One of my very generous sisters-in-law gave me a volume of Nelson Mandela quotations for Christmas. It’s astonishing how much wisdom about the big issues of life he expressed over the years — and with such eloquence and elegance of thought.
Thinking about the decades of protest at Waitangi, and the enormous progress towards reconciliation we’ve made in New Zealand (still some way to go) I wondered what a freedom fighter who overthrew a government and became a democratic president might say … and found this:
Reconciliation
There are many who did not understand that to heal we had to lance the boil. There are many who still do not understand that the obedient silence of the enslaved is not the reward of peace which is our due. There are some who cannot comprehend that the right to rebellion against tyranny is the very guarantee of the permanence of freedom.
Protest, or the ‘right to rebellion’ against what you judge to be tyranny is essential to freedom. And yet we have people in this country trying, still trying, to suppress protest, bleating about pandering to ‘radicals’.
There’s another quote from National Reconciliation Day (what a concept!) 16 December 1995:
Reconciliation means working together to correct the legacy of past injustice.
It’s up to each of us New Zealanders to decide whether we’re part of the solution … or, by impatient, intolerant vituperation of those with whom we disagree, we prove to be part of the problem.
It’s not easy, but, as Mandela told Parliament in Cape Town 25 February 1999, it’s vital to press through ‘difficult negotiations’.
The quest for reconciliation was the spur that gave life to our difficult negotiations process and the agreements that emerged from it.
Some of those from all political corners in this country know exactly what he means. And to their credit, the leaders among them pursued just Waitangi Treaty settlements from exactly that drive — overruling, if not ignoring the jeering cavils and complaints of those who tried (and still try) to hold them back with hateful objections … and insults.
– P
Peter,
You regularly complain about hyperbolic bloggers.
Sorry, implying that apartheid South Africa is somehow analogous to the situation faced by New Zealand Maori is both unhelpful and a misrepresention of the facts in my view.
Or have I misunderstood your point?
Rgds,
*p*
ps. I am in the Land of the Long White Cloud myself at the moment. Crap summer.
Thanks for your feedback and question.
re “the situation faced by New Zealand Maori”
I think it depends on the timeframe you consider, and your point of view. Waikato Maori may, I suggest, see it differently from you or me.
One of my space cadet friends has a useful saying: “Judging by results…”
With respect, poormastery, I would say an examination of the history of the colonization of both countries demonstrates some similarities.
The health, education, and crime/imprisonment statistics tell a story of how it’s worked out for Maori.
So does the record of land and resource alienation … which seems to be continuing, judging by the accidentally exposed agenda to slip Treaty provisions out of the state asset sales legislation.
– P
Peter,
“I would say an examination of the history of the colonization of both countries demonstrates some similarities. The health, education, and crime/imprisonment statistics tell a story of how it’s worked out for Maori. So does the record of land and resource alienation …”
I would think that an examination of the history of the colonisation of all countries demonstrates some similarities.
Nonetheless, if you are implying that the South African apartheid regime is somehow analogous to the treatment of NZ Maoris, I think that this could be viewed as unduly bombastic and hyperbolic. What is next? Comparisons to the Nazis?
I have seen the terrible statistics for Maori health, education, and crime/imprisonment. I suspect that we could agree that these are complicated issues to solve.
For example, I am not sure that the “land and resource alienation” issues are completely solved by giving Sir Tipene (Stephen) O’Regan even more taxpayer money and land. This policy might ease the conscience of a few Pakeha liberals, but will this policy really be likely to materially improve the socio-economic condition of the average Maori constituent?
Rgds,
*p*
Yup, By that definition I actually *do* think the treatment of Maori — and especially the alienation of their land resources — is analogous to black South Africans’ or, as you say, any other indigenous peoples colonized Nd overtaken by superior military technology and force. (Or ‘gunboat diplomacy’ and opium…?)
I’m sorry if that offends you, poormastery.
With respect, I also don’t agree to your suggested measure of success (‘completely solved’) … do you mean it that way?
I am not sure that the “land and resource alienation” issues are completely solved…
So… unless attempts to redress historical injustices are guaranteed to eradicate — completely — the negative effects of generations of oppression, we shouldn’t bother trying?
Do you think we should just leave the stolen property in the hands of the thieves, invaders and swindlers … and their descendants? All the while, blaming genetic or cultural ‘inferiority’ or any of the myriad of racist slurs and slings rednecks and reactionaries peddle out to bash “ungrateful” brown people?
Really?
– P
Peter,
“I actually *do* think the treatment of Maori — and especially the alienation of their land resources — is analogous to black South Africans’…”
Okay, we will have to agree to disagree on this point.
You offer me a succession of straw man style questions. None represent my views.
Let’s start at the beginning.
I am not certain that colonisation by the stormtrooper Europeans, or the “thieves, invaders and swindlers” as you characterise them, with their cult of meting out “generations of oppression” to Maoris, was in fact all bad for the Maori people.
After all, pre-European New Zealand wasn’t necessarily a paradise on Earth that the evil European stormtroopers destroyed. Health statistics were not so good here – indeed, they were even worse than they are now for the Maori people. For example, life expectancy was less than 30 years old. Law and order policies were arguably sub-optimal before the arrival of the European “thieves, invaders and swindlers” as well. For example, cannibalism was rife.
Governance systems in New Zealand were also arguably sub-optimal pre invasion by the European “generations of oppressors”. For example, the tribal system was arguably feudal in nature. The tribes captured and kept slaves from other tribes, for example. Environmental policy also needed some work (for example, the rather delicious Moa was now extinct). Huge tracts of forests were destroyed. Poverty? Starvation was not unknown. And so it goes on…
Nonetheless, your implicit historical revisionism is not something I really have an issue with.
Your rather Marxist insistence on emphasising “land” in any resource reallocation discussion is rather quaint, but quite dangerous. Alas, in the global knowledge economy, I suspect that generating sustainable wealth is more a consequence of improvements in education, than short term rent seeking behaviour. Hence the saying “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Having said all this, I am not necessarily against any of the land / fisheries / energy / air waves / sea beds et al claims. I simply remain unconvinced that shovelling more land / money at Maori Chiefs will solve the Maori people’s problems. They could even make the situation worse, by providing a distraction from what needs to be done?
Your final comment was:
“All the while, blaming genetic or cultural ‘inferiority’ or any of the myriad of racist slurs and slings rednecks and reactionaries peddle out to bash “ungrateful” brown people?”
I personally wouldn’t discount the idea that Maori culture may have a negative impact on Maori economic performance. Cultures that emphasise personal responsibility, individuality and self reliance (say the US) tend to outperform those cultures that value collectivisation and common ownership of all property.
Genetics certainly have nothing to do with any of it.
For the record, I certainly do not regard myself as a “redneck” or a “reactionary”, but then again I’m not 100% sure what they mean in this context. It could just be a convenient label to use against people who disagree?
Rgds,
*p*
Hey, I trust you to know I don’t regard *you* as a redneck. 😉
I love the way the extinction of the Moa or burning of some forests are wheeled out as a cudgel against Maori society’s ‘environmental values’. They are, after all, homo sapiens — the deadliest of toxic species …
I have a bee in my bonnet about land not because I am a Marxist (I ain’t) but because its theft and confiscation are demonstrable and documented injustices which people have been seeking to reverse for generations.
As for the ‘economic performance’ of indigenous cultures, please! The obscene practice of slavery of kidnapped Africans was part of European ‘economic performance’ for 300 years — only outlawed in the US and the UK about the time of the Treaty of Waitangi.
I read a book at university about the origins of English individualism which fascinated me. Here’s a taste of it you might enjoy …
http://alanmacfarlane.com/TEXTS/Origins_HI.pdf
One can’t turn back time, nor, except in the case of those tribes deep in the Amazon or in the PNG highlands, avoid contact with ‘traders’ from other cultures. It’s not realistic to surmise (I don;t say you do) that Maori culture would, in 2012, be the same as 1820. Technology would be acquired, education likewise. With or without white man’s religion.
But the alienation of millions of acres of Maori land — and rapidly — by pakeha settlers, the New Zealand Company and the British Colonial Office which, when push came to shove, overpowered and invaded these lands HAS to be seen as a determining factor in the social and economic life of this country’s indigenous people.
You are, as always, delightfully cool-headed in your responses.
Cheers, P
Putting aside shining examples of almost volcanic erudition and big words – it isnt rewriting history or misrepresentation to state that Maori were knowingly dispossessed at the point of a gun in most instances – by a supposedly more civilised ‘christian’ culture. In this modern era as another example – the world sat and still sits by while China illegally occupies and rapes Tibet – and goes to great lengths to search for historic justification for same – still – even today.
Sure – Maori ate enemies and practiced slavery and even committed acts of Genocide on the Chathams – but to maintain civilisation and a shred of belief system – we have to believe in an ultimate state of right – and wrong. Which leads me to believe we actually arent very civilised – but rather; skilled practitioners of situational ethics.
I take a more pragmatic view – Maori are (and always have been) our last bastion and bulwark to stop this rapacious NACT bunch of burglars from selling us off lock stock and barrel. I dont mind what they do (within reason) to prevent that from happening. Pete is quite correct in drawing parallels with South Africa – the situation is not the same in its entirety – but the nub of it is.
I’d like to see Maori achieve many of their objectives – within the checks and balances of our democracy – democracy … a concept foreign to Key and his cronies.
This section records some of the various machinations pakeha/settler governments and their agencies have used to alienate Maori from their lands — note the reference to “conquest”, a time-honoured method (if dishonourable) of acquiring real property from less than willing owners.
Sorry it’s so long. The whole series is good.
Obtaining land – the Treaty in practice
from NZ History online
How to obtain land for European settlement was always a key issue in New Zealand. The Treaty of Waitangi gave the Crown the exclusive right to buy Maori land, but things changed from the 1860s. As the conflict of the 1860s drew to a close, the government backed up its conquest through the law and a new court system. Maori lost thousands of acres of land, and the effects would be felt for decades to come.
The Native Land Court
The Native Land Court was created in 1865. This centralised, Pakeha-controlled court was based largely on the settlers’ legal system and converted customary title to land to individual title, effectively making it easier for Maori land to be sold to settlers.
The court replaced a system that had been set up in 1862. Under the Native Lands Act of that year, settlers could directly buy Maori land – for the first time since the mid-1840s. Maori had a large role in deciding land ownership. Eleven Maori became judges of the localised court system, which was trialled with some success in the north. All this changed after 1865. The Maori judges were demoted to the position of assessors and no longer had a decisive role in matters of Maori custom.
The Native Land Court was required to name no more than 10 owners, no matter the size of the block of land. The newly named owners then held their lands individually, not communally as part of (or as trustees for) a tribal group. The new owners could deal with the land as they saw fit, including selling it. Some sold willingly, while others were picked off by shady dealers who got the sellers into a debt that could only be paid by selling land.
The courts often sat far from the lands under investigation. Hearings could stretch on for months, making it very expensive for Maori to attend. Any individual, whether a rightful owner or not, could apply for investigation of title. This forced whole communities into court because it only considered evidence presented to it on the day. If customary owners boycotted proceedings or were simply unaware their lands were under investigation, the land could be awarded to others.
Even successful claimants found that it was so expensive to secure title (including court fees and payments to lawyers, interpreters, surveyors, hoteliers and the like) that they had to sell some of the interest in the land they had been awarded. Debt entrapment became a standard technique of unscrupulous land speculators, and there were many fraudulent dealings.
The court ignored complex Maori customs relating to land ownership and succession in favour of a simplified set of rules. There was little recognition of tribal variations in custom or of the way in which resource rights to the same lands could be spread among several different groups. This often increased tensions among tribes appearing in court, forcing them to compete for exclusive rights to lands they might once have shared.
Undermining tribal ownership
The court was doing more than just converting customary Maori title into lands held under grant from the Crown. It was also removing communalism and encouraging the sale of Maori lands to the settlers. All of these were factors that would also undermine tribal authority.
The means of issuing land titles reflected this. Parliament attempted to ensure that the 10 named owners of a parcel of land were trustees for the rest of their tribe. The first chief judge, Francis Dart Fenton, simply ignored this. He believed this kind of communal ownership was not the aim of the 1865 act. As a result, large numbers of Maori were dispossessed of their lands. Maori communities set up their own tribal komiti (committees) as an alternative to the Native Land Court. The Crown recognised these only as advisory bodies to the court.
The Native Land Act 1873 took individual ownership even further. It stipulated that every owner was to be listed on the title but that title could no longer be awarded to hapu or iwi, as was theoretically possible under the 1865 act. Each named owner was free to sell his or her interests without reference to other owners. There was no legal basis for multiple Maori owners to act as a group until 1894. Many communities found that their land was now a series of paper titles owned by unaccountable individuals. The only thing they could effectively do with their land was to sell it.
Land purchasing from the 1870s
The government’s ambitious immigration and public works policies sparked another round of aggressive land purchasing from the early 1870s. By the early 1910s nearly three-quarters of the North Island had passed out of Maori ownership. In the South Island, where most land had been acquired by the Crown before 1865, Maori retained less than 1%.
Not all of this land had been sold. Under the Public Works Lands Act 1864 and subsequent laws, Maori (and European) lands could be acquired for roads, railways and other public works, sometimes without compensation. Some Maori land was targeted for compulsory acquisition in preference to nearby Pakeha land. Roads were sometimes circuitously routed through Maori reserves. Maori also complained that land taken for schools was neither used for such purposes nor returned to them if it was not used. They also claimed that later they had to pay rates to local bodies, on which they were not represented, for services they did not receive.
Thanks Pete – i havent read it all yet but will. I am a great admirer of the Maori Prophets including Te Whiti o Rongomai, Rua Kenana and even Te Kooti and of course T W Ratana. Men of vision and ahead of their time. I also greatly admire the King Movement and its aspirations.
I suspect they are the conscience of this land somehow. A signpost that points to us all the way ahead.
Worst thing is – that under Clark – the sell-offs and cheating continued – a labour administration should hang their heads in shame in front of both pakeha and maori for allowing what Clark and Cullen allowed. They helped birth the Maori Party.
I watched just now – the doco on Prime about Shearing Gangs – and two young southern boys were profiled – both Maori. The younger of the two is 20 – a hard working shearing lad – who was diagnosed with cancer at 19 – has a wife and little baby – yet fought it off and went through chemo and came back to shear – diagnosed with a stomach cancer – went through it all again – came back shearing and worked his ass off to get back on a gang. Then on the programme another lump on his stomach was discovered so back he has to go for more surgery and chemo. He is still battling cancer, shearing and now has a second baby on the way. The kid is an inspiration and yes – he is Maori. His employer is a pakeha ex shearer married to a maori woman. Y’know – i reckon its high time we all took a bloody good long look at ourselves and decided what we really want in this country. I see the vitriol directed at Maori and the naked hatred and accusations. But we never look at ourselves. “The sins of some are less evident than others – but are discovered over time…” paraphrase …