Morgan / Guthrie Are We There Yet?

The Future of the Treaty of Waitangi
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4835-4553-0
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 408 Seiten

Three questions: 'Where have we got to with the Treaty of Waitangi?'; 'Is where we have got to a good place?' and 'Where do we go from here?' Simple questions we thought. But nothing is simple when you start asking questions about the Treaty of Waitangi. Two years later we have emerged battered and bruised but with something we want to say. 'Folks, we might be about to crash the truck and you're not even looking!'

Autoren/Hrsg.

Morgan, Gareth

Guthrie, Susan

Leseproben

Introduction It has been a long time coming, but New Zealanders and their political leaders are getting to grips with the harm done to Maori culture and Maori communities by 19th century British settlement. Other countries with a history of colonisation have been grappling with their own version of this issue too. The process of exploring the impact of colonisation, and trying to put things right, is an international one. It began in the late 1970s and continues to this day. It is not too much of a stretch to call this a process of reconciliation. No one can have a complete understanding of the past, but it is possible to learn a great deal from history. History shows, for example, that a great deal of harm is done when ideas, values and practices from one culture within society are overlooked or actively suppressed by others. Individuals within these cultures can lose their sense of self, they can falter and lose their direction and strength. People from small cultural communities living alongside a large majority are especially vulnerable. The effects can continue across generations. Cultural loss or suppression due to colonisation is not the only factor causing harm to indigenous communities. Although it is rarely acknowledged in New Zealand, being culturally and socially disconnected from the wider society is damaging for individuals too. International empirical evidence has shown time and again that identifying with and being connected to both one’s own culture and the wider society is the best option for those from minority groups. History also shows us that Maori culture, like many indigenous cultures, is centred on place. Having an ongoing relationship with the physical landscape is important to Maori. With the value of hindsight then, it is no wonder that Maori communities were torn asunder by colonisation. Within one generation, Maori communities were surrounded and outnumbered by foreign settlers who successfully implanted their ideas, knowledge and political processes throughout the country. Settlers also acquired exclusive rights across much of the landscape, severing Maori connections with place. Urbanisation from the 1950s added further pressure, while falling behind in education and in the job stakes disconnected many Maori from the economy. Colonisation began over 170 years ago in New Zealand but the effects can still be seen today in the over-representation of Maori among those with poor health and low incomes, for example, and among those in prison. The challenge facing New Zealand in the 1970s was how to go about the reconciliation process. An obvious answer was to begin by acknowledging the Treaty of Waitangi signed in 1840. This document did, after all, kick-start the whole colonisation process. It was an agreement between British and Maori to live together in this place. Maori had always seen the Treaty as central to their relationship with the rest of New Zealand. It took time, but eventually the rest of New Zealand came to agree. New Zealand’s political leaders decided in 1975 to put the Treaty at the centre of the reconciliation process. The issue then became how best to use the Treaty. The decision was made to treat the written clauses in the Treaty as benchmarks against which to judge what happened subsequent to 1840. Maori grievances thus became couched in language relating to the Treaty, and arguments were anchored around the wording used in the Treaty’s clauses (the three ‘Articles’). Waitangi Tribunal findings and court rulings have been invariably expressed in language relating to the Treaty. There is a very important point about the Treaty’s role in the reconciliation process that is often overlooked. The Treaty is not a legal obligation imposed on either Maori or non-Maori. It is tool that is being used to help the reconciliation process. The Treaty has been successful as a tool because it has great symbolic power. The Treaty is used by the Waitangi Tribunal, the Courts, lawyers, government departments and Maori to arrive at decisions they believe will receive widespread support eventually, if not immediately. These decisions are about how resources and political power are to be distributed between Maori and non-Maori. These decisions are often subsequently translated into legislation, which is legally binding, but the Treaty itself has no legal power. In its current role the Treaty simply acknowledges there is a political relationship between Maori and non-Maori and it is the job of the Tribunal, the Courts, Parliament and government departments to work out how that relationship plays out in practice every day. In the early days of reconciliation, many of the grievances related to land that was once in the exclusive possession of particular tribes and was culturally important to them. The loss of cultural ideas and knowledge – such as the Maori language – often lay at the heart of grievances too. Grievances relating to events that happened in the past are known as ‘historical claims’. Reconciliation of historical claims has been achieved by settlements, which include an official apology and typically some combination of financial settlement, acknowledgement of unique roles (akin to compromised property rights) for Maori tribes with respect to land remaining in public ownership, and direct land transfers to Maori tribes. Where the grievance has been largely about land and cultural assets the approach of using the Treaty to bring about reconciliation has generally worked smoothly. The importance of land and cultural assets is now well understood and widely accepted and the wording used in the Treaty – in Article 2 – sends a strong message about the intent of the Treaty signatories. It was their intent that Maori retain their lands and ‘treasures’. Thus we see that grievances relating to lands and treasures that were lost have generally been understood and accepted by non-Maori. It is a fact that well over $1 billion in land and other assets has been transferred to tribes with no disruption or even significant disagreement from non-Maori. Not all Maori grievances relate to land and cultural assets though. Maori also have political aspirations. Maori have long sought authority to make decisions about public policies and programmes that affect Maori. Sometimes this translates to a demand for more community self-autonomy – Maori leaders having a larger role in Maori communities – and sometimes it translates to demands for more political power – Maori leaders having a greater say in policies that affect all New Zealanders. Maori have also sought economic assistance because without resources all the self-autonomy and political power in the world won’t deliver a higher level of well-being to struggling communities. These political aspirations are not unique to Maori – they are demands made by indigenous groups around the world, irrespective of whether or not a Treaty was ever signed. Maori have chosen to use the Treaty claims process to pursue these political aspirations. Maori typically blend these three goals – autonomy, power and economic assistance – into one aspiration summed up by the Maori word ‘rangatiratanga’, which can be roughly translated as chieftainship. Article 2 of the Treaty promised Maori rangatiratanga over their lands and treasures. Rather than focusing on the lands and treasures aspect of Article 2, when presenting their political grievances/aspirations Maori emphasise the rangatiratanga aspect of Article 2. Maori have been supported in this by the Waitangi Tribunal, which has spent considerable time discussing claims to rangatiratanga, often finding in favour of Maori. However, this aspect of the reconciliation process is risky for New Zealand. Using the Treaty to couch a claim for more power over policies that affect all New Zealanders is particularly problematic. Article 3 of the Treaty states explicitly that everyone – Maori and non-Maori – is a citizen with the same rights. That precludes Maori or anyone else having more political power than anyone else. So the Treaty cannot be used to support Maori aspirations for unique political rights. The Treaty has been a great tool to reconcile grievances relating to land and cultural treasures but it can’t credibly be asked to support granting more political power to Maori than is available to anyone else. A new approach is needed to discuss that aspiration. A second problem relates to the wisdom of the request. The adage ‘be careful what you wish for’ resonates here. Around the world much thought has gone into the best way to govern countries made up of different ethnic groups. While the is much the experts don’t agree on, they all acknowledge that giving groups defined by descent unique political powers risks creating social divisions over time that would not be there otherwise. Governing arrangements in which a select group has unique political rights have the potential to create ever-greater social divisions. This is not because the rest of the population feels aggrieved and grumpy – they may, but the argument against group political rights is more sophisticated than that. When unique political power for some groups is created, the leaders of those groups are incentivised to accentuate the difference between their group and the rest of society. They fear any awareness and acknowledgement of common ground...