Does NZ need a ‘Declaration of Unity’?

The United States made their Declaration of Independence in 1776, and South Africa established their ‘Reconciliation’ in 1995.

Those were historic, nation defining events that were needed to move those countries forward. New Zealand may now require their own version of a nation defining agreement.

There are large and very concerning things occurring in New Zealand politics as we speak that will have major nation shaping outcomes. New Zealand’s future as a free, democratic, racially inclusive and united country is under a major existential threat right now through the new ‘co-governance’ proposal for New Zealand governance that will be ‘rule by race’ and rule by unelected oligarch. The people of New Zealand need to step up to collectively meet this very serious collective threat head on. Perhaps the outcome that will be needed in this situation is for the people of New Zealand to come together and create our own New Zealand ‘Declaration’ or ‘Reconciliation’. Perhaps a New Zealand ‘Declaration of Unity’ is what is going to be needed. A clearing of New Zealand’s baggage of history. A collective agreed drawing of a line under an uncertain and mixed past so the way can be cleared for a positive and unified future of New Zealand?

On the back of a murky and cloudy history of immigration, and murky interpretations around the Treaty of Waitangi and what exactly it all means, New Zealand is now charging head long towards very dangerous territories of racially based politics, racially based power structures, and racially based law. New Zealand is moving rapidly into politics and law essentially based on apartheid of governance. This is being pushed through and the country collectively gaslighted around one interpretation of our nation’s history and one interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi, when in fact there are as many different interpretations of our history and of the treaty as there are stars in our southern sky.

New Zealand is a nation that in relative global terms has had very good racial and cultural unity in modern times. Albeit there are always unfortunate exceptions and challenges. We have been a pretty harmonious nation of Kiwis of different backgrounds working together and sticking together. But now major trouble brews with the powers-that-be and the political power games. Very dangerous winds are blowing through New Zealand that the people of New Zealand, of all backgrounds, need to pay very close attention to, very quickly, otherwise this great country that I grew up in and love, will be gone.

I am New Zealand born and bred with European ancestry. I grew up loving my country and am a patriotic Kiwi willing to sacrifice for the future of my country. I embrace all elements of New Zealand’s cultural background and the rich cultural history that it represents. I love the pioneering spirit and the courage of the early European settlers who threw caution to the wind and endured such harsh challenges to get to New Zealand and to try to create their new homes here and to establish their new communities.

I grew up in the gold mining territories of the south, and I have great respect for the hardship that those early gold miners endured to travel, live, and work in such challenging conditions, especially in the winter months in their little stone cottages in the bleak and freezing terrain. These parts of New Zealand history have helped to shape our current New Zealand culture of being Kiwi battlers and pioneers.

I also love and deeply respect the Maori culture of my country. The deep spiritual connection to the land. The deep spiritual connection to Papatuanuku, Ranginui, and to Whakapapa. The strength and importance of whanau and the rightful place of the elders. The amazing talents of the Maori culture to tell these stories and these connections through wonderful art, music, and song. These are all great elements of the Maori culture that all cultures and all people in New Zealand learn from and benefit from. I will stand and fight for that great culture to be safeguarded and maintained as a fundamental part of what New Zealand is.

I also love the fact that around the world New Zealand has been universally admired as being the best example in the modern world of European immigration living in unity with the indigenous populations. Not perfect by any stretch, and many things still to be made better. But in general, a shining example to the rest of the world when we compare it to what has happened to cultures such as the North American Indians and Australian Aborigine. Whatever the Treaty of Waitangi is, or was intended to be, it was an effort on both sides to try to find a better way to live in this country together in unity and peace, rather than in war or genocide. That is a great thing that New Zealand should rightly be proud of, no matter what the different interpretations of governance, sovereignty, and ownership through the treaty.

I also love the history of this country that goes even further back in our past before the Europeans and before the Maori. New Zealand’s pre-Maori history has many different elements to it depending on who you talk to and how different people interpret different things. Much like the different interpretations of the Treaty. But the Waitaha deserve special mention in New Zealand’s ‘pre-history’. The Waitaha culture is one that has immense value and importance to New Zealand. The Waitaha culture goes back several thousand years, well before the Maori, and although their position in today’s society is not so obvious on the surface, their presence is still here and it is still very important. We see the Waitaha presence in names, words, and places, and behind the scenes in their incredible stories. In fact it is many of the Waitaha traditions and stories that form what we now know as Maori history. Increasingly those stories of the Waitaha culture and Waitaha history are being brought forward and shared more openly now.

The Waitaha were a nation of peace, and living in harmony and connected with nature. Their own ethnic background was varied, with ancestry originating from a number of different places and races from around the world. They travelled very long distances in their giant double barreled waka to reach this land we now know as New Zealand and establish their settlements and culture here. Their history and culture are a significant part of our story. There are still many people in New Zealand who consider themselves to be Waitaha and descendants of Waitaha. There is also a fascinating emergence of Waitaha energy, or wairua – the spirit and essence of Waitaha among many people here at this time and place in history.

The Moriori also require significant mention and consideration here. Their presence in NZ goes back many hundred years with their presence being both on mainland New Zealand and as the indigenous population of the islands of Rekohu (Chatham Islands) and Rangihaute (Pitt Island) where they migrated to directly from Eastern Polynesia. They lived in peaceful isolation from the rest of the world for 600 years on those islands. Due to their fully peaceful life philosophy, they were overtaken, but not ‘conquered’, by the Maori when the Maori came to Rekoku and Rangihaute from mainland New Zealand in 1835. There are also stories and evidence of other cultures and peoples here in New Zealand dating back thousands of years, including before the Waitaha and Moriori.

Some people in New Zealand have a specific view about the Treaty and feel very strongly about that. Some people have a specific view about the Waitaha history, Moriori history and other histories of our nation, and feel very strongly about that. Is anyone more right than anyone else about these different perspectives and different positions? At the end of the day we are a nation of multiple layers of immigration.

Different cultures and different races travelling to these shores at different times in history, and all of them having their own special cultural imprint on this country that we have today. None of these cultures or races should ‘own’ New Zealand any more than any of the others. This is what makes New Zealand such a great country. New Zealand should represent the best of all of these different cultural and racial immigrations, living together in peace, and in appreciation of our diversity. Learning and taking the best parts of those different cultures and races to create a proud and great, multi-cultural, multi-racial nation living as one peaceful nation, once again.
But sadly, this is not the direction that the powers-that-be are trying to take us in at the moment. We are now faced with political forces and their controlled media which are the ones creating racial division and tension on an almost daily basis now. One race being blamed for everything, and one race being owed everything as punishment or payback to the other race of wrong doers. New Zealand is not the only nation where this racial division is being pushed strongly by those in power. ‘Critical Race Theory’, as it is officially referred to, is being strongly pushed by the powers-that-be in many other countries at the moment, especially in the United States, Canada, and Australia.

We are now faced with the prospect of what is being branded as ‘co-governance’ of New Zealand. The word co-governance sounds alright and innocent enough. It sounds like it could mean a co-operative and equal type approach to governing. That sounds ok doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the co-governance being proposed for New Zealand is anything but co-operation and equality. It will instead be two tiers of government, with those two tiers being very different, and those two tiers being based purely on race.
One tier will be unelected by the people of New Zealand, it will be unaccountable to the people of New Zealand, and it will be exclusive to just one race. Maori. This tier of government, with those unelected and unaccountable individuals, will hold near total power to do whatever they want.

The other tier will be made up of all other races. It will be elected by and accountable to the people of New Zealand, but it will hold very little meaningful power relative to the other tier of unelected Maori government. It is essentially apartheid of governance, and governance by oligarch. Even worse than that, the Maori people themselves will not even be able to hold to account the branch of the government that supposedly represents their race. It is Banana Republic stuff. It is ‘Critical Race Theory’ on steroids.

This approach will rip our nation apart, completely and needlessly. It will artificially create a massive racial divide and racial tension that has previously barely even existed in our country in relative global terms. But it is currently being pushed in this direction at breakneck speed by the powers-that-be of New Zealand, and any criticism of it is met with very swift and very harsh demonisation by those powers-that-be and by the media, with cries of racists and white supremacist Nazis.

So New Zealand is now at a crossroads. Our murky cultural history, and differing interpretations of our history and of the Treaty of Waitangi are being manipulated and used by the powerbrokers to try to create a New Zealand that I am sure the vast majority of Kiwis of all cultures and races would not want. I personally don’t know for sure what the true interpretation and true intent of the Treaty of Waitangi was, despite looking into this a lot. But perhaps if New Zealand is going to move forward in the right way we need to be prepared to push these issues aside of who is right and wrong about whatever, who is to blame for what, who has ownership rights of what bits of New Zealand, and who has power over who.

Have the Waitaha ever had a say in any of this? That’s a fair question I think, even though I’m sure the Waitaha would say that no one owns anything, and no culture or race has rightful power over another.

For the sake of our future, perhaps we need to have a seminal moment. Our version of the US Declaration of Independence, or South Africa’s ‘Reconciliation’. A coming together to say that we are a nation of many immigrants over a long time, of many different cultures and races, and that those cultures and races are all a part of one nation today. All recognizing and acknowledging each other’s cultures and races as equals in this great country. A Declaration of Unity for New Zealand that allows the country to move forward positively as one, and leave behind any negative baggage of our history that the powerbrokers are currently seizing upon for their own reasons.

Are we at a moment in time where a very real threat of our destruction will push the people of New Zealand to collectively and gently put aside their different interpretations of our history, so that we the people can truly unite as one and move forward in peace rather than division.

This is a significant and very difficult thing that I am suggesting that our country attempts to do. It will take very challenging conversations. It will take great leadership and great mana from people of influence. It will take great courage. It will take people to be prepared to step forward and speak in a way that will make them targets of the current power brokers and the media. But our country is full of courage, inspiration, and mana. Courage, inspiration, and mana is throughout our history, and throughout all of our various cultures and races.

It is what made our people of New Zealand prepared to sacrifice themselves at Gallipoli.

It is what made us stand as one in 1985 to push the nuclear warships of the mighty United States military out of our waters.

It is what made us hold accountable the international terrorists that blew up the Rainbow Warrior when it was standing for a nuclear-free South Pacific.

It is what made us come together in 1981 to stand up and fight for ending apartheid in South Africa.

It is what made our women stand up for this nation to be the first in the world to give women the right to vote.

New Zealand has always been a great nation, with great courage, integrity, and inspiration. We need all of those things right now so that we can stand up strongly, stand up together, as one nation, as one people, and to say………”we choose the future of New Zealand to be united in our diversity, not divided”.

New Zealand’s DECLARATION OF UNITY.