That's twice I've agreed with the Prime Minister this year

I was delighted to see that Dick Scott was given the Prime Minister's award for non-fiction writing. New Zealand is rather short of radical historians. If we had more there'd be more then someone would have written a book about 1951 more recently than 1952. But in 1952 Dick Scott, who was working as a union journalist, recorded those 151 days.

Dick Scott found out about Parihaka when he was reading about a libel trial - the history was that obliterated from Pakeha (and some Maori) conciousness. Resistance to colonisation has been a constant thread of this country's history. The best way to weaken that resistance is to try and wipe the memory of that history. If we see ourselves as alone, as doing something no one has tried before, then we are tiny and insignificant and the task seems impossible. If we see ourselves as part of a chain that goes back through the generations, than anything seems possible.

Dick Scott has kept the links in those chains strong, that's a worthwhile life.