Waitangi s a contested space, both literally and metaphorically, but current contentions should not surprise us, nor deter us from pursuing the hope resident within our foundational agreement.
At a historic gathering of thousands at Waitangi on February 5, 1934, the then Governor-General Lord Bledisloe proclaimed to the assembled: "Let Waitangi be a Tatau Pounamu to us all". The occasion was a commemoration of his purchase of the iconic land and his consequent gift to the nation in 1932.
It is a bitter irony that Waitangi, in the intervening years since the Treaty signing, had become a run-down sheep farm in private ownership. Its sole building, the dilapidated cottage of the former British resident James Busby, remained neglected — perhaps an apt symbol of the Treaty’s place within the Pākehā memory.
Bledisloe’s "Tatau Pounamu", or "sacred doorway", was a borrowed metaphor for reconciliation from te ao Māori. His intention was clear: the Treaty still offered a reconciliatory pathway for the nation, for tangata whenua and tangata tiriti. Bledisloe continued: Let "this Tatau Pounamu ... be a happy and precious closing of the door forever upon all war and strife between races and tribes in this country — the place where all erstwhile antagonists have clasped hands of eternal friendship".
At the close of his speech, the first Bishop of New Zealand, Frederick Bennett delivered the prayer penned by the Governor-General: "O God, in thy beneficent wisdom ... grant that the sacred compact then made in these waters may be faithfully and honourably kept for all times to come".
A sacred compact, a covenant signed at Waitangi in 1840 once termed a "simple nullity" in 1877 by the Chief Justice Sir James Prendergast, had life breathed into it again. To mark the Treaty’s centenary and the Bledisloe gift, a Whare Runanga was opened in 1940 to stand alongside the restored Busby cottage — emblematic of two worlds standing in their respective autonomies yet representing the meeting of two cultures. Prayer, karakia and the haka Ka Mate led by Sir Apirana Ngata, sealed the opening of the ceremonial whare. Waitangi Day was restored to the national calendar a few years later in 1947 and has developed into what it is today.
While Bledisloe’s prayer and prophetic aspiration for the nation continue to resonate with many, his optimistic hope of the compact as a reconciliation mechanism appears to others as a divisive and Quixotic dream. Disagreements continue over our Treaty in two languages. Questions over its current relevance, integrity and meaning fuel newspaper articles and a plethora of blog sites. Recently, Chris Trotter labelled the Treaty the "new God" for theologians and redacted its significance to a single article (the third). Given its covenantal status, the Treaty is certainly a document of interest to theologians, but as to whether we are guilty of idol worship or not I will leave to a higher judge.
Another commentator Hilary Calvert maintains current Government Treaty application to be inconsistent with "our one voter, one vote democracy".
I agree — the Treaty which specifies that the Crown has a clear responsibility to Māori rangatira and hapū presents a challenge to any simplistic default definitions of democracy. Especially if the implication of such a position is that "one person, one vote" is the only constitutional aspiration.
A majority can be a tyranny, and such sweeping assumptions are inconsistent in a nation that has imagined a more representative democracy in both our local body constituencies and under MMP. Constitutional reform based upon our founding Treaty remains a work in progress.
Without a doubt, the Treaty is an "inconvenient truth". It always has been, because treaties are about compromise. It was inconvenient to the British Crown who, under pressure from a variety of humanitarian groups, needed to redefine their imperial strategies and expressions of sovereignty. It was also inconvenient to rangatira Māori, who had to refine their application of mana whenua with the arrival of the new immigrants and the land purchase pre-emption rights of the Crown in Article 2.
It would be foolish to underestimate the task the 1840 accord has laid before us. The bringing together of two worlds was difficult then and is difficult now. Nevertheless, the challenge of the Treaty is preferable to no treaty.
Constructive imaginings by all those involved is necessary, and these imaginings will reach deeper than unyielding adherence to any of our assumed worldviews. They will be determined by the strength of our relationships.
At the 1990 Sesquicentennial commemoration in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II, another theologian, Bishop Whakahuihui Vercoe, iterated, "As I remember the songs of our land, as I remember the history of our land; I weep here on the shores of the Bay of Islands. May God grant us the courage to be honest with one another, to be sincere with one another and above all to love one another in the strength of God. So, I come to the waters of Waitangi to weep for what could have been a unique document in the history of the world of indigenous people with the Pākehā, and I still have the hope we can do it. Let us sit and listen to one another."
Vercoe might well have echoed Lord Bledisloe and added to his wero: "And, let Waitangi be to us all, a Tatau Pounamu".
- Dr Alistair Reese is a research fellow at Otago University Centre for Theology and Public Issues, with a particular interest in Treaty reconciliation.
