Entry 2324, on 2024-02-08 at 21:27:51 (Rating 4, Politics)
So our "national day", Waitangi Day, has come and gone again, so now might be a good time to think about where we are as a nation. The answer is nowhere good. Thank you, that is the end of the blog post. Well, it isn't really...
I suspect to most New Zealanders, Waitangi Day is just a day off work. To me it was that plus a time to argue about the state of the country with people on-line! So yes, arguing is the primary activity which happens on this day now.
My friends and acquaintances might not be a representative sample, but I get the impression that no one really cares much about this day. It's a day off work, and any further significance is either ignored or actively avoided. For example, under no circumstances should you listen to RNZ or watch TVNZ on this day, unless you want to get propagandised with the most absurd nonsense imaginable.
The problem is that a national day should be about celebrating a nation, and recognising how the people of that nation are united towards a common goal. But not here, because the day reminds us how deeply divided we really are.
I'm not suggesting Maori and other ethnicities are divided; what I am saying is that Maori activists and their non-Maori allies are divided against the rest. It is difficult to get numbers on what percentage of the population these two groups might represent, but I suspect the majority are in the "don't care" camp, rather than either of those two groups.
The Maori activists have always liked to use the day to whine and moan about their alleged plight and to demand greater privileges and power which they don't deserve, but this year it was more intense than usual because of the Act Party's Treaty Principles Bill.
The "Treaty" here refers to the Treaty of Waitangi, a document signed by the British and some Maori tribes in 1840. One problem is that it wasn't really a single document because there was an English version and a version translated into Maori, which has resulted in some confusion because the translation of some (usually more abstract) English words into Maori is imprecise.
The Treaty is often claimed to be the founding document of the country, but this claim is open to some suspicion, since it was really just designed to make Maori British citizens so they could be protected by law.
So the Treaty is open to considerable interpretation, but even that isn't the real problem, because in the last few decades a new activity has arisen involving creating "Treaty Principles". These are basically opinions on what new principles might arise from the "spirit" of the Treaty even when they are not specifically mentioned.
And that's the biggest problem: these are entirely politically driven ideas which have come from activists in places like the Waitangi Tribunal and have been often accepted by woke governments, especially on the left, who usually rely on getting Maori votes, although the right is certainly not innocent either.
Naturally the mainstream media have been up to their usual tricks of deliberately misrepresenting the intent of the Bill either by repeating false information or allowing pro-Maori activists to say it, unchallenged.
What the Act Party want to do is to open a discussion on what the principles of the Treaty should be. They don't want to re-word or eliminate the Treaty itself, although there is actually a pretty good case to do that. In my opinion there should be no principles. If we are going to acknowledge the Treaty at all, let's accept what it says, not what some people think it should have said, or what might exist in the imagination of the activists.
In my experience, people who don't want to engage in debate often have a very weak case and know they would probably lose. So when I see such strong opposition to this, I assume that might be the reason.
The previous government basically just jumped to attention whenever Maori demanded anything (OK, maybe that's an exaggeration, but there is some truth there) and now that has stopped they are not happy. I mean, fair enough, if I was getting a lot of handouts and special privileges and that might end, I might try to eliminate the threat too. But we should recognise it for what it is: a determination to maintain self-centered, selfish privileges.
The philosophy behind Act's proposed changes is to make all New Zealanders equal, instead of allowing race-based privileges. Ironically this, which is the exact opposite of racism, is labelled racist. We shouldn't be gaslit by nonsense like that; we need to become a country where everyone is treated the same. The activists won't like that, but it's time it happened anyway.
We should rescue our national day, and our nation.
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