate email from a Kiwi saying that no, I was WRONG: Health New Zealand, he asserted, never sent around any notice to employees encouraging them to say spiritual prayers (karakia) during the day: a Māori custom.  I objected to this as a mixing of religion and government (governmental health efforts), as well as a partial sacralization of indigenous practices. Because of the correspondent’s objection, and because I had no original evidence for such a notice being sent out—just a reader’s assertion—I pulled the post. I also informed a NZ outlet, which had asked to republish my post, to hold off until they could get evidence that such a notice about karakia was indeed circulated.

The organization in NZ has now procured such evidence, so I’m reposting what I took down, but have added the notice (with a link) verifying the government’s urging employees to pray.  And to the person who told me in very strong terms that no such notice existed, well, this is a family site and I won’t tell him what to do—but you can guess.

My post, now with the notice and a link to it:

This item, from the Breaking Views website in New Zealand, is one of the rare cases of a Kiwi speaking up against forcible adherence to Māori customs on the job—in this case, saying Māori prayers. First, “Health New Zealand,” the organization in question, is a government agency that, according to its own description:

. . . . will manage all health services, including hospital and specialist services, and primary and community care. Hospital and specialist services will be planned nationally and delivered more consistently across the country. Primary and community services will be commissioned through four regional divisions, each of which will network with a range of district offices (Population Health and Wellbeing Networks) who will develop and implement locality plans to improve the health and wellbeing of communities.

And the author of this short plaint, A. E. Thompson, is described as “a working, tax-paying New Zealander who speaks up about threats to our hard-fought rights, liberties, egalitarian values, rational thinking and fair treatment by the state.”  He or she is also courageous! (It’s not clear whether Thompson is employed by Health New Zealand; if so, that won’t be for long!)

The beef is that the government sent out a notice to Health New Zealand’s staff encouraging them to say Māori prayers daily.  From the site:

I was made aware that Health New Zealand recently sent an email to its staff as follows:

“We encourage everyone to incorporate karakia daily. To help support you with this we have created some pre-recorded videos to learn karakia. Our resource is designed to give you some options that will enable you to learn and develop your confidence and skills. Note over time we will be adding more recordings for you to choose from.”

The word ‘karakia’ surely must be a Maorified way of saying ‘prayer’, but it seems very difficult and may be impossible to determine whether the term was used before Europeans arrived or if there were other terms that iwi used for their incantations, chants and verbal offerings of respect to their various spiritual entities. Regardless, karakia almost always involve references to supernatural forces whether they be Christian (in practice, they usually end with ‘amine’), pagan or spiritualist. They often involve communication intended for (usually unspecified) long-dead ancestors.

Massey University assistant lecturer Te Rā Moriarty was quoted as saying: “Karakia allow us to continue an ancestral practice of acknowledging orally the divine forces that we, as Māori, understand as the sources of our natural environment. We call these forces atua. So, it is a way to connect through the words of our tūpuna to the world that we live.”

Here’s the notice that the NZ news site that was going to publish my post eventually found. And yes, it is real, and came with a note:

NAME REDACTED tells me she has been advised that an email was sent to employees and invited them to view the message in their browser.

Click the notice to see the announcement—on a Health New Zealand website. The “you can read more” link doesn’t work for me; it apparently requires credentials to access. But the notice says exactly what my informant claimed.  Yes, the New Zealand government is urging some of its employees to pray daily.

In the Māori dictionary, “karakia” is defined this way:

(noun) incantation, ritual chant, chant, intoned incantation, charm, spell – a set form of words to state or make effective a ritual activity. Karakia are recited rapidly using traditional language, symbols and structures. Traditionally correct delivery of the karakia was essential: mispronunciation, hesitation or omissions courted disaster. . . . .

So what we have is a government agency “encouraging” its staff to chant to supernatural powers in hope of connecting to one’s ancestors (tūpuna). This encouragement, of course, violates the separation of church and state, and is an unwarranted sop to the indigenous people. (New Zealand, of course, doesn’t have a First Amendment.)  It’s one more sign of how the sacralization of the oppressed is spreading in New Zealand.  Of course these prayers have no effect, and encouraging the descendants of “colonists” to say them is to force one’s beliefs on others who may not share them.

Thompson has a few words about this:

We can choose not to attend places where the religious practices feel offensive or intolerant to us, and the hosts in those places can exercise similar choice about visiting our spaces.

However, when we are employed and rely upon that employment for our survival, we don’t have the choice to avoid our place of employment. Being employed in a state service under a secular government, workers should have choice over whether they participate even passively in practices involving claimed spiritual entities or supernatural beliefs. Expecting employees to participate denies their right to choose to follow their own religion or philosophical belief and not other people’s, a characteristic of totalitarian rule.

This is especially true in New Zealand, where refusal to sacralize the presumed “oppressed” is sometimes punished severely, with threats of losing one’s job. Thompson’s piece continues:

Sure, the email to health staff only used the word “encourage” but really, when your employer issues an email saying that, you know it will be expected and that ignoring or opposing it will be held against you and may cost you your job.

Pressuring state employees and even private company employees to participate in karakia sets a dangerous precedent in eroding separation between state and religion. As we speak, Muslim immigrants in Europe are deliberately imposing their religious practices on non-Muslim populations by having their distorting loudspeakers call dozens or hundreds of faithful to prostrate themselves in prayer on public footpaths and roadways (even though nearby mosques are plentiful). The practice reflects their belief that Islam is so important that everyone either needs to convert to it or be discriminated against or killed.

As usual, I was sent this with the assumption that the sender would remain anonymous. Thompson, however, clearly has some guts, for even if he/she doesn’t work for Health New Zealand, it’s a huge risk to publish something like this anywhere.

NZ science fair project aims to prove the truth of an indigenous legend

July 8, 2024 • 9:25 am

This is one small example, but an important one, of how science in New Zealand is being corrupted by trying to comport it with the indigenous “way of knowing”, Mātauranga Māori (MM).

The article below, from the July 4 New Zealand Herald (the biggest newspaper in the country) describes a science fair in the town of Rotorua, highlighting one student project that “tests” whether they could “prove” that a legend might be true.  (There are other projects highlighting MM and indigenous knowledge.)

This was sent to me anonymously, for of course criticizing stuff like this in New Zealand could cost you your job and/or your reputation.  The indigenous people, their myths, and their “ways of knowing” are regarded as sacred and untouchable.

The story is that of the love story of Tūtānekai and Hinemoa, recounted in Grey’s ‘Polynesian Mythology’, first published in 1855. The legend involves a Māori man who wanted to run away with a woman, and lured her to an island in a lake by playing his flute:

Every night Tūtānekai sat on a high hill and played his flute, the wind carrying his music across the lake to Hinemoa’s home. But Hinemoa did not come. Her people had suspected her intention, and they had pulled all the canoes high up on the shore.

Every night Hinemoa heard the sound of her lover’s flute and wept because she could not go to him. Eventually she wondered if it be possible to swim across to Tūtānekai.

Hinemoa took six hollow gourds and fastened them to her body to buoy her up. The night was dark and the great lake cold. Her heart was beating with terror, but the flute played on. She stood on a rock by the shore and there she left her garments, entered the water and began to swim.

In the darkness she could see no land, having only Tūtānekai’s flute to guide her, and led by that sweet sound she arrived at last to the island.

At the place where she landed, she found a hot pool and went in to warm herself, for she was trembling with cold.

And all went well after that. I find it bizarre that a group of students wanted to test whether this was true, when what they were really testing whether it was possible. 

Click below to read:

Bolding is mine, and the excerpts from the article are indented:

A group of Rotorua children have used science to prove whether the basis of the legendary love story of Hinemoa and Tūtānekai is true.

They concluded it very well could be.

Te Arawa Lakes Trust’s Te Tūkohu Ngāwhā Mātauranga Māori Science and Design Fair is in its third year.

It aimed to celebrate the intersection of Mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) and science, and give students a platform to showcase innovative projects and designs.

There were 35 exhibits in its first year. Last year grew to about 40, and this year more than 100.

Topics covered five categories and ranged from projects focusing on water quality and rongoā (traditional Māori medicines) to investigating a legendary love story.

The latter involved a group from Te Rangihakahaka Centre for Science and Technology looking at the legend of star-crossed lovers Hinemoa and Tūtānekai.

[Rongoā involves not only herbal medicines, but prayer and massage.]

Note that the intent was to prove whether a legend was true, though this language could have been from the reporter and not the students. But the aim of the project was surely to find whether a Māori legend might actually be based on fact:

 

The story, told in the song Pokarekare Ana, is about how beautiful chief’s daughter, Hinemoa, fell in love with lower-ranked suitor, Tūtānekai, and swam across Lake Rotorua to be with him on Mokoia Island when she heard his flute calling to her.

The students decided to test whether she would have been able to hear the sound of his flute from across the water.

The group looked at how various conditions impacted on how loud the flute would have been and how it would have gotten louder as Hinemoa swam across Lake Rotorua.

With transmission loss expected between 30-40 decibels, it would have been soft at first: “a sound like wind in the trees”.

Conditions needed to be calm. No wind; glassy water; cold; overcast and no ripples.

Conclusion: “it would be audible”.

This, of course, depends on how loudly Tūtānekai was playing and whether conditions were right (which of course we cannot know), but I suppose if he was playing to attract his lady love, it would have been loud. (I saw the famous island when I was in Rotorua.)

But the problem with this is that it melds legend with science and, by so doing, mistakes the question “is the story not ruled out by analysis of sound?” with the question that science would ask: “what is the evidence that the story is true?”  And since the story is based solely on a legend transmitted orally and then written down by a European in a book on Polynesian mythology, it has low credibility from the outset.  There are of course dozens of such stories that could be analyzed to see if  bits of them are ruled out by what we know of physical reality, but saying that “they’re not” is not the same as “proving” them. In other words, the Bayesian priors for the truth of this myth were low at the outset, and the probability that this really happened is not substantially increased by analysis of flute sounds.

Further, there are dozens of Māori legends that could not have been true, like the claim that their Polynesian ancestors discovered Antarctica in the seventh century, and in a canoe made of human bones. (This claim is still being advanced by a group of Māori academics.) Maybe there should be a science-fair project seeing if a canoe made of human bones could even float!

There’s a bit more:

Te Arawa Lakes Trust environment officer Keeley Grantham said categories were broad, which meant there was an “amazing array” of projects.

. . .“We’re not just looking at Western science, we’re looking at mitigating environmental issues through a whole heap of different lenses, especially through our te ao Māori lens.

“And enabling kids to broaden their scope of knowledge and just really build upon what they already know and just continue networking and sharing their kaupapa with other tamariki and other people that work in this field.”

About 16 kura (schools) were involved and “at least” 250 children. Groups and individuals could take part.

We have the usual mischaracterization of science as “Western” (science is now worldwide), as opposed to another way of knowing:  “looking at things through our “te ao Māori lens.”  A translation of “te ao Māori“:

Te Ao Māori encompasses the holistic worldview of the Māori people, reflecting an interconnected relationship between the natural world, people, and spirituality. The values embedded within Te Ao Māori offer a framework that aligns seamlessly with collectivist ideals, fostering a sense of unity and shared purpose.

 Whoops, there’s some spirituality in there, as well as values. That is one problem with regarding MM as a “way of knowing”, as the empirical knowledge in it is inextricably bound up with legend, religion, ideology, ethics, and superstition. And this mixture of legend and empirical observation is precisely why the student project is misguided. For surely it was designed to give credibility to Māori legends and to MM.  Were I the teacher, I would have guided students away from projects like this, which simply misleads them about the nature of scientific investigation.

With this kind of stuff encouraged by teachers, is it any wonder that science in New Zealand is circling the drain? Trying to comport it with indigenous legend is simply going to confuse people and, perhaps, drive them out of going into what the article calls “Western” science.

**********

Translation of the other terms above, taken from the Māori dictionary (note that they’re presented in an English-language newspaper without explanation, and I’m guessing very few readers understand them):

kaupapa:  topic, policy, matter for discussion, plan, purpose, scheme, proposal, agenda, subject, programme, theme, issue, initiative.

tamariki:  children – normally used only in the plural.

 

More woo funded in New Zealand—money for vitalism disguised as science

July 4, 2024 • 9:45 am

New Zealand, which is still moving towards integrating science and woo, has combined them again in a new summer fellowship offered by the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland (below) The supervisors are Professor Cate Macinnis-Ng, an ecologist, and Sarah Rewi, a research fellow.

I’m not sure whether these fellowships are funded by the Kiwi government, though I’m guessing they are because the U of A is a state school. This means that the project below is likely funded by NZ taxpayers. Importantly, it combines science with woo, in the form of Mātauranga Māori (MM), the indigenous “way of knowing” that includes some empirical trial-and-error knowledge, tradition, religion, story-telling, ethics, sociology, and sundry forms of spirituality. Co-supervisor Dr. Rewi has studied how MM “informs” the study of sooty shearwaters and grey-faced petrels.  In that study, the contribution of MM apparently included advice from elders on where and when to kill the chicks for food, and, usefully, how to rotate chick harvest among areas. Because MM includes some real empirical knowledge, it’s not all bunk, but there’s no need to meld MM and science when you can simply incorporate the genuine empirical knowledge of MM (which is scant compared to the amount of woo) into science.

See the ad here (scroll down at the link) or click below:


Here’s a description of the position as noted above; bolding is mine:

With interests in mātauranga-based science research on the rise, it is important these forms of research are responsive to Māori community needs. Understanding the impact of land-use, particularly agricultural activity, on groundwater resources is of key concern to Māori. This project will involve field-based work and data analysis researching into spatial patterns of groundwater chemical composition and microbial communities. It will examine how scientific indicators can assist mana whenua in their assessment of the state of the water’s mauri. No specific skills are required but it is recommended that the candidate has an interest in the interface between mātauranga and science. It is a requirement that the student has whakapapa Māori.

Note that no specific skills are required but you have to be willing to meld MM and science (bolding is mine). And you apparently have to be Māori, so in that sense it’s a racially biased ad. As reader Peter said, who found the ad, “Imagine if a student had to prove they had English ancestry to get a grant to study Roman Britain.”

What do the Māori words mean in the ad? Remember, even most Māori don’t speak the language fluently, and many don’t speak it at all, while European descendants of “colonists” have the language forced upon them without translation, probably because of sacralization of all things Māori. At any rate, here are translations:

Mana whenua, as defined in the Māori dictionary, means this:

(noun) territorial rights, power from the land, authority over land or territory, jurisdiction over land or territory – power associated with possession and occupation of tribal land. The tribe’s history and legends are based in the lands they have occupied over generations and the land provides the sustenance for the people and to provide hospitality for guests.

Apparently the ad means that the research is aimed at helping local people lean some stuff about groundwater, like what spirits it embodies. But things really go into the weeds when we look at the definition of mauri:

Mauri (noun) life principle, life force, vital essence, special nature, a material symbol of a life principle, source of emotions – the essential quality and vitality of a being or entity. Also used for a physical object, individual, ecosystem or social group in which this essence is located.

As Nick Matzke, an American scientist working in New Zealand, noted here, here and here, mauri is simple vitalism, the view that all objects are imbued with some undefined “life force”.  In a letter to the New Zealand Herald, Nick correctly noted that mauri, which is worming itself into the NZ science curriculum, is simple pseudoscience:

Unfortunately, the concept of ‘life force’ is a well-known pseudoscience, known as vitalism. Vitalism was experimentally debunked by chemists in the 1800s. Having a government agency force it back into the chemistry curriculum by political fiat — while steamrolling the vehement and informed objections of science teachers — is a huge problem. Vitalism is a pseudoscientific error on the same level as asserting that the Earth is flat, or that the world is only 6,000 years old. If vitalism is right, then all of chemistry and biochemistry is wrong.

And so is biology! (See my post on the incursion of mauri into chemistry and electrical engineering.)

To say that the funding will help the locals assess “the state of the water’s mauri“, then, is to say nothing; it’s like saying the project will help assess the state of the water’s Christianity. There is no mauri that we know of, so this is a funded search for nothing.

Finally, what is the single qualification to get the money and do this “science”? The student must have “whakapapa Māori”, which apparently means Māori ancestry. Here’s the definition of the first word (Māori, of course, are the indigenous people, descended from voyaging Polynesians):

Whakapapa. (noun) genealogy, genealogical table, lineage, descent – reciting whakapapa was, and is, an important skill and reflected the importance of genealogies in Māori society in terms of leadership, land and fishing rights, kinship and status. It is central to all Māori institutions. There are different terms for the types of whakapapa and the different ways of reciting them including: tāhū (recite a direct line of ancestry through only the senior line); whakamoe (recite a genealogy including males and their spouses); taotahi (recite genealogy in a single line of descent); hikohiko (recite genealogy in a selective way by not following a single line of descent); ure tārewa (male line of descent through the first-born male in each generation).

In other words, unless I’m mistaken, the only requirement for this fellowship is that the student has Māori ancestry. This, of course, is ethnicity-based hiring, eliminating all requirements for the position save one’s ancestry, which must be indigenous.  This would be illegal in America, but it’s both legal and encouraged in New Zealand.

I’ve given up hope for the future of science in New Zealand, a country with a proud scientific past. In a misguided effort to incorporate indigenous “ways of knowing” into science, of which this ad is one example, the NZ government is busy ruining science education in the country. I had hoped that the newish Luxon government would do better then the damaged wrought by the Ardern administration, but the opprobrium towards criticizing anything indigenous seems permanently engrained.

Māori force indigenous prayer on secular district-council meeting

January 29, 2024 • 12:00 pm

Meanwhile, the fun continues in New Zealand, as this article from Te Ao, which conveys Māori news, attests.  In fact, there’s a video, so you can see the whole episode, as well as a transcript of the video.

Here’s what happened: A local district council met and one of the participants wanted to recite a Māori prayer—a karakia— to open the meeting. Here’s how Wikipedia characterizes the term:

Karakia are Māori incantations and prayer used to invoke spiritual guidance and protection.  They are generally used to increase the spiritual goodwill of a gathering, so as to increase the likelihood of a favourable outcome, such as at a court hearing. They are also considered a formal greeting when beginning a ceremony.

The new mayor said “no”, saying was running a “secular council” that “respects everyone”. The Māori prayer woman kept insisting on reciting the prayer and the mayor kept saying “no”. As you’ll see in the video below, some minutes later she finally flouted the mayor and burst out reciting her prayer in Māori, while other council members chimed in or gave an “amen”. Here’s the text:

Conflict has erupted at a council meeting over a mayor’s decision to shutdown a wahine Māori councillor wishing to recite karakia, before the opening of business.

Kaipara District Council met for the first time Wednesday, under new Mayor Craig Jepson, elected at October’s local elections.

As is customary in councils and at the opening of parliament, Māori Ward councillor Pera Paniora, of Te Moanaui o Kaipara, wanted to begin the meeting with a karakia.

“Excuse me, just before we start, through the chair may I say the karakia?” Paniora said.

Jepson charged on saying ‘you cannot interrupt, sorry’.

Paniora stated her case explaining the tikanga of karakia, which appeared to trigger Jepson.

“This is a council that’s full of people who are non-religious, religious, of different ethnicities and I intend to run a secular council here which respects everybody and I will not be veering from that. Thank you.” he rebuked.

“I don’t agree with that.” Paniora said.

“You cannot interject,” Jepson struck back.

Paniora tried a final time by saying ‘Excuse me for those who do practice…’ but was ultimately shut down.

“Councillor Paniora, you are not allowed to speak in this manner and we will continue with our meeting.” Jepson said.

“It doesn’t really feel like a meeting,” a third councillor interjected.

Paniora appeared to give up, however in a throw back 20 minutes later she said the karakia and members of her supporters sang Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi as part of her maiden speech.

“Seen as I wasn’t able to do the karakia this morning, it’s better late than never.” she said.

Fellow councillors and attendees in the public gallery could be heard closing the prayer in unison, with a collective ‘āmene’.

It’s clear that the article is written to show the hornéd secular mayor as the demon, even though New Zealand is a secular country. But of course the Māori must have special exemptions because they are indigenous. Note the repeated references that a karakia, which is in effect a verbal superstition (analogous to knocking on wood when you say something wishful) is customary.  The mayor, whom I consider enlightened, wanted to change that. But he didn’t get away with it, and I’m betting he won’t be reelected!  If this were in the U.S., also formally a secular country, the Freedom from Religion Foundation would be all over these councils, forcing them to stop saying their prayers.

The lesson: in New Zealand, when it comes to foisting superstition and religion on the public, the Māori always get their way. I hope to Ceiling Cat that they don’t suceeed in imbuing science education in schools with their superstitions, which they keep trying to do.

You can see the video and article by clicking below:

h/t: Luana

A powerful University dean in New Zealand touts merging higher education with indigenous spirituality

December 8, 2023 • 11:00 am

This article from New Zealand’s Newsroom site was written by Julie Rowland,  the deputy dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Auckland as well as a geologist and the Director of the Ngā Ara Whetū | Centre for Climate, Biodiversity & Society. In other word, she’s a scientist.

One key to what the article is about is given by its subtitle, ”

The University of Auckland’s Julie Rowland examines the notion that education should be secular and devoid of any form of spirituality

And of course you know that she’ll come down on the “science + spirituality = progress” side. Click below to read, and I’ll give a few excerpts:

First she invokes the Treaty of Waitangi, (1840), which guaranteed the indigenous Māori people rights to hold onto their land and villages, as well as granting them the same rights as British citizens, though the country would be governed by England (called “the Crown”). The treaty (called “Te Tiriti”) is now interpreted to mean that indigenous people get roughly half of everything, and can insert their “way of knowing” (Mātauranga Māori, or MM), which includes religion, myths, gods, morality, and some practical knowledge, into everything academic:

Science is a rational pursuit of knowledge, but it does not exist in splendid isolation. If this is painted as the ‘ideal’ science, then it is incomplete. People do science, and people and their culture/s are inseparable.

In Aotearoa/New Zealand our nation’s origins lie with the Treaty of Waitangi. The Treaty is a formal agreement with the third article guaranteeing Māori equal rights and privileges. That means access to education within a system that seeks to fulfil the potential of every individual.

I suspect the heart of the issue is the notion that education should be secular and devoid of any form of spirituality. Proponents of this view would say a karakia (sometimes interpreted as a prayer) to open or close an event, or before guests eat afternoon tea, has no place in education. But in the context of Māori practices and values, and bringing Treaty articles to life, this makes perfect sense. And is absolutely integral.

Integral to what? Apparently not just to teatime prayers, but to all education:

Over the past three decades, Māori values, which are inextricably linked to spirituality, have been taken more seriously by the education sector resulting in a shift in the meaning of a secular education. For example, by 1999, all primary and some specialist (physical education) secondary teachers were required to factor spiritual well-being into their teaching programmes. If you’d been trained to think that spirituality has no part in education, as I did then, this was challenging.

But consider the alternative. If Māori values are parked outside state education, who is education for, and on what terms? Clearly, this scenario disregards every aspect of  Te Tiriti o Waitangi and wider indigenous rights.

No, it just makes education secular instead of religious. While it’s okay to teach the small amount of secular knowledge that Māori have garnered (when to harvest berries or shellfish, etc.) into “science,” there is no need to make “spirituality”, including myths and gods that are simply fictional, an integral part of “knowledge”.

And about the Christians, Jews, and Buddhists who are “parked outside education”?  Here we arrive at the crux of the matter: people like Rowland think that Māori spirituality MUST be part of education, apparently ignorant of the fact that there are other people participating in education in New Zealand— people who don’t buy the myths of MM.

Remember that the author is a big official at Auckland University, and her final words imply that not only must MM be part of a university education, but is essential to remedy “inequities” (presumably the lower achievement of Māori students than white or Asian students). The idea is that if Māori students don’t see their culture in every part of their college education, it will make them do worse in college. But it will also drag down college education in general by diluting the search for truth—the real benefit of college—with a form of social justice that asserts falsehoods about the universe:

In my view, efforts to acknowledge and understand mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) enrich the capacity of students and staff to connect across different world views, which is critical if we are to address the inequities in Aotearoa, let alone global crises like climate change. Acknowledgement and understanding of beliefs leads to richer engagement and the building of a relationship of equals.

Universities are the last in the education line to grapple with the duality that comes with meeting Treaty obligations. There is widespread support for this among academics who see the relevance in multiple ways. Our universities are not at a crossroads choosing the path of the universality of science or a race-based ideology. We are on a dual carriageway and the momentum is building.

Well, fine. Let MM be taught in sociology or anthropology classes as one of several forms of religious belief in New Zealand.  But not in science class! Remember that there is a constant fight in NZ to make MM coequal with science in science class. I thought that misguided effort had waned, but according to Rowland it’s the right thing to do.

Unfortunately, Rowland doesn’t specify where her “dual carriageway” is leading. One thing is for sure: teaching MM is not going to do anything about mitigating global warming. Yes, getting more people into science will help science advance, but pushing a quasi-religion as science, just because of a treaty in 1840 which was largely prescientific, is only going to lower the quality of education in New Zealand.

New Zealand academics decry the decline of their country’s universities

November 21, 2023 • 11:15 am

This article, published from Wellington in The Post (formerly The Dominion Post), has two names on the masthead but a ton of other academics at well known universities signing on to the sentiments. The sentiments are that Kiwi universities have slipped in the world’s academic rankings for a number of reasons. The authors (and signers) then offer list of 13 fixes designed to restore university quality. I don’t know if the new government will enact them, but they should certainly listen. 

The authors:

Distinguished Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger is the head of the Institute for Advanced Study and director of the Centre for Theoretical Chemistry and Physics (CTCP) at Massey University Auckland. John Raine is Emeritus Professor of Engineering at Auckland University of Technology. This article is co-authored or endorsed by multiple other academics, as listed at the end.

The thesis:

OPINION: New Zealand has long aimed to provide a world-class tertiary education system that compared well with other countries that have strong education systems.

However, over the last decade universities have become progressively inward- rather than outward-focused. Long-term underfunding, aggravated by a large and increasingly stifling bureaucracy, have made it very hard for academics to achieve excellence in both teaching and research.

Consequently, New Zealand universities are declining in international rankings. The following (perhaps incomplete) list of actions addresses shortfalls in our university system, where we request urgent action from the incoming Government.

And the suggestions, which is mostly a list, though I’ve included some of the explanations (all material from the article is indented. Bolding is from the authors. My own comments are flush left

1: Strong Government and university internal policies must be developed and enforced to protect academic freedom and freedom of expression.
Such policies also need to prevent racial slurs and attacks. Many academics are reluctant to challenge political activism on campus for fear of personal and professional marginalisation.
Freedom of speech (including the freedom to dissent) needs to be better enshrined within our universities.

2: A baseline review of the Government funding model for New Zealand universities is well overdue. Government funding per equivalent full-time student (EFTS) has been substantially lower than the OECD average over the past 20 years or more (for example, 60% of Australian funding levels), and this funding is slanted more towards student support than direct institutional funding by comparison with others; for example, Australia.

3: Universities should preferably use a funding model that is not solely based on full-time equivalent student numbers.

4: The non-academic to academic staff ratio, which is at 1.5, should be reduced to an acceptable level (<1.0).

Good lord! I don’t know whether a 1.5 ratio is normal in the U.S., but this sounds like too much administration.

5: Academics should have more input into decision-making through senates and academic boards. Both should have the power to challenge or, in some cases, veto decisions handed down by senior administrative staff, even to the extent of filing a no-confidence vote.

This next one is something a group of us have published about: the need to judge science by merit alone rather than ethnicity or ideology. But that applies to all areas of academics, and is instantiated in the University of Chicago by our Shils Report, which lays out the criteria for academic appointments. I’m not sure whether this takes into account the “affirmative action” that the entire country practices with respect to the indigenous people, the Māori:

6: Universities must be driven by a continuous search for excellence and a merit-based system of recruitment, selection and promotion for staff and students, and not by ideological, political or racial motives. A review of all university administrative policies needs to be conducted, including such issues as the balance between equal opportunity and non-merit based enrolment preferences.

7: We should create programmes to support disadvantaged students in terms of paying for their study fees through stipends if they fulfil certain criteria of excellence.

Another proposal to base achievement on merit:

8: The Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF) has moved away from assessing research excellence and is increasingly aligned with social and political issues. The PBRF has reached a stage of diminishing returns due to the high implementation cost of the quality evaluation (in excess of $60 million) every six years. The PBRF should be superseded by a less-financially-costly system to assign funding based on internationally benchmarked research excellence.

9: Academic staff today are highly vulnerable as employees and need to be better protected at our universities. Core areas of strength in the sciences, engineering, law, commerce and humanities must be retained and protected, together with certain niche areas at some universities. It is absolutely unacceptable that, for example, areas of international research strength in the sciences are to be cut under current academic staff reductions plans. . .

Below: the NCEA is the National Certificate of Educational Achievement, New Zealand’s certification and ranking of student secondary-school achievement. There are three levels, and to go to college you not only have to pass level 3, but get a good enough score, which will also determine where you get to go to college. They’re also used when applying for jobs or trying to get into overseas schools.

10: Very poor NCEA results, along with the decade-long decline in other international benchmarks of student achievement, such as PISA and TIMSS, have led to a situation where there are fewer and fewer students every year able to study successfully in STEM subjects at university.

11: Addressing shortages of graduates in specific professions requires many more students to leave secondary school with mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology at NCEA Level 3.

Below: according to Wikipedia, the TEC is “The Tertiary Education Commission. . . . responsible for administering the funding of tertiary education, primarily through negotiated investment plans with each funded organisation.  I’ll leave it to the Kiwis to explain this one:

12: A zero-based review of the TEC is required, with a potential reduction in the compliance requirements that it imposes on universities. This should include stopping the penalising of low-pass rate courses through the removal of related student- achievement component (SAC) EFTS funding, an issue that has substantially arisen because of declining school leaver academic standards.

and. . .

13: A complete reboot of the Department of Immigration is urgently needed, with an absolute requirement that response times for international student visa approvals come down to a few days rather than a few months.

The summary:

We believe that our universities are currently at high risk of becoming mediocre inward-looking institutions. Academic staff are frustrated to the extent that many want or are about to leave New Zealand. We believe that New Zealand deserves better.

We ask the Government to review the current status of our university system and its funding model, and to address our list of actions.

I predicted that NZ academics would start leaving as the achievement of students, which depends in large part on government programs, keeps dropping. It appears particularly severe in the STEM fields (perhaps because I’m sensitive to them), but both math and reading achievement are seriously endangered in New Zealand.

Here’s the panoply of academics who signed the letter. Several of them were among the seven faculty (two now deceased) who signed the controversial 2021 Listener Letter, “In Defense of Science” decrying “other ways of knowing” being taught as coequal to science in Kiwi science classes.

This article is co-written and/or endorsed by the following academics who deeply care about the New Zealand tertiary education system. In alphabetical order: Emeritus Prof Rex Ahdar (Otago University), Prof Joachim Brand (Massey University), Prof Dianne Brunton (Massey University), Prof Ananish Chaudhuri (Auckland University), Prof Kendall Clements (Auckland University), Prof Garth Cooper (Auckland University), Prof Douglas Elliffe (Auckland University), Emeritus Curator Dr Brian Gill (Auckland Museum), Prof Russell Gray (Auckland University, MPI Leipzig), Prof Natasha Hamilton-Hart (Auckland University ), Emeritus Prof Geoff Jameson ( Massey University ), Prof Sebastian Leuzinger (Auckland University of Technology), Dr David Lillis (Wellington), Dr Brenda Lobb (Auckland), Prof Peter Lockhart (Massey University), Distinguished Prof Gaven Martin (Massey University ), Prof Anthony Poole ( Auckland University ), Emeritus Prof John Raine (AUT), Prof Elizabeth Rata (Auckland University ), Professor Mark Richards (Otago University), Emeritus Prof Mick Roberts (Massey University ), Distinguished Prof Peter Schwerdtfeger (Massey University ), Prof Jeffery Tallon ( Victoria University), Dr Joyce Lady Waters (Massey University ), Prof W Lindsey White (Auckland University of Technology), Prof Georg Zellmer (Massey University).