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| A New Beginning: Edward Gibbon Wakefield and his New Zealand Company may have dreamed of replicating Mother England, and all her proud injustices, in the South Pacific, but the story of Pakeha New Zealand is the story of the seekers, dreamers and political campaigners who constructed what foreigners would come to call (with a mixture of admiration and surprise) “the social laboratory of the world”. Artwork: “The Last of England” by Ford Madox Brown 1855. |
THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT the words “Pakeha theologian” that causes my hackles to rise. Not because I am averse to discussing theology – far from it – but because today’s Pakeha theologians almost never talk about the God of the Old and New Testaments. Their deity is te Tiriti o Waitangi. A god from whom all Pakeha New Zealanders are expected seek absolution for the colonial sins of their fathers.
In an article entitled “Pakeha Identity And The Treaty”, posted on the E Tangata website, “Pakeha theologian” Alastair Reese argues that those New Zealanders who are not tangata whenua can put an end to their “Pakeha existential dilemma” by acknowledging themselves tangata Tiriti – people of the Treaty.
Reece contends that: “Pākehā are gifted an identity in the Treaty, along with associated rights and responsibilities. Māori identity is affirmed in the Treaty, as are their rights and responsibilities.”
Did you spot the not-so-subtle distinction in Reese’s formula? Māori identity is “affirmed”, but the identity of Pakeha is “gifted”. Whatever the nature of the relationship Reese sees emerging from the Treaty “covenant” may be, it is not a partnership of equals.
There is something deeply offensive in the image of Pakeha New Zealanders, wracked with existential angst, drifting, like so many rudderless colonial ghost-ships, twelve thousand miles from “Home” in the terrifying vastnesses of the South Pacific. It is an insulting caricature of the men and women (my own ancestors included) who put all those dangerous miles behind them to find a better life, and to build a new and fairer society – one very different from the society they left behind.
Like many of the Scots who settled in Otago, my great, great, great, grandfather abandoned a Scotland whose hereditary clan chieftains were betraying and harrying their own people. While in the salons of London these great lords spoke movingly of the indissoluble bonds of duty that bound them to their dependents, their agents were busy evicting thousands of crofters from their homes to make way for the considerably more profitable flocks of Cheviot sheep.
This quest for a just society informs the history of Pakeha settlement in these islands. The impulse to build a “Better Britain”, where the injustices of the Clearances, and the state-sponsored violence of the “Peterloo Massacre”, could never be repeated. High on a hilltop, just 50 kilometres north of Dunedin, stands the memorial to John Mackenzie, Lands Minister in the Liberal Government of John Balance. It was Mackenzie who oversaw the breaking-up of the great landed estates belonging to the wealthy elites who historian Stephen Eldred-Grigg dubbed the “Southern Gentry”. Mackenzie had witnessed at first-hand what landed “gentlemen” could do.
Edward Gibbon Wakefield and his New Zealand Company may have dreamed of replicating Mother England, and all her proud injustices, in the South Pacific, but the story of Pakeha New Zealand is the story of the seekers, dreamers and political campaigners who constructed what foreigners would come to call (with a mixture of admiration and surprise) “the social laboratory of the world”.
Back in the 1980s my wife and I rented the upper-floor of the St Andrews Presbyterian Church manse, once home to Rutherford Waddell, the clergyman whose sermon against sweated labour, “The Sin of Cheapness”, sparked the formation of the Tailoresses Union of New Zealand. The Otago Daily Times itself led the campaign which culminated in its creation.
The quest for social justice, for a nation better than the benighted realms of Europe could ever hope to be, is woven into the fabric of Pakeha New Zealand. That it is being unpicked now by the very forces the Mackenzies and Waddells struggled against is the true tragedy of our times.
So, no thank-you, Mr Reese, Pakeha New Zealanders have no need of te Tiriti’s “gifts”. What we need is to break the neoliberal spell under which this country continues to languish – drifting without purpose or direction. That awakening will not be assisted by “historians” writing the achievements of the Mackenzies and Waddells, the Seddons and Savages, out of our children’s textbooks, and replacing them with decontextualised horror stories of colonial murder and mayhem.
The greatest gift of the Treaty of Waitangi was its pledge of equality for all New Zealanders. My identity as a Pakeha New Zealander is bound irrevocably to the fulfilment of that historical promise.
This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times, and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 3 March 2023.
33 comments:
Thanks Chris for another fine essay and for bringing up the Highland clearances. My paternal grandmother's people escaped that (genocide?) to Nova Scotia. After very difficult years there (including famine) they not only built but manned their own ships and relocated their community to the other side of the world. The ships were sold and land bought at Waipu in Northland. Here is a short (10 minutes) documentary on their incredible, but not widely known, migration. A simple, poor, rural people with only their minimal resources and their courage and faith to carry them it is surely one of the greatest migration stories in human history.
https://youtu.be/DaD7ZYH6oPM
The clearances
Foreswear the rumours that did abound
To make Jamie cautious and fearful of the sound
That loomed so largely in those troubled times with fears
Of insecurity and stress to age one well beyond their years.
The threat to the calm that was their’s for sure
Abruptly killed by a heavy thump upon on their door
Morag with bairns hid neath her skirts
With brave face ready to confront their dirks
But these brave folk faced with the wrath
Of the landlords minions emotions a froth
Stood little chance of a stance to hold
No matter rights nor character bold
So out they were cast into the cold and bleak
Along with their meager goods and possessions meek
To attempt and survive another day
Earning naught from which to pay
For food and other essentials so taken for granted
For those of us with our lives enchanted
These folk - the salt of the very earth
Replaced by animals with apparent greater worth
Now reduced to a status lower than vermin
In spite of those stories from the pastors sermon
of the love of god for those who are meek
How easy it is for them to speak
While securely wrapped within the fold
That is the Kirk with all its gold
The landlord arrogant within his privilege
Sees not the effect of his errant pillage
For him there’s naught but pounds and a penny
To fill his coffers he’s sure no Hennie
So what now for Jamie, Morag and Bairns
To the towns or cities in search of freens
Jobs! - there’s none around that’s for the having
Hunger aplenty no pride for saving
But There’s a passage that’s going a world away
A chance to survive for yet another day
So they take the plunge remove all history
Of those who created - what is - their ancestry
Whilst Those long days and nights at sea
That cause them to question why they flee
Slowly pass until at last
destination looms the die is cast
This crazy land with seasons all askew
And everything presented quite anew
But full of promise for the asking
requiring Only personal tasking
These pioneers so bold
Once taken into the fold
Of Otago’s hills and land a plenty
Became in time our landed gentry
So hats off lads and lasses please
Praise out loud for folks like these
They are the spine of our wee nation
With scant regard for place or station
Daily toil was all they knew
And it’s from the land that they did hew
The pleasures we now take for granted
With Scant Regard for how it started
Allen Hogan
You have written a very important column which needs to be widely read. From an historical viewpoint the Waitangi treaty was a device by which Hobson was able to fulfil his instructions from the Colonial Office to obtain the consent of the majority of the chiefs to the establishment of British sovereignty over these islands, and the creation of the new nation of New Zealand (Niu Tirani). It was largely superseded by self-government in 1852 and the extension of the franchise to all Maori men in 1867. Hence the treaty came to be regarded as a "simple nullity" in legal terms.
However in more recent times the Treaty has taken on greater meaning, especially since Labour's establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975. At its core nevertheless remains the guarantee of equal rights for all New Zealanders as subjects of the Crown.
My forebears came here for a better life and to build a better country several generations ago. They materially contributed with their skills including as engineers to this country's prosperity and relative success. I am a New Zealander by descent and by birth. Tangata tiriti is an affected expression which I quite simply find meaningless and verging on offensive.
Great essay Chris - heartfelt and backed up with your pertinent historical evidence.
I have a more simplistic view of the treaty as per Elizabeth Rata's assertion.
The principal inhabitants of the land prior to 1840 had no concept of themselves as a race or as a country but saw themselves as members of their family and extended family. Rata's assertion that the word "maori" really meant "people" and the chiefs that signed the treaty saw the document as one of unification leading to peace rather than separation into various tribes and/or races.
This current government has manufactured what was a minority opinion into a weapon but one must ask, for what purpose?
Reminded me of what I said in a post about Chris Finlayson some months ago, I guess this will be my single issue in 2023:
My Scottish and Irish ancestors lived for hundreds of years tugging their forelocks to Irish landowners and Scottish Lairds, escaped that, and neither I nor my kids are going to repeat that process with the likes of Prince Willie Jackson and Princess Nanaia Mahuta.
But then Finlayson does come off as a "Pakeha theologian" himself.
Couple of things.
Maori probably regard the theft of much of their land in a similar way to people regarded the Highland clearances. It is a certain lack of empathy here it seems to me.
If you want Maori to help you get rid of the neoliberal paradigms that exists in this country, then you needs offer them something. Labour is simply too scared of the business sector to do anything remotely ... Labour.
We saved for the best part of 18 years to try to make sure that our son didn't have any student debt. Pretty much from when he was a year old. Because education costs money these days. When I went to university the fees were normal and were often covered by some sort of bursary anyway. And the people that introduced these fees went through on the same system the hypocritical bastards.
I had to go to the doctor the other day because I'd managed to hurt my foot while I was out running and I'd stab myself on a rose thorn by was watering the garden and I thought there was some part of it still left in their given that I had some sort of cyst.
Doctors visit $20 – not as bad as some.
X-ray on the ankle, about $50.
Ultrasound scan on the hand, $80.
And that is on ACC.
Now if Labour said something like "We will do our best to get some of your land back to you, and we will give you free medical care and free education – along with everyone else if you forget about co-governance to some extent – that might be a good start. Because Maori are those most affected by having to pay for both health and education. Not only would it help them but it would be a public good as we would almost certainly have to pay less for healthcare if people went to the doctor early rather than late.
One of my Internet acquaintances is English and has MS. All – repeat all his medical care is free.
Please for university study were reintroduced by "New" Labour to their shame.
Germany has essentially no university fees.
Much of the EU, which Britain left to its detriment has nominal or no university fees. So does Argentina. Brazil has free university education for Christ sake. If they can do it, why can't we? I hesitate to bring this up again, but we were promised by Roger Douglas high skill high wage society. Hasn't arrived yet.
Elizabeth Rata seems to conflate ToW with the 1835 Declaration of Independence.
The Treaty of Waitangi is seriously overrated. It has morphed from a simple treaty of cession into a kind of talisman.
European New Zealanders do not owe their identity to this treaty.
For its day - Britain had just abolished slavery - it was a remarkably enlightened, though not unique,document.
Fun fact : When the British annexed Fiji in 1870, they made certain that the natives were given nothing. The Treaty of Waitangi was held up as an example of what not to do.
The Treaty of Waitangi was a treaty of cession. It has no use by date. It might surprise some of your readers that the Anglo-Portuguese alliance of 1373 is still in force.
And you have to keep in mind that Europeans sincerely believed that the Maori were doomed to extinction. There is a monument on One Tree Hill dedicated to the dying Maori. The duty of good Christian colonists was to "smooth the pillow" of the dying natives.
The fact that Maori exist as a distinct ethnicity is testimony to their resilience in the face of widespread Pakeha intolerance, avarice and discrimination.
"Pakeha intolerance, avarice and discrimination."
Yep, that equal opportunity intermarriage thingy is just pathetic isn't it?
Prior to 1840, nobody had a right to own land unless the nearest tribe didn't want it. When the nearest tribe wanted it back, they took it back and as native inhabitants outnumbered recent immigrant settlors roughly 30 to 1 there was a lot more repatriation of land by native inhabitants from other native inhabitants than settlers robbing natives.
Lands that the natives of 1840 held were to be retained for their exclusive use but unfortunately the lure of western goods proved rather strong for many and land was illegally, legally sold, sometimes more than once.
Some of my antecedents were deported from Cornwall and had their possessions confiscated. Others were disinherited in Scotland on some pretext or other long forgotten and others just decided to up sticks and make a new life in a new world. To say that I am scarred or rewarded by their actions is just bloody stupid. What I have is what I have ganered over my years through education, hard work and a bit of luck from time to time ... Oh and probably mostly white supremacy......
Looking back is for suckers, and people who want to walk into telephone poles.
Look at Ihumatao. A full and final settlement with the Crown, reparations on a dubious claim paid, a sweet commercial deal with Fletchers, all undermined because a whiny brat didn't get her way at the meeting where over 95% of the tribe voted to accept Fletchers. Most are looking forward, a few whiners are still looking back and waiting for the "coloniser" to make it all better for them. They still can't agree on a committee to start the negotiation procees FFS.
In my opinion.
The Liberalism of Rousseau, Lafayette and Jefferson unashamedly thundered for universal human rights. Those ideals gave birth to all the great social movements that followed, and the fissures from opposing democratic perspectives that viewed tyranny as the natural domain of government or the oligarchic power of ownership. Arguably, the conflicting principles of liberty and equality defined our broad democratic politics of the 19th and 20th centuries. Regardless of that tension, both sides of our political spectrum remained committed to deeply held principles of inalienable rights.
Neoliberalism abandoned the idea of universal rights completely and has managed to transform discourse into something offensive to the old principles of both the Left and the Right. It embraces both the tyranny of oligarchs and foreign ownership above the interests and needs of citizens, while simultaneously extending the power of government to legislate without the informed consent of the governed and even censor what the electorate can see, read, and hear. Instead of a commitment to equality, it now champions historical property ownership as the legitimacy for a caste system instead of universal citizenship.
New Zealand’s early colonists considered the Treaty of Waitangi a useless fraud against both Maori and the British Home Office alike and they were right. New Zealander’s rights to liberty, equality and fraternity in our common home are inalienable to our very existence and not granted by a tissue of scribbles from the past.
As our great historian Micheal King once said "For me, then, to be a Pakeha on the cusp of the 21st century; is not to be European. it is not to be alien in my own country. It is to be a non-Maori New Zealander who is aware and proud of my antecedents, but who identifies as intimately with this land and as strongly as any Maori. It is to be, as I have already argued, another kind of indigenous New Zealander."
"New Zealander’s rights to liberty, equality and fraternity in our common home are inalienable to our very existence and not granted by a tissue of scribbles from the past."
What a great comment.
We've these whiney, infantalised, degrading appeals to "sympathy", the cultivation of guilt and, at the same time, and often by the same people, as demands for power - accompanied, as often as not by the most offensive and polarising insults.
It's not good, where will it lead? The people that overcame all sorts of adversary to uproot themselves and re-locate to this country looking for a fair go would have been, and are, horrified.
Some of the rhetoric (the Tusiata Avia poem for instance) is chillingly reminiscent of the Red Terror:
The newspaper Red Terror, November 1, 1918:"Then came the ever-expanding definition of that enemy, until every single person in the entirety of the state found him or herself at risk of encapsulation within that insatiable and devouring net. The verdict, delivered to those deemed at fault, by those who elevated themselves to the simultaneously held positions of judge, jury and executioner? The necessity to eradicate the victimizers, the oppressors, in toto, without any consideration whatsoever for reactionary niceties-such as individual innocence."
The newspaper Red Terror, November 1, 1918:
"We are not fighting against single individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. It is not necessary during the interrogation to look for evidence proving that the accused opposed the Soviets by word or action. The first question you should ask him is what class does he belong to, what is his origin, his education and his profession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. Such is the sense and essence of red terror."
"Members of the bourgeoisie? Beyond all redemption! They had to go, as a matter of course! What of their wives? Children? Even-their grandchildren? Off with their heads, too! All were incorrigibly corrupted by their class identity, and their destruction therefore ethically necessitated. How convenient, that the darkest and direst of all possible motivations could be granted the highest of moral standings! That was a true marriage of Hell and of Heaven. What values, what philosophical presumptions, truly dominated, under such circumstances? Was it desire for brotherhood, dignity, and freedom from want? Not in the least-not given the outcome. It was instead and obviously the murderous rage of hundreds of thousands of biblical Cains, each looking to torture, destroy and sacrifice their own private Abels. There is simply no other manner of accounting for the corpses."
Excerpt source: https://www.sott.net/article/399690-The-Gulag-Archipelago-A-new-foreword-by-Jordan-B-Peterson
Maori should thank God for Victoria’s government and the CMS, because the ToW allowed them to survive and prosper. Just imagine another Namibia. My great-grandfather came to NZ in 1872 from Scotland. Five generations of my family have been born here. We’re not “people of the Treaty”, we’re New Zealanders, born and bred, as much people of this land as any other, including all Maori.
Gary
Clearly you have not even read one general history of New Zealand.
If I want 'history lessons' from someone too intellectually lazy to read books by reputable historians, I will ask for them.
And if you say you got ahead, in part, due to white supremacy, who am I to contradict you ?
Sad to hear about the travails of your Cornish and Scottish ancestors. A lot of non-racist anti-Maori bigots like to point out the travails of their white ancestors.
And you might want to look at my surname. I descend from the Scottish diaspora. My other Scottish names are Burns and Baird.
The travails of your ancestors are the travails of my ancestors.
You really need to ditch that gigantic anti-Maori chip on your shoulder.
And you should keep out an eye for telephone poles yourself.
No chips on my shoulders ShunShine.
Why don't you start with "Te Wiremu, Henry Williams' diaries and letters".
After that absorb the following
"Treaty of Waitangi signed, led by Hone Heke
At this meeting, the Treaty of Waitangi was discussed before about 500 Maori and 200 Europeans. Discussion continued throughout the day and into the night. During the meeting Hone Heke addressed Governor Hobson, saying:
“Governor, you should stay with us and be like a father. If you go away, then the French and the rum sellers will take us Maori over.”
Labelling someone anti-maori is a lazy insult, especially as you have zero knowledge of either my race or family links.
You need to learn to recognise sarcasm when you see it.
And in case you've fallen under the spell of the revisionists, maybe look more carefully at the conquests of Ngati Toa under Te Rauparaha and why they left their homelands.
My point was that my ancestors histories do not define me.
" New Zealander’s rights to liberty, equality and fraternity in our common home are inalienable to our very existence and not granted by a tissue of scribbles from the past."
Utter nonsense. Rights make no sense outside society. I gives you rights ... and can take them away.
Thank you David George for background to your understanding which helps ours. And the link.
A thoughtful essay Chris T and welcome which gets to the heart of our fine vivid history which used to be considered null and void as we looked towards the Mother Country and the shining star of the USA. Yoiks what a bunch of yokels we saw ourselves; we need to remember our efforts and successes and that Rome wasn't built in a day!
We also must maintain the good, improve on the defects as part of the Treaty pair. The Treaty set the partners - the major framework setting the decision makers to be bicultural. But also as part of the discussions, considering and the concerns of the other cultures, the immigrants, other races and countries.
GS, there are rights that are inalienable in my opinion and freedom, equality and free association fall into that category. Democratic states have no right to remove, limit or even grant those rights ..... in my opinion.
My friends Thai wife: "why are white people so afraid of Maori?"
I was doing tour of Dunedin a couple of days ago and i pointed out St Andrews Waddell Silas [ ] from ODT. Wealthy Mornington above and the "Devils half acre " below where the destitute lived (including unsuccessful miners). I opined that "sin of cheapness" is no more it is "lifting people out of poverty" [over population -the Pope says Filipinos don't have to breed like rabbits]
As we drove through Palmerston I told the people about McKenzie and that this was part of NZ's cultural memory but today we have large foreign superannuation funds owning tracts of farmland and "foreigners don't take it with them".
The new blight on the nation are the John Keys and Paul Spoonleys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmINlJRtvj0
Guerilla Surgeon said...
" New Zealander’s rights to liberty, equality and fraternity in our common home are inalienable to our very existence and not granted by a tissue of scribbles from the past."
Utter nonsense. Rights make no sense outside society. It gives you rights ... and can take them away.
......
“Do people believe in human rights because such rights actually exist, like mathematical truths, sitting on a cosmic shelf next to the Pythagorean theorem just waiting to be discovered by Platonic reasoners? Or do people feel revulsion and sympathy when they read accounts of torture, and then invent a story about universal rights to help justify their feelings?”
Jon Haidt
Human Rights are social constructs. Chris is part of that society you speak of and is making an argument. If you don't like it then we also need to closely scrutinize the alternative (Maori as Brahamin)?
Gosh, Guerilla Surgeon, it's you what gives me rights... and you what can take them away. I didn't realise. I'm suddenly feeling a bit apprehensive.
Sure, "society" can take away our rights, we've certainly seen that over the past three years; though that top down abrogation of multiple rights scarcely qualifies as the actions of "society" in the proper sense of the word. The disturbing (for some people) revelations just released in the "Lockdown Files" suggest we need a re-confirmation of just what society is.
"The politics of fear is the lowest form of politics. In fact, it isn’t really politics at all. It is the antithesis of democracy. Where democracy entails reasoned discussion, the politics of fear prefers emotional manipulation. Where democracy treats us as citizens whose views matter – or it is meant to, at least – the deployment of fear reduces us to morally inanimate matter to be ‘nudged’ and reshaped and improved by those who know better. And where democracy involves the coming together of citizens to talk and make decisions, the climate of fear atomises us, alienates us, encourages us to dread our fellow man, whose spittle might be diseased and whose daily behaviour might be contributing to the coming heat death of our planet. Democracy requires solidarity; the culture of fear cannot abide solidarity."
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/03/06/the-politics-of-fear-is-the-enemy-of-democracy/
Back to topic; we could, for example, put the legitimisation of the principles of the TOW to the people where it belongs. That would be a good idea.
@'Guerilla Surgeon' if "rights" can be simply taken away, they're privileges and not rights at all.
Postmodernists may argue that rights are simply a cultural construct, meaningless outside of the prism of culture. It's an academic spiral into meaningless that concludes there is no truth, no absolutes, no rights, no freedoms. No rights exist for freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom from fear, or freedom from want. No rights exist for representation and participation in government, privacy or equality before the law. All the rights democracy asserted from its revolutionary birth are dismissed as nothing more than cultural values. This postmodernist nightmare is an assault on democracy itself and exactly what we are living through now.
When government does not recognise that freedoms exists as fundamental, inalienable rights, it presumes no limits on its power and becomes a Tyranny that deserves to be deposed!
Loz.
If you think post-modernism says that there is no truth, or no absolutes – then you don't understand post-modernism.
Rights MUST be understood in the context of society. Animals don't have them unless we give them to them. Certainly no right to life.
If rights are God-given and inalienable, how come God didn't give women the right to vote?
Just because rights are not God-given and allegedly inalienable, doesn't mean to say we shouldn't fight to preserve them. In fact, we should fight even harder.
The real assault from democracy comes from the authoritarian right.
"The politics of fear is the lowest form of politics. In fact, it isn’t really politics at all. It is the antithesis of democracy. Where democracy entails reasoned discussion, the politics of fear prefers emotional manipulation. Where democracy treats us as citizens whose views matter – or it is meant to, at least – the deployment of fear reduces us to morally inanimate matter to be ‘nudged’ and reshaped and improved by those who know better. And where democracy involves the coming together of citizens to talk and make decisions, the climate of fear atomises us, alienates us, encourages us to dread our fellow man, whose spittle might be diseased and whose daily behaviour might be contributing to the coming heat death of our planet. Democracy requires solidarity; the culture of fear cannot abide solidarity."
Couldn't agree more David, although it does feel strange to agree with you. And of course the politics of fear is coming from the right at the moment. There are of the other whether it be other ethnic groups or simply people we don't like like LGBTQ people. You've only got a watch Carlson or Hannity or GB news to grasp this.
"In the world of Tucker Carlson's hit TV show, America is under assault -- by Democrats, by health authorities, by immigrants, by Black Lives Matter protests -- and white conservatives are in a fight for their very survival.
Anti-white racism is on the rise. Modern liberals hate Christianity. Migrants are invading. These are just a few of the claims made by the host of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
In broadcast after broadcast, the 53-year-old appeals to viewers' outrage and plays on their fears, propelling his show to the heights of cable TV, making him millions of dollars, and providing ample fodder for conspiracy theorists and racists in the process."
They're also attacking free speech incidentally.
https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/florida-bill-would-require-bloggers-who-write-about-governor-to-register-with-the-state/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/03/06/slavery-was-wrong-5-other-things-educators-wont-teach-anymore/
Although I suspect you haven't really thought about this or will dismiss it. Given that we both went through an almost identical experience in hospital and came out with completely different opinions on abortion, it's almost certain.
"If rights are God-given and inalienable, how come God didn't give women the right to vote?"
It's not as simple as that GS. It's the basis for what we call our rights that is God given, that basis, that axiom, is that man (and woman) is a locus of divine value ("made in the image of God" in the Biblical language) and that we should treat others, and our selves, on that basis. That is what underlies, at the most fundamental level, what we call our rights. "Do you want to live in a society that assumes that or one that doesn't". It's on us to develop and support that but once the basis is forgotten anything is possible.
On that, and more (including, and appropriately for this time of year, the terrifying significance of the passion of Christ) here is the most extraordinary speech I've ever heard. Made late last year at the Library of Celsus in Ephesus.
Short version with subtitles, 17 minutes https://youtu.be/D__ZrpRMjf4
Full speech "The Logos at Ephesus" 64 minutes https://youtu.be/9ByjCwumwBM
The idea of inalienable rights is extremely important as it has nothing to do with theology or God!
In previous times, "I am a Roman Citizen" claimed rights as declared by the Senate, or "Dei Gratia Rex" asserted rights determined by the will of God. Anthropologists would agree that these "rights" and acceptance of authority were framed within cultures. Neither representing a mathematical "truth" but multiple truths when viewed through the respective prisms of cultures and societies.
The revolutionary rise of democracy was different and challenged the very idea that rights and freedom were established by government, divinity, or law. Democratic philosophy flipped that premise to assert that "freedom" and "rights" predates society and transcends cultures. That any human born in the wilderness of nature has a natural and perfect freedom, complete liberty, and total rights. In that state of nature all people are free, equal, and independent. The necessity of government is only formed through the voluntary association of people in the preservation of their natural rights, freedom and equality. The arguments of the Social Contract and inherent Rights of freedom, liberty and equality were the lightning rod for Democracy across cultures and societies.
At its very heart democracy demands that just and civil government derives authority from the consent of citizens who are born in a natural state of equality. Rather than freedom being defined by the government of society (or a document), the legitimacy of government is derived by preserving the natural freedom and equality of citizens.
Loz ..."In that state of nature all people are free, equal, and independent." God, you've been at the Enlightenment haven't you? If that's the case, why was life "nasty brutish and short". Honestly your post is beyond wrong.
1. People are not born in a natural state of equality.
2. People born in the wilderness? There has never been a time when there wasn't some form of organisation/family structure or whatever. Honestly this is the worst of the Enlightenment.
3. People have never been in a state of nature for hundreds of thousands of years, not at least since they became people and not animals
David – more word salad – sorry but only do I reject it I would say it's meaningless. Because it pretty much falls down if you can't prove the existence of God. Or gods for that matter.
It's interesting, whenever conservative commenters here go on about losing our freedoms, they rarely if ever provide any evidence of us losing them in any meaningful way. I mean there's lots of moral panic and so on but nothing substantive. But when I provide evidence of right-wing attempts to restrict our freedoms, not one has ever taken the trouble to address them. Crickets as the Americans say it's as if they didn't exist. You can only ignore them for so long people, because you might not be quite right-wing enough to survive if they ever get a toehold in New Zealand.
Cue Jeremy Bentham's famous line about natural rights being nonsense upon stilts.
Hey folks read back the above comments and feel free to disagree with this!
Life is too short to attempt to link our dated history with family dynasties excesses or inflicted remembered atrocities.
Geez this is NZ circa 2024 where our lives are lived in the now not 1840.
To base behavior and attitudes on " history" denies our ability to decide how we LIVE ... in the present. Navel gazing in the past automatically ignores that contempory challenges trump all else.
Try instead these current challenges frinstance ... Construct a thoughtful response to Ngarewa Packers racist and disturbing muck raking ... or this one ... claims by hidebound white supremacists that their early settler heritage somehow affords them some superior status.
Each - Either is equally divisive and ... pointless. Better to celebrate a Kiwi society that currently looks after the ill halt and the lame via social welfare publically funded by all.
Racial tensions are only manufactured by fringe malcontents or polemicists. We the People just get on with it ... with goodwill to all! ... others.
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