Guy Fawkes nz

It's time Aotearoa asks why we celebrate Guy Fawkes instead of looking to our own uncomfortable past to commemorate the lives of Taranaki Māori who suffered ...

On the fifth of November, with Bryce at their head, they entered Parihaka to be met by fresh bread, and children singing. The Parihaka prophets were arrested and held for over a year in prisons around the country without trial. Practically the whole of the Taranaki was confiscated, from Parinihi to Waitōtara. After war broke out in 1863 again our Parliament passed three laws, for the governor to declare a district “in rebellion”, to confiscate the land of those living there, and for a British loan to finance the war to be paid with profits from the lands taken. As a child growing up in the 1960s, Guy Fawkes Day was an exciting time, especially as I could spend my pocket money on miniature, yet decidedly dangerous, explosives that we experimented with in the weeks leading up to the actual day. I may have had a vague notion that these were effigies of Guy Fawkes, who we later learnt had tried to blow up the English Parliament in 1605.