It is hard not to notice the similarities in how the Ten Commandments were once conceived by Christians (and the West at large), and how the Treaty is now conceived by its most radical adherents today.
The Ark containing the Ten Commandments could only be approached (in the Most Holy Place) by the Levitical High Priest on the Day of Atonement (once a year), and even then only after the most comprehensive acts of ritual cleansing. To touch the Ark would bring instant death. The Ten Commandments were considered to have been written by the finger of God himself ... a transcript of his very character, the rule of life, and the standard in the judgment.
For many Treaty proponents, the Treaty is now worshipped as a spiritual taonga, as having its own inherent life force (pantheism), as sacred, evolving, and transcendent ... a receptacle (or symbol) of the mana of those both past, present, and future ... to be interpreted only by a modern (approved) priesthood (the Waitangi Tribunal) whose pronouncements are to be uncontestable ... and rigorously enforced.
Government documents, press releases, and news reports, sometimes contain allusions to pantheism, and associations to things mystical.
It is a fact that the most just and prosperous nations have been, without exception, those that have recognized the critical importance of the separation of church and state ... of the mystical (and personal) from the known (and generally accepted).
When you move into the realm of the mystical, reason (in the conventional sense) no longer applies, truths can be twisted (or ignored), voices can readily be silenced, and familiar democratic safeguards can be progressively dismantled.
Governments must safeguard the rights of people to worship (or believe) as conscience dictates but, equally, ensure that the worlds of the mystical (and personal) and the real (and generally accepted) do not merge.
The Treaty needs to be seen for what it is, a historical document, anchored in context, open to interpretation, and flawed and limited as historical documents often are.
It is not, nor was it ever intended to be, the lens through which everything else should be viewed, the arbiter of what is right, the settler of all disputes, or the pathway to divine enlightenment.
Caleb Anderson, a graduate history, economics, psychotherapy and theology, has been an educator for over thirty years, twenty as a school principal.
2 comments:
Yes Caleb, I do fear that the Treaty of Waitangi has come to have a mystical significance way out of all reality - only to credulous, needy people who have no intention at all to study its history and meaning. Even quite serious people are reading into it a significance that was never there. Grateful as I am for Seymour's courage and tenacity, I am coming around more to the NZF position, that there ARE no principles ( as, of course there were not until silly Palmer/Finlayson et al started playing around)- Winston has to do more than scoff, however, NZF have to get some action out of this position.
“The Treaty needs to be seen for what it is, a historical document”.
There are six historical documents that made New Zealand into British Colony.
1. Letter to the King of England by 13 Ngāpuhi Chiefs dated 16 November 1831.
2. Declaration of Independence by James Busby dated 28 October 1835.
3. Queen Victoria’s Royal Charter/Letters Patent dated 30 July 1839.
4. Treaty of Waitangi by Lt. Governor Hobson dated 6 February 1840.
5. Queen Victoria’s Royal Charter/Letters Patent dated 16 November 1840.
6. First Sitting of the Legislative Council of New Zealand on the 24th May 1841.
Only one historical document comes anywhere near to a Founding Document and First Constitution and that is, Queen Victoria’s Royal Charter/Letters Patent dated 16 November 1840. This document, which supersedes the treaty, made New Zealand into a British Colony under one flag and one law, irrespective of race, colour or creed.
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