by Catherine Delahunty
The Minister of Justice has missed the point of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. National is prevaricating about recognising the Declaration because they are afraid it might actually mean something and affect the law of the land.
They are failing to embrace the opportunity the Declaration offers us of a deeper engagement over the relationship between the indigenous people of Aotearoa and the Crown. A fear based approach to the collective rights of Maori is sad given the patience, reasonableness and compromises that tangata whenua have already made in working on the Te Tiriti o Waitangi relationship with the Crown.
National appears to fear that the Declaration might mean Maori are actually entitled to the land they had before colonisation and for full compensation for the losses. We are already engaged in a long term process around these issues. It seems to me that whanau, hapu and iwi fully understand the limitations of the situation and are negotiating imperfect settlements as the best deal they feel they can get. They are continuing to express patience and willingness for co-management of resources when Te Tiriti o Waitangi let alone the UN Declaration actually recognises tino rangatiratanga.
In this context the Government needs to step up and support Maori Party call for Crown recognition of the Declaration. This country is one of the last three dragging the chain on the fundamental issue of collective indigenous rights.
Some of us are really embarrassed by the positions both Labour and National have taken. The Declaration is very significant because unlike other human rights statements it recognises the rights of peoples whose cultural, economic and spiritual expression is collective.
Despite the devastating history of colonisation across the planet indigenous peoples survive and uphold their collective identity and connection to the earth. Matariki is a time of reflection. A deeper reflection of the Declaration suggests it is an opportunity for our country to continue the profound and difficult journey towards Te Tiriti based justice using all tools available. The politics of “inclusion” are pretty meaningless if the Government cannot understand this.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Catherine Delahunty on Fri, July 24th, 2009
Tags: declaration of indigenous rights, human rights, Maori
More posts by Catherine Delahunty | more about Catherine Delahunty
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
More apartheid from the Greens.
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Look out! Jerking knee!
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Kia Ora, does this declaration give one group special privilege over another? Another words, will it mean different laws for some but not all?
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“More apartheid from the Greens.”
Yup, it’s terrible the way the “Treaty Settlements process” only applies to people descended from one ethnic group. Maori should be required to prove that their pre-colonisation ancestors were racially mixed or whatever thefts, confiscation or other injustices commited against them shouldn’t count.
Likewise, nobody with Pakeha parents should be allowed to inherit anything as this would mean wealth is being transferred to a particular ethnic group.
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More racist nonsense from the Greens & the Maori Party.
Good on Canada, New Zealand, the USA and Australia for blocking moves to elevate one person over another based on their race.
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From the UNs blather:
“Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue
of that right they freely determine their political status and freely
pursue their economic, social and cultural development”
So what does “self determination” mean – exactly – then? And who – exactly – can claim it, and who can’t?
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I’m not sure where oob and BluePeter got the idea of the Declaration being racist from. The Declaration says:
“3. The provisions set forth in this Declaration shall be interpreted in accordance with the
principles of justice, democracy, respect for human rights, equality,
non-discrimination, good governance and good faith.”
Nothing in the declaration tells governments to treat indigenous people any better or worse than non-indigenous people. Instead, it requires that governments respect the rights of indigenous people – for example, by allowing them to carry out culturally significant activities on protected traditional grounds.
So the declaration calls for one law for everyone, but that one law must protect the rights of the indigenous people(s) of that nation
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So that means no change whatsoever? No need to sign this pointless document, then.
But I suspect some people place a specific meaning on the term “self-determination”, yet remain very coy about saying what that meaning is.
I wonder why…..
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A1kmm said:
I’m not sure where oob and BluePeter got the idea of the Declaration being racist from..
Where did you get the idea from Peter?
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The land was stolen from them fair and square. Why can’t they just accept that?
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Pita Sharples announced that it was a done deal.
Naaianei kei te riri ia.
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Does it make a difference if you are only descended from an indigenous person (ie being “tangata whenua” is a matter of “cultural identity)? Margaret Mutu and Tariana Turie have parents born offshore so chances are they are 1/4?.
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Just another step towards apartheid….however well intentioned.
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This is such a dangerous and evil attitude.
Using the word “entitled” implies that everyone agrees it should be so. It implies that it is based on universal truth, and of course that is just not the case.
If your suggestion is true, then surely it applies to a much wider group than those who landed in NZ 200 years ago.
It would mean that the first canoe (double hulled) to arrive in NZ brought people who had greater rights than those on the later canoes, and should be the only recipients of compensation.
How would you decide which of those two groups you would expect our government to recognise as indigenous and to offer compensation to??
It is sadly too convenient for white liberals to pretend that history only began a few hundred years ago. The real history of NZ has yet to be told, and in time archaeology will reveal plenty that will surprise. The history of the Pacific goes back thousands of years, not just 900 or so.
The Treaty is a resoundingly bad document to regard as the founding agreement upon which to base modern society (not least because Tuhoe never signed it), and these international treaties (which are nothing more than Robin Hood concepts) are even worse.
There is an old saying: “Man dominates Man to his injury”. International treaties seek to yoke countries like NZ with unbearable burdens which cement the opportunity for one group of men to dominate another, rather than bringing healing and harmony.
We either live in harmony and peace, or else seek to divide the spoils of the past and the future and continue to generate greed and division.
My preference is for peace and harmony.
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THE EFFECTS OF COLONIALISM
The Green party acknowledges:
That in the main Maori honoured the Treaty, whilst the Crown, and later the New Zealand Government, pursued many policies and enacted laws that were designed to individualise and promote the alienation of Maori land and other resources, and established basically monocultural political, economic, social, health and educational institutions which benefited Tauiwi to the detriment of Maori.
TE TIRITI O WAITANGI AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND
Preamble
However, the Green Party affirms the unique place of Maori in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It holds that the Treaty of Waitangi is a living and fundamental constitutional document, which sets out not only the relationship between Maori and European-descended New Zealanders (Pakeha), but between Maori, all immigrants, and their descendants since 1840 (Tauiwi). The Green Party believes that it is essential that Government provide the means for an information campaign that adequately informs both current settlers and prospective as well as new immigrants of the position of Maori and the key role of the Treaty of Waitangi as a major reference point for determining political and social relationships in this country.
1. The Green Party recognise:
1. That the 1835 Declaration of Independence set the context for the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which resulted in:
1. Tino Rangatiratanga being retained by Maori in Article two of the Treaty.
2. Kawanatanga being given to the Crown in Article one.
3. Article three giving Maori rights equal to non-Maori.
That there are two Treaties: an English version, and a Maori version which is more than a translation of the English one, and which was the main one signed by Maori.
THE GOVERNMENT OF AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND
Kawanatanga and Tino Rangatiratanga
There is an as yet unresolved tension between the cedeing by Maori of “Kawanatanga” to the Crown in Article I, and the Crown’s affirmation of the Maori right to “Te Tino Rangatiratanga” in Article II. Whilst “partnership as envisaged by the Treaty” is a term much bandied about, there is no agreement between the Treaty Partners as yet, as to how that partnership is to be defined.
Constitutional Commission
The Green Party commits itself to the need for an independent Constitutional Commission of equal representation of Maori and non-Maori, which will be resourced and empowered to:
Encourage discussion of the relevant constitutional issues arising from the Treaty, through wide dissemination of different viewpoints and draft proposals, and:
Commence the detailed negotiations needed to reconcile the different interpretations of Te Tino Rangatiratanga and Kawanatanga into new shapes and roles for our political institutions.
CONCESSIONS
The Green Party support iwi and hapu rights to economically benefit from the running of concession based businesses in the conservation estate. In order to provide for this, funding and business education and support will be made available (where independent resources are not available) to tangata whenua for the setting up of their own concession-based businesses. This should not come out of the DOC budget.
CUSTOMARY FISHING
The Green Party Support: -
Iwi and hapu Treaty rights to the ownership and management of their commercial and customary fishing rights.
The Green Party support the taiapure legislation, customary marine fishing legislation (North and South Islands) and the development of customary fresh water fishing legislation currently being drafted in consultation with iwi and hapu. The central purpose of the marine and freshwater customary fisheries should always be the ecologically sustainable management of the fishing resources for future generations and the upholding of iwi and hapu Article II Treaty rights.
The concept of the inclusion of trout, salmon and all other non-native fish species within the management capabilities of Tangata Tiaki under the customary fishing regulations. This raises the need for integrated environmental management between recreational and customary fishing organisations in order to sustainably manage the fishery. The Green Party support an open process of dialogue and debate to achieve this.
A very large increase in the number of full time paid Fishery Officers to monitor and enforce the rules and regulations pertaining to recreational and customary fishing law. Key to this is education of the general public (Maori and Tauiwi) by fisheries officers.
TE REO MAORI
The Greens recognise that the Maori language (Te Reo Maori) is a Taonga requiring proactive protection. The Greens recognise that Aotearoa is the home of Maori culture and will support and finance Maori initiatives so as to provide a basis for the Maori language to survive and progress into the future.
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Oh, thats funny. Equal rights??
Stick it on a Tui billboard.
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“Some of us are really embarrassed by the positions both Labour and National have taken. The Declaration is very significant because unlike other human rights statements it recognises the rights of peoples whose cultural, economic and spiritual expression is collective.”
The point if your running things is to take into account the extremes and do what’s best for the entire group- be it a council, a business or a nation. You run things form the center, and manage the extremists.
From: Civil War….. and other optimistic predictions by David Slack
thank goodness nutcases are in the minority (only able to weasel in under MMP and greenwash)
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The problem which the UN has tried to address with these resolutions relating to indigenous people is that there are groups of indigenous people around the world (in Japan, Sweden and South America) who refuse to join the mainstream culture of the modern world.
On the one hand we want to accept their right to self determination but on the other hand there is a desire to ensure their children have access to education and the right to join the modern world.
In this sense, Maori are not indigenous people because from the time of earliest settlement they rushed to embrace the modern world – which caused considerable problems for the British who were not used to such a desire for modernity. At one time the literacy rate among Maori was higher than among the European settlers.
IN this sense the Amish of the United States are more Indigenous than the Maori of New Zealand.
MY Maori neighbours and friends are not trying to stay outside the modern world – their complaint is that they are not sufficiently a part of it.
Similarly with the Native Americans. I grew up among Maori in Rotorua and when I first was invited onto a Navaho site in New Mexico I realised the difference between a genuinely indigenous people and races like Maori and Indians and Singaporeans who have embraced modernity and generally want to break down the barriers to getting all the benefits.
So when you read these UN declarations think about the Amish, the Navaho, the South American tribes, that remote group in Northern Japan, and hill triibes of Vietnam. Maori may well be the first settlers but they are not “indigenous” in the sense that the UN is using the word.
On the other hand some modern Maori seem to want their “clients” to withdraw and become indigenous – presumably because they will benefit from more favours rather than their early tradition of outperforming the colonisers at their own game. Remember they had their own shipping lines, their own trading companies, and actually developed trench warfare and defeated the English armies who were invincible elsewhere in the world.
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Owen, I think you misunderstand “indigenous” in relation to Maori.
It means they are more special, more deserving, more precious AND they get to choose modernity, or stoneage culture, whatever they want, whenever they want it.
And everyone else has to kow-tow.
Sound like a recipe for a pleasant Aoteroa NZ?
Not to me.
It would bring civil war within a generation.
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David Slack referred to this study
ETHNICITY, INSURGENCY, AND CIVIL WAR∗
James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin
An influential conventional wisdom holds that civil wars proliferated rapidly with the end of the Cold War and that the root cause of many or most of these has been ethnic nationalism.
We show that the current prevalence of internal war is mainly the result of a steady accumulation of protracted conflicts since the 50s and 60s rather than a sudden change associated with a new, post-Cold War international system. We also find that after controlling for per capita income, more ethnically or religiously diverse countries have been no more likely to
experience significant civil violence in this period. We argue for understanding civil war in this period in terms of insurgency or rural guerrilla warfare, a particular form of military practice that can be harnessed to diverse political agendas, including but not limited to ethnic nationalism. The factors that explain which countries have been at risk for civil war are not their ethnic or religious characteristics but rather the conditions that favor insurgency.
These include poverty, which marks financially and bureaucratically weak states and also favors rebel recruitment, political instability, rough terrain, and large populations.
Concln
…… If, under the right environmental conditions, just 500 to 2000 active
guerrillas can make for a long-running, destructive internal war, then the average level of grievance in a group may not matter that much. What matters is whether active rebels can hide from government forces and whether economic opportunities are so poor that the life of a rebel is attractive to 500 or 2000 young men.
http://www.yale.edu/irspeakers/Fearon.pdf
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The United Nations defines indiginous peoples thus:
Which is funny because it excludes maori as a indigenous people by that definition due to the adoption, by Maori, of European culture, learnings, and mythology to such an extent that almost all are more similar to European culture than Maori culture; Maori culture being mear reminants. Thus why the culture is considered endangered. lol.
The declaration, like all UN bull*hit, is hopelessly romantic and self-contradictory.
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biologists describe indigenous as: “self introduced by wind and water”.
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JH,
Though that definition borders on useless as under that definition every ethnicity would be indigenous to everywhere with the possible exception of slaves.
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I imagine you’d easily find that number within Invercargill alone if the current trend toward special rights for Maori continues.
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The uncomfortable similarity between the Green party and the BNP has been remarked upon before. Uncompromising racism being the most obvious similarity: I count three references to the supposed travails of “indigenous people” on the BNP front page alone: http://bnp.org.uk/
Will the Greens be sending a message of solidarity to the BNP in their joint quest for special status for “indigenous people”?
And as for environmental policy, well, they both agree that fascism is the solution: it really does appear that the Green party just copied the particular BNP webpage and removed the images of the union jack:
http://bnp.org.uk/policies/environment
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Very entertaining post as ever, wat. The particular focus of the BNP on “indigenous people” is way closer to jh’s position than the Green Party’s. And he hates us almost as much as you. And this:
And as for environmental policy, well, they both agree that fascism is the solution: it really does appear that the Green party just copied the particular BNP webpage and removed the images of the union jack:
is just hilarious. You are so blinded by your simplistic definition of facism that you can’t even spot a single one of the many differences between the BNP and the Green Party on this very page? Or perhaps you just really don’t have a clue.
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I have no problem with indigenous rights.
I am born New Zealander.
I am indigenous.
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Samiam,
I can beat that:
Te Atiawa is my iwi
Arapaoa is the sacred island
Piripiri is the mountain
Waitohi is the river
Waikawa is the marae
Arapaoa is the meeting house
Awanui a Rangi is the ancestor
Whakakotahi is the dinning room
And yet I am still against the apartheid of seperate rights based on race.
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The idea of ‘indigenous rights’ does seem to conflict with the idea that ‘all men are equal’. For, if a certain race of people has special rights in a particular country simply because the ancestors were the ‘first arrivals’ in that country, it would seem that all other inhabitants of that country are secondary to the indigenous race. This could, of course, be partially redressed by appealing to the fact that everyone is descended from indigenous people of some country. Hence we could confer ‘indigenous rights’ on all descendents of the original settlers/inhabitants of all countries regardless of whether they now reside in the country in which their ancestors were the original settlers. Hence, for example, New Zealanders of Irish descent could claim indigenous rights in Ireland. Presumably those of mixed blood would have multiple countries in which they could claim these special rights.
However, this line is apt to get out of hand as countries’ borders are not necessarily stable so that even the country origin becomes clouded.
Clearly, the solution is greater than the problem. Ultimately, nationality and ethnicity are subsumed into humanity. So, at best, indigenous rights should only be used as a temporary measure to redress perceived negative impacts of colonisation.
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“Some of us are really embarrassed by the positions both Labour and National have taken. ”
Embarrassed? in front of who, your left wing ideologue buddies in the UN?.
What a flippin joke, I guess this is the sort of idealistic rubbish our carbon tax will be paying for.
God help us.
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“So, at best, indigenous rights should only be used as a temporary measure to redress perceived negative impacts of colonisation.”
Yeah, but unfortunately it creates an industry of grievance that only fosters new problems in the place of the old.
Fed by a radical left wing that fan the flames, (due to there own political irrelevancy) and bingo! we are inventing new racial issues that previously never existed.
Its time to move on as a nation, the UN’s preachy crap will only stuff things up.
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>>The politics of “inclusion” are pretty meaningless
They certainly are.
Because, in this context, they sound a lot like separatism, racism and apartheid to me.
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Kjuv: “The idea of ‘indigenous rights’ does seem to conflict with the idea that ‘all men are equal’.”
That goes to the heart of the matter.
Theres some really great stuff in the Declaration, but as a New Zealander, I have to ask why I’m excluded from those things because I’m of the wrong decent.
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I am for re-adressing past injustices induced through the violation of property rights where such actions were illegal at the time. The payments should not, however, equal the present value of the land.
Instead, we should assume the technology levels maori had and from that technology level detirmine the productivity of the land; from potential production under those meathods we work out the value of land at present using western methods that could produce the same croppage. That is then the total amount to be addressed. From that amount subtract the value of the health improvements and other benefits of european knowledge. We then get the amount that should be addressed.
Knowledge was always closely guarded in Maori society, the idea that knowledge and the benefits thus derived should have a value is not alien. If Maori want to claim greivance they must also take account of the externalities, that which they benefited due to colonisation. Realistically, the maori life span is doubled, disease is less rampant, food and education are easily obtainable, etc, etc. The only thing minimised is the cultural affiliation and that is, these days, a matter of choice.
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sapient said:
Which is funny because it excludes maori as a indigenous people by that definition due to the adoption, by Maori, of European culture, learnings, and mythology to such an extent that almost all are more similar to European culture than Maori culture;
If ‘Maori culture’ involved the conscious adoption of alien culture’s, learnings and mythology’ as a tool for survival and advancement, and had done so before the arrival of Europeans, then your argument would be void.
For example, eagerly trading for a better stone tool for example, was no different from trading for a steel axe. Learning dialects to facilitate social intercourse was no different from learning to speak English.
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I think that is a very valid point.
As well as time limits I’d also lmit the scope of those “rights”.
If the concept of indigenous superiority is permitted to hang around too long it simply creates a new generation of feisty young indigenoids who think they have justification for treating others badly.
I think “indigenous rights” need to be limited to “matters of estate”, by which I mean that some degree of compensation should be payable where crown entities have deprived families of their family land.
Beyond that we just have to accept the past indiscretions of people who lived many years ago. We weren’t there, and we didn’t contribute.
Why should a Chinese born in Dunedin 60 years ago be treated as second class relative to young Maori?
That Chinese person has no history contributing to a grievance and should have exactly the same social status as any young maori.
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Sapient…you make a good point about the strange wording that you’ve highlighted within the UN declaration.
It refers to indigenous status as only applying to “existing descendants”, which must necessarily mean that those yet to be born are excluded.
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greengeek asks:
Why should a Chinese born in Dunedin 60 years ago be treated as second class relative to young Maori?
They should not be ‘treated as second class’.
Are they being treated that way?
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I think offering special status to “indigenous peoples” necessarily means all others are treated as second class.
I used the Chinese as an example because (as far as I know) they are free of the “taint” normally levelled at people of “European extraction” that they are colonists and cultural abusers.
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>>Which is funny because it excludes maori as a indigenous people by that definition due to the adoption, by Maori, of European culture, learnings,
Haha.
Let’s see Cath sign up! By UN definition, New Zealand has no indigenous people.
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>>Despite the devastating history of colonisation across the planet
Bloody Romans! What have they even done for us!
Well, there’s the aqueduct….
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All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Attendee: Brought peace?
Reg: Oh, peace – shut up!
Reg: There is not one of us who would not gladly suffer death to rid this country of the Romans once and for all.
Dissenter: Uh, well, one.
Reg: Oh, yeah, yeah, there’s one. But otherwise, we’re solid.
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I support the crown paying money to maori.
Of course the crown doesn’t have any money to pay those claims so I guess the maori will get 0 dollars.
If the crown then decides to take the wealth from non-maori and redistribute it to maori, this is in effect what happens in NZ. I beleive the crown to be treating those non-maori as second class citizens. Non-maori New Zealanders have not caused any harm to maori and they are in no way to blame for any past injustices that maori may have suffered.
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greengeek – why do you think the ‘all others’ become second class ? (By ‘second’ do you mean ‘lesser’ or ‘other’?)
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How do some Europeans manage to sleep at night, weighed down by all this GUILT? The unending burden of second-hand guilt, derived from people they have a distant connection with, who may have got some things wrong a few hundred years ago…
Gives some university undergraduate drop-outs a life-time cause, I guess…..
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Greenfly – I think the others become “second class” because the concept of indigenous superiority creates a separate group of people who have to be treated differently. Once they get special treatment, others become second class.
This could mean any one of a million things: extra money on benefits, better university scholarships, better access to government servies etc etc.
In my experience all of the above (and countless others) are true for Maori in NZ so I have no desire to see such special treatment being enshrined in law as it drives a wedge between our young people.
I have first hand experience of this watching my children and step-children become unjustified targets for racially motivated abuse at the hands of self-inflated maori youth.
Such inflamed behaviour is caused by those young Maori being fed the concept that white kids are worthy of such abuse. (Listen to Willie Jackson and you’ll know ehere they get their attitudes from).
If you look at Turnip28s post, I am not alone in feeling that non-maori are already considered second class.
One of the huge downsides of this is that Polynesion youth are also treated as second class, and they are as poor as maori if not more so.
This is a problem that will burst like a boil over the next 10 years as Poynesian youth fight for their own status.
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So just how bad does Catherine Delahunty want to be Maori.
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How do some Europeans sleep at night, weighed down by all this sense in injustice that a sector of their community might be getting MORE than they are !! (fume, fume). A quick peek out of the window might show them the foolishness of their thinking.
Gives some fast-breathing bloggers a life-time cause, I guess…
(hat-tip Bluepeter)
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greengeek said:
a separate group of people who have to be treated differently. Once they get special treatment, others become second class.
People with spina bifida have to be treated differently. They get special treatment. Are the rest of us ‘second class’?
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REG: They’ve bled us white, the bastards. They’ve taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and from our fathers’ fathers.
LORETTA: And from our fathers’ fathers’ fathers.
REG: Yeah.
LORETTA: And from our fathers’ fathers’ fathers’ fathers.
REG: Yeah. All right, Stan. Don’t labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?!
XERXES: The aquaduct?
REG: What?
XERXES: The aquaduct
REG: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that’s true. Yeah.
Let’s see ONE Maori tribe – just one – who had land returned, live a traditional existence free of European “oppression” (technology, law and order, health). I’ll be laughing my a*s off.
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The issues faced by Maori in New Zealand are a result of large numbers of them being poor. The very same issues are faced by poor Chinese people poor Polynesian people and poor European people living in NZ.
Of course the lefts answer to this for the last 80 years has been to build a dependency culture of handouts along with the creation of a beneficiary web. The result of all this left wing thinking is a permanent class of dependents can be rolled out on Election Day to vote the left back into power.
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Let’s face it Maori were a Stone Age civilization barely subsisting before the arrival of the evil white man.
They received in the space of a couple of generations about 5000 years of human knowledge. So who do we send the bill to?
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turnip and Blue – nonsense. Demanding a return to pre European times for Maori is a nonsense. They were adapters of technology and culture. That was a recognised method of progress for (many) maori communities. Taking on new ideas and things was natural and maori (lower case).
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Right Turnip28
And barely occupying any land, because land couldn’t be held if one couldn’t defend it from whatever waring tribe was passing through that week.
So all this land “ownership” is simply boll*cks.
Maori owe Europeans big time.
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>>They were adapters of technology and culture.
Adapters? Sorry, there is a PRICE for that technology and IP. Tell you what, we’ll just swap that knowledge and IP for land. Lets call it even.
Everybody is equal.
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Spina Bifida victims get special treatment because it is obvious that nature herself has dealt them a bad hand.
That doesn’t make the rest of us feel second class.
Defining maori as indigenous peoples needing special treatment DOES make us feel second class because it brings benefits to them, that do not accrue to others in the same lifestyle position.
It means a wealthy, mostly euro/part maori student gets more tertiary money than a poor Tongan.
Is this a real example? Yes it is. Again, first hand experience amongst my childrens friends.
This makes non-indigenoids feel second class.
I could give many other examples aswell, but alas, I fear that the truth can often times be boring.
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>>This makes non-indigenoids feel second class.
Absolutely. A few Tongan friends have said the exact same thing.
The Tongans aren’t exactly Maoris biggest fanclub….
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So what price are you going to place on the knowledge that was given to Maori greenfly and who do we send the bill to All Maori or just the grubby Maori elites trying to milk the crown by taking money from hard working New Zealanders via the treaty gravy train.
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turnip28
Now you’re just being silly.
Clearly only land has value…..
C’mon Greenfly and Cath – who do we send the bill to? Time to unwind all those treaty settlements.
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‘In the land of the Blind, the One-eyed man is King!’
It’s about acknowledging, affirming and respecting another Culture – that’s all – too tough for some I know, but until we understand how close we came to extinguishing certain unique and valuable cultural entities; that we may, in fact, learn from others – then abject voices of cynicism will cry ‘Aparthied!’
Nonsense.
Once again a Survey wanted my RACE yesterday – I’m tired of saying ‘New Zealander’ as people think it’s a mistake – so this month I’m going back to ‘does not discriminate’ as my Race.
Funny, other people think there are ‘New Zealanders’ – so do I – I’m one, irrespective of what the Survey’s say.
All Kiwi’s together – nice hey?
Vive La Difference!
“Democracy don’t rule the world, You’d better get that in your head; This
world is ruled by violence, But I guess that’s better left unsaid.” :Bob Dylan : American folksinger, b.1941
It’s not an ‘Us or Them’ setup – I certainly don’t feel threatened by the notion of respect.
Pete: Australia has all but extinguished the Aborigine – ethnic cleansing has only recently stopped there.
Canada values and reveres it’s Native Cultures with sharp enthusiasm – not like NZ at all.
The US record in looking after their natives is nothing short of shamefull.
Canada is the only case for constructive and inclusive sociology.
If some Kiwi’s don’t like the Treaty, they should accept their Government signed it into Law – I’m not against a “Waitangi 2″ – but it shouldn’t really be necessary.
No one is interested in perpetuating separatism – my understanding of the Treaty is that I have been adopted by Maori anyway – the separations are only six inches in width – the space between the ears.
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turnip28
What knowledge was ‘given’ to Maori exactly (can you specify)?
If it was given, as you claim, are you reclaiming your gift? Not very honourable, that. Do you normally charge people for gifts you have given them?
BluePeter and Greengeek
Feeling second class doesn’t mean that you are second class. Surely you have a real definition to offer? Peter – ‘Who do we send the bill to?’ It comes as no surprise that you view this issue through a lens ground from a coin.
Peter said:
Sorry, there is a PRICE for that technology and IP.
There is? Do tell. What are you charging then and for what exactly???
While you are at it, can you explain at which point it wasn’t paid?
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>>It’s about acknowledging, affirming and respecting another Culture – that’s all
So lets see you do it for National Front.
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>>There is? Do tell. What are you charging then and for what exactly???
Maori had no concept of ownership of land. Perhaps Maori should revert back to that thinking too, hmmm?
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>>it’s Native Cultures with sharp enthusiasm – not like NZ at all.
So, what do you think is preventing that happening, hmm?
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“People with spina bifida have to be treated differently. They get special treatment. Are the rest of us ’second class’?”
I can’t believe you said that greenfly, are you suggesting that Maori are similar to people with a severe physical disability?
You really should show more respect for Tangata whenua greenfly!!!!
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Bluepeter said: Maori had no concept of ownership of land.
Really??? Could you define ‘ownership’ for us Peter? Your argument sounds foolish.
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Shunda – we are all similar to people to people with ‘severe physical disabilities’. They aren’t aliens.
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“So what price are you going to place on the knowledge that was given to Maori greenfly and who do we send the bill to?”
So do you advocate that we pay cultures in land that developed key knowledge that we have taken as our own?
Iranians for astronomy?
Egyptians for engineering knowledge?
Italians for the Latin Alphabet?
Arabs and Indians for the numeric system?
Chinese for paper making?
Arabs for science and agronomic knowledge?
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>>Could you define ‘ownership’ for us Peter?
Sure. Land you could occupy until another tribe ate you. That’s why Auckland was mostly empty – it couldn’t be defended. Might was right.
The white tribe came along, and they conquered.
If you want another war, go for it.
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sleepytreehugger – that’s funny and on the button.
BluePeter – your definition of ‘ownership’ is too muddy for me to be able to see clearly. I’m guessing that you are simply stirring the pot.
The iwi that I am most familiar with had sophisticated systems of land management and signposting, agreements with neighbours and dispute resolution processes. Why you resort to portraying cannabalism as a method of land management, I’m not sure, but it points to a lack of knowledge on your part.
As for ‘If you want another war, go for it.’
What is the ‘it’ I should go for?
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who on earth are the ‘National Front” Pete?
A Race? a cult? Nazis?
What did they do to earn my respect for their culture?
Were they here befo’ whitey showed up?
Did we rape and plunder them?
Jail them? Subjugate them?
Why are they not resting in their natural hierarchical place?
Who disenfranchised them? Murdered them?
Our Government? Not in my name surely….
“Auckland was mostly empty”
Yea, after we finished with it that is
I’m sure if the Chinese Army turned up here tomorrow the place would be deemed, “Largely Empty”
Give up the Con and we can heal these things.
Clinging to Fear is not a response – it’s cowardice.
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Is there a Law that Permits me to
“Eat my Neighbour?”
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Valis,
A valiant attempt to laugh-off the comparison; but really, where exactly do the Greens and the BNP differ to any significant degree? They are both leftist with essentially fascist economic policies and an authoritarian collectivist agenda:
http://bnp.org.uk/policies/economy/
http://bnp.org.uk/policies/health/
http://bnp.org.uk/policies/environment/
Spooky, no?
Of course, much of what you read could also have been lifted from Tory/Labour/National websites.
Scary, no?
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Greenfly,
Perhaps, but the important part is not the adoption of European culture so much as the adoption of European culture and abandonment of Maori culture; a substitution.
I had expected you would point out the major flaw in my other argument; that such a accounting practice would only increase strife on both sides as Europeans consider it over and Maori consider themselves shafted, even more so than today. The point being that what is fair is not always what is desirable but rather that in some instances appeasement is the better option even when this is neither fair nor just.
Greengeek,
The argument is generally that any immigrants have benefited from the colonisation and are thus all responsible/evil.
Greenfly,
Greengeeks point relates to rights, you know this well. He/She is correct.
Turnip,
.
They were late palaeolithic in technology but to be fair they were post-pastoral revolution, so probably 8000 years at least assuming similar population. Given the much smaller population one could estimate several times that
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sapient – in terms of the aquisition of technology, if you were a trading people and one that adapted quickly to new technologies, how can it be stated that by adopting, say, steel knives, where you previously used stone, thta you have ‘abandoned your culture’? I think you are wrong to suggest that this is the case.
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sapient – your suggestion (to Turnip) that it would have taken 8000 years for Maori to ‘get up to speed’ is of no value, given that Maori were not living in perfect isolation. They were voyagers and traders and knew much of the world, even before they arrived in Aotearoa. They had,(many of them at least) as part of their culture, a Borg-like willingness to assimilate. Imho.
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Greenfly,
I did not make reference to technology in the relivant post, that was in the reperations post.
The major carrier of maori culture, knowledge, and tactics was the three subsets of their mythology. In addopting christianity much of this was abandoned. In moving from hilltop pa to pa in flats or valleys they lost the health knowledge inbeded in the concepts of tapu and noa. In moving from the marae to the town the collective was disassembled.
Almost all that was part of Maori culture was left behind in the move to embrace pakeha culture, that which exists today is just a sad reminant and a romantic recreation. A demonstration of this substitution may be the move by maori to make the spoken maori language extinct by making its tuition in the school environment, and even its utterance, illegal.
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Greenfly,
That is irrelivant to the point. The point is where the culture was at that point.
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Of course, much of what you read could also have been lifted from Tory/Labour/National websites.
Yes, that’s my point really. There’s your beloved Libs and there’s everyone else. Its your usual argument. Everyone’s a fascist except wat.
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Valis,
Socialists and Communists are not fascists. Classical liberals are not fascists.
So…not really, no.
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“They were voyagers and traders and knew much of the world, even before they arrived in Aotearoa. ”
Really? not just some of the other Pacific islands? What historical evidence are you basing this on?
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Not all greens are what I have called “Dark Greens” and not all environmentalists are alarmist environmentalists.
We do have a problem in talking about where green politics fits into the spectrum of political ideas because during the sixties the name of the political theory called fascism was hijacked and simply became a term of abuse. Consequently for many years we have not been able to have a sensible discourse about the political theory which caused most of the strife of the twentieth century. Many people label fascists as socialists because the real term is not available to their lexicon.
I have attempted to set these streams of ‘environmentalism’ into a political and cultural perspective in my series of essays “the Age of Environmentalism” which are available on my website.
Go to: http://www.rmastudies.org.nz/index.php/issues
It begins with the debate between the two great traditions of our civilization – the enlightenment and the Romantic movement.
BOth have their dark sides and we need to beware of that potential, and to recognise what one we are dealing with. They all owe much to Isaiah Berlin and especially his analysis of Rousseau.
Let us be clear. I regard myself as an environmentalist – but I deeply distrust ‘environmentalism’ for the same reason as I distrust most “-isms.”
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thanks greenfly,
I should have framed it better though. Of course we shouldn’t compensate individuals belonging to cultures that have provided knowledge that our forebears have gained from historical engagement with them and passed down to us. Its a ludicrous suggestion that we should as much as Maori should compensate for the “IP” that it gained after Pakeha settlement.
As for the topic at hand or even about the , I’m now pretty ambivalent about cash settlements to address historical grievances as not every Pakeha profited let alone equally from those wrongdoings so why should they be financially liable to address them? Disclaimer: I’m of mixed Maori (Rongowhakaata) and Pakeha (Scotch-Irish) descent. In modern times surely there is a more satisfactury recource than to confer resources, the legitamacy of ownership of which are rather dubious, into the stewardship of an artificial constituted legal entity (Maori Iwi Corporation) thereby excluding any outsiders. And this exclusion further intensifies the economic rents charged by those who own more than than they can justify the legitimate ownership thereof. There is no justifiable rationale for defending the control of the earth’s bounty beyond occupation and use.
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The notion that Maori were ‘conquered’ is False. It’s why they were offered such a favourable treaty. They won more battles than they lost.
In fact Titokowaru was different in that he kept All the land he conquered. All of the Taranaki down to the Kai Iwi Pa he won without losing a battle.
Whilst the Colonial Army was willing to man the stockade (with the help of a lot of ‘Dutch Courage’) at Wanganui – they were unwilling to take up a battle with this Warrior Chief. Had no hope of defeating him – were in fact ready to close Wellington and move all European Settlers to Australia. Leave NZ to the Maori.
Titokowaru had an affair with another Chief’s wife and his supporters considered that he had forfeited his Mana and left him.
That is the only reason Europeans got to colonize New Zealand – the British needed a Peace Treaty – Maori did not.
Yet imho they signed what was a very favourable treaty for them.
Shunda – the story of Maori ability to Navigate the Pacific is really quite astonishing. Kupe decided that New Zealand lay 5,000 miles to the south west, based on the shape of clouds and the flight of Birds – he set out on this monumental voyage of discovery Knowing where he was going. Not only that – he returned home and organised the seven Waka migration to come back.
Breathtaking in it’s bravery – astonishing in it’s scope – stunning in it’s accuracy.
Historically – Maori came from mainland China – it think it fair to say they had abundant talent in terms of their Navigable ability.
Pakeha Pride Prevents us from crediting their abilities – they had knowledge that English Spanish and Portugese Navigators never dreamed of.
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Mark – the pacific navigator’s method for locating position by lowering their testicles into the water to gauge tempertaure has always interested me. No stone left unturned, no good idea spurned. The ‘mythological’ Maui is similarly of interest, especially if you hold to the idea that he was a she and was real. The Maui slowing the sun legend bends to an account of her innovative thinking about sail taughtness and the courage to sail at night, thus saving time (making the useful working day twice as long) – journeys took half as long as a result.
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Greenfly,
He was a she? Ive never seen any evidence to that. Ive always taken it more to be “even the youngist, and thus least valued and privledged, can acheive great feats”.
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Sapient – according to Waitaha…
I’d always taken Maui to be ‘of the left’, intuitive, mischevious, raven, fatally flawed… irrepressible joker. He was ‘early born’, premature, an unlikely to survive, weak, non-warrior – mecurial. I value the actual and the mythological.
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Fly; Haven’t heard of the ‘Testicle Method’ – are you having a wee loan of me? The very idea….
Got an illustrated book on Maui somewhere – I’ll dig it out and report back on items of interest
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Mark, as far as I can tell Kupe wasnt even maori. Wasn’t he the great navigator that picked up maori on one of his trips around the Pacific?
Also, Maori didn’t just come from China. They are a hybrid people, with strong roots in Peru.
As Chinese-sourced peoples moved eastward across the pacific, other, better navigators came westward from south america (under the influence of the great navigators that left from egypt/persia etc centuries earlier) and they converged in areas like Easter Island and the society islands, eventually giving birth to the maori nation which kupe brought (via the Cook islands) to NZ.
Shunda: Marks right…the progenitors of the maori race were indeed great travellers, but to suggest that maori themselves got here under their own steam and with their own knowledge and technology is to disrespect the peoples that came before them.
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Socialists and Communists are not fascists. Classical liberals are not fascists.
OK, wat, but in the past you’ve accused us of being socialist, fascist, communist and Marxist on different occasions. I guess we’re just over achievers.
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There is no evidence for the claims being made here on Maori navigation.
Please link to them if you can, otherwise call them what they are.
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Valis,
If you can show me where I did that then I will be happy to write a correction.
You can back up your assertion, can’t you?
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Mark Says:
July 25th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
The notion that Maori were ‘conquered’ is False. It’s why they were offered such a favourable treaty. They won more battles than they lost.
……………………..
When the treaty was signed there were 60 to 70’000 Moari and two thousand Europeans. Of course they were given a “favourable treaty”. It was naive to believe that Maori would cede soveriegnty when there was such an imbalance of power.
There are now over 4 million people more than in 1840. There have been many more pakeha born here than Maori.
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Mark Says:
July 25th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
The notion that Maori were ‘conquered’ is False. It’s why they were offered such a favourable treaty. They won more battles than they lost.
In fact Titokowaru was different in that he kept All the land he conquered. All of the Taranaki down to the Kai Iwi Pa he won without losing a battle.
Whilst the Colonial Army was willing to man the stockade (with the help of a lot of ‘Dutch Courage’) at Wanganui – they were unwilling to take up a battle with this Warrior Chief. Had no hope of defeating him – were in fact ready to close Wellington and move all European Settlers to Australia. Leave NZ to the Maori.*
……………
References?
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yeah right
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Greens, please don’t jump on board any cause just because it seems just and against the mainstream. Think about the causes first. Is there any current justification for the cause that makes it somehow unique and worthy of changing our society in some way for it?
We can probably all trace ancestry back to people who’ve been wronged in some way, and even by those whose descendants have gained by that wrong doing. Are you going to fight the cause of each and every one of them, to have that ancient injustice, to an ancestor, righted?
Why is an indigenous people different from others in the same society? Why do they need to have different rights? Do all the members of that group agree with the need for separate rights?
Remember that almost all humans are immigrants and migrating groups have no doubt fought or otherwise usurped previously established groups. Let’s have the same rights for everyone, including the rights of different customs and lifestyles, providing no one else is disadvantaged by that.
Let’s stop raking up the past.
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greengeek Says:
July 25th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
> As Chinese-sourced peoples moved eastward across the pacific, other, better navigators came westward from south america (under the influence of the great navigators that left from egypt/persia etc centuries earlier) and they converged in areas like Easter Island and the society islands, eventually giving birth to the maori nation which kupe brought (via the Cook islands) to NZ.
Studies of Polynesian genetics do not back up this claim.
Polynesian Y-chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA trace back mostly to South East Asia, with the remaining 10% or so tracing back to Papua New Guinea. None traces back to Peru.
And native South American DNA does not trace back to Egypt or Persia – all the native people of the Americas are most closely related to the peoples of North-East Asia – Siberia, Mongolia and Korea.
There is no evidence that the native South American people had navigation skills that were in any way comparable to Polynesian navigational methods.
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If you can show me where I did that then I will be happy to write a correction.
Don’t waste your time. All four characterisations are wrong, so I don’t really care which one you like most.
You can back up your assertion, can’t you?
wat, you doubt me. I’m hurt. Got Google? Have a look, they’re your comments afterall. Here’s just one:
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2008/10/10/impoverished-food/#comment-60170
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There is no evidence for the claims being made here on Maori navigation. Please link to them if you can, otherwise call them what they are.
Careful Shunda! Given your own penchant for making claims you can’t back up, a comment like this is sure to come back to bite you in the ass!
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Mark said:
Fly; Haven’t heard of the ‘Testicle Method’
Where’ve you been all your life?
Try it for yourself… fill the bath with cold water, gently lower..
Can you sense the direction of Antarctica?
(The danger of applying this method in the open ocean, of course, is barracouta.)
Kei te tika tena. He tangata tino tika au ki te korero nei. Straight up cobber.
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“Careful Shunda! Given your own penchant for making claims you can’t back up, a comment like this is sure to come back to bite you in the ass!”
I would expect nothing less!!
Am I wrong?
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Time will tell.
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I see we have a lot of people posting here who have been indoctrinated with a very subjective view of Maori pre European contact.
Life before the arrival of European for Maori was brutal and short. They were not travelling around the pacific trading. Obviously at some point they traveled from some where else in the pacific to New Zealand. We have no evidence where that place was exactly or how that was achieved.
Stories such as Kupe are legends; there is no evidence to back them up. The fact that many here just take them on face value is a serious problem and shows a deep disregard for objective analysis in favor of the subjective. Yes it would be nice if these stories are true however since they are of an oral tradition and no physical evidence exists to support them, they will forever remain myths.
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Not a lot of actual Greens in this Turnup28…
Frog? What would it cost us to be able to have the actual greens (party members) tagged in some manner? A little green g after our name or something like.
Greenfly… I think that “the price of technology” is meant to refer to the need to abandon superstition and embrace science, if one is to succeed.
Navigation considerations:
1. Some people have a better sense of direction than others. Some animals too, as migration routes of birds and fish and such testify. This is unremarkable
2. The story is told from the viewpoint of those who survived and landed here. The number of such attempts that came to grief somewhere in the southern ocean is completely unknown.
respectfully
BJ
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turnip28
My reference to Maori trading was to post-European trading.
One tribe did have its own shipping line operating between Auckland and Sydney and I think even to SF.
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# greenfly Says:
July 25th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
sapient – your suggestion (to Turnip) that it would have taken 8000 years for Maori to ‘get up to speed’ is of no value, given that Maori were not living in perfect isolation. They were voyagers and traders and knew *much* of the world, even before they arrived in Aotearoa. They had,(many of them at least) as part of their culture, a Borg-like willingness to assimilate. Imho.
……..
“At the time of New Zealand settlement there was a voyaging and trading sphere in East Polynesia where ideas and cultural traits were shared and spread. All the available evidence of artefacts, language, biology and tradition suggests that this was the Māori homeland. It consists of the Society Islands, the southern Cook Islands and the Austral Islands in French Polynesia.
Even so, specific archaeological evidence is scarce. The shank of a fishing lure of black-lipped pearl shell, found at Tairua in the Coromandel, is one of a very few items from New Zealand archaeological sites that were actually brought from Polynesia.
It is unlikely that the ancestors of Māori came from only one particular location. DNA from New Zealand’s Pacific rat shows diverse lineages from the Society and Cook Islands. This suggests that several canoes came from a number of sources. They may have come over several generations, or even centuries. A study of human DNA also suggests that there was a minimum of 70–100 women as founding ancestors. Several canoes, possibly coming from several locations, would be needed to bring this number of people.”
http://www.teara.govt.nz/NewZealanders/MaoriNewZealanders/PacificMigrations/7/en
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No, thats not correct. Recent analysis definitely shows a South American link to Maori. It is also backed up by the prescence of kumara etc, and also by language similarities across the western pacific.
There was much traffic around the Pacific, and maori were quite late in arriving here, relative to the earlier travellers.
Some of the info regarding Sth american dna is here:
http://nzsm.webcentre.co.nz/article1834.htm
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greengeek – have you seen any info on the poroporo, said to have been used as a contraceptive (the berries-it’s a solanaceae) and to have come here via human transport, from South America?
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No, I haven’t. I think a lot of the solanum species came from sth america didn’t they?
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greengeek Says:
July 26th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
> Recent analysis definitely shows a South American link to Maori. It is also backed up by the prescence of kumara etc, and also by language similarities across the western pacific.
Thanks for the link, Greengeek – I didn’t know they had found South American DNA in Maori. But I would note that the article suggests that it was picked up by polynesians going to South America and interbreeding with South Americans, rather than South Americans sailing out into the Pacific and meeting polynesians. There was obviously some contact because of plant species like the kumara being transferred, and occam’s razor suggests that it consisted of Polynesians travelling to South America, because there is plenty of evidence that Polynesians had that sailing ability, and there isn’t comparable evidence of South Americans having it, too. The small amount of South American DNA found in that study would seem to me to back up that theory – if the South Americans had sailed out to meet the Polynesians, and brought superior sailing technology, surely their genes would be at least a bit more common than that in Polynesian populations.
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I do remember reading that south americans travelled extensively up and down the pacific coast for great distances and often went way out into the pacific in great loops, using the currents (humboldts current??) to cover huge distances.
Personally, from what I’ve read it seems to me that the particular culture that flourished in the society islands and rarotonga etc has a distinct flavour that is significantly different to many other polynesian peoples, and probably survived in isolation for a long time.
It seems likely that they then interbred with the sth americans and eventually headed off to NZ.
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I think the huge distances of the western pacific ensured that people tended to stay put once they had found sanctuary (as they did in the society islands etc. They also survived in Easter island for a while, till they ate themselves out of house and home)
By contrast, the peoples who came from the chinese side had a much easier time of it, because there is much more land mass around the south western pacific rim, and there were many more established populations.
That being said, it raises the question why the populations of rarotonga would decide to return to New Zealand at all if they did in fact have adequate sanctuary in Raro. Possibly because the navigators that led the great fleets were dead set on “heading west”, as they had always done, and just kept on doing it.
I guess this is the riddle behind the great voyages of discovery undertaken by explorers of every nationality. Why leave a perfectly good home and travel out into the great unknown?
- the only answer I can find is that there was a huge impetus around 5-6000 years ago for middle eastern peoples to spread out around the globe in all directions, and some of those undertook massive voyages of discovery.
It seems to me that some of those travellers inspired amazing journeys wherever they went, and also encountered other populations doing the same thing.
The Pacific seems to me to have been the place where west-bound travellers met eastbound travellers, and then having interbred on Easter island, some started “heading west” to NZ.
My own view of that particular decision is that it was made after the Taupo explosion allowed the stargazers and skywatchers to re-establish the whereabouts of these islands.
Regardless of whether sth americans made it to eastern polynesia, or whether western polynesians made it all the way across to sth america and then back home across massive distances (less likely) it was a series of voyages that took amazing qualities.
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greengeek said:
The Pacific seems to me to have been the place where west-bound travellers met eastbound travellers, and then having interbred on Easter island, some started “heading west” to NZ.
I think you are correct. Your ‘volcano’ observation is a very interesting one. I’m led to believe that the journey from Te Pito o te Whenua to here, while it seems counter intuitive, was a matter of following the migratory routes of big sea mammals, both here and back. Migration went across the top of the Pacific West to East, then swung back and down to us, thanks to the currents etc. Couldn’t have been done straight East to South.
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Hmmm, hadn’t thought about it before, but I guess it would make sense for whales etc to use the major currents to get around, rather than going direct A to B.
Maybe thats why they can cover the whole globe so easily.
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“afraid it might actually mean something and affect the law of the land.”
Weazel speak for: “might means laws the majority don’t like”.
“a deeper engagement over the relationship between the indigenous people of Aotearoa and the Crown.”
Weazel Speak for:
Recognize a treaty made on behalf of the British Government at a time when there were 60 to 70,000 Maori and 2000 Europeans, a treaty which if it was upheld would on a per capita basis give people with Maori ancestry much more political power than non-Maori and divide the country into a series of tribal cantons.
“A fear based approach to the collective rights of Maori is sad given the patience, reasonableness and compromises that tangata whenua have already made in working on the Te Tiriti o Waitangi relationship with the Crown”
Weazel Speak for: The fact that pakeha are afraid of the tribal rights of the people whose land we foreigners are in is misplaced as they are actually nice reasonable people.
“National appears to fear that the Declaration might mean Maori are actually entitled to the land they had before colonisation and for full compensation for the losses.”
..but
they are actually nice reasonable people so no worries there?
“We are already engaged in a long term process around these issues. It seems to me that whanau, hapu and iwi fully understand the limitations of the situation and are negotiating imperfect settlements as the best deal they feel they can get.”
However Tariana turia says her tribes settlement only equals 1 to 1.5% of what was stolen so the “Crown” shouldn’t be surprised if future generations ask for more.
“They are continuing to express patience and willingness for co-management of resources when Te Tiriti o Waitangi let alone the UN Declaration actually recognises tino rangatiratanga.”
Green policy is to recognise tinorangitira tanga but when it comes to foreshore and seabed they want to tell tangata whenua that they cannot sell their own sea land. The Maori council pointed out this contradicted/interferred with/ stuffed up/[insert better word here] tino rangitiratanga. I think the Green idea of tino rangitiratanga is a chief with a pony tail not a bob/bun/round thing.
“This country is one of the last three dragging the chain on the fundamental issue of collective indigenous rights.”
“The Declaration is very significant because unlike other human rights statements it recognises the rights of peoples whose cultural, economic and spiritual expression is collective.”
Yes it gives the thumb up to the thinking behind the Closed Society [refer Karl Popov: The Open Society and it's Enemies]
“Despite the devastating history of colonisation across the planet indigenous peoples survive and uphold their collective identity and connection to the earth.”
Weasel Speak for:
Colonisation occured in the past.
Colonisation was bad.
Indigenous people are the same as those prior to colonisation.
Only indigenous people belong to the country they abide in. Non indigenous belong when they acknowlege and express remorse for colonisation (eg join the Green party).
If a person is of mixed race with a smaller percentage of indigenous then it is a matter of “cultural identity”. These people are redeemed by the act of rejecting their colonist ancestors.
“A deeper reflection of the Declaration suggests it is an opportunity for our country to continue the profound and difficult journey towards Te Tiriti based justice using all tools available. ”
“profound” I agree with (as in profoundly stupid) difficult I also agree with, In fact many say it wouldn’t work; the devil is always in the detail and the detail is rarely in the high folluting waffle Catherine sprouts
The politics of “inclusion” are pretty meaningless if the Government cannot understand this.
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>>refer Karl Popov: The Open Society and it’s Enemies]
Just for the record it’s Karl Popper. Now Karl Popper is generally regarded as one of the foremost philosophers of Science. Although his philosophy of politics is not so influential ‘The Open Society and Its Enemies’ is a pretty thought provoking with its hard hitting criticism of various political philosphy positions as espoused by thinkers as diverse as Plato, Hegel, Marx and even Aristotle with powerful totalitarian undertones and fear of change as contrasted to the Athenian roots of a humanitarian open society.
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“They are failing to embrace the opportunity the Declaration offers us of a deeper engagement over the relationship between the indigenous people of Aotearoa and the Crown. A fear based approach to the collective rights of Maori is sad given the patience, reasonableness and compromises that tangata whenua have already made in working on the Te Tiriti o Waitangi relationship with the Crown.”
“The fact is the Treaty settlement process is a complete farce and provides no kind of just redress at all. It is another process similar to the processes set up 100 or 80 years ago to try to find ways to keep Māori under control so they would stop complaining about the loss of property — their loss of te rangatiratanga, actually — by providing them with some kind of redress, some kind of financial compensation, and hoping that they would then be quiet for a while, which, of course, will never work.”
http://www.greens.org.nz/node/16748
“The party ratifies the Maori and Treaty Policy: “1.2 The Green Party acknowledge that in relation to the Treaty of Waitangi that in any ambiguity, the contra preferentum rule applies and that as such the indigenous version takes precedence over the English version”.
For the last year this policy has been under review because of some unfortunate wording and detail and because it had received little debate in the party at a time we were all pre-occupied with settling in to Parliament. It does not represent current Green Party policy.
However there has been no challenge to the statement above endorsing the Maori language version which was strongly supported at two hui – at Tamaki Makau Rau in April 2001 and Hirangi Marae in December 2001. It was reconfirmed at the Green Party summer conference in Picton, early 2001, at the AGM in Nelson 2001 and at the policy conference near Thames in January 2002.”
“A lot of work is still going on to develop the detail of our policy and in particular, how tino rangatiratanga can be implemented in practice. If members want to see the latest documents and have input they can contact their policy networkers. “
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Maori Party claims victory over foreshore, seabed
Posted by Te Karere
Wednesday, 01 July 2009
A recommendation from a ministerial review to scrap the controversial Foreshore and Seabed Act is being claimed as a major victory by the Maori Party and its co-leader Tariana Turia predicts it will be repealed next year. The review panel’s 150-page report said the law failed to recognise Maori property rights as recognised by the courts and advanced the general interests of the public at the expense of Maori.
https://www.aotearoa.maori.nz/v2/content/view/154/37/
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Maori Independence Site Maori have a long tradition of struggle and resistance against colonisation and the Crown sponsored theft of Maori land and resources.
http://www.greens.org.nz/node/18642
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Sue has summed up well, in a report to Auckland Greens, that “issues around Te Tiriti o Waitangi and decolonisation are among the most divisive in our society, as they touch our entire history and our deepest psyche”.
Does the fact that people are afraid mean we shouldn’t talk about our history and the treaty? Does it mean that as a party we should fear taking a public position on a document which is absolutely fundamental to who we are and where we are in the world?
An important part of the treaty in Maori can be translated as: “The Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the chiefs, to the tribes, and to all the people of New Zealand, the absolute chieftainship (tino rangatiratanga)
of their lands, of their homes and all their treasured possessions”.
People often translate this as meaning “Maori sovereignty”. This is frightening for some. They say it means “handing over everything to Maori”. This is certainly not our understanding of what is being asked for. It may not even be an adequate translation as it raises as many questions as it answers. It is probably better not to use the words until we have an agreement on what they mean. What we do know they mean is that Maori did not sign away their authority over their people, their resources or their treasures.
http://www.greens.org.nz/node/18381
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Pretty good speech, actually.
Like the environmentalism angle. Sir Apirana Ngata was right, welfarism and the laziness it promotes, has destroyed Maori.
“Choosing unemployment benefits and preferential assistance based on race was a double-edged weapon. They helped right now, but ensured a second-class life longer term. As he neared death, Ngata kept encouraging young Maori into the professions � his own son into accounting, Maharaia Winiata into Maori Adult Education, Peter Tapsell into medicine. Buck and Ngata encountered each other for the last time when Buck, his health also failing, was home in 1949. The two frail rangatira toured the country preaching the need for hard work and its rewards.”
The answer is to work harder, and reject welfarism. The socialists have a lot to answer for.
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typo: “Like the environmentalism angle.”
Should have been: “Like the *entrepreneurial* angle”.
(da*n spellchecker)
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Must…work…harder…!!!
Did Maori in their pre European communities/whanau/hapu, support those who were in need of support or did they tell them they must work harder?
I wonder.
* ‘darn’ isn’t a word that will put you into mediation BluePeter!
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Are you saying Apirana Ngata lied? Why would he do that? Was he wrong?
I can see his point, see the evidence before me, and my dealings with Ngai Tahu back it up. It is a truth the politically correct will not allow themselves to see, so it’s no wonder they constantly propose the wrong solutions.
Land is part of it. Culture is part of it. But so is “getting ones act together”.
What prevents that happening is the oppression excuse, brought about by the apologists.
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Peter
“getting ones act together”…What prevents that happening is the oppression excuse, brought about by the apologists.
Do Ngai Tahu reject the notion that they were oppressed? Are they not as ‘politically correct’ as other iwi?
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Try to stay on topic, Greenfly.
You’ll see a surprising number of white fellas working for Ngai Tahu at various levels. The reason I was given for this amused me no end….
It was to do with attitudes to work.
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On topic Peter? I worked for Ngai Tahu for two years (must have been my attitude to work
Will you answer my questions?
Do Ngai Tahu reject the notion that they were oppressed? Are they not as ‘politically correct’ as other iwi?
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I do not know.
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BluePeter Says:
July 27th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Pretty good speech, actually.
……………
but the message (whatever it is) gets mangled by the likes of Delahunty.
It is an interesting exercise to browse the Green party treaty policy and read the rhetorical gyrations which at times contradict each other and in the end leave us none the wiser.
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Green Party:
“However, the Green Party affirms the unique place of Maori in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It holds that the Treaty of Waitangi is a living and fundamental constitutional document, which sets out not only the relationship between Maori and European-descended New Zealanders (Pakeha), but between Maori, all immigrants, and their descendants since 1840 (Tauiwi).”
Michael King:
“Among the subsequent experiences that have sharpened that feeling for me are being informed by members of the Aahi Kaa group that I was in fact a tau iwi or foreigner in this land; and, just as offensively, listening to Cabinet Minister Doug Graham say that Maori people had spiritual feelings for lakes, mountains and rivers, and that Pakeha people did not. ”
Allegiance to One’s Origins:
The Consequences of Belief
Michael King, Historian
A paper delivered to the Sea of Faith Network (NZ) Conference
“Beyond Belief—Putting Faith Into Practice”
Havelock North, 8 October 2000
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>>Aahi Kaa group that I was in fact a tau iwi or foreigner in this land; and, just as offensively, listening to Cabinet Minister Doug Graham
They can say what they like. They’re wrong.
They’re just talking to themselves, and their I-weally-wannabe-Maori white apologists.
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Time is now: “Settler State”?
“All that Maori have ever asked for is their day in court to have the settler State recognise the reality on the ground.
“Don Brash is going to stand on a Bay of Plenty beach today and tell its guardians, Whakatohea, that they don’t exist.
“Not only does he want to perpetuate the injustice that Whakatohea has never had its kaitiakitanga legally recognised, he wants to actually prevent the exercise of their kaitiakitanga.
“So all we’re seeing today is National putting its hand up yet again in its bidding war with Labour to over throw the rule of law on Maori interests and rights. Shame on them both,” said Mrs Turei.
http://www.greens.org.nz/node/13779
‘sounds more like then than now?
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Orewa nailed by Chris Trotter [from Civil War & Other optimistic predictions by David Slack]
Chris Trotter maintains the issue was captured by an elite of politicians, public servants, academics and vested interests, and that as long as there was a consensus across the political parties to stick to the mission, the voter had very little say in the matter [MMP]. But that came to an abrupt halt at Orewa and subsequent polls told the story of a disaffected public.
“what we saw in reaction to Brash’s speech was a powerful warning, I think, to the elites, to the Wellington elites, which was: Pull back. And Clark heard them. She did this amazing handbrake turn: 180 degrees, and smoking tyres in the other direction. She understands our constitution quite well and is very respectful of majorities.
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“A *fear* based approach to the collective rights of Maori is sad given the patience, reasonableness and compromises that tangata whenua have already made in working on the Te Tiriti o Waitangi relationship with the Crown.”
annoyed actually. Annoyed at hearing indigenous when they drive cars like we do and work in the same sort of jobs we do and do the same sort of things in the weekend we do. It’s not as though they live in the jungle and hunt with bows and arrows. Annoyed at the sort of “do pakeha belong in Aotearoa c**p” and talk of “tau iwi (foreigner) or their advanced conservationist culture (a modern myth) while they are the official victims of racism. Annoyed at being blamed for what someone else’s distant ancestors may or may not have done. Annoyed at double talk “the foreshore and seabed and aboriginal title or pocket handkerchief beach area (no where near you).
All in all the Green Party is home base central for Helen Clark’s haters and wreckers and this posting (like the co- leaders previous) is just: Party Time!!!
Next part of David Slacks book asks “Is this the high water mark?” or do we have tikanga law and how might a 3 part parliament work as proposed by Professor Winiata.
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Karl Popper wrote “The Open Society and its Enemies” while at the University of Canterbury.
Overseas commentators regard this as an incidental matter and see Christchurch as a peaceful place in which to write a great book.
Those who were there say a major conflict between Karl (who was in a department of Anthropology) and his Head of Department who was an enthusiastic tribalist and used to spend much of his time living in Maori marae based communities arguing that their tribal culture must be maintained.
The Open Society and its Enemies is of course an assault on tribalism – especially Volume One. Volume two deals with the mega tribalism of the authoritarian states of the 20th century.
The head of department put every obstacle in Popper’s way. He had to apply for paper and so on. Of course on publication Popper was feted and offered jobs at the London School of Economics etc. The departmental head committed suicide.
It could be a great play.
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JH
Like it or not, the treaty CREATES a tribe/culture based distinction between the signatories to that treaty. It doesn’t actually create a race-based distinction (though the difference is a split hair), but the distinction between those whose ancestors sat on one side and those whose ancestors sat on the other is part of the nation, part of the law, part of our history and damned well not going to go away because they drive the same cars on the same roads that you do.
If it is going to go away EVER, it has to be negotiated away in terms that give the Maori tribes the same sort of advantages formally, in a constitutional arrangement that gives Maori equality in government with the rest of us, regardless of the relative numbers. That means : Their votes count for more, or they have a parallel house in parliament with equal say, or there is some other arrangement that is agreed to supersede the treaty. That’s the way it is.
If you don’t like it you really do have to consider living somewhere else…
…regardless of how well Popper understands Plato or what sort of person his head of department was.
All in all the Green Party is home base central for Helen Clark’s haters and wreckers
Seems to me that integrating the Maori minority with the rest of the society here, IN ACCORDANCE with the treaty, has little to do with wrecking and a lot to do with building. You overreach.
This nation will never be wholly functional while the treaty distracts us, and it cannot become wholly functional if people insist that the Maori have no or inconsequential contractual rights in terms of government and self-government , owing to having accepted the treaty.
Nor are Popper’s philosophical explorations relevant to the existence of the Treaty.
BJ
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The UN definition of ‘indigenous populations’ (posted by jh way above) clearly excludes peoples living largely within the general population. This is not by chance, I would assume it was deliberate, and important.
Apart from, possibly, some Tuhoe in the Uruweras there would be very few NZers who could even begin to think that they fall under the UN definition of indigenous population.
So for the sake of those actually affected, we should sign the (non-binding largely irrelevant) declaration.
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”
If it is going to go away EVER, it has to be negotiated away in terms that give the Maori tribes the same sort of advantages formally, in a constitutional arrangement that gives Maori equality in government with the rest of us, regardless of the relative numbers. That means : Their votes count for more, or they have a parallel house in parliament with equal say, or there is some other arrangement that is agreed to supersede the treaty. That’s the way it is.
If you don’t like it you really do have to consider living somewhere else… ”
the reason the treaty blurrs the issue of sovereignty is that it was signed prior to colonisation prior to that colonists (Cortez) just came in shooting or settled and when conflict arose the armies of the colonising nation would fight on their behalf and then make a treaty.
Up until now we have only played lip service to the treaty. In 1840 there were only about 100,000 in NZ now there are over 4 million. The alternative to the treaty was conquest, It doesn’t necessarily make moral sense to “Honour The Treaty” given the— breadth— and— uncertainties of the treaty. As David Slack says:
The point if your running things is to take into account the extremes and do what’s best for the entire group- be it a council, a business or a nation. You run things form the center, and manage the extremists.
yes we are threatened with “bloodshed” but Pakeha aren’t just going to meekly sign (like sheep going up to the slaughter board) to some arrangement that turns us into something like Fiji so we can earn our right to be here. I for one would prefer civil war (b#gger being called tau-iwi*). It would be an odd civil war however with Malcolm McDonald fighting Sean Murphy (because one of them has a Maori cultural identity).
Popper is relevant as as far as things like the Foreshore and sea bed go (and tikanga) they make assumptions of spirituality and mysticism
*I think a lot of Pakeha and other tau iwi often hide from Treaty settlements even in their own district, thinking or saying a range of things from ‘It’s not my business,’ Sue Bradford
http://www.greens.org.nz/node/15739
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Tauiwi…. foriegner
Tangata whenua… the indigenous people
the people of the land Which land? The land where you are (but not you)!?
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whenua – placenta
Don’t be fooled jh.
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tangata whenua relates to the place where the placenta is buried but more broadly means the people who belong in a place as opposed to outsiders (visitors/ guests).
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According to my Maori expert in the language (in Northland) tangata whenua is not raced any more than farmer is race based. It simply means someone who has stayed in an area long enough to harvest a crop or have a child.
He was very cross about the mis-use of Maori language in the District Planning documents of Northland.
He also explained that ” tangata maori” the words in the Treaty referred to the ordinary maori people as opposed to the rangatira class. See for example the first paragraph:
KO WIKITORIA te Kuini o Ingarani i tana mahara atawai ki nga Rangatira me nga Hapu o Nu Tirani i tana hiahia hoki kia tohungia ki a ratou o ratou rangatiratanga me to ratou wenua, a kia mau tonu hoki te Rongo ki a ratou me te Atanoho hoki kua wakaaro ia he mea tika kia tukua mai tetahi Rangatira – hei kai wakarite ki nga Tangata maori o Nu Tirani – kia wakaaetia e nga Rangatira Maori te Kawanatanga o te Kuini ki nga wahikatoa o te wenua nei me nga motu – na te mea hoki he tokomaha ke nga tangata o tona Iwi Kua noho ki tenei wenua, a e haere mai nei.
Tangata maori o Nu Tirani – means the ordinary people of New Zealand. As opposed to the chiefs who are so frequently referred to.
The capitalising of the M to form the English word Maori to refer to the Maori race was an English “invention” and hence the word Maori is an English word (and of course it is in the Oxford dictionary) so there are no reasons at all to write it with the macron over the a. It is simply an affectation.
The word maori with a small m is a Te Reo word meaning ordinary.
Maori with a capital M is an english word meaning the Maori race.
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Owen
I’m interested in your comment, as I am interested in the Maori language.
It seems petty to argue macrons, but I don’t follow your reasoning. Both Reed and Williams have ‘maori’ with a macron (maaori for someone who doesn’t like or can’t add macrons). The macronised ‘maaori’ refers to normal, ordinary, clear, intelligable, lucid. If I might quote the Dictionary of the maori language (H.W.Williams M.A.)
Early European writers invariably spoke of ‘natives’ or ‘New Zealanders’, one of the earliest examples of the use of the word ‘Maori’ in English (Hae.24) being in the translation of the passage above (I’ll post it if you wish). It appears, therefore, as if the use originated with the Maoris themselves.
I’m amused at your assertion that the word ‘Maori’ is an English word. Wasn’t ‘ordinary’ sufficient? What possessed them to adopt such a curious word when they already had one?
Tangata maaori might well refer to ‘ordinary people’, excluding rangatira, but has little bearing on ‘tangata whenua’ that was being discussed in the above posts – or have I missed something?
You say, The word maori with a small m is a Te Reo word meaning ordinary.
but my searching finds that,
the word maaori with a small m means ordinary. Odd.
No reira kei te kuraruraru au ki to korero e pa ana ki te kupu ke.
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“Nor are Popper’s philosophical explorations relevant to the existence of the Treaty.
BJ”
but the treaty would be with a tribal society and that would be the only justification for the treaty. It is the tribalism (closed society) that gives being Maori the sauce, otherwise they are just like us.
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“The Open Society and its Enemies is of course an assault on tribalism – especially Volume One. Volume two deals with the mega tribalism of the authoritarian states of the 20th century.”
Even a cursory examination of history would make one question, which society has been the most “closed” in the last 200 years. The tribal who if left to their own devices would no doubt be prepared to assimilate aspects of a new culture (Western) of which they could benefit from, or a society that has through violence or by social or economic manipulation imposed their own which they believe to be unquestionably superior and when faced with even passive resistance (Parihaka?) have through brutal campaingns of violence reduced many populations to the verge of extinction where the society in question is incapable of resistance to the cultural as well as physical colonialization. The missionary and the school master were as effective tools of Empire as the Imperial soldier or the colonial governor.
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In an open society people can demonstrate against the American deployment to Vietnam; in a closed society (North Vietnam) they can’t.
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“In an open society people can demonstrate against the American deployment to Vietnam; in a closed society (North Vietnam) they can’t.”
yep too bad that didn’t mean much to the Vietnamese people who were denied free elections and instead had a Jsymboloic emperor who’d been a puppet of the Japanese and then the French foisted upon them by the Geneva Accords and a military dictator that really ran the show, merely because the West feared that the communists would be elected ahead of their favored clients.
It was generally conceded that had an election been held, Ho Chi Minh would have been elected Premier.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/vietnam/55election.htm
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Here’s an excerpt from Civil War & Other Optomistic Predictions (David Slack) demonstrating some of the practical problems around negotiating treaty issues:
Pragmatism, Andrew Sharp notes, has been a feature of our
negotiation of Treaty issues. He has written that people who
took this point of view were happy to ‘fudge’ it. We had
arguments, he points out, that didn’t seem capable of being
solved: people could not agree on what rights Maori and Pakeha
respectively had, and what was due to them. In the face of
impossible disagreement, the past two decades saw deals,
settlements and arrangements that could be lived with.
Pragmatic resolutions, in the face of altogether—too- difficult
philosophical disagreements.
If that’s so, is there a better way of going about this? Sharp
says we fail to look at issues in a useful way Take, he says, the
way the foreshore debate developed:
You’ve replaced a common law regime with a statutory one —
and a statutory one in the end more favourable to Maori than
the common law one. It’s just a statutory regime, which will
work, substituting for a common law regime which probably
did nothing. But the problem with doing anything was what
bedevils our politics — brash symbolism.
That’s why, he says, he doesn’t like the Treaty much, because it
doesn’t mean anything until you get down to details and clarify
your meanings, and once you do, you’re in trouble because
whatever you do there’s going to be disagreement.
And it’s the same with this. It was a debate where meanings
were uncontrolled – anything could happen, anything could be
said, all of this might seem somehow to be relevant to what was
at issue, but none of it was.
He says we New Zealanders do a pretty poor job of isolating,
clarifying and writing about precisely what it is we’re arguing
about. And because we don’t analyse and understand those
arguments, we don’t actually see the consequences of our
arguments. He gives the example of the way the debate took
shape in the mid-1970s about reparation for past wrongs:
It was assumed – far too easily I think – that there was some
substance in the argument. There wasn’t any substance at all.
What there is, is an emotional commitment to repairing the
past, doing something about it. But the moment you think
about that » that justice requires putting back people in the
position they would have been in if the wrong hadn’t been done,
compensating them in such a way that they’re now capable of
competing in the way that they would have been [able to] – the
minute you begin to phrase it specifically in one of those ways
or otherwise, then you’ll see that intellectually; the task’s totally
impossible. You cant put people back in the position that they
would have been in had the wrong not been done.
Why not? Because, he says, so much has happened since the
wrong took place. History could have taken people in so many
different directions, depending on what happened next and
what happened after that and so on, that we just can’t say what
position they would have been in today if the wrong had not
happened. It would depend on ‘external accidents, their own
effort, luck, all sorts of stuff like that. If you are thinking about
compensation that we could make in the present, it’s impossible
for those reasons to calculate what that would be”
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The treaty was indeed with a tribal society and it continues to support that tribal society long after a more efficient evolution and integration would have ended it. However, it is not our right to unilaterally determine that Maori should end that situation and enter a different deal with the rest of us.
…but I don’t think that this “tribalism” was what the Maori thought they were preserving when they signed. The concept of a culture changing and evolving beyond tribalism did not I think, factor large in their negotiations.
However, the treaty not only supports the tribalism, it demands its continuation. It would be a good thing to bring the question and manage an evolution of NZ and its government to an integrated whole, including Maori and in accordance with the principles of the treaty.
—————-
The missionary and the school master were as effective tools of Empire as the Imperial soldier or the colonial governor.
IMHO – MORE effective tools.
BJ
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Technically because of the treaty Maori have the right to (say) 60 seats in parliament as well as the right to manage and controll and profit from all those areas not privately owned and you could infer that that is Green Party policy (if not you could be forgiven for thinking it). On what basis is this just however 1. A deals a deal?
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I should be clear. I do not “like” the treaty. It is an ambiguous agreement that was necessarily ambiguous in order to get agreement. It merged two very unlikely partners in a social and political arrangement that is not duplicated anywhere else on the planet to my knowledge. It divides us into two parts, permanently, even as it joins us together.
Reaching a single valid government will take centuries more time even if we all manage to understand things well enough to reach in that direction. I would be happy to have a government of two halves at this point. There are far more than two tribes, an extravagant surplus of governments.
However, I regard it as morally binding. I am not a fan of “settlements” but of equality, which because of the treaty must be regarded as between all Maori tribes and all the rest of us, and if that means that they have more individual influence over things than I do, that is what it means.
Hell, I am a Green – I am used to a bunch of people who don’t listen to me running the country.
respectfully
BJ
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Cross-posting we are…
Yes JH… a deal IS a deal. You want to abrogate it unilaterally? Good luck with the perception of justice, social unrest and almost certain growth of a terrorist movement.
If you want to change it you have to offer it on equal terms, same as the situation was when it was signed. Change has to be agreed to by the Maori, not imposed. It isn’t complicated. It is justice.
respectfully
BJ
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BJ and JH
Another issue to consider is the changing demographics in new Zealand.
Maori and Pakeha popluations are becoming smaller in volume. The “new” population (Indan, Asian, Chinese, African, Polynesians) would seem to have much less interest in treaty settlements then the original signatories.
While we tend to lump Polynesians and Maori into the same camp, the reality is that there is much resentment in the Polynesian population towards this.
In a time not to far away we could well end up with the majority of the population giving the treaty the push out the door and vote for a constitution that reflects much more the wishes and desires of the “new” population.
Problem with the current treaty is that by its very nature it is impossible to implement the articles outlined in it. And trying to right all the past wrongs is simply not possible. No matter how long the process.
It is a far more complicated issue then just one between Maori and Pakeha. There is a whole “new” population here now that just doesn’t care about the treaty. To them it is a quaint history lesson and of no real interest.
As Maori grievances become bigger every generation (care to tally up how often we have had “full and final” settlements for the same grievance claim?) you end up with an apathetic non Maori population that will simply ignore any future claims.
It is the “new” population that will swamp and sink the Maori sovereignty movement. Not the Pakeha treaty signatories.
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Gerrit
The problems you outline are real, but I do not think that this will allow us to avoid a fragmented and likely more violent society. The NZ culture of “all-talk, all-the-time” is ultimately going to do something quite ugly by debating rather than doing what it should do.
This seems to be the principle mode of NZ failure. I am not sympathetic to it.
Bringing in outsiders who do not honor the treaty will not diminish Maori rights under the treaty or make them disposed towards peaceful, law-abiding minority status in the land they once “owned”. A recipe’ for disaster.
respectfully
BJ
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As I see it, the treaty does not guarantie sovereginty to the cheifs and tribes seperatly to the sovereignty of the nz government but guaranties sovereignty to the “cheifs, the tribes, and the people of new zealand” independant of the crown. There is actually no wording in the treaty, even when translated back into english, that supports a seperate Maori state. Europeans, Asian, Pacifica Islanders; we are all people of NZ as Maori may be.
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bjchip Says:
July 29th, 2009 at 1:15 am
Yes JH… a deal IS a deal. You want to abrogate it unilaterally? Good luck with the perception of justice, social unrest and almost certain growth of a terrorist movement.
……..
How many seats in Parliament should Maori have 60?
Show me that the Green party which takes a fundamentalist treaty line can come up with details and specifics.
Do you have anymore information on how tino rangitiratanga should work?
Would the green Party agree to the Maori Council demand that under tino rangitiratanga they have the right to sell of sea land (Foreshore and seabed)?
Either way there will be resistance and the effect of terrorism may mean we can come down harder on crime. Backlash-with-nobs anyone?
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The use of macrons when writing Maori language in English alphabet is a strange practise and is important because it is a massive impediment to learning how to spell correctly in Maori, and less importantly, makes writing of subtitles more labour intensive and hence more expensive.
All dictionaries contain pronunciation guides but they are not normally transferred into the spelling of those words in regular use. My Maori dictionaries use Maori on the title pages and in the introductions without either the macron or aa, but these use macrons as pronuniciation guides just as the Oxford dictionary and others use pronunciation guides.
The English alphabet has no pronunciation guides although we use the french acute accent on some recently imported French words. They are on my keyboard. Macrons are not which makes their obligatory use a pain for most computer users.
Have a look at your Maori dictionary and see how many words have to be learned by rule to get the “spelling correct” if macrons are required. It is massive compared to the acute and grave and circumflex in French. It is a learning load equivalent to learning the gender of French nouns.
Any impediment to learning restrains the common use of the language. I wonder how many young Maori are reluctant to write in Te Reo because they are unsure of the macron use?
I find it disturbing that we have adopted such an elitist approach to Maori spelling when we should be working hard to make it accessible to all.
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BJ,
The “new” population is here already, they just havent found their voice yet.
Absolutely true but as frog has said in the past, treaty settlements are a process, not an ending.
There is simply no ending on the table for treaty settlements, nor a picture of what Maori “sovereignty” looks like and how it will interact with the rest of the population.
So not having achieveable and defined outcomes, a meandering process, and stubbornness on both sides of the divide to be uncompromising, there is a long term racial “war” waiting to happen.
What we should do as a starter is create a new national flag.
I would take the Maori flag, add a blue flash (to represent all the people – including Maori – who came across the water to these shores) to accompany the white flash and call it the new national flag.
We need something to unite behind.
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JH
I don’t speak for the party in this. Not even sure what party policy is… not curious about it. We have no power to implement it.
The problem is solvable – not necessarily by guaranteeing seats in parliament. I agree with Gerrit that the nation is drifting rather than defining useful goals. Not sure that a flag is the best way to do this, but I don’t think it would hurt. It might make sense in conjunction with some sort of constitutional process leading to a formal or rewritten informal, constitution.
You are asking for a proposal for that constitution.
A rather extravagant request of a guy who isn’t really that interested in the subject
respectfully
BJ
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Owen
Your comments about the macron are very interesting and valid. I wonder then, what you propose to differentiate between written words that would look the same if they were not macronised or ‘double vowelled’ like,
tangata and taangata. Do you propse that context be the only guide. There would be confusion.
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In 90% percent of cases context is sufficient.
We know the difference between a dog lead and a lead sinker.
BUt where it is deemed really necessary then the double a is preferable to a macron because it is no harder to type that boot or beet.
But the macron? I would have to convert my whole keyboard to Swedish every time I type a few Maori words. Of course I don’t.
I understand the civil service computers have special word processing software which makes them an elite set of users and I am sad to say I think that is part of the appeal.
Here is a test. Can you write taangata with a macron in your reply to this comment?
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Preamble
Green Party Charter
The preamble to the Charter of the Green Party reads:
The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand accepts Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the founding document of Aotearoa New Zealand.
The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand recognises Mäori as the Tangata Whenua of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Green Party Constitution
The objects of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand include a commitment to honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Key Principles
1. The Green Party affirms that Te Tiriti o Waitangi remains a living and fundamental constitutional document.
2. The Green Party, through its Charter and its constitution, acknowledges the indigenous language version of Te Tiriti as the legitimate text of an agreement that described the rights and responsibilities of hapu and the Crown, and which:
1. gave the Crown the right to kawanatanga,
2. confirmed the chiefs’ tino rangatiratanga,
3. gave Mäori the individual rights of British people, and
4. confirmed their religious, spiritual and customary rights.
3. The Green Party acknowledges that the Crown and its representatives have breached, and continue to breach, te Tiriti . We support the resolution of, and restitution for, all outstanding historical and contemporary breaches.
4. The Green Party believes there is a need for an ongoing dialogue grounded in Te Tiriti, both to give effect to the relationship that it enshrines, and to build a high level of awareness among all citizens of the unique role of Te Tiriti in our nation.
Mäori seats in Parliament
The Green Party supports guaranteed representation for Mäori in the House of Representatives. While this form of monolithic representation is not a true reflection of Te Tiriti until Aotearoa/New Zealand moves towards such a relationship*, the Green Party believes it essential that Mäori have representation in Parliament.
3. The Green Party will support the entrenchment of the Mäori seats so that there is guaranteed Mäori representation in Parliament.
* So what is the Green Party idea on what is a true reflection of Te Tiriti (60 seats in Parliament or is this just jaw, jaw!)?
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Owen
Tāngata
But I concur – I prefer the double vowel. There was a simple free Microsoft macronising programme available some time back, which I used alot, but it has become unavailable. There are others though and I imagine that anyone wanting to tuhituhi i te reo Maaori could easily find. There are ‘keyboard shorcuts too. I don’t think it’s elitist to use macrons and it helps with clarity. I like the double vowels because it looks quaint and traditional. It would be just as much a turn-off to new learners as the macrons, I’d have thought.
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JH
You bolded the relevant answer. It matches pretty well my own. Simply having Maori seats doesn’t honor the treaty. Even if half the seats are reserved for Maori. Nor can such a reservation be substituted for the treaty. You are looking for a simple answer… but IMHO, all the SIMPLE answers are wrong.
BJ
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My proposal:
A codified and entrenched constitution.
House of representitives as it exists presently minus the maori seats.
Suprime court acts also as a constitutional court charged with the duties of the surprime court aswel as ensuring that no legislation passed violates the constitution and that both teirs act within their legitimate area.
A second teir constituting the head of state, the kaitiaki. Entrusted into the hands of the head of state is all the land and people of NZ. The kaitiaki is charged with ensuring legislation does not discriminate against any ethnic/sex/sexuality group in such a way that an ethnic/sex/sexuality groups is disadvantaged in law compared to another and with protecting against undue environmental degradation. The kaitiaki may consist of a single individual or a entire parliment. This is entirly up to the iwi, as is the appointment of the kaitiaki.
Where the kaitiaki judges legislation passed by the house of representitives to violate that which it is entrusted with protecting it may veto that legislation so long as it displays a majority, by percentage, equal to or greater than that of the house of representitives held for the support of the legislation. Where the majority in the house exceeds 3/4 the judgement of the constitutional court is required also for the legislation to be passed or vetoed.
Where the kaitiaki constantly acts to block legislation proposed by the house without good reason the house may appeal to the constitutional court to overturn the veto if the judgement of the kaitiaki is found to not reflect their duties and the facts.
The judgement of the constitutional court may be challenged through binding referenda. Any constitutional change requires 3/4 support of both teirs and in the population via referenda following the announcement of this support.
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Greenfly
Well done with the macron.
But what did you have to do to write that common word in this blog?
By the way, you might find it interesting to look at the Treaty the Normans signed with the waring Saxon tribes after the Battlle of Hastings.
You will find it has a familiar ring.
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I think that is a pretty good summation of the Treaty. And also, I feel, a pretty good reason why we should not choose it as a blueprint for the future.
In any case (harking back to the ‘indigenous’ topic) some of still feel it is historical convenience to see maori as indigenous (ie ‘which maori, which whanau, which individual was here first’), and to see the Treaty as all encompassing (ie ‘which tribe signed and which tribe didnt’)
bj you mentioned that you consider the Treaty ‘morally binding’. I don’t feel that way because I believe government policy needs to be based on law and truth, not arbitrary and emotional agreements.
If Tuhoe chose not to sign then they should not receive benefits from my taxes. Instead they should be able to petition the crown for some form of restitution.
Running a country according to vague treaties and “moral” commitments allows the sort of disgraceful outcome suffered by Alan Titford at Mangonui bluff.
It is time for a truth commission: Truth about who actually discovered NZ, truth about exactly which Maori arrived here, when and where; truth about moriori; and truth about the impossibility of using the treaty as a foundation for peace.
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However, I regard it as morally binding. I am not a fan of “settlements” but of equality, which because of the treaty must be regarded as between all Maori tribes and all the rest of us, and if that means that they have more individual influence over things than I do, that is what it means.
This is what margaret Mutu says:
11. Post-Treaty of Waitangi.
*The British government issued clear instructions to emigrant settlers to adhere to the Treaty.*
Settlers ignored the Treaty and set up a parliament which excluded Māori and passed legislation designed to entrench Pākehā political and economic dominance and control in New Zealand.
Māori resisted but became outnumbered, marginalised and stripped of ownership and use of our resources. Finally achieved minimal representation in Parliament in 1867.
Māori resistance continued nevertheless but was either suppressed or ignored.
the first bit I see as false (but I stand corrected). I’m guessing that is to disguise the real situation which was that people who emigrated were making a massive decision and the treaty had stuff all to do with it. They may have had a general idea of the politics and believed in British power but there was the 3 month journey out and fire at sea a major risk and what the *** they would do when they got here. What I’m suggesting is that the moral obligation is the inverse of the distance from the center (?) or there are rings of moral obligation depending on various factors radiating from the center.
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The genie isn’t going back in the bottle, no matter what the document says.
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Pixies yesterday Peter and genies today?
What will it be tomorrow?
I’m guessing your favourites: gnomes!
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It’s the truth, Ruth.
Resolve land issues then scrap the treaty. It’s not a unifying document. It’s a half-ars*d property arrangement written by colonialists who just couldn’t be bothered with Empire any longer.
We’re born here, we’re staying. Although if Maori pay me out, I’ll be happy to f**k off.
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BP
You CANNOT morally or legally justify scrapping the treaty, and the if you think that you can do so without getting hammered internationally and through the rise of a Maori resistance movement, you have made a mistake.
I don’t care how much you WANT to do that, the only way the treaty can be “scrapped” is with the fully informed consent of the Maori. Do it unilaterally and the Nation is finished.
BJ
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As I suggested in General debate the treaty might be perceived as a Giant Squid. The intact squid is the original document that we are told (vociferously) we must honour; When the Squid advances we start to feel the entanglement of the tentacles, so for example when Maori start issuing passports or snatching bodies under tikanga, these tentacles get hacked off. Other tentacles such as Te Reo only get so far as they become a burden if carried to excess. While some people are relaxed about the foreshore and seabed others see a fish hook in the juicy bait and any government that hides a fish hook will get severely punished (David Slack uses the bungy springing back analogy when govts and elites go to far). The squid can keep evolving new tentacles and if the squid bites so that blood is shed that will bury the treaty anyway. Terrorism will hurt Maori as much as anyone else (although if tourism was way down due to permanently high oil prices that may not matter). All in all though logic shows that separatism would only favour the filthy few on some rich productive land or fishing area and exclusive rights on our back door might create enormous resentment . We are like trees in a forest with intertwined roots.
HE!
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Time is Now
Which way Green party?
LATEST: A group of Maori protestors have occupied a foyer in the Auckland High Court where people are waiting for the verdict in the trial of former MP Taito Phillip Field who faces corruption and obstruction charges.
The 30-strong group, calling themselves the Mauri Nation State Hapu, had returned to the court this morning after six members yesterday halted the trial briefly to protest at the ‘syntax’ of the charges laid against Field.
As well as protesting, they had been filming their own activities this morning. Use of cameras in the High Court is banned without permission.
Police had earlier told the group they must leave the building after they ignored demands not to film and racially abused a court official.
However it seems the group has now been allowed to stay.
The protestors are led by Tass Davis – an uncle of Maori Party MP Hone Harawira – who in June announced a planned campaign of civil disobedience targeting the homes of high-profile judges and occupying courtrooms to draw attention to the group’s bid for a Maori sovereign nation.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2707657/Protestors-disrupting-Field-trial-again
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What Ever it is!
Where Ever it is!
At Home
Or around the World!Youuuuu Asked For It!!!!!!!*
It’s your stated policy to honour the Maori language version of Tiritti????
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[I'm Your Host
Jack Smith!]
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