1
Walking backwards into the future
The construction of Māori culture and traditions in bicultural New Zealand
Martijn van Dussen
Echtenstein 182, 1103 AA Amsterdam S2137143
06-81206880
2 Table of content
Introduction p. 3
Main problem p. 4
Research question p. 5
Sub-questions and expected outcomes p. 5
Structure p. 8
Theoretical framework p. 8
Methodology p. 12
The Treaty of Waitangi: A British instrument of power p. 13
Signing the Treaty p. 14
Progressive colonialism p. 17
Assimilation and monoculturalism p. 19
Pockets of resistance p. 20
From disengagement to engagement p. 22
A Study Association turned into a political movement p. 22
Societal pressure and protest movements p. 24
Māori Renaissance and the road to biculturalism p. 26
A bicultural society p. 29
A modern traditional culture p. 31
The construction of culture and identity p. 31
Clashing discourses p. 34
Hyperrealism and contesting cultural identities p. 37
Kia Rite! p. 41
Challenging the haka p. 42
Kapa O Pango p. 45
Conclusion p. 49
3 Introduction
In 2015, the national rugby team of New Zealand, the All Blacks, won the world cup for the second time in a row. This historical moment was celebrated by the team and throughout New Zealand with the haka, an iconic dance performed by the All Blacks before the beginning of every rugby match. Originally, the haka is a ritual dance of Māori origin, the original inhabitants of New Zealand before British colonisation started in 1840.1 Mainly thanks to the All Blacks their haka has become an international and national symbol of New Zealand.
However, this is quite remarkable since some forty years earlier, in 1975, Māori were considered second-class citizens and their culture was subordinate to the dominant non-Māori, European-like culture in New Zealand. This was a result of British colonisation of New Zealand which started in 1840 with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the New Zealand Wars between 1860 and 1872, and an official policy of assimilation that followed in the years after and lasted until the 1960s. However, in the Treaty of Waitangi of 1840, agreements between the British colonisers and the Māori were laid down about land ownership, trade, protection, and Māori sovereignty.2 Yet, as New Zealand historian Claudia Orange explains, the British breached the Treaty as fighting began between Māori tribes and the British coloniser over a secure consolidation of Māori sovereignty in 1860. Eventually, the fighting was decided at the disadvantage of the Māori people as the colonial government adopted a national policy of assimilation.3 Yet, Māoris continued to resist British colonialism by refusing attempts to fully assimilate in the dominant culture of the coloniser. As Professor Richard S. Hill of the University of Wellington, specialized in the history of Māori-Crown Relations argues, Māori tribes used many varied strategies in rejecting the political-cultural absorption sought by the state and responding to its coercive and hegemonic mechanisms that underpinned its assimilation policies.4
An important strategy was an attempt for the Treaty of Waitangi to be respected by the New Zealand government. Because of the increasing politicization of Māori and partly inspired by the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, the Treaty of Waitangi became a major political issue in 1960s New Zealand. It became clear that the British Crown had not honoured
1 Ian Carbing, “Rugby World Cup 2015: How the New Zealand haka has moved on from war cry to intimidating
pre-match ritual,” Wales Online, last updated October 21, 2015, accessed September 2, 2016,
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/rugby-world-cup-2015-how-10303811.
2 Philippa Mein Smith, A concise history of New Zealand (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 45-53. 3 Claudia Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books Ltd, 1997), 1-5.
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the agreements that were made in the Treaty resulting in an economic, political, and cultural dominance of Anglo-New Zealanders, or Pākehā.5 Māori on the other hand were at the bottom of society. Trying to create a better situation for themselves, the 1960s and 1970s in New Zealand were characterised by a cultural revival of traditional Māori culture known as the Māori Renaissance.
Main problem
An important assumption underlying the Māori Renaissance was that a strong cultural identity provided the only remedy against the subordination of Māori. In this case, cultural identity can be defined as a constructed self-image of a culture that is different from other cultures, according to Professor in Cultural Anthropology Toon van Meijl.6 Since social alienation due to a negative connotation with Māori culture was an important reason for Māori ‘underachievement’, it was envisaged that by officially promoting and affirming aspects of traditional Māori culture, ethnic inequalities might be reduced or even eliminated, says cultural historian Jeffrey Sissons.7 Next to this, during the Māori Renaissance, the New Zealand government established the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975 which could address wrong-doings to Māori people. Along with other developments, for example by accepting Māori as an official language, New Zealand became a bicultural society. This means that Pākehā and Māori cultures are acknowledged as co-equal and that they both play a significant role in shaping the national government policies.8 Moreover, the use of the haka as a central signifier of national identity clearly shows the importance of Māori culture in New Zealand nationhood. Remarkably, however, this was not a result of the Māori Renaissance but instead, the haka was already used as a national symbol during the period of assimilation.9
As professor of the Anthropological department at the University of Connecticut Jocelyn Linnekin therefore says, “Attempts to preserve traditional cultures in a context of profound social
5
Terence Wesley-Smith, “Australia and New Zealand,” in Tides of history: The Pacific Islands in the twentieth
century, eds. K.R. Howe, Robert C. Kiste, and Brij V, Lal (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994), 208-209.
6 Toon van Meijl, “Introduction,” in Shifting images of identity in the Pacific, eds. Toon van Meijl and Jelle
Miedema (KITLV Press, 2004), 2.
7
Jeffrey Sissons, “The Systematisation of Tradition: Māori Culture as a Strategic Resource,” in Oceania, vol. 64, no. 2 (December 1993), 100.
8 Erich Kolig, “From a ‘madonna in a condom’ to ‘claiming the airwaves’. The Māori cultural renaissance and
biculturalism in New Zealand,” in Shifting images of identity in the Pacific, 144.
9
Scherer and Jackson, Contested terrain of the New Zealand All Blacks: Rugby, commerce, and cultural politics in
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change have led to charges of ‘invented traditions’ and ‘in-authenticity’ by Western scholars.”10
The invention – or to use a more neutral concept – construction of Māori culture and identity, along with the development towards a bicultural society, has ensured that Māori cultural sensitivities are nowadays highly protected, both by law – through a particular reading of the Treaty of Waitangi – and by popular sentiment, or by a sense of political correctness, as senior lecturer in Anthropology Erich Kolig argues.11 In order to maintain these special privileges it is necessary to stress the relevance and unique contribution that Māori culture has made to national life. However, this has led to a political discourse of Māori culture which is removed from its original context and does not echo the individual cultural identity of many Māori youngsters. For them Māori culture is associated with negative experiences like poverty, subordination, and hopelessness.12 It turns out that in the post-colonial era, culture has become an arena of argument as well as a strategic resource. As a result, the debate focusses on whether culture and indigenous institutions have traditional precedent or, instead, are modern fabrications.13
Research question
Consequently, the debate surrounding the modern construction of traditional Māori culture in relation to biculturalism leads to the following research question: To what extent has biculturalism influenced the political construction of Māori cultural identity in New Zealand between 1960 and 2015? In other words, I will research how a discourse of biculturalism has changed Māori cultural identity on a national and political level and if Māoris can identify with this cultural corset. Accordingly, several sub-questions will be asked to provide a thorough answer to the main question
Sub-questions and expected outcomes
The first sub-question is: Why did New Zealand become a bicultural society from 1960 onwards? The answer to this question will include a historical analysis of the position of Māori in New Zealand society. I will argue, by analyzing the Treaty of Waitangi, that the Māori Chiefs who signed the treaty had not ceded sovereignty – or absolute sovereignty – to the British Crown
10
Jocelyn Linnekin, “The Ideological World Remade,” in The Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders, eds. Donald Denoon and Malama Meleisea (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 432.
11 Kolig, Shifting images of identity in the Pacific, 136-137.
12 Toon van Meijl, “Contesting Traditional Culture in Post-Colonial Māori Society. On the Tension between Culture
and Identity,” in Paideuma: Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde, vol. 47 (2001), 138-141.
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deliberately. Instead they had ceded kawanatanga (governorship): the authority to make laws for the good order and security of the country but subject to an undertaking to protect Māori interests.14 During the decades after World War Two, the Treaty was therefore the focus of many activist Māori movements and the argument that Māori had not ceded absolute sovereignty to the Crown was resonating within many factions of the Māori community. Furthermore, in today’s dominant and official interpretation not only has the Treaty established a partnership of co-equals but it also has an inherent bifocal meaning in that it is held to comprise and secure cultural matters, if so desired by Māori. This involves official acknowledgement of Māori culture as equally important to Pākehā culture which is put to good use by Māori to score symbolic or cultural victories in today’s political debate in New Zealand.15
Yet, New Zealand could have also opted for a society based on multiculturalism instead of biculturalism. Since the nation houses many more ethnicities, each with their distinct culture, there is an ongoing debate about the special position of Māori and Pākehā culture in New Zealand. As Richard Hill argues: “Increasing numbers are arguing that both Crown and Māori parties need to begin seriously examining how best to fit multiculturalism into the bicultural oriented policy mix.”16
Then the question remains why only Māori and Pākehā have their special position within New Zealand society.
The second sub-question is: In what way did Māori cultural identity change between 1960 and 2015? This question will analyze how cultural identity can be defined and how it relates to Māori culture. Also, I will discuss in what ways Māori cultural identity has changed, whether these changes were issued from top-down or bottom-up movements, and if the political self-representation of Māori culture is resonant within Māori society. Next to this, I will argue that from 1960s onwards Māori actively promoted the idea that their culture was different from European New Zealanders, a distinctiveness that is defined as Māoritanga. Commonly translated as the “Māori way of life”, Māoritanga includes symbols designed to affirm a cultural identity that served as a focus for the assertion of indigenous practices in the face of Pākehā cultural hegemony during the 1960s and 1970s. In these decades, the initiative for change came from activist Māori movements that became increasingly aware, assertive, and politically mobilized.
14 Waitangi Tribunal, Department of Justice, “Report of the Waitangi Tribunal on the Manukau Claim,” Waitangi
Tribunal (Wellington: Department of Justice, 1985), 111.
15
Kolig, Shifting images of identity in the Pacific, 144.
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However, Māori cultural identity constitutes a selected and politicized synthesis of the past and present. This is characteristic of expressions of identity and usually leads to the conscious construction of culture and tradition or as some scholars have called it, the invention of culture and tradition.17 What then are the consequences of this discourse of construction and invention for persons who identify themselves as Māori?
The third sub-question is: To what extent has biculturalism and the political construction of Māori cultural identity changed the meaning of the haka? This question will use the haka as a contemporary example of a symbol that affirms a distinctive cultural identity. I will therefore treat the haka as a case study in which the relation between the haka as a constructed tradition and a symbol for biculturalism is discussed. As Jay Scherer and Steven Jackson, both specialized in sport sociology, argue in “Cultural Studies and the Circuit of Culture: Advertising, Promotional Culture and the New Zealand All Blacks,” the haka belongs to all New Zealanders and therefore it can surely be seen as one of the most well-known symbols used to express biculturalism. The use of the haka by the All Blacks is one of the reasons that “when it’s time to celebrate the country’s distinctiveness and pride, we [New Zealanders, red.] all tend to turn to the
haka.”18 Through their performance of the haka, the All Blacks symbolize a united nation. On the other hand, its performance also fuels debate and resentment. When the sport brand Adidas published their commercial Black in 1999, which uses images of the Ka Mate haka, there was much criticism from Māori officials who claimed that their cultural heritage was abused and misrepresented. Accordingly, they claimed that they owned the haka. Scherer and Jackson add to this debate by stating that the commercial indeed contributed to the stereotypical construction of Māori as “primitive athletes, genetically advanced to participate in physical activities as opposed to intellectual ones.”19
At the same time, the haka is and remains important to Māori cultural identity because it also symbolizes the importance of the All Blacks for the Māori. As New Zealand historian Michael King says, there are elements in Māori culture that fit perfectly for qualities you need to play rugby, such as physical performance, ferocity and courage.20
17 Vilsoni Hereniko, “Representation of cultural identities,” in Tides of history, 417-423. 18
Jay Scherer and Steven J. Jackson, “Cultural Studies and the Circuit of Culture: Advertising, Promotional Culture and the New Zealand All Blacks,” in Cultural studies Critical methodologies, volume 8, no. 4 (November
2008), 516.
19 Idem, 520. 20
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Structure
The sub-questions roughly indicate the structure of this research. After the introduction, the first chapter will dedicate itself to a prehistory of the subject. Firstly, the period between the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the New Zealand Wars, and the end of the nineteenth century will be discussed. I will argue how the Treaty of Waitangi proved to be the focus of dispute between Māori and British from the very beginning, and how an ideology of progressive colonialism led to the New Zealand Wars and the national policy of assimilation that followed. After that, the focus of the second chapter will shift to the beginning of the twentieth century as the Young Māori Party improved Māori standards of living and indigenous rights by working within the boundaries of the New Zealand government. Furthermore, the concept of biculturalism will be further introduced and reflected upon as the focus shifts to the 1960s and the flourishing of the Māori Renaissance. The chapter will conclude with the discussion concerning biculturalism as opposed to multiculturalism.
The third chapter will further introduce the concept of Māori cultural identity. It will discuss in what way the Māori Renaissance constituted a cultural revival, affected cultural identity, changed the expression of culture, and how the discrepancy between the political construction of this cultural identity as opposed to the individual cultural identities of many Māori originated. By applying the concept of invented traditions and hyperrealism, the third chapter will discuss in further detail the criticism that is attached to the political construction of culture and the effects on its members.
Finally, the fourth chapter will use the haka as an example to illustrate how biculturalism and the politicisation of Māori culture and identity changed, and continues to change, the meaning of traditions and, to a larger extent, culture. I will argue that New Zealanders attribute different meanings to the haka, and that these differences are still fuel for discussion within the contemporary bicultural society. For one person the haka is regarded as cultural heritage exclusively for, and inherent to, Māoris, for another person it symbolizes a successful bicultural society.
Theoretical framework
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coined the term ‘invented tradition’, meaning “a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.”21
In other words, some traditions are invented in the sense that they claim to be historical but instead are a very modern phenomenon. In this way, social cohesion or membership of groups can be established and symbolized because invented traditions can help to create national and cultural identity. Margaret Jolly and Nicholas Thomas add to this by stating that tradition is the self-conscious proclamation of the past in the present. Alongside cultural construction and especially tradition, I will introduce the theory of hyperrealism, which I also use in the analysis of my research. Hyperrealism, a conceptual theory coined by French sociologist Jean Baudrillard in 1981, can be defined as reality by proxy or the simulation of reality. By this Baudrillard means that in some cases a sign or representation is created without an original referent leading to a certain simulation of reality. Take for example an invented tradition which is supposed to represent or symbolize a historical cultural phenomenon while this historical basis actually does not exist at all. As a result, reality and fiction become blended whereby signs or symbols become artificial imitations of what they represent thereby endlessly reproducing fundamentally empty appearances and experiences.22
However, traditions are useful because they can strengthen cultural differences and cultural identity.23 In this case, cultural identity can be defined as a constructed self-image of a culture that is different from other cultures.24 This means that people only know who they are by understanding who they are not. Any construction of cultural identity is preceded by a recognition of difference and an awareness of what a culture is not.25 However, many Māori have situational identities – as Thomas K. Fitzgerald, specialised in Identity Studies at the University of North Carolina, defines them – implying that they are able to participate situationally in Pākehā and Māori culture.26
Consequently, multiple identities can be very useful when Māori’s
21
E.J. Hobsbawm and T.O. Ranger, The invention of tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 1.
22 Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1994), 1.
23 Margaret Jolly and Nicholas Thomas, “The Politics of Tradition in the Pacific,” in Oceania, vol. 62, no. 4 (June
1992), 241.
24
Toon van Meijl, Shifting images of identity in the Pacific, 2.
25 Toon van Meijl, “Anthropological Perspectives on Identity: From Sameness to Difference,” in The SAGE
handbook of identities, eds. Margaret Wetherell and Chandra Talpade Mohanty (London: SAGE Publications Ltd.,
2010), 71.
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want to achieve something politically within a bicultural society because they are able to behave Pākehā so to say.
Literally, biculturalism means ‘having two cultures.’ In this case, however, it stresses the unique position of the Māori and it singles them and Pākehā out as the two most important cultures living in New Zealand. Yet, what biculturalism exactly is remains a controversial issue. While it was originally conceived as a tool to address structural discrimination, there are now a multiplicity of biculturalisms ranging from the soft mainstreaming of Māori culture to the hard biculturalism devoted to attain indigenous sovereignty. In reality, biculturalism mostly takes the form of adjusting and reforming state institutions, policies, and regulations so that they include greater participation by Māori people, as well as Māori cultural practices, forms of expressions, and concerns.27 At the same time, New Zealand houses many more ethnicities such as Chinese, Cambodians, Indians, and Polynesians, each with their own culture which therefore makes the country multicultural. However, as New Zealand houses many different cultures, it only contains two people – Māori and Pākehā – who find their identity in New Zealand whereas other groups do so in terms of a culture which is based outside New Zealand.28 Still, the multicultural versus bicultural question remains to be debated by advocates of both state policies within New Zealand and this discussion will also be touched upon in this research, as I have mentioned before.
Also, the haka should be further explained. Originally a posture dance of Māori origin, the haka is the umbrella name for a ritual dance which comes in many variations from which Ka
Mate is among the most well-known. Although many may be familiar with it, there are a few
misconceptions about the haka. For instance, it is not exclusively a war dance nor was it only performed by men. Today, as much as in former times, the haka is used for welcoming guests, entertainment, and saying goodbye; it can be seen at Māori funerals quite often.29 The All Blacks first started to perform the haka in 1880, adopting the Ka Mate in 1924 and from 2005 onwards also the Kapa O Pango, a haka constructed especially for the All Blacks.30
Next to the construction of culture and identity, the invention of tradition, and biculturalism, the theory of discourse is also important when talking about these concepts. The
27
Jessica Terruhn, “The Culturalisation of Politics: Biculturalism versus Multiculturalism in Aotearoa New
Zealand,” The University of Auckland¸ accessed May 14, 2017, http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/terruhnmulpaper.pdf
28 Richard Mulgan, Māori, Pākehā and democracy (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1989), 7-9. 29
Mervyn Mclean, Māori music (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1996), 44-46.
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greatest theorist in discourse, Michel Foucault, defined it in 1969 as a complex network of signs that constitute a knowledge system. By this Foucault means that discourse is the junction of signs which generate signifiers embedded in culture, and on the other side, the larger knowledge system which provides context and support for each sign. Therefore, discourse is not a thing in Foucault’s view, but a practice, a normalised conformity in society conveying meaning and truth. To explain this more clearly, Professor of Cultural History Callum G. Brown, suggests that the way to understand a society is by the connections language-knowledge-power. The ultimate power in a society is not the physical control of the army or police, but rather, the power vested in language that dominates the thoughts and activities of the individual. Accordingly, the dominant words used and circulating in daily life encourage individuals to enforce social norms upon themselves and their community.31 This relates to a cultural point of view because the historical structure of culture – heritage – makes up the discourse of a culture: what is to be defined as a typical cultural feature, which traditions are considered important, and what is to be viewed as culturally inappropriate? In practice this means that a policy of biculturalism in New Zealand – which can be viewed as a discourse – influences the societal norms, thoughts, and activities of the individuals within New Zealand today as much as the policy of assimilation did at the end of the nineteenth century. However, the power of discourse should not be exaggerated as Foucault’s work does. In general, most scholars argue that there is no blanket acceptance of discourse but, instead, every individual is drawn into a critical awareness of a range of options – from accepting it, to the rejection of a discourse. In chapter three, this will be exemplified by the work of Van Meijl.
Lastly, the main question of this research includes the concept of influence. Although it is not my intention to show how Māori cultural identity was positively or negatively influenced by biculturalism, instead, I want to expose the connection between the invention of tradition, the construction of culture, and biculturalism. In what way do these concepts relate to each other in practice, how can they be turned into political instruments and strategic resources, and what are the consequences when this happens? In this way, my research aims to provide a new perspective on this extensively debated and studied subject by arguing why Māori turned to using culture as a strategic tool.
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Methodology
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The Treaty of Waitangi: A British instrument of power
Immersed in the Pacific, surrounded for twelve hundred miles by ocean, lay the islands of New Zealand. Discovered for the first time by the Dutch voyager Abel Tasman in 1642, New Zealand remained for long unknown to Europeans. Only after another 120 years, in 1769, the British naval lieutenant James Cook started to explore the New Zealand coastline and put the country on the world map for the first time in history. During their voyages on New Zealand, both Tasman and Cook encountered native people when they stumbled upon the country. These natives, believed to be descendants of Polynesian ventures who came from the South-East Pacific between 1250 and 1400 AD, were named Māori. The Māori, however, called themselves tangata
whenua: The people of the land.32 When Tasman and Cook encountered the Māori they were a tribal people with a subsistence economy based on the cultivation of root crops, supplemented by fishing, gathering, and bird-hunting. Their society was varied and complicated, organized around a rich oral and artistic culture, a well-developed belief system, and the principle of kinship traced through descent.33
After Cook’s exploratory voyages, British naval and commercial vessels advanced on the New Zealand coast from 1770 onwards to exploit the country’s natural resources. At the same time, Christian missionaries from Europe also started to arrive and European settlement began. Consequently, around 1830 the coast was dotted with semi-permanent trader-settlers. Among them where sealers, whalers, escaped convicts, and families seeking their fortune outside of Great Britain. In the beginning, their encounters with the Māori people were peaceful and mutually advantageous for both colonists and Māori: Māori wanted trade goods that the British could supply and the British needed Māori to obtain services, provisions, and the country’s resources.34 Yet, the need for British to secure lasting Māori co-operation and a growing demand for Māori land became the foremost reasons for the British colonizers to draft a treaty between them and the Māori, as historian Claudia Orange points out. She argues that treaties between the British Crown and indigenous people were not unusual and in line with the contemporary humanitarian interests
32 Mein Smith, 5-23.
33 James Belich, The Victorian interpretation of racial conflict: The Māori, The British and the New Zealand wars
(Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989), 17.
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of the 1830s and 1840s, which aimed at protecting native peoples form uncontrolled European expansion and the hazardous effects that came with it.35
Signing the Treaty
The need for British influence in New Zealand – French and American traders were also taking interest in the country, the growing interest in Māori land and the speculative land dealings that came with it, and the regulation of law and order through some form of central government were among the foremost reasons for the British to intervene in New Zealand. Consequently, on the 6th of February 1840, British influence was permanently established with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi by representative of the British Crown, naval officer William Hobson, and several hundred Māori Chiefs at the town of Waitangi in the Bay of Islands. Since many Māori Chiefs were not sufficient in English the Treaty was drafted in two versions: a Māori and an English draft. However, both drafts contained minor variations which caused major complications. Logically, most Māori chiefs signed the Māori draft.
The English version of the Treaty begins with the following words: “Victoria, the Queen of England, in her concern to protect the chiefs and the subtribes of New Zealand and in her desire to preserve their chieftainship and their lands to them and to maintain peace and the good order considers it just to appoint an administrator one who will negotiate with the people of New Zealand to the end that their chiefs will agree to the Queen’s Government being established over all parts of this land and (adjoining) islands and also because there are many subjects already living on this land and others yet to come.”36 Then, the Treaty establishes three acts. The first act states that the Māori Chiefs “give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete government over their land.”37
However, this is where the first variation in the Māori draft appears, as complete government is defined as Kawanatanga: a Māori word whose literal meaning is closer to ‘governance’ than to complete government. Many Māori Chiefs therefore interpreted Kawanatanga as a kind of overarching authority intended to protect their chieftainships and their lands, instead of a complete secession of Māori sovereignty to the British, as is meant in the English draft.38 The English version invigorates the first act furthermore by
35 Orange, 3-7.
36 “The Treaty of Waitangi,” Archives of New Zealand, accessed November 2, 2016,
http://archives.govt.nz/exhibitions/treaty.
37
Ibidem.
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stating that the chiefs cede “all the rights and powers of Sovereignty which [they, red.] exercise or possess (…) over their Territories,” to the Queen.39
This statement is absent in the Māori translation.
The second act that the treaty establishes reads as follows: “The Queen of England agrees to protect the chiefs, the subtribes and all the people of New Zealand in the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures.” However, since chieftainship is defined as rangatiratanga in the Māori draft, a significant and important piece of the Treaty literally got lost in translation again. This is because the term rangatiratanga was intended to suggest to the chiefs that they retained their full traditional authority, that is, not just their right of ownership but even more importantly their mana among their people. In Māori culture, mana can best be described as a spiritual power which is inherited through chiefly ancestors and provides authority.40 As New Zealand historian James Belich explains in his all-encompassing history of nineteenth century New Zealand, Making Peoples, according to the Māori draft the British received full governorship, which most Māori believed to be some vague authority by a nominal head, while the Māori retained the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship – or rangatiratanga – which was the most important basis of their authority over their people.41 Intended or not, it seems that both Māori and British had different perceptions and expectations of the Treaty because of a difference in interpretation and understanding of the terms Kawanatanga and rangatiratanga. Yet, the second act goes on stating: “But on the other hand the Chiefs of the Confederation and all the Chiefs will sell land to the Queen at a price agreed to by the person owning it and by the person buying it (the latter being) appointed by the Queen as her purchase agent.”42
Furthermore, the English draft mentions “the exclusive right of Preemption over such lands” which implicates a monopoly by the British Crown over land purchase from Māori. The Māori draft, however, makes no notion of this section. This ‘accidental’ omission would prove to be a major issue for the future as we will see.
Finally, the last act of the Treaty is the least debated as it announces that the Queen extends her protection to the Māori people and grants them “the same rights and duties of
39 “The Treaty of Waitangi,” Archives of New Zealand. 40 Mulgan, 58; 95.
41 James Belich, Making peoples: A history of the New Zealanders. From Polynesian settlement to the end of the
nineteenth century (Auckland: The Penguin Press, 1996), 194-195.
16 citizenship as the people of England.”43
Although this part is not very disputed, it is remarkable that it explicitly expressed that Māori are granted citizenship equivalent to British people because that made the Treaty unique. It was the only Treaty of that time that contained that kind of explicit statement about equal rights between British and indigenous people. Thereby, the final act clearly reflects the humanitarian idealism which stood at the base of the Treaty.
Looking at the variations in the two versions of the document it seems unlikely that Māori would have signed the Treaty if they had understood everything that was actually intended by the British. Although there was much discussion at the meeting in Waitangi during the days the Treaty would be signed, Hobson and his companions consequently downplayed the doubts and concerns of the Māori chiefs about the Treaty. During the meeting they shifted emphasis between English and Māori written versions in a direction that bolstered the chances of Māori consent. When Māori chiefs put their signatures at the bottom of the Treaty the result was that they agreed to an unfortunate fate for their people in the following century. Opposed to what many Māori chiefs tried to prevent, signing the Treaty of Waitangi meant the official establishment of New Zealand as a British colony. Hobson marked this – for him – cheerful event by saying the following words: “He iwi tahi tatou” – “We are now one people.”44
Richard Mulgan, Professor of Political Studies at the University of Auckland, comments on Hobson’s statement by arguing that it may have implied that Māori and British shared a common citizenship from the signing of the Treaty onwards, but, as he argues, it can also be translated and understood as: “We are now one nation.” This was certainly the understanding by many Māori at that time and this subtle misunderstanding between British and Māori would be fuel for another conflict.45 Indeed, “We are now one nation” voiced Māori wishes for a bicultural New Zealand in 1840 already.
Bicultural literally means ‘having two cultures’. In this regard, culture is understood as the entire way of life of a group or people which is learned and transmitted from one generation to another. It is believed that at the time the Treaty was signed many Māori had a vision of a bicultural New Zealand: a nation which would house two cultures that live together on the basis of their own terms and according to their own principles. This vision stresses the idea of a partnership between Māori and the British Crown entered into by signing the Treaty of Waitangi. It draws attention to the need to recognize the equal rights of Māori alongside Pākehā, the
43 “The Treaty of Waitangi,” Archives of New Zealand. 44
Orange, 55.
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descendants of the British colonizers, as is written down in the third act of the Treaty.46 However, this is also the bottleneck of the problem. For instance, Māori identity is closely tied to tribal membership. In fact, Māori society consists of a large number of different families – whanau – living together in village-like communities called hapu which are part of a specific iwi or tribe. However, if we are to take the third act literally, Māori are to receive the same rights and duties of citizenship as British people which means they would conform to a society in which the Queen of England was at the top of the political structure, instead of the different iwi that Māori belong to. Yet, biculturalism does also imply that Māori people would retain their own way of living and thus also their own locally based tribal structures. However, this is of course a paradox and the hope for a bicultural New Zealand would fade away soon as Māori-Pākehā race relations quickly deteriorated after 1840.
Progressive colonialism
As James Belich mentions in Paradise Reforged, “Progressive colonisation dominated New Zealand history between the 1840s and the 1880s”47 With this term he describes a process of colonisation characterised by the large-scale opening-up of fresh lands for settlement, mass migration, steam technology, and abundant metropolitan credit from the capital of the colonizing land, London in this case. One of the driving forces behind progressive colonisation was the fact that the Industrial Revolution had left Britain to overproduce both labour and capital. The solution to declining profits, poverty, and unemployment was then to export labour and capital to new colonies, improving the lot of emigrants, strengthening imperial power, and relieving the domestic situation.48 One of the main propagandists of this view in the nineteenth century was Edward Gibbon Wakefield. He envisioned New Zealand as a colonial society which would almost be a slice of a romanticized rural England. According to Wakefield, the central mechanism for such a society was land. In his opinion “the concept that large tracts of land could be used for hunting, farming when needed, non-uniform forestry, fishing” is considered unreasonable. “The land should be fenced, ploughed, replanted in a neat, controlled English
46 Mulgan, 3-23.
47 James Belich, Paradise reforged: A history of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the year 2000 (Auckland:
The Penguin Press, 2001), 18.
48
Belich, Making peoples: A history of the New Zealanders. From Polynesian settlement to the end of the nineteenth
18 manner.”49
Furthermore, Wakefield believed that British settlers had a moral claim to land ownership and management because they could cultivate the land and use it most productively.50 Naturally, this was fully in line with the Eurocentric ideology of progress in the nineteenth century.
Professor of Pacific Island History Donald Denoon argues that the key to Wakefieldian theory was its ‘sufficient-price concept.’ To control colonisation and systematize settlement, land should sell for a sufficient price to keep land, labour and capital in balance. The price of land should not be so low that tracts were bought and not used productively, but also not too high because that would discourage migrants.51 However, the creation of such a society in New Zealand required the separation of many Māori from their land. Through the second Act of the Treaty of Waitangi land could easily be acquired by the British Crown because of its right of pre-emption, and as the stream of British settlers immigrating to New Zealand increased, so did tensions over land and sovereignty. Tensions increased because settlement drove the desire for Māori autonomy in order to keep possession of the land. While the New Zealand government, established in 1853, possessed around two thirds of the land on the South Island in 1861, the North Island was still mostly owned by Māori. Eventually, however, the tensions over land led to the outbreak of the New Zealand Wars in 1860-1861. Yet, Belich argues that the wars were not only fought over land issues. He challenges the land-hunger thesis, judging that the war had multiple causes including racism and a desire to attack the independent power of Māori because of the settler’s inability to rule in Māori owned regions. Thus, sovereignty is another explanatory factor in discussing the wars especially because land and sovereignty are inseparable from a Māori point of view: their chieftainship comes down from their ancestors, whom are connected to the land owned by the tribe. Next to this, the Kingitanga – the Māori King Movement established in 1858 – a pan-tribal movement proved to be an effective force of Māori autonomy. However, this could not be tolerated by the British empire and therefore it had to be stopped. Yet, this could only be achieved through war and conquest. 52
49 Denoon and Mein-Smith with Wyndham, 120-121. 50 Mein Smith, 54-55.
51 Denoon and Mein Smith with Wyndham, 121. 52
19
Assimilation and monoculturalism
As fighting ended in 1872, Māori were led into a state of social and cultural despair. Around three million acres of their lands were confiscated, and the national government responded with several measures to impose more effective rule on Māori. As Andrew Armitage states in
Comparing the Policy of Assimilation: Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the following three
measures were introduced: the establishment of the Native Department in 1861 which established an effective government’s presence in Māori regions and took authority over Māori affairs, the Māori Land Act of 1862 which gave the governor the power to establish the Māori Land Court which could regulate land disputes between Māori and the government – although always in favor of the last – and finally, the Native School Act of 1867 which provided for the establishment of schools in each community that were permitted to instruct only in English.53 Consequently, these developments influenced social policy towards Māori since they introduced a hard-line government policy of assimilation in New Zealand. As an important bilingual newspaper in the 19th century, the Māori Messenger, mentions in 1862, the sentiments towards Māori were to surrender to Pākehā “the regulating of all things for with him [the Pākehā, red.] is wisdom and power and wealth and nobility (…) cast aside the Māori life, and adopt the usage of the Pākehā.”54 The Māori Land Court, the Native Affairs Department, and the Native School Act all furthered these sentiments through the policy of assimilation directed at Māori. For instance, the Māori Land Court had an extremely divisive effect upon the Māori community. As Armitage explains “As long as the members of a hapu maintained solidary in their refusal to sell Maori land, there was nothing that the court could do. However, once a member approached the court with a request to raise a land title in his or her name, the court could do so over the opposition of the rest of the community.” Furthermore, the New Zealand Parliament kept issuing laws to get remaining land that was still under Māori control. Armitage goes on, stating that “Land, not required or suitable for occupation by Maori owners was placed under land councils by the Land Settlement Act of 1904. Pākehā decided what was ‘suitable’ as Māori opinion was not represented in the councils.”55
Again, the importance of this assault on Māori land must not be underestimated since their tribal identities and autonomy were connected to the land. Next to this,
53 Andrew Armitage, Comparing the policy of assimilation: Australia, Canada and New Zealand (Vancouver: UBC
Press, 1995), 143.
54
Te Karere Māori or the Māori Messenger 2, no. 3 (2 May 1862), 30, translation by Paul Meredith.
20
the Native School Act was a vehicle prepared to assimilate Māori children by using English as the compulsory language of instruction and by prohibiting the Māori language within school precincts. Also, the educational program of the schools focused on teaching the English mode of living and standards of hygiene, food, and dress. Its aim was to make the Māori child reject the standards and values of their culture. Lastly, the Native Affairs Department contributed to the assimilation of Māori by displacing them from managing their own affairs. Its objective was to provide a political means to undermine independent Māori authority like the Kingitanga. Consequently, the Native Affairs Department, which was responsible to the New Zealand parliament, provided day-to-day government of Māori.56
Whilst many tribes of the North Island had lost their land after the New Zealand Wars and a policy of assimilation was institutionalized in New Zealand, a deep sense of injustice filled Māori hearts. The Treaty of Waitangi, first seen as a promise of equal partnership between Māori and Pākehā, a binding contract invoked with mana, came to symbolize the death warrant for Māori sovereignty and culture. But how was it possible that Pākehā kept breaching the Treaty? As Claudia Orange explains, one reason was the prospect of amalgation and monoculturalism by Pākehā society. Although monoculturalism posed a serious threat to Māori cultural identity, Pākehā glossed over Māori concerns by stressing that the Treaty invited them “to unite with the colonists and become ‘one people under one law’.”57
Also, especially after the installation of the Native Affairs Department, power had moved from the governor – the Queen’s representative with whom Māori had signed the Treaty – to an unsympathetic institution in which Māori interests were usually marginalized or excluded. Indeed, as Orange explains further: “To accede to Maori demands for autonomy would indeed be proof that the goal of ‘one people’ has not been achieved. And for many New Zealanders that remains the most significant aspect of the treaty, the ideological basis for the claim that New Zealand has treated its indigenous race well.”58
Pockets of resistance
It should be noted that there were also Pākehā who showed sympathy towards Māori. Furthermore, New Zealand always complimented itself about the harmonious race relations between Pākehā and Māori, especially in comparison to the situation of the Aboriginals in
56 Armitage, 155-158 57
Orange, 145.
21
Australia. However, Māori protests increased during the years directly after the New Zealand wars and continued into the twentieth century. The Kingitanga and the Kotahitanga – the autonomous Māori parliament established in 1879 – were movements that structurally resisted assimilation and protested the Treaty breaches.59 This resistance and these protests proved to be a time bomb for the future. In the second half of the twentieth century, Pākehā monoculturalism would subside and Māori biculturalism would finally prove successful. However this was of course more easily said than done.
59
Basil Keane, “Kotahitanga – unity movements - Parliamentary unity movements, 1870 to 1900”, Te Ara - the
22 From disengagement to engagement
Although many historians argue that Māoris consequently resisted assimilation, Emeritus Professor in Anthropology Thomas K. Fitzgerald rejects this perspective. According to him, economic and cultural adjustment to Pākehā ways continued virtually unchecked. He argues that Māori resistance from Pākehā influences must be viewed in a political rather than in a cultural sense: Māoris only rejected those elements of culture that they associated with a violation of their right to choose their own cultural destiny such as political subjection and land-grabbing. To counterbalance Pākehā domination, Māori borrowed political forms through which to organize resistance. An organization that proved to be successful in adopting this method was the Young Māori Party. Founded in 1897, the Party adopted a strategy of engagement instead of disengagement with the New Zealand government.60 By working through the government administration between 1909 and 1912 and as a parliament bloc in national politics, the Party gained much credibility with the New Zealand government, hoping to change the fate of Māori. But did this bicultural approach help solve the problems of Māori society?
A Study Association turned into a political movement
During the New Zealand Wars, when government policy started to focus on cultural assimilation, Te Aute College was founded in the Hawke’s Bay region. The main motive behind the establishment of the college was educational, at least if we take education to be a developmental process. Education, in this case, was virtually an equivalent to the nineteenth century idea of progress, or in other words, intended “To bring an untutored but intelligent and high-spirited people [Māori, red.] into line with our [European, red.] civilization.” says William W. Bird, inspector of native schools in the first decade of the twentieth century 61
From Te Aute College, Apirana Ngata graduated as the first Māori university student in 1891. A few years after, in 1897, along with intellectually like-minded educated Māori students, he founded the Te Aute College Students’ Association which stood up for better health conditions for Māori people, improved educational opportunities, more appreciation of the Pākehā way of life and adjustments by Māori, as well as a general spiritual elevation of Māoris,
60 Fitzgerald, 22.
61
23
as can be read in the report of their first conference.62 Next to this, Apirana Ngata believed that the main objective for the Students’ Association was to arm the Māori with the technological benefits of the Pākehā while seeking to maintain Māori integrity. He argued that “the best Maori households today, where the Maori spirit is still alive, must present two faces, just as the best equipped Maori today must be bilingual and bicultural.”63 Thus, a constructive engagement where Pākehā and Māori elements were combined, was needed to preserve the best elements of Māori culture. By blending and mixing different elements from the two cultures, a new vision was created, defined by Emeritus Professor in Sociocultural Anthropology Allan Hanson as
Māoritanga.
The movement known as Māoritanga was one of the most important developments in New Zealand in the second half of the twentieth century. The goal of this large social movement is to secure a favorable place for Māoris in the New Zealand nation. Its vision of the nation is a bicultural society in which Māoris are on a par with Pākehās both politically and economically, and where Māori culture is viewed as equally valid but distinct from Pākehā culture. To promote such a vision, it is important and necessary to present Māori culture as the ideal counterbalance to elements that are least attractive in Pākehā culture. Whereas the earlier vision by the British colonial power was to create a nation with one culture into which Māoris would successfully be assimilated, Māoritanga stresses a culture that contrasts with Pākehā culture.64 Although both the Young Māori Party and the Māoritanga movement realised that a bicultural New Zealand was not possible without Pākehā elements, at the same time, they also wanted Māori culture to remain different from other cultures. This precarious issue made biculturalism a risky path to take.
One way to achieve such cultural diversity was, as Professor in Pacific history Vilsoni Hereniko argues in Tides of History, by adopting symbols that are designed to affirm a Māori cultural identity: “These symbols will serve as a focus for the assertion of indigenous practices in the face of Pakeha hegemony.”65 An example of such a symbol is the gradual revival of Māori language and traditions in the mid-twentieth century. By signifying difference and embracing
Māoritanga, Māoris were making cultural and political statements that furthered their right for
62 “Te Aute College Students' Association., Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8092, 18 December 1897” in
National Library of New Zealand, accessed December 9, 2016,
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PBH18971218.2.26.
63 A. T. Ngata, Correspondence, 1933-1950 (Wellington: Turnbull Library collection, 1960), 72.
64 Allan Hanson, “The Making of the Māori: Culture Invention and Its Logic,” in American Anthropologist, New
Series, vol. 91, no. 4 (December 1989), 894.
24
self-determination in New Zealand. Consequently, the twentieth century saw a gradual Māori resurgence characterized by four major courses of action: the resurgence of the Treaty of Waitangi, Māori control over Māori affairs, language and cultural renaissance, and a social policy based on an equal partnership between Pākehā and Māori. Commonly, these developments are known as the Māori Renaissance.
Societal pressure and protest movements
There are several changes leading to the Māori Renaissance in the second half of the twentieth century. Firstly, after the Second World War many Māori took to the cities and large towns, turning them into an urban people in only a few decades. Before, most Māori were rural people while many Pākehā lived in the cities which meant that the two lived apart from each other. When Māori crowded the cities from the 1950s onwards, the difference between the standards of living of Māori and Pākehā became clearly visible. Secondly, at the very peak of urban Māori migration, significant immigration by Pasifika people – persons from the Pacific region – had begun, followed by their own quest for social inclusion and economic progress. This sparked bicultural aspirations among Māori because they sought a society that would entrench their culture as foundational and of equal value to Pākehā culture.66 After all, this was laid down in the Treaty of Waitangi. Lastly, a report was published by the Department of Native Affairs in 1961 that evaluated the results of the work of the Department since 1861. It concluded that the policy of assimilation had not achieved its desirable effect and expected outcomes. Indeed, Māori culture was still an ongoing part of New Zealand life though on a much smaller scale than before. Therefore, the report argued that government policy towards Māori people should be given a new label: integration instead of assimilation. The purpose of integration was “to combine, not fuse, the Maori and Pakeha elements to form one nation in which Maori culture remains distinct.”67 Although this implies a more tolerant attitude towards the indigenous Māori culture, integration proved to be just another name for assimilation; many of the underlying assumptions remained unchanged in the new policy of integration.
During the 1960s, the developments mentioned above spurred debate about the place of Māori in modern society. Next to this, an emphasis on equal rights to citizenship became part of the debate. Alert to the American civil rights movement and United Nations advocacy of human
66
Hill, Etnohistory, vol. 57, no. 2 (Spring 2010), 294-297.
25
rights, young educated urban Māori demanded to have their status as tangata whenua acknowledged and to receive a fairer share of resources. These young activists joined progressive movements and embraced Marxist ideals, believing that indigenous rights went hand in hand with class struggle. This struggle became more and more apparent as urbanization had dramatically fueled Māori political consciousness regarding their subordinate position. Consequently, activist movements drew attention to the unequal distribution of wealth in New Zealand’s urbanized society, to the loss of Māori language, and to the Treaty as a fraud. Increasingly, tensions erupted every 6th of February at the annual celebrations of the Treaty and struggles for land resurfaced during the 1960s. The assumption by the national government was that now Māori were urbanized, tribes no longer needed their ancestral land because it had lost its central cultural importance. Besides, tribal land was not effectively used and thus hindered economic development, said the government. Consequently, in 1967, the Māori Affairs Amendment Act marked the height of official attempts to force Māori land into European law. The Act, completely in line with the former policy of assimilation, was designed to hasten the process of the two races becoming one. In short, the Act forced unproductive Māori land into use and it also stated that Māori freehold land owned by four or fewer owners would be converted into general land.68
As a result, Māori took to the streets during the Māori Land March in 1975 to alert Pākehā and the government to fight the ‘last land grab’ represented by the 1967 Act. Led by 80-year-old Whina Cooper, an elder from a northern Māori tribe, the protesters walked from the far north across the North Island to Wellington. New Zealand historian Phillipa Mein Smith, clearly illustrating the events of the Land March, states that “On the last day they marched to parliament powerfully and silently in the rain, to deliver their message not merely about grievances over the loss of ancestral land – which had grown more, not less, important to urban people – but that the government should finally acknowledge property rights under the Treaty of Waitangi.”69
Social community psychologists Thomas and Nikora add to this in “From assimilation to biculturalism” by arguing that the Land March effectively politicized local Māori communities and also had the effect of unifying many of the tribal factions in peaceful protest. A wide range of tribes were represented among the participants of the Land March, including both young and elderly people,
68
Mein Smith, 226-228.
26
radicals and conservatives, politicians, and church representatives. Indeed, the most respected people of Māori society were present.70 Rather than using traditional modes of expressions, the urban protest movements used Western strategies such as demonstrations, picketing, appearances on television, press releases, and petitions to Parliament. By adopting this Western approach – just as the Young Māori Party did – they were far more effective. Adding this to several other land marches and sit-ins, it led to the arousal of public consciousness and bit by bit Pākehā started to address the problem of Māori grievances. In result, 1975 became the year in which a New Zealand dominated by white Pākehā ended. At the same time it marked the beginning of modern biculturalism, according to Denoon, Mein Smith and Wyndham because for the first time in history Māori successfully started to claim their Treaty rights.71
Māori Renaissance and the road to biculturalism
Another reason why 1975 came to be a turning point in New Zealand history was the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal after the Treaty of Waitangi Act was passed in parliament. The Waitangi Tribunal was set up to “make recommendations on claims relating to the practical application of the principles of the Treaty, and for that purpose, to determine its meaning and effect and whether certain matters are inconsistent with those principles.”72
Although the Tribunal could not enforce its decisions or recommendations at first, it did educate Pākehā in the principles of the Treaty. It foregrounded the fact that neither the Māori nor the English version of the Treaty was superior but since the Māori version had the most signatures, considerable weight should be given to that version. The major breakthrough in the resurgence of the Treaty and the workings of the Waitangi Tribunal, however, came in 1985 when Māori leaders where successful in lobbying a newly elected Labour government to amend the Treaty of Waitangi Act. This amendment made it possible to submit claims to the Tribunal dating back to the signing of the Treaty in 1840. The retrospective extension of the jurisdiction of the tribunal opened the whole of New Zealand’s colonial history to scrutiny on terms laid down by Māori.73
As James Belich argues, the Land March of 1975 and the ensuing establishment of the Waitangi
70 D.R. Thomas & L. W. Nikora, “From assimilation to biculturalism: Changing patterns in Māori-Pākehā
relationships,” in Community Psychology and Social Change: Australian and New Zealand perspectives, eds. D. R. Thomas and A. Veno (Palmerston North: Dunmore, 1992), 273.
71 Denoon, Mein Smith with Wyndham, 377-378. 72 Orange, 246.
73
Alan Ward, “Interpreting the Treaty of Waitangi: The Māori Resurgence and Race Relations in New Zealand,”
27
Tribunal are great examples of how protest and politics worked hand in hand.74 Furthermore, whilst the Treaty moved from the back to the centre stage in New Zealand history, it became important for Māori to commit themselves to being Māori and to one’s Māori identity as it proved to be a successful basis for collective action.
Hard-earned victories in Treaty settlements were accompanied by good news on the cultural front too. While assimilation and urbanisation had dealt a heavy blow to Māori language, the 1980s saw a revival of the language in the form of Kohanga reo – pre-school institutions using the Māori language, established for the first time in 1981. After the Māori Language Act came into force in 1987 thanks to the Waitangi Tribunal, Māori was made an official language in New Zealand. Next to this, the mid-1980s also saw a transformation of the Department of Māori Affairs as it devolved many of its functions to local iwi. Furthermore, the Department committed itself more to the encouragement of Māori self-esteem and self-confidence. Central in this philosophy was encouraging the development and use of marae, traditional communal places that serve social and religious purposes.75 As a result, in the late 1980s Māori could speak their own language, pursue their own traditions, provide their own social and educational services, and control their own businesses. More and more, biculturalism was advocated and national institutions took on a bicultural approach by taking on Māori names and adopting Māori ritual practices. For example, the national museum Te Papa Tongarewa which opened in 1993 had its exhibition divided in a programme focussing on Māori as well as non-Māori. Also, in 2011, most government departments had Māori names and traditional Māori welcome- and farewell ceremonies were performed at official functions. It seems nowadays biculturalism has touched many aspects of New Zealand society in the public and state sector.76
Urbanization continued to heighten Māori awareness of the unequal distribution of economic and political power in New Zealand and facilitated political mobilization. Given the significance of land for Māori culture and identity, land issues were the natural catalyst for the Māori mobilization of the 1970s. As Māori dissent gathered strength in the 1980s, highly educated and articulate Māori leaders made the Treaty of Waitangi the focus of their activism. By continually drawing attention to the Treaty, protest movements appealed to an emphasis on legalism and justice in Pākehā political ideology. Still, with the confusion caused by inaccurate
74 Belich, Paradise reforged, 478. 75
Sissons, 102-103.
28
translation and Māori misunderstanding of the proposed Treaty’s purposes, it might be asked why and how the Treaty was of any significance during the Māori Renaissance? First of all, each act of resistance and each experience of disadvantage for Māori contributed to the development of a Treaty of Waitangi discourse. In this discourse, the period of assimilation with its diminishing of Māori rights and their cultural and material impoverishment by the New Zealand government, undermined the credibility of the government’s part in upholding the Treaty. Furthermore, the resurgence of the Treaty has also opened up debate about the increasingly rich descriptions of the document’s meaning.77
This is because the two versions of the Treaty – the English and Māori draft – differ from each other on significant grounds. As I have argued before, the understanding of kawanatanga and rangatirantanga by Māori was different than the understanding of sovereignty and chieftainship by the British. Therefore, there is no universal final truth to the meaning of the Treaty, making it a document based on interpretation. As a result, interpretation leads to very personalized responses to the meaning of the Treaty of Waitangi, shaped by cultural identity and how that identity relates to, or arises from the Treaty. In a time of cultural revival and the use of culture as a strategy of activism and protest like the Māori Renaissance, the Treaty proved to be a very useful basis for political advocacy of Māori rights.
All in all, the Māori Renaissance was the driving force between New Zealand’s transformation from a society promoting monoculturalism and assimilation to a bicultural nation. With this transformation came an increased interest in Māori cultural tradition since this came to be seen as pivotal to the national identity of New Zealand. The more or less easy acceptance of biculturalism by Pākehā can be explained by the notion that New Zealand saw itself as an example for the rest of the world when it concerned harmonious race relations between indigenous people and European people, says Mein Smith.78 Of course, as the complete history of New Zealand from 1840 proves this statement wrong, there is also much debate surrounding biculturalism. As historian Robin Mitchell argues: “In today’s New Zealand there is an official racial bias which is almost entirely in favour of Maoris […] In the opposite direction racial bias against Maoris has been stirred up enormously through this official pro-Maori racial bias.”79 According to him, the special provisions that are made for Māori do them more harm than good
77 Alastair Crocket, “Exploring the Meaning of the Treaty of Waitangi for Counselling,” in New Zealand Journal for
Counselling, vol. 33, no. 1 (2013), 56-61.
78
Mein Smith, 186.
