Courage shown in karakia stance
I admire Dr Robert Hamlin for having the courage to stand up against the increasing pressure to partake in cultural practices that are totally unrelated to the function of the institutions and businesses where such pressure is being applied.
The fact that his email "caused alarm" within his university faculty suggests that our Treaty-led university has given in to spirit worship and superstition.
Surely such beliefs have no place in a modern educational institution, yet we see such practices increasingly enforced nationwide in many walks of life. People are losing their jobs through non-compliance.
The defence that belief in the importance of karakia and waiata are a requirement for providing cultural competency is not much different from making all employees believe in God in order to keep their employment. The university long ago lost my support for its racial attitudes and Andrew Simms has just lost my potential vote.
Democracy in action
As an atheist, I find prayers to a superior being ridiculous.
The environment, the heavens above our climate and weather have far more impact on humans’ strutting and fretting than any silent and dictatorial male figurehead.
Prayers which ask participants to bring their individual perspectives to the table with the objective of bringing out the best in everyone are democracy in action. They endow individuals with agency over their own lives.
Genuine question
Dr Hamlin said that prayers for guidance in a meeting were not only inappropriate, that they were also a breach of the Human Rights Act.
Freedom of religious expression is an important democratic right. My ancestors came here 161 years ago partly for the freedom to practice their religion. Does the Future Dunedin Group support or deny the principle that a committed member of any faith-based organisation has the universal right to respectfully decline to attend a voluntary ceremony, meeting or any other activity, if they genuinely believed that there is a risk that their total commitment to their own faith could be compromised?
This could be by praying to another god which could be a contravention of the first commandment of the Christian faith for example. This right would apply to all faith-based organisations in various ways. I want to know what principles have been broken by whom?
Build a bridge
Every person has a culture with which they identify. Anyone born in, or who moves to, a different country should not feel compelled to adopt the culture of that country. Muslims who come to New Zealand do not relinquish their Islamic culture. The same applies to New Zealanders, of all persuasions, who move overseas.
It is important to understand and be proud of your culture. As for applying what is "culturally" appropriate and relevant for meetings, this needs a conversation. So start talking again, build a bridge and get over it.
Burns, bagpipes, single malt and Gaelic for all
Bravo John Bell (Letters 2.4.25).
For far too long, descendants of immigrants from Scotland have stood in the shadows. After all, the Scots were essentially the founding fathers and mothers of Dunedin and our education system needs to reflect that .
Every school should have a pipe band (I know some of the schools in Dunedin already share a band so that’s a start); Rabbie Burns should be compulsory reading in English classes; learning of gaelic should be heavily promoted.
Male students should be encouraged to wear the kilt (complete with the sgian dubh as well if they want ); Flower of Scotland should be sung in assembly, followed by our own anthem as an option; school lunches should contain regular helpings of haggis.
And, most importantly, for the senior citizens who can prove their Scottish lineage, the government should provide a heavy subsidy on Scotch whisky.
Māori probably won’t mind being upstaged as very many of them also have Scottish heritage.
Cuimhnich na fir o’n b’e sinn (remember the men from whom you are sprung).
Outdated logic in Russia piece
I was surprised to read Glen Morgan’s opinion piece (ODT 28.3.25) making a case for revisiting Western antipathy towards Putin’s Russia.
Morgan argues our views on Russia are the result of "British imperial material in our cultural DNA".
That New Zealanders in 2025 are more determined in their thoughts on Putin by the 1850s Crimean War than by Russia’s massacring of civilians in Bucha and Mariupol in 2022 is laughable in the extreme.
Most bizarrely, Morgan claims that economic sanctions on Russia led to the war in Ukraine.
This policy of encouraging reform in Russia by way of trade not only completely failed, but in fact helped financed Russia’s subsequent invasion of Ukraine. Europe, and Germany in particular, only sanctioned Russia when it was left no other realistic option, eight years after Russia’s initial invasion. The addendum states that Morgan is a retired teacher. It might be time for the author to go back to school.
Pesky penguins
It is clearly a matter of urgency that Australia sends an ANARE expedition ship down to the Heard and McDonald islands, before winter sets in, to advise the residents that Trump has put a 10% tariff on their exports to the USA
Fortunately, the market for seal blubber for oil lamps and king penguin skins for hats has fallen right away: the local economy should not be noticeably affected. Zero imports mean retaliatory tariffs are not an option. Out-of-work penguins in states such as Ohio claim that Trump’s vision will produce more jobs and better nesting opportunities.
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