Entry 2450, on 2026-07-30 at 17:12:48 (Rating 4, News)
New Zealand was infected with woke ideology a bit later than most other countries, and we are ridding ourselves of its noxious presence a bit later than some others as well. But there are clear signs that it is happening: the age of woke is over. The question is: will we go too far in the other direction, in the way I often suggest happens when describing political swings?
Well, maybe not. A recent announcement here symbolised this issue quite well. New Zealand is composed of two main islands, and there are ferry services which run between them. Two new ferries are on order and the names of these were recently made public. They will be called "Cook" and "Kupe", Cook being the British explorer whose voyages eventually lead to the colonisation of the country, and Kupe being the traditional Maori voyager who first landed here.
So to me this seems like a good compromise. We have one ship named after a major European figure, and another named after a Maori one. But that isn't good enough for many. In recent times it seems that almost everything has been given a Maori name only, and the woke mob seem to have got used to that privilege and don't want to give it up. But they will have to. Even if the woke left regain power in the election this year (about a 50/50 chance in my estimation), that will only be a temporary glitch because the global trend against the excesses of wokeism is clear.
Winston Peters, the politician who announced the names, said he anticipated there would be pushback against the name Cook, and in his speech suggested "snivelling wokesters" might reject the name Cook because he was a "harbinger of colonisation". His description is harsh, but also accurate in many cases.
One of the great dogmas associated with current leftist political views is that colonialism is a bad thing, maybe the worst, although there are plenty of other real and imagined problems they also like to rail against, such as racism, transphobia, and Islamophobia. So using Cook's name might seem provocative to some, because it reminds them of the "evils" of colonialism.
But I say colonialism wasn't bad, although there were some negative aspects to it. More precisely, it was both good and bad, and I would be tempted to suggest that it was good on balance, even to the colonised people. Of course, how you evaluate any historical or social phenomenon very much depends on your priorities, but at the very least the "evil coloniser" narrative is open to fair criticism.
So using "Cook" as the name of a ship is perfectly fair, especially considering his impressive contributions to maritime history. So what about Kupe? Well, we really can't say much about him. There is no clear evidence he even existed, and if he did we can know almost nothing about him. Maori oral tradition mentions him, but inconsistently and with clear mythological components to the story telling. His history reminds me very much of the history of Jesus: very likely the stories are based on a real person or people, but the details can in no way be assumed to be accurate.
Of course, in the case of both Jesus and Kupe, how accurate the stories are is only of secondary importance, because the messages conveyed might be more relevant than the exact historical facts.
So Kupe's legacy is the human settlement of this part of the world and the resulting massive environmental damage that ensued, including many extinctions and massive destruction of natural habitats. Cook's is the colonisation of the area, the establishment of an independent country (eventually) and the modern democratic state we now have. Who is the good guy and who the bad? Well, that is an open question, but at the very least we should acknowledge both the positive and negative influences of both.
I say, let's stop this nonsense of giving everything - including clearly Western establishments like government departments, cities, and universities - a Maori name, and let's use names from both languages. And, by the way, since there are now more Asians and other nationalities in the country than Maori, I wouldn't object to some names based on their languages being used as well.
The woke mob demand diversity, but their definition of it is completely corrupt. When they say diversity they mean minority cultural elements they currently are trying to push the rest of us into accepting. Enough. It's time for real diversity now. It's not Cook versus Kupe, it's Cook and Kupe.
Comment 1 (9567) by EK on 2026-07-31 at 14:37:34:
I haven't recovered yet from the surprise that Winston agreed to name one ship Kupe.
Comment 2 (9568) by OJB on 2026-07-31 at 15:20:32:
Maybe the propaganda in the mainstream media that he is (gasp) racist is not true? Maybe he just rejects woke BS going too far?
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