In 1986, with the 150th anniversary of the signing of the treaty coming up, the Lange government invited Professor Sir Hugh Kawharu, an Oxford University trained Professor of Maori Studies at the University of Auckland, to check out the various translations that had been made of the Te Tiriti Maori text.
He produced what is often called the Kawharu translation, and that translation was accepted by the government of the day. (1)
But Sir Hugh was not necessarily the neutral academic that high-ranking politicians and jurists apparently took him for, and what he produced was a reinterpretation that serves as a manifesto.
His New Zealand Dictionary of Biography page describes him as “a man of quiet persuasion” noted for “persistent advocacy for the Maori right to exercise rangatiratanga (self-determination)”. (2)
He served on the Waitangi Tribunal for 10 years from 1986 and contributed to 12 reports, including the three volume Ngai Tahu report in 1991.
He was closely involved with his tribe, Ngati Whatua, working on their treaty claims both in Kaipara and Auckland, and was involved in the Bastion Point land claim negotiations.
“Rangatiratanga” was the key point of Kawharu’s reinterpreted treaty that has 11 footnotes that carefully define key words.
In footnote 7, he asserted that the word “rangatiratanga” in Article two of Te Tiriti meant “unqualified exercise' of the chieftainship” and declared that it “would emphasise to a chief the Queen's intention to give them complete control according to their customs”.
Kawharu ignored the fact that since the treaty was drafted in English and translated into Maori, “rangatiratanga” translated the word “possession” in Article 2 of the English draft, as in “the possession of their lands, dwellings, and all their property”.
By redefining “rangatiratanga” as self-determination, Kawharu enabled the treaty to be used to justify Maori sovereignty aspirations.
His commentary around the word “kawanatanga” in Article 1 constituted a further change.
Kawharu asserted that “there could be no possibility of the Maori signatories having any understanding of government in the sense of ‘sovereignty’”.
Kawharu failed to acknowledge that eyewitness accounts of the treaty debate on February 5, 1840, at Waitangi, written soon after, which reported a number of chiefs vehemently objecting to having the governor as a chief over them.
In other words, evidence from missionary printer William Colenso’s Authentic and Genuine History of the Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi shows that a number of chiefs understood the implications of ceding sovereignty and didn’t like it. (3)
Kawharu’s assertion, in footnote 6, that chiefs could not comprehend “sovereignty”, opened the way for the demonstrably false argument that chiefs never ceded sovereignty.
The third substantial change was to do with the word “taonga” in Article 2.
In footnote 8, Kawharu asserted that “taonga” included “all dimensions of a tribal group's estate, material and non-material — heirlooms and wahi tapu (sacred places), ancestral lore and whakapapa (genealogies).
That assertion by Kawharu opened the way for claims for everything, including assets that no one knew anything about in 1840, such as radio frequencies.
Having an Oxford University Bachelor of Literature, Kawharu should have developed skills in evaluating texts, and contextualising literature.
No such academic skills are evident in Kawharu’s treaty reinterpretation.
He made no attempt to present Te Tiriti in its historical context and, without noting that Te Tiriti was originally translated from English, the only treaty text he referred to was the Maori text.
In the absence of any critical analysis that would have exposed these flaws decades ago, Kawharu’s reinterpretation went on to have enormous influence.
This was mainly because Kawharu and fellow activists had the means of getting top politicians and jurists to adopt Kawharu’s manifesto dressed up as a treaty translation as the basis for judgments and policies, which they did.
Kawharu’s reinterpreted treaty became the treaty used by Justice Robin Cooke in New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney General Appeal Court lands case date stamped July 6, 1987. (4)
Kawharu was one of the 20 activists who submitted affidavits for that case along with New Zealand Maori Council chair Sir Graham Latimer, historian Claudia Orange, land march activist Whina Cooper, history lecturer and Ngai Tahu claimant Harry Evison, medical practitioner Mason Durie, and accountancy professor and former Maori Party chair Whatarangi Winiata. (5)
The Kawharu reinterpretation also became the basis of Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s five Principles for Crown Action on the Treaty of Waitangi.
These five principles, kawanatanga, or government; rangatiratanga, or self-management; equality; cooperation; and redress, were published on July 4, 1989. (6)
Outrage triggered over the past few months by the ACT Party’s proposed treaty principles bill shows alarm at a perceived risk to “gains for Maori”.
Such gains came in the form of the emergence of wealthy new tribal entities nourished with treaty settlement money demanding increased political power.
Kawharu’s redefinition of “rangatiratanga” as “unqualified exercise' of the chieftainship” led to the concept of treaty partnership in New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney General in 1987, which led to the Treaty Partnership Ministry in 2017, which in turn blossomed in the He Puapua roadmap to two governments by 2040, one by Maori for Maori, and other, a fully bicultural version of what we already have, subject to a tribal monitoring committee.
In a nutshell, the treaty partnership ideology behind these developments can be traced to Kawharu’s rewrite of the treaty and the government’s adoption of the principles of Crown action.
Bypassing Kawharu’s reinterpretation, ACT leader David Seymour has based his three brief principles on the words of the Maori text Te Tiriti. The proposed treaty principles bill would say:
1. The government has the right to govern and there is one government.Seymour has posed a substantial problem for the radicals who have benefited from a treaty that seems to justify Maori self-government because for them to argue against his bill means that they are arguing against Te Tiriti that the chiefs agreed to in 1840.
2. We all have rights to “tino rangatiratanga”, or self-determination, and to property.
3. We all have “nga tikanga katoa rite tahi” or the same rights and duties.
Many are aware that there are two treaties, an 1840 treaty and a 1986 reinvention, and that people on both sides talking past each other when it comes to treaty politics.
But beware of everyone who alleges the coalition government is “rewriting the treaty”. The treaty was quietly rewritten long ago and that rewritten treaty is behind the division that is on display at Waitangi today.
Sources
1. The Kawharu translation https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/treaty-of-waitangi/translation-of-te-reo-maori-text/
2. See Kawharu, Ian Hugh – Dictionary of New Zealand Biography – Te Ara
3. Colenso, William, The Authentic and Genuine History of the Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. See https://www.waitangi.com/colenso/colhis1.html
4. New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney General 1987, P32
5. New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney General 1987, P31
6. Palmer, Geoffrey. The Treaty of Waitangi – the Principles for Crown Action. 20.pdf (austlii.edu.au)
7 comments:
The brainwashing of little kids is starting now. On one news last night there was a little maori kid who told the news reporter that pakeha came and made big trouble and that they should share nz. In my local library on the weekend there was a talk given by a speaker who was saying that the treaty was a partnership. If there is no referendum, how long will it be before maori are sitting on farmers land zimbabwe style?
Fascinating.
The dishonesty of Kawharau ( and his backers) political, intellectual, moral, social - is overwhelming. The cynicism of - grab the moment and (mis) use it - is extraordinary.
The consequences - devastating.
An official translation was made of the Tiriti o Waitangi by Mr T E Young of the Native Department in 1869 for the government and is virtually word perfect to Hobson’s final draft found in 1989 and translated by the Rev Henry Williams and his son Edward into the Tiriti o Waitangi.
Mr Young’s translation is virtually word for word and length to the Tiriti o Waitangi and the final draft found in 1989, except the final draft is dated the 4th of February 1840 and the phrase “all the people of New Zealand” in the Preamble and in Article 3 is not found in the Tiriti o Waitangi or in Mr Young’s back translation.
Rev Williams changed this in the Tiriti o Waitangi to “Chiefs and Hapus of New Zealand” in the Preamble and to “all the Maoris of New Zealand” in Article 3 to clarify Hobson’s final draft.
While these three documents had never met until 1989, they match each other perfectly in word and meaning. There is no doubt the document found in 1989 was the final draft that Henry Williams and his son used to translate the Treaty of Waitangi into the Maori language, but OUR GOVERNMENT refuses to accept this as it would completely destroy the fourth labour governments reforms and discriminatory legislation that future governments have continued to observe.
OUR GOVERNMENT conveniently overlooked the “official” 1869 back translation by Mr T E Young before enacting the 1975 Treaty of Waitangi Act using instead a FALSE English language version and again in 1987 when the Court of Appeal and OUR GOVERNMENT accepted Mr Kawhura’s “Attempt at a reconstruction of the literal translation of the Maori text”.
No CONFLICT OF INTEREST to see here then?
To the person under the pseudo - Anonymous, with the posted comment at 8.20 Am Feb 5, would it interest you to know, that leading up to the General Election, 2023, there were people who had immigrated from South Africa, to NZ, due to the rise of the African National Congress/ANC - to Political power, and their subsequent actions against the White population (which is still occurring).
I was told that the "rise of Maori militancy - both words and implied actions", that if Labour had won that General Election, they would have left NZ. Why? They were seeing parallels, that drove them from South Africa, starting to appear here. What intrigued them, was the complacency of White New Zealander's to a "potential/possible" power change assisted by a White Political Party.
It was interesting to note, that those from Zimbabwe, felt the same way.
A wise Maori elder said to me "the system encourages claims and retribution based colonisation creating victims. So long as our tribal leaders who gain from that process, keep telling our families, we are victims, we will not be well. So long as we are not well, the country is not well.
Oh, how true.
Nobby
you racists should all look up the international law of contra proferentem. There are NOT two versions of Te Tiriti O Waitangi 1840, there is ONLY the Māori txt and an english translation at the time which is not a valid 'version' according to international law. No one has "re-written" TTOW1840, it stands as it did then. Experts in Te Rēo Māori only should attempt an accurate english meaning of the one version that was signed by all but 20 or so (duped into signing the false english translation after being read Te Tiriti in Māori). I know I won't convince those set in their colonial and racist agendas, but we all know that the purpose then for the British was to expand empire and acquire resources by any means necessary. The concept of Te Tiriti was only to lay claim against other foreign invaders, and to deceive chiefs with trickery, hence the false english translation. The english text is a load of colony!!
Contra proferentem is actually an aspect of contract law, and a treaty is not a contract.
International treaties are almost invariably written in more than one language. The most authoritative is the original but any other translation labelled as 'official' also carries weight.
The British and the French were both eyeing NZ in the 1830s. I wonder what NZ would have looked like under the French - New Caledonia and French Polynesia give us some indications. From the Maori point of view the better option was probably the British.
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