History will record that the Treaty of Waitangi was prone, like a rubbery string of sinew lodged in the teeth of Aotearoa long after the meal of New Zealand was digested. Both Maori and Pakeha at various moments have had turns trying to pick it out and each time the fingernail slides in it seems to wedge further in place. No one could find a toothpick. It stuck fast. The first and last evidence of a long and disagreeable meal. It doesn’t seem to affect anything much, except our self-confidence. It’s just we can feel it there and we can’t help playing with it with our tongue. Sometimes we play with it just to amuse ourselves. It will naturally dissolve of course, but the preference must be extracting it oneself for the satisfaction alone.
The Kingitanga’s Hui-a-Motu at Turangawaewae on Saturday (20/01/2024) – from observing the coverage – was as I expected, positive, energising and vague. It wasn’t going to be a “moanfest” of whinging as Shane Jones put it, and the “ominous” “shadow kingdom” showcased in Chris Trotter’s latest episode of Beware the Brown Bogeyman on the NZ Democracy Project isn’t going to ignite his yearned for civil war with “angry rangatahi.” If his columns from the last few years have a mission it is he dearly wants to precipitate that war, postulate it, will it into existence; and his real existential fear driving the enterprise seems to be he won’t live long enough to die chronicling it. Yes. He figures, with the confidence of the White Man with the whip hand that it will be Rorke’s Drift when it might well be… Zulu Dawn. Like the very disastrous engagement and result that befell that column, Trotter’s column seems just as desperate and equally doomed. His conception of the strong man saviour for the Pakeha in his malwhimsy is so close to Hitler that you wonder if his moustache has significantly shortened over time. Or is it white liberal naivete not to want Constand Viljoen to carpet bomb Ngaruawahia in the lead up to the Treaty bi-centenary?
Trotter’s bare logic on which he scripts The Third New Zealand War however is sound, it just not reasonable to think those conditions will ever arise, or rational to think the post-apocalyptic aftermath of it would be desirable or sustainable. On a material basis – of Pakeha lifestyle being dependent on stolen land – that land question dénouement would trigger a white out avalanche of Allan Titfords if it was ever properly remedied – sure. This question however has not been seriously proposed. It needs to be (and that’s what I am in favour of) but it is not being. Te Pati Maori haven’t seriously thought it through and the Greens have limited the scope to a fraction with their return policy. “Land Back!” has never in any of my readings came with a realistic how-to.
The superficiality of so much political and protest action, generated as it is by social media narcissism as much as by genuine grievance, and the capture of public discourse and administrative direction by the lawyers and academics and their self-interested parasitism on the state they claim they want to move beyond should fully abate Trotter’s paranoia. What are these people really capable of? Have you ever been to a demonstration recently? Is there any action at all? No one wants to dare risk arrest because their professional licences, their government funding, their mortgages, their name in the local paper’s courts page all matter more than the kaupapa. Unless it’s for the sake of likes on Facebook and Youtube views no one is prepared to sacrifice anything beyond an afternoon and petrol money. There is no mind or stomach for it.
Maori have been culturally assertive, but have been politically subsumed and assimilated into the smug complacency of the Pakeha mode of non-confrontation, incrementalism and the safety of judicial atrophy – have they not? Co-opted and copped out. The post-settlement entities foisted on the Iwi groups are now entrenched. The elites which Kingi Tuheitia made a somewhat ambivalent reference to in his concluding speech control the Iwi’s assets and suppress the Hapu’s Mana Motuhake and are now the primary block on decolonisation (as intended by the NZ Government). Tuheitia’s off the cuff remarks should be well heeded – they did it for the money – and by extension that is what they are all about:
“You know our post settlement entities – I think they’re government agencies, because you’ve got to sign their agreements to get the money and have this identity… I don’t want to hang our dirty laundry up. Our settlement… 28 years, and we’ve still got the same structure… I tried to restructure, but no one seems to want to change, they want to stay in this little huddle they’ve got…”
Colonial entities post-independence have more often than not left the land and the whips in white hands and nothing so far from anyone indicates a different scenario here.
The other strand of Trotter’s bellicose thesis is cultural. Again there is some logic to it, but again the reality he sketches is in crayon in an age of AI. The Pakeha ability to entertain “Maorification” is already a generational reality that neutralises the cultural anxiety which is of the Boomer’s immediate concern – outflanked by time it seems, the visceral hate and accompanying fear just does not exist to justify the requisite conditions for Amaorigeddon. Can you march to war without that beat?
Things are moving all right, but not in the right direction. Look at the Office of Maori-Crown Relations Treaty Settlement map. The colonial masters are filling in the country as undisputed Pakeha land – the confiscated land of which there can be no moral claim has been swallowed. All for a pittance. Locked into a legal framework the elite endorse there is no recourse now available for the landless peasants in whose names they took the money. Look at the NZ-UK FTA that came into effect last year: the preamble claims the New Zealand Crown “has now” succeeded to and assumed all rights and obligations of the Treaty from the British Crown! When did that happen exactly, what date? What Maori opposed this or even noticed it? The most significant acknowledgement of the Treaty by the actual partner, Britain, and not one of those complacent Iwi corporate drones, not one of those lawyer parasites even blinks! All the megaphone kids, silent. Not one protest! No money in it? Are these people who invoke and sanctify Te Tiriti credible when the UK and NZ governments can collude to abrogate it and they do nothing? Cretinous leadership.
None of the reports from the conference augured anything beyond conventional political engagement if we look through the rhetoric (none of which was fierce). The same people, saying the same things were not going to devise a decolonisation template they have had fifty years to come up with and haven’t. Indeed, the Rangatahi forum, God bless them, wondered aloud in their final statement why we only come together as a reaction and not as a positive pursuit on a regular basis. The Kingitanga was a reaction itself to the establishment of the NZ parliament so perhaps it is not a wonder the movement is inherently reactive.
The momentum has begun in the heat sparked by NZ First and Act. Given the fuse that sits between them is a National Party dominated by the liberal wing (something I see John Campbell refused to acknowledge in his rather churlish piece for One News) there is only so much friction that can be tolerated before the moderation switch gets tripped. We shall see how the current generation can maintain the push within the paradox of dependence on their adversaries to shove them and their elders into meaningful action.
Superb prose, as always, Tim.
What you have failed to appreciate, however, is that I do not want civil war – I fear it. Because, as you rightly acknowledge, what would be left after the conflict would not be worth having.
I do thank you, though, for recognising the logic of at least some of my analysis. Not least the maximalist nationalist programme, which you espouse and which the elites work so hard to temper.
I guess that’s why the King’s hui was, in the end, so mild-mannered. The iwi leaders fear the Crown a great deal less than they fear the growing frustration of the poor and, most especially, the young.
People unemployed, underemployed, feeling hopeless. They still have their personal energy. A build up of energy can make an explosion, fire. But all that energy, what if it could be encouraged with national task forces, well paid, able to support home and family, no stand downs by petty, vicious government and contractors, agencies.
I speet on such behaviour from admin. So-called welfare – Work and Income travesty. They would form in cohesive teams and travel within the country to where willing workers who had esprit de corps were needed and wanted. They would compete to be top team against the other, would enjoy building NZ with the same enthusiasm as competing in everyday sport?? Is that an idea or is that a great idea?
Flip, from brooding problems mounting fearfully, to great spots of activity all round the country. By NZ/AO people for us all, and everybody wins. Nice scenario. All you negative thinkers can’t even start on something positive as a pilot; now give it a try. Monitor, adjust, facilitate, pay properly and cherish our young and unemployed, a resource more precious than oil and titanium.
Chris, appreciate your comments, as always. You once called me a controversialist and I think I can now, after almost 30 years, return the compliment!
At the risk of fueling this further, may I recommend getting drunk one night, and listening to an end of times radio news bulletin envisaging something of what you have outlined (including the ominous silence from the security apparatus please note) that I made 8 years ago on Youtube ‘RNZ: the final broadcast’ of which there are 2 parts.
1. https://youtu.be/6WiQreDFw0k?si=r5_R79ot7xxXY_Ip
2. https://youtu.be/eyL8UGjOi34?si=4-A9Jfpuov-cROEV
It was something of a thought experiment, to consider what the collapse of the colony would look like in real time if it was an event rather than a process. What would that final status look like and what might get us there, how would it be done and what might be the counter reaction. Forgive the clicking – that’s the extra drama of the panicked Pakeha guy turning on his electric fence from stun to kill. The question is what would trigger all this? That is kept unclear, because who knows.
Without proper intellectual property and a protectionist economic base of our (Maori) own it is unauthentic pushing Maori into corporate capitalism. As an example Chinese can open up Chinese restaurant’s, italians can open Italian restaurant’s but without the intellectual property yknow the language and culture underpinning Maori capitalism it will always be unauthentic. Maori who open up restaurant’s or businesses of there own rip off the intellectual property of foreign nations we have no legally protected rights of our own it’s all colonial settler protections.
Fighting constitutional battles in the high court is always the wrong fight for Maori to get into. One reason for that is because only a central government can defeat another central government and in the case of Maori we can not form a central government of our own. One reason is because we are a collection of independent tribes and two the treaty intrenches those boundaries.
30 years of the treaty infrastructure and none of the iwi leaders can give me simple capital gains calculations. Or a simple trading calculation or investment calculation because elite Maori capitalists are unauthentic. Money is not for them. They shouldn’t have settled for cash yet here we are. Forced to digest things we are not intellectually or biologically designed to digest and our great and wonderful planners haven’t figured out how to prepare more than one meal.
The treaty has opened up the world of science and commerce to Maori and in return we have to sacrifice our dialects so that an homogeneous Maori language and culture can be distributed to the world and finally generate authentic elite Maori capitalist. But that’s just me. After 40 years I’ve been unable to convince enough Maori that there is a promise land out there because they’re scared of progress.
They want a Maori Renaissance paid for by the government. One that promotes equality and the destruction of the family unity. Even if they don’t know it themselves destroying the atomic family is there goal and how do you do that you promote promiscuity.
And how do you promote promiscuity well you promote homosexuality.
And how do you promote homosexuality well you demonise male figures. The end result is a feminist ideology and weak male figures.
Having weak male figures is another reason why Maori can not even imagine beating the crown on any level imaginable. I mean they can try just like Winston and Seemore is trying on the other end but non of them actually have it in them to destroy or even create an economy from scratch.
No I think anything that will be attempted in this area eill get watered down. One, two or maybe even three more rate hikes will entrench the wealth gap far beyond the vast majority of Maori at a rate of total maori economic output divided by price making these constitutional arguments rather annoying.
I just wachted the Maori king address the audience and was like is that the best we’ve got? Some slogans and court papers?
First of all Maori have to provide alternatives to financial innovation, research, development. A lot of other devices including bail outs. Spending hard won money on slogans and court papers is unimaginative and poor leadership. The goal is to keep the Maori culture viable.
There are alternatives which is traditional gender roles that have been beaten out of the heads of Maori which is men work and woman do nurturing duties which has been true of every single Renaissance, revolution or whatever. And there has to be a lot of journalism expressing a common view of Maori that those who work the fields should own them which is a view that terrifies settler colonialists.
The idea that I’m getting all twisted in knots about is that wage slavery has to be temporary and it used to be the Position of Winston Peter’s old National Party. These ideas would have been easily recognised by Muldoon. There us nothing honourable about renting ones self so those are some alternatives. Alliances between the Crown and Maori are perfectly feasible Jim Bolger did the most to construct the Treaty infrastructure. There’s no economic or politically theory that conflicts with the structure of the treaty infrastructure except for those that conflict with existing operators extracting Maori wealth. There for the existing education system and cultural centres have to drive economic development out of your minds and make Maori aspirations seem insane or theft or some type of degenerate behaviour and unthinkable.
But there’s nothing to say that Maori can not move towards a progressive platform. There are tens of billions of dollars under iwi management combined with the cheapest land values available to New Zealand could produce the scale of development that New Zealand badly needs. It’s not a law of nature that we have to import all of our energy requirements or that we have to get cheap railway infrastructure from China. Those aren’t laws of nature those are social, economic and political decisions that require a certain minimum amount of imagination.
And how do you promote homosexuality well you demonise male figures. The end result is a feminist ideology and weak male figures.
Such a romantic in a world of enlightenment.
Meh – the treaty is massively over-egged. England signed an essentially similar boiler plate deal with the sovereign of Singapore around the same time, without it creating a permanent Brahmin class paid to invent new fantasies about it.
There can be no progress for our society based on fatuous lies. Redress of Maori grievances lies in their rights as British subjects that were ignored or overridden with gay abandon by the corrupt settler governments.
apples v oranges logic
The article touches on part of the problem Maori have ie that of the elite lawyers and fund managers and committe goers who have learnt to live off the tax payers teat and whose sole motivation is that and that alone. It is they who come up with a new definition of the treaty every month as that fuels tribunal claims and that makes fees. The tribunal committe is subsumed by this thinking too instead of trying to close out treaty issues so everyone can move on. Blame the white man all you like but it’s the minority of elites that benefit knowing they can stir up ordinary Maori to come to a hui and party a bit without any benefit to those ordinary Maori at all. Think what could be done with the money if it wasn’t sucked up by the few.
I don’t understand Trotter lately. He’s always been afraid of Maori activism – but he’s getting a bit hysterical about it lately. Apparently it’s “identity politics” which is a BAD THING. Never mind that class politics does nothing for Maori language and culture.
But then he’s also allowing nutty conspiracy theorists to spout their bullshit on his site as well. Things going from bad to worse.
I think the Maori of 180 years ago would have found it odd to think that a government would not be able to house its people because the land was too damned expensive. The notion that land could be a commodity which could be bought and sold was probably foreign to them. And they probably had no concept of pollution either.
Perhaps land should be returned, not to the Maori, but to the Crown, who would govern its use for the benefit of everybody. Perhaps this is really the the main point of the treaty, and perhaps this concept should be included in any constitution that we might draw up.
I believe a fellow named Michael Joseph Savage had a similar idea . . .
Landowners will not give up their land willingly, so nationalizing land would need Charles, or his local representative, to make some sort of declaration. Would he do this?
He might if this is what the Maori need:. after all the treaty is one between Crown and Maori, so if Maori have experienced problems through loss of land he may well see this as something inconsistent with the treaty, and that state, or Crown, ownership could be a solution.
So Chris Trotter “fears” that a “maximalist nationalist programme” will lead to civil war which he claims he “does not want”. So what is this maximalist programme? Seems it is being articulated by Tim Selwyn more or less on his own and consists of the suggestion that all confiscated land in New Zealand should be returned to its original collective owners. For administrative reasons alone, that is an unlikely scenario, but it is not impossible, and if was to happen it might not provoke the kind of reaction that Mr Trotter expects. New Zealand is now a predominantly urban society in which increasing numbers of Maori, Pakeha, Pasifika and other city dwellers own no land and have no hope of owning land. Rural land not in Maori title is increasingly falling into the hands of corporate or foreign owners, and a similar phenomenon may be occurring in urban residential and commercial property. The classic family farm is often in hock to the Aussie bank, and hence as good as owned by the bank, while Pakeha families that have been generations on the land often find that through past matrimonial arrangements technically speaking they qualify as Maori. So if all confiscated lands were returned to iwi administration who would have reason to object? Obviously the corporate and foreign capitalists, but a huge number of residential tenants and working farmers would just be curious to see whether the iwi would be kinder to them than an Aussie bank or a Remuera landlord. Even homeowners caught in the grip of volatile house prices and soaring mortgage rates might be happy to have the iwi take that burden off their shoulders. Things in New Zealand are not what they were fifty years ago. Because the colonialist dream has emphatically and miserably failed, anything becomes possible. A “maximalist nationalist programme” may be welcomed by all sorts of folk – not just Maori.
Then there is the political and constitutional aspect. The Westminster political system has brought itself into justifiable contempt, and non-Maori will start looking at the governance of the marae, the principles of rangatiratanga and mana motuhake to discover whether there is something there that caters to the needs and aspirations of the ordinary New Zealander rather better than King Charles and the 123 MPs who have been coerced into pledging him their solemn allegiance.
A word of comfort to both Chris Trotter and Tim Selwyn. Things are changing out of the sight and hearing of the political class, and although progress is slow, as it must be if it is to be more than a transient phenomenon, it is inexorable.
We’re all maori under this fucking shitfest. Kia kaha, kia mana! fuck the crown! anarchy in the ao!
This is the same Chris Trotter who’s endorsed the genocidal zionist attacks on Gaza, right? Hmmmmmmm
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