REVIEW: The veneer is radical, but the substance is not.

Review of a Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou Struggle Without End (Revised Edition), by Ranginui Walker

Abstract

Review of Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou Struggle Without End (Revised Edition), by Ranginui Walker

Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou represented a challenge to the more sanitised versions of history that tended to present New Zealand as a harmonious and progressive nation in a world otherwise characterised by incessant ethnic conflict, racism and division. This romanticism, originally encapsualted in Hobson's decree at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi that New Zealand was 'one nation, one people', had become firmly entrenched in the conciousness of many New Zealanders.