TIKANGA AS LAW

[1]  Under Māori constitutionalism, mana and tikanga are like the maihi and amo of a whare tūpuna – they hold the “house” of the people together. 

Historically, tikanga was both the law and a discrete set of values by which mana was given constitutional structure and expression.  It still is.

"… tikanga Māori controls interpersonal relationships, provides ways for groups to meet and interact, and even determines how individuals identify themselves.  It is difficult to imagine any social situation where tikanga Māori has no place.” [Professor Sir Hirini Moko Mead – in his work “Tikanga Māori – Living by Māori Values”]

“Tikanga may be seen as Māori principles for determining justice … The principles of tikanga provide the base for the Māori jural order.”  [Sir Edward Taihakurei Durie – former Chair of the Waitangi Tribunal]

As a practical law, tikanga still influences every aspect of Māori constitutionalism, from the political organisation of our Hapu and Iwi to the social interactions of individuals.  As a set of values it … is the “ought to be” of Māori existence.  Together, both aspects of tikanga mutually reinforce mana. 

 “Mana was always about political power or personal status, but it was always about protecting the whakapapa and the whenua too … that was its tikanga, the whole idea of relationships and making sure they were in sync.”

“… we’ve got trapped in the last few years to only see rangatiratanga as a right or some sort of power … and sometimes we think it’s just about making money.  But it was always a legal authority more than anything else … just like sovereignty is, except it rests on tikanga …”

“If we look at what or how mana was exercised … nothing could be done unless it was done in the name of the law … tikanga was like a precondition for mana … and there is no doubt that mana or rangatiratanga was always meant to be exercised in a tika way.”

While some Tauiwi fear a strong Māori constitutionalism, many more do not.

“… for a long time [some] Pakeha said we didn’t have real law, and now they just say their law should prevail … their law should be the one law for all …”

“Saying you can have a Māori constitution without tikanga is like Pakeha saying they can have their constitution without the Magna Carta … It doesn’t make sense.”

Although we come from different constitutional and cultural traditions and have a way to go yet, we and our Tauiwi allies are already modelling the kind of tikanga relationships upon which practical constitutional transformation is already happening.

“… Tikanga was created because our old people knew humans were prone to make mistakes or act in a non-tikanga way … it’s where we need to start.”

Ka haere tonu tātou.  We will continue.

[1] Eighth edited extract from pp. 41 – 43 of He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu Mō Aotearoa – The Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation.

MOVING ON

[1] There is a distinct Māori constitutionalism.  It was clearly defined and understood prior to 1840, and it ensured the survival of our people for hundreds of years.  Tikanga was essential to its evolution and practice, and both He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti were adaptive expressions of it.

The actual institutions of Māori constitutionalism (its effective sites of power, ariki and rangatira) may have been suppressed in colonisation, but its founding ideal (its concept of power, mana) has remained, as has the belief in the right to express it once again.

Any present day talk about tino rangatiratanga is, at its base, a talk about constitutionalism and all that it implies.  It is also a talk about the colonisation experiences after 1840 that diminished or took away the effective exercise of that constitutionalism. 

“We wouldn’t be having this discussion if it wasn’t for colonisation … in practical terms we can’t revert to what we were in 1840, but rangatiratanga hasn’t disappeared, and we just need to begin what will be a long kōrero among ourselves and with others about what that might mean today … what it really means to move on from colonisation.”

“Colonisation was about taking power more than anything else.  We just need to listen to the old people or read a (Waitangi) Tribunal Report to know that … The Settlements Act that led to the raupatu, that’s about power and not just about land.”

“… The grievances are real and still aren’t getting properly settled.  But the things our old people went through should make us think about what steps we have to take to go somewhere else in the future.”

“Sometimes we get caught in the trap of just accepting what colonisation has done, like setting up its own government and saying that it’s right or can’t be changed because it’s too hard … but as rangatahi we think we should try, because that’s what the treaty talked about.”

As we reclaim our right and authority to make our own decisions once again we must also reconcile the relationship between rangatiratanga (Māori) and kāwanatanga (Crown).

To that end our discussions have already brought forward the notion of different spheres of influence, with particular reference made to the efforts of the Anglican Church and other organisations to find different ways of modelling those different spheres.  They have also brought forward the notion of a relational sphere where Māori and the Crown might make decisions together.

In spite of all that has happened in the last 176 years to the effective practice of our constitutionalism, the right to it has been retained and the tikanga and mana of it have remained.  So too have Te Tiriti and He Whakaputanga.  

We take those as givens in moving on from colonisation.

[1] Seventh edited extract from pp. 36 – 38 of He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu Mō Aotearoa – The Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation.

MANA AS THE CONCEPT OF POWER

Mana, our Māori concept of power, was grounded in Māori constitutional values and presumptions.  

Just as one could not be tangata whenua without any whenua to stand upon, Iwi and Hapū could only claim mana if they had the ability and capacity to effectively govern.  [1]

To be “mana enhancing” was to keep the whenua and the people safe.  In that way the concept of power was given effect. However, that power and its exercise in everyday political affairs was always sanctioned by tikanga and by the fact that mana in relationship to a particular whenua (mana whenua) was always dependent upon the mana in the land itself – mana i te whenua.

Prior to 1840, the common land mass that made up the islands of Te Ika a Maui and Te Waka a Maui was occupied by distinct Iwi and Hapū polities.  Each polity exercised its own mana and lived according to its tikanga secure in both its political independence and its whakapapa-based interdependence with others.

The effective governance on a day to day basis resided in the Hapū.  That authority is encapsulated in the word “hapū” itself which means to be pregnant or swelling with life.  So the Hapū was the place of power where the most life affirming (and life threatening) decisions were made.

Just as the common land mass of Europe was occupied by a number of different polities exercising their own sovereignty according to their law, so Iwi and Hapū were distinct and constitutionally regulated polities here.

Within this reality two fundamental prescriptions and proscriptions underpinned the effective exercise of mana. 

Firstly the power was bound by law and could only be exercised in ways consistent with tikanga and with the maintenance of whakapapa relationships and responsibilities.  

Secondly the power was held as a taonga handed down from the tūpuna to be exercised by the living for the benefit of the mokopuna.

For these reasons it was a constitutional authority that could never be ceded or given away. Indeed no matter how much mana might vest in an Iwi or Hapū, and no matter how powerful individual Rangatira might presume to be, they never possessed the authority nor the right to subordinate the mana of the collective to some other entity.  To do so would have been to give away the whakapapa and responsibilities bequeathed by the tūpuna.

The fact that there is no word for “cede” in te reo is not a linguistic shortcoming but an indication that to even contemplate giving away mana would have been legally impossible, culturally incomprehensible, and constitutionally untenable.

In that context, political power and tikanga were like the maihi and amo of a whare tūpuna – they held the “house” of the people together. 

Next week we will further consider the political and constitutional role of tikanga.

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[1] Sixth edited extract from pp. 35 – 36 of He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu Mō Aotearoa – The Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation.

THE MAORI SITE AND CONCEPT OF POWER

[1]  Like every indigenous nation, our Iwi and Hapū developed unique constitutional systems based upon our own history and cultural reality.  As we developed distinct dialects and attachments to whenua, we became polities that constructed our own concepts and sites of power.

We were never a lawless people because we developed a philosophy of law to regulate our behaviour, and devised ways to make ordered political and constitutional decisions.  Governing ourselves and the right to make our own decisions are an inherent part of who and what we were, because we were never power-less. 

Our concept of power was known generally as mana (and much later in the 19^th century as rangatiratanga).  It was also defined in some Iwi and Hapū as mana motuhake, mana taketake, or mana tō rangapū. It implied an independence that Dame Mira Szaszy once defined as “the self-determination” implicit “in the very essence of being, of law, of the eternal right to be, to live, to exist, to occupy the land.”

Our concept of mana as a political and constitutional power denotes an absolute authority because it was absolutely the prerogative of every polity.  It was also absolute in the sense that it denoted an independence and exercise of authority that could not be tampered with by any other polity.

Our site of power was vested in the institution of ariki and rangatira who were charged with the responsibility of making decisions.  John Rangihau once noted that “rangatiratanga was people-bestowed and could only be exercised in a way that the people thought was tika.”

As such, all rangatira learned that good leadership depended upon how well they responded to their people, and how well they were able to protect them and their whenua.  In a well-known aphorism the rangatira Manuhuia Bennett described the necessary attributes of rangatiratanga in a way that sums up its constitutional and cultural parameters –

“Te kai a te rangatira, he kōrero.

  Te tohu o te rangatira, he manaaki.

  Te mahi a te rangatira, he whakatira te iwi.”

The ‘kai’ of the rangatira, and thus the sustenance of mana, is not just the gift of oratory but also the responsibility to heed and articulate the voice of the people.  The ‘tohu’ is the obvious obligation to care for both the people and any manuhiri, while the ‘mahi’ or prime role of rangatira is to keep the people together with all the necessary implications to husband and care for the taonga of Papātūānuku which that entails.

Like all cultures our people recognised that we could not survive in a power vacuum, and from the earliest days of colonisation we have endeavoured to assert and maintain the essential constitutionality of our relationship with the Crown through our own concepts and sites of power. 

We will explore these further next week.

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[1] Fifth edited extract from pp. 33 – 34 of He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu Mō Aotearoa – The Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation.

CONCEPTS AND SITES OF POWER

[1] The Westminster constitutional system developed in the particular cultural circumstances of England.  Its hierarchical structure, headed by the Crown or sovereign, grew out of the historical tensions between the monarchs and those deemed to be below or in opposition to them.

It is a distinct artefact that over the centuries has sought to accommodate the long-disputed interests of the nobility, the Church and the “lower classes” while preserving the notion of individual property rights.  Its concept of power became known as sovereignty which was exercised in a site of power known as Parliament.

Although sovereignty is generally understood as an English or Westminster construct, it was first defined in France by the political philosopher, Jean Bodin, in 1569. 

Bodin’s view of sovereignty was essentially based in a belief that it marked a hierarchy of progress from societies of “apolitical barbarism” (such as those of the recently “discovered” Indigenous Peoples in the Americas) to those countries in Europe with a “civilised” constitutional order.  It presumed that proper political power could only exist once “man … purged himself of troubling passions” and moved up “the great chain of being … and its hierarchical order.”

Once a people became “civilised” they attained the reason to vest power in a sovereign, “a single ruler on whom the effectiveness of all the rest depends.”  Sovereignty was thus the “most high … and perpetual power over the citizens”, and it was that power “to which after immortal God we owe all things.” 

The site of that power throughout Europe was the monarch, or alternatively the “monarch in Parliament”, which had absolute authority and dominion over the land and its peoples. It was that culturally defined notion of constitutional authority which the Crown brought to Aotearoa after 1840.

Yet other nations also developed their own quite different concepts and sites of power within their own distinct cultures.  For example the Haudenosaunee Confederacy is made up of six different nations who came together in territories that now stretch from Upper New York State to Southern Quebec.

Constitutionalism in their cultural context is about making joint decisions in accordance with their concept of power known as the “Kaswentha” or Great Peace.  It does not presume dominion over the land, but rather acknowledges the need to live with it.  The earth is the Mother, and all human authority ultimately derives from her.

The Haudenosaunee site of power was a “long house” within which decisions were made to maintain what the current Faith Keeper of Haudenosaunee, Oren Lyons, has called “the good relationship between humans and the universe.”  It was an institution based upon a relational ideal of constitutionalism.

Every indigenous nation developed similarly distinct concepts and sites of power consistent with their view of the world. 

Next week we will begin to consider the Māori concept and site of power.

[1] Fourth edited extract from pp. 32 – 33 of He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu Mō Aotearoa – The Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation.

A CULTURAL CREATION

[1] Prior to 1840, Iwi and Hapū were vibrant and functional constitutional polities with the right, capacity and authority to make politically binding decisions for the wellbeing of our people and the protection of our lands.

That authority was exercised within the construct and values of our own culture, and was part of a unique constitutionalism that jealously guarded the independence of each polity, while stressing the interdependence that is fundamental to whakapapa.

It included the obligation to maintain the peace or make war, the right to define what we would now call citizenship, and the authority to decide who could enter into our jurisdiction as immigrants, what tikanga would govern their presence, and what entitlements, if any, they might be granted.

In spite of all that has happened in the last 176 years to the effective practice of that constitutionalism, those who took part in the 252 hui held by Matike Mai Aotearoa (the Independent Constitutional Working Group) between 2012 – 2015 are clear that our right to it remains intact.

“I can’t see how we could have existed without mana, meaning that we governed ourselves … You just have to look at all of the things we did before Pākehā came to know that.  We made mistakes … but humans do that everywhere … it doesn’t mean they’re not in charge of their own lives.”

“Of course we governed ourselves.  I’m Tūhoe and I know that no other Iwi had the right or would even claim the right to make decisions for us … and because we never signed the Treaty we never intended to let the Crown do what other Iwi had never been able to do to us before 1840.”

“I don’t know of any people who never governed themselves.  Self-determination is just a reality which our tūpuna lived every day.  It was real because they did it, and they would literally fight to keep it.”

While constitutionalism and government are often regarded as complex ideas, they are really very simple.  Government is the process we choose to regulate our affairs, and a constitution is the code we use to describe how government will function.   

Constitutions are based on “a concept of power” and “a site of power”.  The concept of power is the philosophy a society develops about what constitutional authority is, and the values or interests that underpin it.  The site of power is the institution or place where a society decides the authority may be exercised and the limits that might, or might not, be placed upon it.

Every way of governing, every concept and site of power, is based upon and gives expression to the values of the people from which it comes, and which in turn it is designed to serve.  Like the law of any society, a constitution is a cultural creation.

Next week we will briefly consider the Western concept and site of power.

[1] Third edited extract from pp. 30 – 31 of He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu Mō Aotearoa – The Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation.

A RESPECTFUL RELATIONSHIP

Ever since 1840 Māori have sought a respectful and equal constitutional relationship with the Crown as promised in Te Tiriti o Waitangi.  That has not occurred, as the history and consequence of colonisation too clearly show.[1]

 

Yet Māori have never abandoned the treaty promise.  Whether it was the establishment of Kotahitanga or the Kingitanga, or the discussions prior to the first sitting of the Māori Parliament at Waipatu in 1892, or even the establishment of Māori Congress nearly a century later, the kaupapa of constitutionalism has always been present.

When the Iwi Chairs’ Forum was established at a National hui held at Takahanga Marae in Kaikoura in 2005, it was the latest step in that history of revitalising tino rangatiratanga and seeking a proper treaty-based relationship with the Crown. 

Shortly after its establishment, the Forum established a process of meeting Ministers and officials of the Crown.  But by 2010 it was concerned about the lack of progress being made on key issues such as water use management, the environment, housing, education, welfare, and treaty settlement policy. 

In some cases, any options offered by Māori were simply ignored or subordinated to Crown policy imperatives, and a sense developed that the lack of progress was not just due to Crown disinterest or to a disconnect between the policy aspirations of the Crown and Māori.  Rather the cause was a fundamental imbalance between the Crown’s exercise of constitutional authority and the constitutional powerlessness of Māori.

That realisation was not new.  Forum members were all well-acquainted with the Crown’s exercise of unilateral power ever since the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.  Indeed the very notion of Crown breaches of Te Tiriti is, at its core, a question of constitutionalism and the use, or misuse, of the power taken by the Crown in 1840.

Therefore the Forum sought advice on a number of constitutional issues.  At its August 2009 hui at Hopuhopu, Judge Caren Fox presented a paper, “Change, Past and Present”, noting that, historically, tūpuna Māori were familiar with the notion of political autonomy and had long developed a fluid and dynamic constitutionalism that provided a natural “rhythm” and order to Māori society.

At the Forum’s next hui at Haruru in February 2010, reference was made to another paper, “Constitutional Transformation”, written by lawyer Moana Jackson in which the concepts of Māori constitutionalism were further explained. 

After more discussion, a constitutional plan of action was proposed, including the formation of Matike Mai Aotearoa, the Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation.  Membership of the Working Group consisted of iwi and other representatives chosen for their tikanga or constitutional expertise.  Extra members were co-opted from time to time, and kaumātua and kuia were approached for advice and guidance.

In spite of funding restraints, they eventually held 252 hui between 2012 and 2015, and their report was officially released in February 2016.  Its findings strengthen the quest for the respectful and equal relationship promised in Te Tiriti.

[1] Second edited extract (pp. 12 – 13) of He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu Mo Aotearoa, the Report of Maite Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation.

CONSTITUTING AOTEAROA

Over the next few months this column will feature extracts from the Matike Mai Aotearoa Report on Constitutional Transformation which is already attracting a lot of commentary, both good and bad.

That commentary is indicative in itself that the report is already fulfilling one of its most critical recommendations – i.e. the promotion of ongoing formal and informal korero amongst the peoples of Aotearoa about the need for and possibilities of constitutional transformation in our beautiful land.

[1] Matike Mai Aotearoa, the Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation, was first promoted at a meeting of the Iwi Chairs’ Forum in 2010.  The Terms of Reference given to the Working Group were deliberately broad –

“To develop and implement a model for an inclusive Constitution for Aotearoa based on tikanga and kawa, He Whakaputanga o te Rangatira o Niu Tireni of 1835, Te Tiriti o Waitangi of 1840, and other indigenous human rights instruments which enjoy a wide degree of international recognition”.

The Terms of Reference did not ask the Working Group to consider such questions as “How might the Treaty fit within the current Westminster constitutional system” but rather required it to seek advice on a different type of constitutionalism that is based upon He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti.  For that reason this Report uses the term “constitutional transformation” rather than “constitutional change”.

A Forum Representative, Professor Margaret Mutu, was appointed the Working Group Chair and Moana Jackson was invited to be its Convenor.  Members of the Working Group were nominated by Iwi and other organisations or were co-opted.  The Chairperson and Convenor facilitated 252 hui between 2012 and 2015.  The rōpū rangatahi that was convened by Veronica Tawhai presented 70 wānanga.

The Working Group also invited written submissions, organised focus groups, and conducted one-on-one interviews.  The views they received canvassed a number of topics such as the relationship between Te Tiriti and democracy, what is meant by a treaty relationship, what is a constitution, and other related issues such as –

-         The meaning of tikanga and its constitutional relevance.

-         The relationship between the Hapū referred to in Te Tiriti and the current Crown policy emphasis on Iwi.

-         The effects of increasing immigration of the Tiriti relationship.

-         The ongoing implications of the emigration of our people overseas.

-         How to engage with others to progress the kaupapa.

The Matike Mai Report synthesises those views and acknowledges both the complexity of the issues our people were asked to address and the insights which they brought to the whole kaupapa.  It also recognises, as our people did, that there will be opposition to the ideas presented and that more work needs to be done. 

The Report should be read as part of an ongoing dialogue into the future.  We stress however that it is not a new dialogue as the kaupapa of constitutional transformation has been part of Māori political debate for over 170 years.

Copies of the report are available online and from Te Runanga-a-Iwi o Ngati Kahu. 

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[1] First edited extract (pp. 14 – 17) of He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu, the Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working on Constitutional Transformation

LEGITIMATE OUTCOME

As sovereign nations seeking constitutionally legitimate outcomes that protect our human rights, including the right to govern ourselves, Tangata Whenua regularly reflect on the constitutional foundation, philosophies and values of our own sovereignty. 

For the record, our sovereignty derives from pre-European rangatiratanga and can be traced from He Wakaputanga o Te Rangatiratanga 1835 through to Te Tiriti o Waitangi 1840, then on to current international instruments like the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  These documents all enshrine our authority to govern ourselves, and to relate to Tangata Tiriti in a way that is right and just.  That foundation has never changed.

Our philosophies also remain largely unchanged.  In February 1840, the treaty offer of kāwanatanga to the Crown was enough to reassure our tūpuna Rangatira that their sovereignty remained intact and that the treaty was predicated on three main grounds.

First, the immediate and pressing need for some authority to be exercised over the unruly Pākehā who were arriving in increasing numbers, particularly in the north.  Second, the power and authority of the Rangatira to engage in treaty-making with the Chief of another sovereign people.  Third, the practical belief that, just as Iwi and Hapū were free to exercise their own sovereignty, so too should the Pākehā tribe be free to do the same. 

That remarkable offer is a reflection of an overarching philosophy that may be called the whakapapa ethic. That is, the expectancy that all the different people living here will manage our own affairs in a way that is consistent with fostering the good relationships essential to any whakapapa. 

When it comes to political entities like the Crown and Iwi or Hapū who already have a treaty, Tangata Whenua view the whakapapa ethic as the underpinning philosophy of any constitutional relationship.  We also view several core values that must be incorporated in any constitution. 

The first is the value of tikanga – the core ideals or the “ought to be” of living in Aotearoa.  Second is the value of community – fair representation and good relationships between all people.  Third is the value of belonging – fostering a sense of belonging for everyone in the country.  Fourth is the value of place – upholding relationships with, and the protection of, Papātūānuku.

Fifth is the value of balance – ensuring respect for the authority of rangatiratanga and kāwanatanga within their various spheres of influence.  Sixth is the value of conciliation – providing an underlying jurisdictional means of resolution.  And seventh is the value of structure – establishing structural conventions that promote basic democratic ideals.

Although the Crown tries to either deny its ongoing treaty breaches, or dismiss them on the ground that they are sovereign over us and some of our claims are settled, we simply note that their view remains at odds with our own; moving on.  

Tangata Whenua don’t need Crown recognition of our sovereignty, we require its protection of all our human rights.  To that end, constitutional transformation is a legitimate outcome.

CONTINUED CONFRONTATION

Another confronting cultural shibboleth that surfaces from time to time amongst some Pakeha is the claim that, because Maori were not living on or ‘farming’ all of our land in 1840, it was OK for the settler government to steal it from us and give or ‘sell’ it to settler colonials. 

Recently a self-declared historian on the Radio New Zealand website claimed rather quaintly, “It was VIRGIN land no human had ever used it to farm of [sic] anything else before [my English ancestors] ‘legitimately’ took ownership of their farm.”   She seemed unaware that she was actually talking about the Crown’s racist “wasteland policy”.

In 1997, researcher historian Peter Adams examined that policy in detail in his book, Fatal Necessity.  Under the policy, any Maori land not directly used for cultivation, or not ‘settled’, was able to be declared ‘wasteland’ belonging to the Crown.  

Of course Maori were not notified or consulted at the time about the policy.  But even if they had been, they would have had to prove their occupation and cultivation of the land if they wanted the Crown to recognise they owned it.

The racist nature of that policy is highlighted by the fact that neither the Crown nor the colonisers, were required to occupy and cultivate the land in order to assert ownership over it. 

As researcher historian Alan Ward noted in his 1999 book, An Unsettled History, the ‘uncultivated hunting lands of the English nobility were considered a different matter altogether’; there the fact that the land was left idle, or used only for the sport of hunting, did not affect its ownership, or leave it vulnerable to claims by the Crown or anyone else.

In 1840, there was considerable pressure from many settler colonials in New Zealand for the wasteland policy’s implementation. However, others recognised Maori ownership over the islands of New Zealand in 1840, and knew that a guarantee of their lands had been necessary to convince Maori to sign Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Further, as researcher historian James Belich noted in his 1996 book, Making Peoples, Maori commanded significant political and military power at the time.  And as researcher historian Claudia Orange noted in her 1999 book, The Treaty of Waitangi, if implemented, the policy would have provoked Maori rebellion, resulting in a ‘’serious crisis” for the project of colonisation.  

So the policy was suspended in 1847, and for a while after that Maori land was obtained through the pre-emption clause of the English Treaty.  

However the racist attitudes of assumed superiority behind it remained firmly embedded and continue to surface to this day.

The latest iteration of it is the current government campaign to create a Marine Sanctuary around the Kermadecs. 

Apparently, because Maori have not taken up our legal right under the 1992 fisheries settlement to fish the species within the proposed 620,000 sq km reserve, the government has deemed it can steal it off Maori and give it to the world. 

The confrontation continues. 

CONFRONTING CULTURES

One of the most confronting cultural shibboleths that surfaces now and then amongst some Pākehā is that Māori people and our culture are going to die out. This belief builds on earlier ideas of ‘fatal impact theory’, whereby ‘inferior’ races were supposed to have melted away as a result of European contact.

As early as the 1830s, Englishman Edward Markham wrote:  “In New Zealand the same as in Canada or North America, and in Southern Africa the Hottentots are a decreasing people … my belief is the Almighty intended it should be so or it would not have been allowed. Out of Evil comes Good.”

He was famously echoed in 1856 by physician and politician Dr Isaac Featherston who said it was the duty of Europeans to “smooth down … [the] dying pillow” of the Māori race. 

Then in 1868 a Wellington newspaper editor wrote in tones of surprised outrage: “They are determined to fight, and we, in self-protection, must treat them as a species of savage beasts which must be exterminated to render the colonisation of New Zealand possible.” 

The usefulness of racial theories like fatal impact, monogenism, polygenism and social Darwinism was that they upheld the European self-image as the most advanced of all races and eased any doubts about the morality of their attempt to take over the world. 

In that regard, usefulness was always more important than accuracy. For example, polygenists once claimed that different races could not interbreed, or at least that mixed-race people would be infertile.  Wrong.

And in 1863 the geologist Ferdinand Von Hochstetter managed the logically impossible feat of being monogenist, polygenist and social Darwinist in a single chapter when he wrote, “Richly endowed by nature … the Māori is fully aware of his progress in moral improvement and culture; yet he is not capable of attaining the full height of a Christian civilized life; and it is from this very incompleteness, that his race is doomed to gradual extinction …” Wrong again.

Although the belief that Māori and our culture ought to die out lost popularity from about 1914, many continued to believe that we would survive only as a ‘golden tinge’ on the skins of the Pākehā; and the belief itself did not die out.  Instead it went underground from whence it re-emerges occasionally in various racist guises.

In 2012, a rich ACT Party donor confidently and publicly claimed that all white New Zealanders "don't like the Māoris."  And just last week, a commenter on a Radio New Zealand story titled PM defends ‘racist’ TVNZ survey wrote, “Whatever, the future is clear Māori culture will die away...”

Confronted with the incurably racist culture of such people, Whina Cooper’s advice to Māori was that we ought to marry them until they died out, while McCully Matiu’s advice was that we ought to give them every chance to do the right thing.

My own thought is that while we combat their racism using their laws and ours, we also ought to work with non-racist Pākehā, like those from Network Waitangi, who are very able and willing to confront the culture from which racism came.