When Te Pati Maori hierarchy are confronted with the question a contortion of confusion ensues and they run for the hills and the relative safety of established post-colonial New Zealand institutions.
Is it “noise, noise, noise”, an ongoing ‘revolution by stealth’ or a ‘disparate rebellion’? It is certainly an ongoing continuum of activist and elite Maori being emboldened, empowered and entitled by public institutions with only unsettling paths to solutions that can never be fully resolved as the shifting sands of historical revisionism persist.
The revolution by stealth has been well underway over many decades and hastened during the conspiratorial, consequential and acquiescent watch of the 6th Labour government who held no determining electoral mandate on the divisive ‘transfer of power by virtue of indigenous race’ issue. The undemocratic and underlying driving force has been academia, university education and the public sector (including the courts and the Waitangi tribunal). Faithful to the bitter end, the cheerleading mainstream media (MSM) have provided mind numbing, non-critical commentary.
The 2024 Waitangi Day event (for it is certainly not a celebration) will undoubtedly provide a barometer to the vexed and contentious issues surrounding Maori sovereignty, self-determination, separatism and the grievance industry driven from revisionist Treaty interpretation and historical victimhood. Waitangi Day ’24 will be a very public litmus test to the level of radicalisation and its potential on the sliding scale of civil unrest to violence. And the silent majority, who voted for the Coalition, will be watching. I fear the general public will have little choice but be fully confronted by it.
History tells us that at some point revolutionary fringe groups must morph into at least a significant minority for a revolution to succeed or alternatively create a separate nation state. A concerted move toward self-determination and separatism is likely to lead to ethnic enclaves. Unfortunately, this path sends signals of and parallels to an economically powerful Israeli state with the impoverished West Bank enclaves. There is no room for non-Maori in most of Te Pati and radicalised Maori rhetoric. Words matter and lead to actions. The uncomfortable truth for the protagonists of Maori revolution is that the dichotomy of either taking more post-colonial spoils or setting up a separatist post-colonial state both require a strong and functioning modern economy to fund the necessary change through redistribution of wealth. So far, the arguments for change provide discordant and incoherent logic to this end, unless you believe in the primacy of ‘revolution by stealth’. Eventually this relies on a compliant tax paying majority. I would suggest the 2023 election result provides any intelligent politician the necessary information as to the mood of the electorate. The Coalition Agreement is a grand correction to the social, political and economic imbalance that has been established and now hastened by the 6th Labour government.
Waitangi Day ‘24 exposes the Coalition leadership to the fury of radicalised Maori as the Coalition Agreement represents for them counter revolution to significant gains made. The day is necessarily a test of the courage and mettle of government representation. The Coalition will want to present a unified and somewhat conciliatory presence to responsibly calm the Maori grievance and potentially wider reactionary public storm. It is also a very real test for Andy Coster and the NZ police who need to ensure a safe and composed event for ongoing law and order credibility. Ironically an unruly, unseemly and violent day will confirm and confer the moral high ground of the Coalition policies and erode the strength of the revolution by stealth. Waitangi Day may finally end as a meaningful day for most New Zealanders. If government does not participate the road to separatism becomes a step closer in rhetoric even if not in reality.
The Te Pati ‘day of action’ as parliament resumed post-election, sent mixed and confused signals. It was visible, disruptive in rhetoric but finally acquiescent to the status quo after the bluff and bluster in public and in parliament. Te Pati affirmed loyalty to the crown. The revolution was unwilling to risk the baubles of its power, despite the rhetoric. In reality (as opposed to MSM reports) there were only closer to 500 protestors at Parliament and smatterings of ‘noise’ up and down the country. Waitangi Day will be different, and the mass of numbers and protest momentum will be adversarially against the Coalition representatives. Luxon, Seymour and Winston et al will be physically exposed. Police need to safely control proceedings, the protocols and dignity of the event. Unfortunately, as demonstrated in the ‘occupation Parliamentary protest’ and ‘Tamaki’ protests since, the Police ‘intelligence’, planning and reactions continually underestimate or overestimate public protest actions and their consequences. In this case the police need to be involved in the planning, organisation and direction of the day’s events as they mitigate very real security risks.
Luxon, Winston and Seymour must weigh up the risk. Not fronting is an obvious sign of weakness but so is public humiliation, or worse physical assault. Coster and the police intelligence must get this one right or the day becomes divisively a day of national shame baring the country’s disunity for the world to see. The revolution of stealth will start reaping what it has sown as the silent majority has little appetite for lawless, separatist rebellion. The stakes are high as it is our shared ’Social License’, the very threads of secure, co-operative civil society.
The price of citizenship in NZ is to maintain democracy. Democracy is predicated on equality by virtue of free speech, equal voting rights and equality before the law. Disagreement over co-governance cannot be simply reduced to the slur of racism. Racial superiority by political-economic advantage (or even its perception) and confused property rights are anathema to the inherent tenants of a safe and secure liberal democracy and a growing fully functional socio-economy. Quite apart from any interpretation of the Treaty the vast majority of the NZ electorate will not tolerate the elevation of one race over all others. Kiwi’s do however generally understand equality of need and opportunity, supporting individual and secure property rights. For most the Treaty still represents one standard of citizenship (one Nation, many peoples) and founding principles of equality and protection.
As the effects and speed of the revolution by stealth has increased a growing disquiet has also dramatically increased from outside the Wellington, judicial and academic ‘beltways’. In ‘safe spaces’ the traffic of debate is one way, and it does not support unequal revision of the Treaty. The discussion cannot be subverted to academic, bureaucratic, judicial and Maori elites who by any measure are less than 5% of the population. Living and being subjugated in an unequal society is not acceptable to multi-cultural mainstream NZ. I also suggest funding co-governance or multi-state solutions through taxation is economically impossible, the cost of replications of state infrastructure being horrendous. Iwi and Maori in general do not offer a consensus, quite the reverse. For most citizens it is a paternalistic nonsense to argue as if Maori are one or even a separate entity from the rest of NZ multi-cultural society.
Waitangi Day is currently the harbinger of ill will, apprehension and racist division. A concerted move back to Norman Kirk’s New Zealand Day would bring comfort to the silent majority but further antagonise radicalised Maori and their support network of unelected NZ institutions. The events surrounding Waitangi Day ’24 may well be the catalyst for determining the speed and determination of the Coalition counter revolution, isolating the radicals, separatists and the institutional revolution by stealth.
Waitangi ‘24 is a true pressure test for the strength of the Coalition government, its agreement and the determination of its leadership but also for the minority forces of revolution.
Alistair Boyce is the owner of the iconic Wellington pub the Backbencher.
9 comments:
I heard on zb news today that debbie ngawera from te pati is threatening the nz govt by saying she is gping to complain to world media about how " badly the nz govt is treating maori" Well she will have to give examples and like all the woke types she will not have any. She is an awful woman, very racist.
I remember first being exposed to the radical racialist rhetoric as far back as 1979 at a marae near Wanganui. We were told that we were racist and our society was racist and guilty of "institutional racism".
However after decades of reflection I would conclude that in the 19th century the Maori people met our ancestors who were the most enlightened people in the world. The land wars were regrettable, however at the end of it we have one nation and one people with one rule of law for all. And that is all anyone can reasonably expect.
In New Zealand today people of good work ethic and sound moral character can get ahead. We have the same opportunities and challenges, Maori and non-Maori alike. I think the coalition is doing a good job and focusing on important issues like bringing down inflation and getting the economy going. We would all like to be able to afford a home and be able to afford to buy the groceries each week. That holds true for everyone regardless of race. And that would do more for Maori people than any amount of inflammatory rhetoric.
D Day is coming fast - as it must.
But the profound damage caused by Labour's " stealth agenda" and underpinned by the MSM is a very pernicious force. This relies on fiction over fact and perception over reality. Like fighting a battle in a fog.
A referendum as soon as possible is vital to record the public's mood and wishes. The benefit outweighs any disadvantages. Delay only increases the dangers.
The people must understand the intent of radical Maori: an ethnocracy with superior rights and power paid in perpetuity by the majority. In itself, this is ludicrous and should bring ordinary people to their senses.
Easy to give ‘examples’. Just make them up. Certainly Aus media seems gullible enough to accept what ever they are told by ‘Maori’.
Thank you, Alistair - pretty well analysed. I do question the use of the word 'elite'. Who are the Maori elite? "a class of people seen as having the most power and influence in a society, especially on account of their wealth or privilege:" Are they people who have aristocratic tribal descent?
They must keep a pretty low public profile, and/or be manipulating very subtly behind the scenes because most of the people who make the news seem pretty limited in knowledge and intellect - to put it politely. Yes - power to your elbow Luxon - ably supported by Peters and Seymour. What say 6 February is actually quite decorous?
In 1973, under the Norman Kirk Labour led Government, legislation was passed to recognise February 6 as a public holiday to commemorate the signing of the Tiriti o Waitangi. However, it also renamed the date as New Zealand Day, with the intention of creating a sense of nationhood.
As Article two of the Tiriti o Waitangi states, “The Queen of England arranges and agrees to give to the chiefs, the hapus and to all the people of New Zealand, the full chieftainship of their lands, their settlements, and their property”. (This is backed up by Busby’s Final Draft dated 4th February 1840 and Mr T E Young’s 1869 back translation of the Maori text into English).
Was Norman Kirk our last Prime Minister who recognised that the Tiriti o Waitangi made ALL the people of New Zealand the same under one flag and one law for all?
There was ‘criticism’ that the name change diminished the Tiriti o Waitangi? In 1976, under the Robert Muldoon National led Government, the Waitangi Day Act restored the former name, and for the first time, Waitangi Day was a public holiday to commemorate the signing of the Tiriti o Waitangi.
And the apartheid cancer begins, and every year since ‘we the people’ have to put up with a taxpayer funded ‘Maori activist convention’, where the Tiriti o Waitangi is not honoured, but rather an ‘unauthorised’ English language version of the treaty is, and there was no English Language version of the Treaty of Waitangi signed at Waitangi on the 6th February 1840.
Our successive Governments have been complicit in the ‘seeding’ of this apartheid cancer. Your move National, Act and New Zealand First?
100% agree with scott
I can't stand it how debbie, chloe and the other woke, deluded politicians manipulate their followers. Debbie refers to " the crown" versus maori all the time. She would know full well that " the crown" is us, nz taxpayers, which includes herself and all maori taxpayers. She loves to imply that the crown is the british royal family still, the great colonisers holding maori back, when in fact, they no longer have anything to do with what happens in nz. The people of nz, all new zealanders, are the crown. But of course wokesters like her always have to twist everything. It is very evil.
I note from her recent comments that Ms Ngarewa Packer and her kin suffer not only from "Post Colonial Trauma, but now also suffer from the further ravages of "Terrorist Genocide ". Inflicted upon them by you know who. What comes next?
Who believes this but the woke and the mainstream media. This self pity knows no bounds. This mass hysteria and self delusion is on a par with the Salem Witch Trials !
African Americans were freed from slavery nominally in 1865. They still struggled to vote until the Voters Registration Act in 1965 ! The first African American American Cabinet Minister was appointed also in 1965.
Apirana Ngata was made a Cabinet Minister in 1909.
I note Maori men and woman but also those who don't identify as men or woman but are on some other part of the spectrum got the same voting rights on the same day as other New Zealanders. And social welfare and education.
Associate Justice Thomas Clarence of the US Supreme Court and Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Solow, both of whom are Africa Americans, both call for the end of affirmative action in favour of African Americans in the US.
I note an academic from the University of Otago tells us the Maori discovered Antarctica first. It's in their oral history she discovered /rediscovered/ invented. So it must be so.
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