LEARN FROM THE PAST

“Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”  So said the Spanish-American philosopher, essayist and poet, George Santayana.  But long before he coined this piece of wisdom, the whakataukī, e kore te pātiki e hoki ki tōna puehu, warned against making the same mistake twice. 

With just under 24 weeks to go to Saturday 20th September, there are many lessons from the past to consider regards the big election issues that impact on our ability to live well in our own country. 

In 1971, double Victoria Cross winner, Charles Upham, said to the British people, “Your politicians have made money into their God, but what they are buying is disaster.”  Nine years earlier Britain had joined the then European Economic Community, a fore-runner to the European Union. 

As we prepare to go to the polls in September, keep his words in mind with regard to the current Trans-Pacific partnership negotiations, and remember what has happened to British sovereignty since 1962. 

During a radio 1ZB interview in July 2003 of Māori lawyer and activist, Annette Sykes, the late Paul Holmes asked her why Māori so vehemently opposed the government’s moves to pass the Foreshore and Seabed Bill.  

“Māori belong to the foreshore, the foreshore belong to Māori, and we are not mean-spirited,” was her reply. 

In the lead up to the election, there are clear lessons in these words, as well as in what has happened to our foreshore and seabed, particularly with regard to our  water and food sovereignty.  

In 1988, Ngāti Te Ata claimant, Nganeko Minhinnick, made this statement to the 6th session of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations: “The government claims that setting up the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal to hear the people’s grievances is a way of honouring the Treaty.  In fact, it is simply recognition that the Treaty has not been honoured.”

Keep that in mind as Treaty settlements continue being signed at a great rate in the lead up to election 2014.

At the end of the first programme of the ground-breaking 1974 documentary series, Tangata Whenua, the late Eva Rickard said in that strident and strong voice of hers, “The spirits and the times will teach.  Not men; not the books; but the times and the spirits of the past.”

As you prepare to vote in September, keep those words in mind and watch out for politicians who continue to use education reform as a battleground, Treaty settlements as a means of extinguishing sovereignty, and free trade agreements as an inducement to to let them cede New Zealand's sovereignty.  

Above all else, instead of making the same mistakes twice, learn from the past.