The Tino Rangatiratanga Flag: It’s a flag that speaks, directly, to this country’s past, present and future. For that reason, alone, it makes the strongest case for being chosen as the present flag’s replacement. That it is also a superb design merely strengthens its claim.
THERE’S A HOUSE not far from here that flies the Tino
Rangatiratanga flag. Every day, rain or shine, its flutters bravely atop its slender
flagpole. A statement? Certainly. But isn’t every flag? The Tino Rangatiratanga
flag stands for Maori sovereignty. It’s about the proper relationship between
those who came to these islands first and those who came later. In other words,
it’s a flag that speaks, directly, to this country’s past, present and future.
For that reason, alone, it makes the strongest case for being chosen as the
present flag’s replacement. That it is also a superb design merely strengthens its
claim.
Tragically, New Zealanders will not be given the opportunity
to vote for the Tino Rangatiratanga flag. The government-appointed Flag
Consideration Panel has released the four “finalists” from the 40 designs it
selected from the more than 10,000 submissions it received – and the Tino
Rangatiratanga flag is not among them. (Hardly surprising, really, since it
didn’t make the “Top-40” either!)
Even more tragically, not one of the “Final Four” comes
close to the Tino Rangatiratanga flag in terms of either graphic power or cultural
resonance. Though the Panel was charged with ensuring that any new flag’s
design reflected the importance of the Treaty of Waitangi-inspired partnership
between Maori and Pakeha, not one of the chosen flags features the red, white
and black “colours” that are fundamental to Maori artistic expression. Not to
worry, the Panel have carefully covered the base marked “Maori” with a flag
featuring a stark black koru. Sorted.
The remaining designs all feature the Silver Fern – either
on its own, or, in combination with the Southern Cross.
The problem is that a flag based on these traditional New
Zealand symbols cannot help but draw attention to the country’s colonial history.
If England was represented by the rose, Ireland the shamrock, Scotland the
thistle, and Wales the leak, then what was New Zealand’s national “flower”? The
answer turned out to be the ubiquitous silver fern. The Aussies contribution to
Great Britain’s sprawling imperial garden was the wattle.
The Southern Cross, too, reflected the Northern Hemisphere
origins of the Southern Hemisphere’s British colonisers. South of the Equator
the stars were different. “Crux” (The Cross) just happened to be the
constellation most easily identified by emigrants travelling in southern
latitudes. Perversely, the “Southern Cross”, rather than representing a new
beginning, ended up reminding the colonists how far they were from “home”.
The substitution of the silver fern for the Union Jack is
not, therefore, a bold statement of nationhood – merely a capitulation to the
embarrassment of incorporating another nation’s flag in the corner of our own.
But why be embarrassed in the first place? Everything about
New Zealand, from its political institutions, to its courts, its schools, universities,
and sporting codes, have been borrowed directly from the British. Yet nobody is
suggesting we give up the Westminster System, the Common Law, the unrivalled
cultural achievements of Britain’s artists, philosophers and scientists – let
alone Rugby or Cricket! So, why quibble about keeping Britannia’s flag? What
better reminder could there be of where the nation of New Zealand has its
origins?
Except, of course, our nation was built on Maori foundations.
For all its mock gothic architecture and borrowed parliamentary rituals, New
Zealand is the deliberate creation of speculative British capital. Initially, a
source of raw materials: timber, flax and gold. Later, a magnificent British
farm. For the hard-bitten men who created her, New Zealand was always expected
to pay her way. Its original inhabitants, and the complex culture they had
created over seven centuries of occupation, were simply in the way. Those who
could not be pacified by British missionaries would be dispossessed by British
troops. Whatever flags they may once have flown were hauled down and forgotten.
A New Flag Flying - It may require a revolution to do it.
And we are still forgetting them – or leaving them out of
the reckoning. But go to any gathering whose purpose is not to celebrate the
status quo. Visit any place where the aspirations of Maori are on the agenda. Think
of any future in which the needs of both the colonisers and the colonised are fairly assessed – and you will find a new
flag flying.
It may require a revolution to do it, but, one day, the Tino
Rangatiratanga flag will replace the Silver Fern, the Southern Cross and the Union Jack.
This essay was
originally posted on the Stuff
website on Thursday, 3 September 2015.
