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- OPINION by PJ Taylor (Ngati Pakeha, with Tongan roots)
Waitangi Day impresses, always. Opinions expressed everywhere but not by everybody.
Many enjoy the public holiday – a potential lie-in, beautiful hot weather, and if you stay in Auckland and don’t head away for a four-day weekend the roads are busy and importantly, flowing.
Timeout with whanau family and friends. A day off. Not much discussion about the meaning of the Treaty of Waitangi.
When you attend a Waitangi Day public event, such as February 6’s Waitangi ki Manukau at Barry Curtis Park, you can’t but think about the Treaty of Waitangi.
It’s a good positive feeling, the Treaty bringing a happy respectful peace and enjoyment to be in each other’s company.
People are talking, listening, looking, engaging, learning, dancing and singing – the Treaty calling people together in multi-multi-ethnic Flat Bush. That’s the crowd.
I’ve heard Te Tiriti o Waitangi talked of in derogatory language down the years and it’s a hard listen. It’s a day off and there’s complaining about it.
Waitangi Day is about freedom, of movement and liberty, and the freedom to express our opinions.
That’s why Waitangi Day is a success. It gets us talking about our nation, a little of the past, an eye to the future.
We Generation Xers had a very simplistic Treaty education in the 1970s. We got it in schools.
The beauty of that simplicity is it still rings true. The indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori, on February 6, 1840, signed a legally-binding agreement to live in peace and share this land in partnership with the colonial British – the Crown.
We’re a different nation than we were say 50 years, when the Waitangi Tribunal was created.
There’s now far greater ethnic diversity than we could have ever anticipated in 1975, and we are better off for it, because we’re part of a world that we’re linked to first by our migrant population that comes from these far and distant lands that we trade and culturally exchange with.
But the Treaty of Waitangi remains one of our most important constitutional documents, meaning the Crown (Government, representing the people) has a deal with Māori to uphold.
There is nothing to be threatened by. There is everything to be gained.
It has already delivered, one example being the thriving and expanding Māori economy. That is good for the nation.
A country is strong when its indigenous people are strong and proud. A country is mature and united when it’s collectively proud and respecting of all its people.
Yes, there are challenges, disagreements, and old-fashioned patronising attitudes, but what’s pleasing is Māori have never been stronger and more staunch in all of this writer’s 59 years.
That must be embraced, encouraged and celebrated – as a nation. Look just where we’ve come from in five decades.
A maunga mountain of work has gone into getting Māori to this point over six decades, especially in the domains of te reo language, kapa haka, education in learning institutions and schools, in business and across society.
Kia ora, kia kaha, New Zealand Aotearoa – we can continue to be doing better, to be listening to other’s views and being more tolerant, understanding and accepting.
The old mantra – tone it down and be friendlier. New Zealand’s always rated its sense of humour and it’s probably about time we started getting back to laughing together a bit more.
Like we did at Waitangi ki Manukau. Ka pai.
- What people were thinking on Waitangi Day:
https://www.times.co.nz/news/public-opinion-state-of-the-nation/
- Howick Photographic Society members’ photos at Waitangi ki Manukau at Barry Curtis Park, Flat Bush, on February 6:
