Democracy didn’t fall from the sky. It was built through blood, rebellion, struggle, and centuries of ordinary people refusing to live under systems where power belonged only to the few. It took generations to overcome monarchy, class hierarchy, feudal obligation, and tribal rule. What replaced them was the revolutionary idea that every individual is an equal citizen, and that government answers to all the people — not to clans, castes, or inherited elites.
Today, New Zealand risks sleepwalking backwards.
Tribalism — the very thing democracy was designed to abolish — is returning through the back door. And its modern form is not noble or traditional. It is political, financial, and increasingly institutional. It divides New Zealanders into competing groups, assigns power based on ancestry rather than citizenship, and elevates unelected tribal structures over democratic accountability.
This is not speculation. It is already happening.
New Zealanders need to remember something essential: equal citizenship is the core pillar of a stable, modern nation. If that goes, everything else goes with it.
Tribal systems — by definition — are hierarchical, exclusive, and based on membership rather than merit. They cannot be reconciled with universal democratic rights. When ancestry becomes a political category, democracy becomes conditional. When law applies differently to different groups, equal citizenship becomes impossible. When public institutions serve “partners” instead of the whole population, the nation fragments.
It does not matter whether the intentions are good. Tribalism dressed in moral language is still tribalism. And history is absolutely clear: once societies abandon the principle of equal citizenship, they do not get it back without conflict, resentment, or decline. The road back is always long and bitter.
New Zealand is at a pivotal moment. The question is simple:
Do we continue as a modern democracy, or do we slide into a system where ancestry determines political power?
One path strengthens unity, accountability, transparency, and fairness.
The other path entrenches division, privilege, grievance, and permanent political imbalance.
Democracy took centuries to build. Tribalism can dismantle it in a single generation.
The choice is ours — but the window for choosing is closing fast.
Geoff Parker is a passionate advocate for equal rights and a colour blind society.
This is not speculation. It is already happening.
- When government agencies treat people differently depending on their lineage, that is tribalism.
- When public authority is delegated to bodies representing only one ancestry group, that is tribalism.
- When billions of dollars flow through frameworks that put group identity above individual need, that is tribalism.
- And when policy is shaped by who holds leverage rather than what benefits the entire country, democracy is no longer in full control.
New Zealanders need to remember something essential: equal citizenship is the core pillar of a stable, modern nation. If that goes, everything else goes with it.
Tribal systems — by definition — are hierarchical, exclusive, and based on membership rather than merit. They cannot be reconciled with universal democratic rights. When ancestry becomes a political category, democracy becomes conditional. When law applies differently to different groups, equal citizenship becomes impossible. When public institutions serve “partners” instead of the whole population, the nation fragments.
It does not matter whether the intentions are good. Tribalism dressed in moral language is still tribalism. And history is absolutely clear: once societies abandon the principle of equal citizenship, they do not get it back without conflict, resentment, or decline. The road back is always long and bitter.
New Zealand is at a pivotal moment. The question is simple:
Do we continue as a modern democracy, or do we slide into a system where ancestry determines political power?
One path strengthens unity, accountability, transparency, and fairness.
The other path entrenches division, privilege, grievance, and permanent political imbalance.
Democracy took centuries to build. Tribalism can dismantle it in a single generation.
The choice is ours — but the window for choosing is closing fast.
Geoff Parker is a passionate advocate for equal rights and a colour blind society.
2 comments:
Tribalism is the most acute between members of the same race, not of different races. What the writer tends to be on about here is racism rather than tribalism, but that word has become so overused it has just about lost all meaning.
I'm not going to get into the semantics of tribalism vs racism, but I think the vast majority reading it will know what Geoff's on about. The trouble is, far too few will read it and a very much bigger swathe of society will wake up to the reality too late. As Geoff rightly opines, it doesn't take much to create (we're well down the track) - but it takes generations and a great deal of turmoil and pain to reverse. We need to wake up and quickly, for those that claimed to be getting us 'back on track' have sleep-walked, and are taking us down the wrong path!
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