Massive Resistance: The people behind Hobson's Pledge do not appear to have given any thought to what would happen to New Zealand if their programme was implemented in full. Can they really be so naïve as to believe that the nation's bicultural heritage could be legislatively dismantled without tipping the country into the most bitter civil strife since the land wars of the 1860s?
LET US SUPPOSE, purely for the sake of argument, that
Hobson’s Pledge speaks for the majority of New Zealanders. That Captain
Hobson’s famous response to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, “Now we are
one people”, continues to reflect the bedrock of the Pakeha electorate’s understanding
of New Zealand’s essential character.
Let’s further suppose that Hobson’s Pledge achieves all of
its objectives. That, in an orgy of majoritarian recklessness, Parliament
repeals every piece of “race-based” legislation. Affirmative action programmes
are discontinued. All references to the Treaty of Waitangi and its “principles”
are expunged from the statute books. Iwi representation on Crown entities is
ended. Special Maori representation on local and regional councils disappears.
And, finally, the Maori seats, a feature of New Zealand’s electoral landscape
since 1867, are abolished.
Now let’s try to imagine what would be happening across New
Zealand as this majoritarian assault on New Zealand’s bicultural heritage was
taking place?
Because, rather surprisingly, no such imaginative exercise
appears to have been part of Hobson’s Pledge’s deliberations. It’s as though
its members believe that the implementation of its programme could be
introduced without anyone, Maori or Pakeha, making any serious attempt to
prevent it. Even though nearly all the people whose faces appear on the
Hobson’s Pledge website look old enough to remember the 1981 Springbok Tour,
how to handle the inevitable public opposition to their programme is not
explained.
This is either a manifestation of Hobson’s Pledge’s
political naivety, or evidence of a much darker purpose. If a general election
delivers a majority committed to enacting Hobson Pledge’s programme, then
public acceptance, and acquiescence, is simply taken for granted. It will be
the law of the land, and the rule of law must be upheld. At any cost.
New Zealand has already been given a glimpse of how high
that cost might be. On 5 May 2004, the streets of Wellington were filled with
Maori protesting at the imminent passage of the foreshore and seabed
legislation. Estimates of the demonstration’s size vary, but there were
certainly enough angry activists on the streets that day to have trashed New
Zealand’s capital – if the word had been given. That the word was not given is
due, in no small part, to the existence of the Maori Seats, and to the
opportunity they offered Tariana Turia and her confederates for lawful and peaceful
redress.
Consider the response of the late Sir Paul Holmes to the
images of that historic hikoi: “No New Zealander, frankly, could have watched
proceedings today without a sense of pride, without being gripped by the heart,
could have watched it without love.”
Would ‘pride’ and ‘love’ be the watchwords on the day a New
Zealand parliamentary majority prepared to relegate the status of the Treaty of
Waitangi to “a simple nullity”? To outlaw special Maori representation? To
abolish the Maori seats? Or, would the streets of the nation’s capital, and
every other city in the country, be filled with tens-of-thousands of angry
citizens? Not all would be Maori, alongside the tangata whenua there would be
an equal number of equally distraught young New Zealanders: all of them as
determined as their Maori brothers and sisters to prevent the extinguishing of Aotearoa’s
bicultural dream.
Those New Zealanders old enough to remember the clearing of
Bastion Point in May 1978 will also recall just how far the operation stretched
the coercive forces available to the Crown. Hundreds of Police and NZ Army
personnel were required to ensure that the removal of just a handful of
protesters was accomplished without serious injury or loss of life. This
country simply does not possess the resources to enforce the passage of
Hobson’s Pledge’s programme without resort to deadly force. To make it happen,
the state would have to order police and soldiers to kill their fellow citizens.
Would they do it? Would police officers use deadly force on
crowds that, in a nation this small, are bound to contain friends and relatives?
Can the old kupapa tribes who still make up a large part of the NZ Defence
Force, still be relied upon to kill their fellow Maori in large numbers – for
the Crown? And, if they can, where would that leave us? Could we still call
ourselves one people?
Hobson’s Pledge has forgotten that Captain’s Hobson’s words
were uttered in the act of solemnising an agreement that bound together two peoples. Maori at Waitangi did not
agree to hand over their lands, forests and fisheries and simply disappear. But
that, in the end, is what Hobson’s Pledge is asking them to do – without a
fight.
The Settler Government of the 1860s asked Maori to do the
same. They refused then, and they refuse now. And, in this century, Pakeha can’t
call on 12,000 imperial British troops to make it happen.
This essay was
originally published in The Press of Tuesday,
4 October 2016.
36 comments:
National would do it if they could get away with it. But they simply couldn't.
Hobson’s Pledge has forgotten that Captain’s Hobson’s words were uttered in the act of solemnising an agreement that bound together two peoples. Maori at Waitangi did not agree to hand over their lands, forests and fisheries and simply disappear. But that, in the end, is what Hobson’s Pledge is asking them to do – without a fight.
....
No it solemnly bound elites and the other party. The bulk of the population would never have excepted a deal that common language finds hard to describe (two headed monster?).
Biculturalism is an elite concept (as is multiculturalism). When put to the test the wheels fall off. Both require state hegemony and is it any wonder the public loathe the media and it's politicians?
Two elections back the Green Party election poster featured a young Maori boy with confident folded arms while a sickly white male and his stupid sickly white children were allowed to observe cockabullies in a stream. Next would be a good circus act where sickly whites jump through hoops and the sickly children (de-sexed?) balance things on their noses?
Thank you Chris. Silly Brasch trying to outdo Trump. No sense of History
I fail to see what you are talking about. As leader of the National Party, Don Brash took the party too new lies, his every speech a rabid outburst of hate and garbage at the most unfairly and unjustly treated minorities in the communisty the maoris and the mentally ill. The low grade inbred fat lynch mob that joined the National Party to support Brash and the sensible sentencing garbage hanging around the courst should be first target for the hatred on any intelligent right wing party. Their leader McVicar the stone age Gisborne or Hawkes Bay farmer along with the leading and relentlessly destructive utopian Communists Minto and Bradford should be the first on the noose.
The serious distabalising racial groups in this country are the over size Pacific Islanders who should never have been allowed in and the various third world reguees and immigrants with fundamentalist values, restricting the sexual freedom of women and teenagers. The response to New Zeaalnd islamics and fundamentalist should be establish strip clubs ffemale bottomless bars next to their clubs through Mt Roskill and Dominion Road, Hamilton and South Dunedin. I noted the Hikohi on May 5 2004 observing it from behind the glass in the Vic Law School and even wandered acroos the road to observe them peacefully in the grounda of Parliament and departing from the Railways station. Compared with the violence and total intoxication that until recently accompanied every serious New Zealand sporting event, you know with half the crowd on the embankment at rugby ro car racing consuming grades of speights, tui and woody, pissing freely in the mixed audience often totally oblivious to the supposed sport.
Whether the Maori elements of the army are still loyal and can be relied on the follow orders immediately to kill for America, Australia and New Zealand is an interesting question. have they been corrupted by Dona Awatera, University sociology or accordidng to the Hager diatribe, the hard line tactics to degrade the Isis and Taliban idiots practiced by working class US Army troops and marines. THese would not be anysort of new development considereing the accepted ruthlessness which the Vietnam war, Confrontation, Kenya and Malaya were fought. In the pacific the US Army and Marines were renowned for their no prisoners policy. It hardly seems unlikely that any serious Maori officer or NCo has ever been ignoratn of this.
Of course the recruitment of high quality white army, airforce and police has not fitted with the political objectives of any NZ government since Muldoon with Clark and Key accelerating the erosion. This is partly why I have always seen the basis of any serious NZ armed force as the Navy and Air Force and have not wanted any subatantial army, beyond the SAs and the minimum necessary other as I do not favor do gooding peacekeeping. What can be said is that Maoris are excellent at fighting and sex and their men showed exceptional fighting and natural military tactical skills in WW1 &2, Korea and on a smaller scale numerically since. White alternative strike forces have yet to be developed. As my basic philosphy is the Book of Ecclesiasties I have no objection to people mainly interested in f & f and drinking.
That the word was not given is due, in no small part, to the existence of the Maori Seats, and to the opportunity they offered Tariana Turia and her confederates for lawful and peaceful redress.
.........
And perhaps because when you strip out the radicals the rest are realists. Like the person who wrote
For who can dispute that, at one time, the entire geographical entity we call New Zealand was the property of Maori collectivities?
And, if they have a customary right to New Zealand's beaches, then why not its rivers, estuaries, swamps, lakes, forests and everything else?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/blogs/opinion/258693
How can Maori have justice under the Treaty without first drawing blood, represented by a loss of status or territory or rent seeking or endless payments? There is no way and that is why the left introduced Maori uber culture.
a bunch of old, disenfranchised rich buggars and pseudo-academics feeling their irrelevance...as you rightly point out, it will never happen but it does re-ignite racial divides amongst rednecks and haters which is unfortunate...as for a darker motive?...quite possibly but again just an academic exercise in wishful thinking...kia kaha
The promise that we are one people was very quickly broken by various settler governments. There have been 150 odd years of two peoples during which time middle New Zealand was quite content with it that way. I find it hypocritical that all of a sudden when Maori start using the Pakeha system to materially improve their lot that all sorts of people now object. Some of whom were old enough to object years ago when Maori were still being officially discriminated against but never did. And it is notable that most of those who lead this movement are neoliberals of one sort or another. My personal opinion, but I don't think neoliberals necessarily have a great deal of regard for democracy. After all, capitalism has proven it can flourish under dictatorships of both the left and the right.
"That the word was not given is due, in no small part, to the existence of the Maori Seats". Care to substantiate that? This seems to me quite a long bow to draw
I'm a "Ten bob tourist" who arrived aged 5 into a "White Dominion". As a South Island primary school kid anything Maori was a curious anomaly. At uni I met real Maori elders who started a Maori club to support their whanau. We watched Bastion Point with bemusement. What was the issue?
The issue was a microcosm of the experience of dispossession, 150 years worth of being sidelined and stood in a cultural cul de sac by a dominant culture. We at the time did not care and asked what prevented Maori from joining the "modern world"?
We were of course well meaning but so naive. Now I cannot feel guilt for this, it has not dented my own cultural identity and pride. It does however shame me for not accepting that another culture (Maori) were denied their culture. Denied their inheritance.
I cannot watch film of Joe Hawke and the Bastion Point occupiers facing the police without a sense of pride on their behalf. They shocked us out of our complacency.
With Hobsons Pledge I suspect a reverse "land grab". Some form of blaming Maori whilst whipping something else away. And they have plenty of ammo such as the contradictions of reparations and which Maori benefit. Cant say I totally agree but its not my issue, its for us all to settle the claims and let Maori decide.
As to the future Hobsons Pledge might wish to consider the prescience of Ranginui Walker who said we would cure the issues between bedsheets. Its happening so they had better get with the program. We will be one people with two distinct cultural inheritances.
Furthermore, I think there is a difference between the Bastion Point and foreshore and sea bed examples on one hand and the removal of Maori seats on the other that you have glossed over. In the former cases there was a strong tangible property rights component to them, and there was a real sense of something being taken away. In the latter case, the seats are abstract and representation by its nature is very diffuse. For these reasons I think the abolition of the seats (not that I suspect this will every occur) will not raise the same kind of furore as the other interventions did.
"This is either a manifestation of Hobson’s Pledge’s political naivety, or evidence of a much darker purpose." Very likely the former, Chris.
Hobson's role as governor was to implement Foreign Office policy. If you read up on that, you discover that the current British administration was more than a little idealistic. The policy seems to have been to use Aotearoa as a test-case for a more benign way of operating the Empire. Very christian. Provision of moral guidance, setting a good example.
His pledge therefore was a statement of idealism. The settlers, of course, were more mercenary, and used government power to enforce their common cultural view. Still, tribal domains remained substantial and inviolate in many areas (despite the Land Wars) compared to what happened with Indian reservations in the USA.
The brash attempt by Brash & co to recreate Aotearoa on the basis of a utopian dream seems silly really. Still, if it gets traction in ACT & Seymour campaigns for it next year, we can't dismiss the Don as a spent force.
There is a far greater enemy for Maori and the two race system that the treaty presents. That is apathy, 85% of the people simply don't care anymore what 15% of the population think or want.
Go and have your claims, go and have your occupations, go and have the treaty settlements, go and have your token seat in Parliament and local council, it is simply overload with demands that can no longer be met to Maori satisfaction in any real sense of the term.
In a one person one vote democracy, having 15% of the people with 50% of the say versus 85% 0f the people with the remaining 50% of the say is not democracy anymore.
I find it amazing that so many people are afraid of equal treatment for all citizens.
Bloody hell Robert – I see you're back – with a mass of incoherent stereotypes. And the book of Ecclesiastes – do you think you could sort of explain that? I really should ask for an explanation of much of the rest, but Brandolini's law seems to be hovering just above my left shoulder.
“With the recent announcement of the Fijian Government to give ownership of its coastal areas to indigenous tribes, it would be ideal to hope that this could offer some support to Maori arguments by is unlikely to have any effect here.
“I completely support and endorse what the Fijian Government has done. They’ve taken an initiative that this Government needs to follow. That unfortunately is not the case with the Government here; the indigenous Fijians are the majority and are in Government where as we are not,” Hingston said.
http://www.kahungunu.iwi.nz/…/FIGHTINGTALKONFORESHOREHingstonTalk.doc
FIGHTING TALK ON FORESHORE
By Kui Paki – Tu Mai February 04 – An interview with Judge Ken Heta Hingston
.....
toad (2295) Says:
May 30th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
@hj 6:41 pm
What exactly do the Greens think will happen by vesting control of the foreshore and seabed in the hands of iwi and hapu Toad?
Justice! And goodwill between the peoples of our country hj.
But it should be vested in them only if they can demonstrate continuous customary ownership, or if it was alienated from them by a rip-off. There is some foreshore and seabed that has found its way into private hands by legitimate means. Iwi and hapu have no claim to that.
........
What Toad doesn't know about is ethnic nepotism and the way it slants views in both directions so non Maori become the out group. You have to wonder about Mai Chen, Shamubeel, Ganesh...?
"Hundreds of Police and NZ Army personnel were required to ensure that the removal of just a handful of protesters was accomplished without serious injury or loss of life. This country simply does not possess the resources to enforce the passage of Hobson’s Pledge’s programme without resort to deadly force. To make it happen, the state would have to order police and soldiers to kill their fellow citizens."
Curiously this scenario would equally apply to any sizeable mass demonstration....action on climate change, inequality or provision of public services perhaps.
Hobson's Pledge or Hobson's choice?
Recalling Aotearoa. Indigenous Politics and Ethnic Relations in New Zealand.
Edited by Augie Fleras and Paul Spoonley.
Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Furthermore, because the authors acknowledge their intellectual heritage only insufficiently, chapter 3 seems to be marked by a curious contradiction. In a chapter entitled 'The Cultural Politics of PostColonialism: Being Pakeha', it is rather surprising to read that "[w]ith regard to Aotearoa/New Zealand, the interest in post-colonialism is largely a product of the evolving politics of Maori" (97).
https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/kotare/article/viewFile/696/507
You mean white leftists had a significant intellectual heritage with regard to Maori politics (basically blaming it all on white racism) and then inviting lots of ethnicities in to break the homogeneity of the population and at the same time exiling academics of contrary views?
http://imgbox.com/hPbuHrAE
There ambitions are without end.
Chris you write: ‘Maori at Waitangi did not agree to hand over their lands, forests and fisheries and simply disappear. But that, in the end, is what Hobson’s Pledge is asking them to do – without a fight.’
No that is not what this group and the huge majority of NZ citizens are saying. Not at all. Actually more like the opposite. The majority are saying: ‘Now that the Maori tribal organisations have retrieved a good measure of their lands, forests and fisheries, they should get on with their business and cultural strengthening without our constitution’s greatest and most powerful feature being undermined. And that precious treasure is democracy.’
It’s about our future constitution, this Hobson group. Many say, including Key, that inevitably we will become a republic. Perhaps. Palmer is at it presently, but he makes the error of not being honest or bold enough to say that must mean the end of the Treaty as it is currently, understandably, but wrongly interpreted as a partnership between a few people born in the right bed and all of us including those special few again. That can exist in a monarchy, where some blood lines are privileged but would not be tolerated any more if we formed a republic.
So people should not go overboard about this coming reinforcement of our democracy. We will still be a bi-cultural nation. But before the law, before parliament (and councils) you can’t have one group with a constitutionally cemented special status. After all, if it was bad when the majority group lorded it over the other, how can it possibly be better for the minority to lord it over the rest?
" huge majority of NZ citizens are saying."
Citation? You have the figures already? Gosh, how efficient the Hobson's choice spin doctors are.
Chris Trotter, with regard to my point (above) about the intellectual heritage of certain academics, I wonder if some academics get too much funding and too much freedom? They are advocating against the well being of the majority. Johnathan Haidt and Frank Salter argue that the humanities and social science departments are heavily stacked in favour of the radical left. They seem to be factories turning out social justice warriors? We saw what happened when Dr Greg Clydedale upset the Massey in-crowd. What a shame Michael Kings breaks failed!?
Recalling Aotearoa. Indigenous Politics and Ethnic Relations in New Zealand.
Edited by Augie Fleras and Paul Spoonley.
Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Reviewed by Simone Drichel.
"The authors do not hesitate to admit that the distinction between 'biculturalism' and 'bi-nationalism' might seem somewhat artificial and point out that bi-nationalism is biculturalism properly understood. Too often, they argue, biculturalism has been depoliticised in the public imagination and reduced to "a personal coping strategy" (233) or a touch of 'te taha Maori' in mainstream organisations. These superficial changes, however, do not deal with what they regard as the root cause of the Maori-Pakeha problem: "the colonisation of Maori and the corresponding loss of self-determination of identity, land, and political voice" (235). This root cause, according to the authors, cannot be addressed by either multiculturalism or biculturalism. Instead, it "needs to be addressed by a bi-nationalism that grants significant space and discretion to Maori for autonomy" (253).
The rationale behind bi-nationalism reflects an essentialist reading of diversity - that is, each group of people is fundamental [sic] different, and these primordial ('essential') differences constitute the basis for entitlement and engagement. (246) reading of diversity - that is, each group of people is fundamental [sic] different, and these primordial ('essential') differences constitute the basis for entitlement and engagement.
(246)
"I do not agree that it is necessary to re-introduce 'essentialism' into the discussion. In fact, I think it is dangerous, because it adds fuel to the fire of those who love engaging in 'authenticity talk' to establish that there are no 'real' or 'full-blooded' Maori left in New Zealand anyway, and that consequently nobody can be entitled to anything simply on the grounds of 'being Maori'. The authors should have made clear that it is a strategic essentialism that underlies a commitment to bi-nationalism. Qualifying the essentialism as 'strategic' makes explicit that the Maori nation is constructed as an imagined community with the aim of wrenching power from the 'mainstream', while at the same time avoiding the 'authenticity trap'.
https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/kotare/article/viewFile/696/507
This selective quote is part of a world view that sees our great civilisation as a plague on the noble savage.
"We saw what happened when Dr Greg Clydedale upset the Massey in-crowd. "
As I understand it was peer-reviewed by people who know something about it and found wanting – largely for using out of date statistics. Perhaps you have different information blimpy?
Chris, you and the media generally seem to have accepted uncritically the mistranslation of Hobson's reported words "He iwi tahi tatou" as "We are now one people". The word "now" is significant and it has been inserted for a reason. Hobson's Pledge also provides a false and misleading translation of "rangatiratanga" which in 1840 denoted absolute sovereignty, as will be clear to anyone who takes the time to read their way through Te Rongopai o Ruka, the first of the Greek scriptures to be translated into te reo.
I have no truck with Hobson's Pledge Trust or their willful (I have to believe it so) misconstruction of Hobson's actual words. However, I do believe that their campaign has a much better chance of success than you are prepared to allow. Back in the late 1970s Don Brash and Rod Deane were going around the country arguing in favour of privatisation of state assets, opening New Zealand up to the global market place and deregulation of the economy. At the time the left, almost to a man scoffed incredulously. They refused to believe that New Zealand would, or could, walk away from an egalitarian tradition, and a policy of state paternalism, that had been accepted by both major parties for over four decades. Yet that is precisely what happened just a few years later, under a Labour government.
So do the political conditions exist for the New Zealand state to tear up the Treaty of Waitangi (for a second time)? Not right now, but give it a few more years and they will. Social and demographic realities in New Zealand in 2016 are running closely parallel to those of the late 1850s - we (both Maori and Pakeha, left and right, conservative and liberal) just don't have the wit to see it. I don't think we can stop what is about to happen - but we can be prepared for it.
"This selective quote is part of a world view that sees our great civilisation as a plague on the noble savage."
OR... It's a lazy way of saying stuff which people don't read.
Absolutely amazing Chris !
Peter Huck has described the United States as a nation where a deep sense of exceptionalism reinforces a sense of entitlement.
This could accurately describe what is happening here, where a misinterpretation of the three-article Treaty of Waitangi is empowering an ethnic separatist process that is cutting clean across the democratic concept of one citizen/ one vote, regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, age, health, or anything else. Reason is so far out the door it is a light year away. PC, small truisms and non-truisms that roll of the tongue nicely without much thought, rule.
This is not some racist prejudice from the majority European/ Asian cultures that condemn the least well educated to unemployment, prison, and poverty. It is separatist economics, not race, and whilst we pussy-foot around these supposed cultural importances and think it is right to appoint people based on an ethnicity, increasingly difficult to define, to positions they never earned the way the other door-knockers and leaflet letter-boxers did we are missing the real issues, whilst we attack the very base of what democracy is supposed to mean. . We are creating an apartheid society.
What the hell does it matter if a known individual like Don Brash who has after all put his own stake in the ground on this one issue is fronting ‘Hobson’s Choice’. After all this is based on the last words Hobson exchanged with the signatory Maori chiefs. ‘Now we are one’, not ‘Now are two.’ Or ‘Now we are partners.’ The Treaty is a document of unity, of intended equality.
By all means let’s correct clear injustices that occurred later, but let’s not pretend the Treaty is something it isn’t. If we really want to address Maori participation, education, social, and health problems, then we had better look at the economy, which since Roger Douglas’s time has been tearing the social fabric of this nation apart.
Culture is alive, changing, merging, not frozen in time. Pantaloons and grass skirts have been replaced with jeans and we no longer cook each other or the ship's dog for God’s sake.
PC has gone crazy. A section of the Auckland Hamilton Expressway was diverted at cost because local Maori believed an invisible river Taniwha was going to be disturbed. Insane. That’s like grounding aircraft on Christmas Eve because Father Christmas is flying around.
The '81 Tour was about justice, equality, and fair treatment for all, regardless of race, religion, gender, or bloody sport. That was the big story then. We’re going the other way. ‘Hobson’s Choice’ is on the button.
Alan Rhodes
Blimp what you quote there is very informative in the sense that is exposes the problem that we inarticulate Kiwis sometimes try to pinpoint, if we dare as we often get shouted at for doing so. That is, who are the New Zealanders now? Two peoples or one (or more)? The Hobson lot say one. The activists say two. The recent immigrants probably say three.
It's complicated by 175 years of inter-marriage and lots more.
I say the answer is not objective any more, as it was sometime back then. It's personal, subjective. There is the problem. NZers today who identify as Maori have grown up in an overwhelmingly Pakeha culture 'outdoors' but perhaps more Maori culture 'indoors'. And they have Pakeha ancestors, often a large majority of them, especially in South Island. And that just grows greater every day, population-wise. They are bicultural in the everyday meaning of that word. Then there are Pakeha, the vast majority of whom are mono-cultural. Some of them have some Maori ancestors though. Their culture is Pakeha, clearly now a unique culture only found here.
These people are not colonials or settlers for up to 5 generations now. They are born of this land, so are native and they are the majority by a country mile. They are not guilty of the crimes of 150 years ago and they are not going to put up with anything less than full equality before the law & our constitution. Race does not come into it for them. But their NZ culture does and it is staunchly democratic so when people in their own country, with whom they share ancestors tell them, sorry mate I have some special ancestors giving me special constitutional rights, their perfectly reasonable response is ‘bugger off’.
Yes I agree with Col. Blimp that there's a general stance amongst leftists towards indigenous peoples arising from a world-view that contains Rousseau's myth of the noble savage as a key component. I've shared that sympathetic view since early in '64 when another fourth-former dismissed the guy we were talking about with `he's only a Maori'. Puzzled, I was musing hours later on this and realised it was symptomatic of a minority view in the general population, which I estimated around 10% from my personal experience. I decided I was with the vast majority, and henceforth would view with contempt those who exhibited this discrimination against Maori people, and later at university joined a HART march against apartheid as the term racism began to achieve currency (1970).
However I've been a keen absorber of history since early childhood so I'm too well-informed to share the unrealistic expectations around biculturalism. Sympathy for the underdog is widespread - not just in Aotearoa - so although the Greens have taken it too far I'm not all that motivated to criticise them for it. My stance is that both pakeha & maori privilege systems ought to be eliminated. I don't have any objection to their retention of autonomy in principle, and sourcing that in the Treaty, but if it means the chiefs riding the gravy train forever then I will oppose that interpretation.
It'd be real good if the people of this country start to acknowledge the ways in which a class-based caste system does operate here. The pakeha judiciary, for instance. You can tell it's an indicator of the residual patriarchy (regardless the token women nowadays) by the fact that it remains unaccountable to the public. The constant stream of victims in the media complaining about being cheated of their natural justice by these privileged administrators of traditional ruling-class law seems like the constant drip of water on stone...
"PC has gone crazy. A section of the Auckland Hamilton Expressway was diverted at cost because local Maori believed an invisible river Taniwha was going to be disturbed. Insane. That’s like grounding aircraft on Christmas Eve because Father Christmas is flying around."
Funny, this sort of thing is done all the time in Europe, Britain and Iceland – particularly Iceland – and it is regarded as rather endearing, quaint and folklore-ish. But as soon as Maori do it, there's a vast pile on of people complaining about the cost. Which until I see actual costings on, I'm going to regard as probably slightly less than MPs piss up against the wall every year on their subsidised boozing.
No, no no GS. That Waikato Taniwha road diversion I seem to remember cost the taxpayers around an extra million I seem to remember. They don't ground aircraft in Europe for Father Christmas, or divert roads in Ireland because unseen goblins have spots in gardens.
And it's not picking on Maori GS. Somewhere we all have to accept there is no Tooth Fairy or Taniwha, whether we be Maori. Pakeha, Asian, or Licorice-Allsorts, because we're grown-up.
Alan Rhodes
"They don't ground aircraft in Europe for Father Christmas, or divert roads in Ireland because unseen goblins have spots in gardens."
Well actually, yes they do.
http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge/fairies4.htm
And in Iceland.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/icelanders-protest-road-would-disturb-fairies-180949359/?no-ist
And in England, though I can't find the link I normally used to show this.
And buildings are altered at some cost to preserve archaeological sites as well.
Indigenous people obviously think it's important in Hawaii, in Israel, and Australia and the USA.
And I don't believe in fairies or gods either, but I still don't regarded as a huge evil, considering the amount of money spent on it is bother all. And yes – $1 million is Bugger all in the scheme of things, considering what we actually waste money on in this country.
This:
I find it amazing that so many people are afraid of equal treatment for all citizens.
This is more apposite:
I find it amazing that so many people are afraid of fair treatment for all citizens in NZ.
Why would Professor Spoonley (etc) have an "intellectual heritage" regarding tino rangitiratanga?
While divisions and conflict between majority host populations and newly arriving migrant groups has plagued Britain and some European nations, as well as Canada and Australia, Professor Spoonley says New Zealand is better prepared. Since the 1970s, New Zealanders – and our institutions – have sought to recognise Māori protocols, values, culture, perspectives and language as inherent to our national identity.
New Zealand’s bicultural framework, founded on the Treaty of Waitangi, provides a precedent for cultures and languages other than English to be formally accorded rights, recognition and respect, he says.
“What does it meant to be a New Zealander in the 21st century? The question is the same [as in the 1970s and 1980s], but the answer is going to be different,” Professor Spoonley says.
www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/article.cfm?mnarticle_uuid=1E27606A-CA5C-9A61-06BA-1D96F4285A37
Spoonley gets to represent this tolerant New Zealand at international conferences. In Canada this month he heard debates about immigration and housing in which you could have swapped Vancouver and Toronto for Auckland or Sydney. In Berlin last year he noticed again that New Zealand is "an outlier" when it comes to anxieties about identity and citizenship.
Spoonley gets to bounce onto the stage with a big fat salmon (New Zealand exceptionalism) which he caught fair and square: he didn't have a biased media nor a politicised public servive neither did he have Bob Jones as an allie. Especially he wouldn't have exclded legitimate intellectual inquiry.
http://imgbox.com/hPbuHrAE
What I mean is tinorangitiratanga, in so far as it is the "intellectual heritage" of our leading (white) intellectuals was to butter up the nation for diversity. How many Maori would have got that?
Colonisation was destructive and bad but immigration (diversity) will save Maori from nasty white racism. Forget about chaps from China buying up Auckland's houses, Paul Spoonley is your friend and Don brash is your enemy.
http://thehandmirror.blogspot.co.nz/2016/10/darth-vader-don-brash-and-tino.html
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/immigration-we-benefiting-part-2-video-6377097
Diversity brings a lot of people attacking whiteness
http://mellowyellow-aotearoa.blogspot.co.nz/2016/09/we-solemnly-swear-hobsons-pledge-is-up.html
I think Frank Salter is right about people at a national level empathising with an ethnie but in a diverse society thinking "what! build all those state houses for them!?" I'm not talking about a slow evolution I'm talking about the fast tracking policies: the notion that "experts" can manage people flows where the government proclaims "we celebrate diversity" (foreigness) and the education system promotes such ideas. The links above may be just young student radicals but they are also the product of state funded institutions and unchecked academic freedoms.
I just heard Andrew Judd on RNZ. Judd is what I would call a purist who sees Maori as pure. I see Maori much as I see the Archdruid (a man wearing a hat). I looked at the candidates for Environment Canterbury and chose those who were fresh water ecologists. One was Vietnamese (I think) The Maori candidate looked a bit washed out and you can look like anyone but you have to show you have something to offer. Judd says "we signed up to the UN"; BS to that as a reason "our wet politicians did such and such". I'm all for universalist at the national level but not at the international level.
I think Maori are worried about their identity being submerged (archaic cultural practices being the only manifestation allowed). Regardless of the Marxist inspired thinking since the 1970's, possibly the root cause is what Pakeha are feeling as internationalist leftists and property investors dominate government policy ;their clarion cry is "you can't have enough of a good thing" (immigration).
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