AN OPEN LETTER TO TWO ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS AT WAIKATO UNIVERSITY

Dear Associate Professor Leonie Pihama and Associate Professor Tom Roa,

You have both seized the opportunity you perceive in the recent appalling tragedy in Christchurch to present what one of you calls “colonial terror and violence since 1642”[1] with the other saying “Maori had been victims to acts of terrorism in Aotearoa in the past”.[2] And Police Deputy Commissioner of Maori and Ethnic Services Wally Haumaha chimes in, about “historical killings of Maori at different times and across the country during early colonisation”.[3]