by Tan Copsey
Happy Waitangi day! Err what? - you say. Time for a brief New Zealand history lesson (stop snoozing at the back Copsey!). Waitangi Day celebrates the signing at Waitangi of a treaty that apparently birthed the nation of New Zealand. Of course things are not that simple, and the true meaning of the Treaty remains a point of contestation, grievance, and legal argument.
These days Waitangi day is most often associated with a proxy debate about race-relations, bi-culturalism, multi-culturalism, and the general state of the NZ nation. Not for us the flag waving patriotism, boozing, and rioting of Australia day. Instead we stroke our chins, throw mud at politicians, and have to put up with a whole lot of navel-gazing drivel about why we should replace Waitangi Day with a truly ‘Kiwi’ day. And to that I say – Nuts to you interchangeable radio pundit.
New Zealand has, from the moment of its birth, been an utterly contested nation. There are those who argue it does not in fact exist, some argue that twin nations of New Zealand and Aotearoa exist alongside each other, or that the crown has the right to govern but that ultimate sovereignty lies with Iwi.
This Waitangi day has been characterised by a rather telling, if somewhat constructed, hoo-ha about whether the Maori flag should be flown from the Auckland Harbour bridge on Waitangi day, as the flags of other nations, and even some corporations, are flown. That in the end this was not been allowed is sad, but not wholly unexpected. There remain reactionary elements with strong access to influence within society at large. But at least we are a nation capable of self-reflection. In the Governor-General speech today at the Treaty grounds, I found this rather nice aside.
And no matter how imperfectly we translate ourselves to each other, the translation should continue to be attempted. That is the way a country has a conversation. That is a way in which we can talk ourselves through to articulating the common values and enduring resolutions of nationhood.
Its worth remembering that New Zealand was, in many ways, a unique experiment in colonialism. Despite its many, many problems, I feel something akin to a form of patriotism that our ‘national’ day is treated in this manner, and that at least once a year we are capable of examining the many and contested truths of colonialism and nationhood.
Anyway anything to get away from the abject humiliation of somehow losing to England in the cricket.
