John Robinson: Choice 2023: for racism or for equality

Societies across the world have long recognised that we all belong to one human race, that we can best live together in harmony when there is a general belief in equality, all belonging in a united county, as one people, equals.  That principle has been steadily undermined in New Zealand since 1975, and is now gone: this is a divided nation moving from separation and partnership to co-governance, and towards two unequal race-based parliaments.  

There is a choice to be made between tribal rule and equality.  We must face the issue, make a decision for ourselves, of what sort of society we want for ourselves now and for the future.  It cannot be dodged; to continue as we are is to accept racial separation. 

Many loud claims for separate rule are based on acceptance of three selected documents.  This was made clear in a demand made at a 2022 Constitutional Conference at Auckland University for “a constitutional transformation to realise Maori rights in te Tiriti o Waitangi, He Whakaputanga and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”  The intention is to build a constitution that will only “realise Maori rights”, denying full citizenship to all others.

Here, te Tiriti o Waitangi is the reformulated version of the Treaty of Waitangi which massively contradicts the original.  He Whakaputanga is a letter written by the English agent in 1835, suggesting the formation of a “Confederation of the Maori Tribes” that never existed.  The choice before us is made clear in the third document, the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which presents two starkly different and contradictory pictures of human rights.

The majority of the document calls for separation by race, division into “indigenous people” and others with complete rights to the indigenous group, destroying the rights, belongingness and citizenship of all others: the complete sovereignty of ‘indigenous’ people.  The extensive list of full rights for indigenous people (here, Maori) includes sovereignty and control over all aspects of the nation with (for example) “control over developments affecting them and their lands, territories and resources”, “control over their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning”, “the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures” and “their own representative institutions.”  To follow those prescriptions is to continue down the road of division and racism to complete tribal apartheid.

However, the Declaration also reminds us of the founding principle of the United Nations, that all people are born equal, with a ban on any action which would impair the political unity of any sovereign state, as well as strong condemnation of the very division that is demanded within the document.

All doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust.

There is no equivocation here.  Those two opposing features of the Declaration demand a choice: either to move into division by origin and race, or to demand equality as one people.

This is the stark choice facing New Zealand in 2023 – to continue down the path of racial separation and division to tribal rule, or to turn back to equality so we can all proudly say ‘we are one people’, that this is our land, a proud sovereign nation where we all belong.

Dr John Robinson is a research scientist, who has investigated a variety of topics, including the social statistics of Maori.  His recognition of fundamental flaws in the interpretation of nineteenth century Maori demographics led him to consider the history of those times in several books.