Haka & hikoi

Translated by Andrea Solazzo

Between April Fool's Day bass and stadium brawls, the Italian Parliament is no stranger to unorthodox behaviour that dominates the front pages for fifteen minutes of fame. What happened on 14 November in New Zealand's House of Representatives, however, is a reminder of how picturesque utterances are not the prerogative of the Bel Paese, but also how they need not be covered in ridicule or shame.

In the middle of a parliamentary session, a tribal echo rises from the second row, soon joined by voices from all directions in a single dithyrambic chant, at once rhythmic and belligerent. The coryphée, her gaze fixed and almost exophthalmic, rips open a sheet with a solemn and defiant attitude, before giving way to a choreography now known the world over.

By performing the haka - the traditional Māori dance made famous by the All Blacks rugby team -, opposition leader Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke momentarily interrupted the discussion of a draft law introduced earlier this month that would revise the state's relationship with the Polynesian people to which she herself belongs.

Te Tiriti or Waitangi

At the heart of the debate is the Treaty of Waitangi, the founding document of the present New Zealand state dating back to the 19th century. First signed on 6 February 1840 by emissaries of the British Crown and some forty Māori chiefs, the Treaty paved the way for the annexation of New Zealand to the British Empire on the basis of a set of principles to form a ‘Civil Government’.

In the English version, the text proclaims Queen Victoria's sovereignty over New Zealand (Art. 1), as well as her right of pre-emption at an agreed price over the lands in "full and undisturbed possession" of the Māori chiefs and tribes (Art. 2), who are granted the rights and privileges of British subjects (Art. 3).

Significantly, the Māori language translation - signed by over 500 chiefs - is flawed by some differences. Among them, the term ‘sovereignty’ is rendered as simply ‘administration’ (kawanatanga). Moreover, in addition to ‘full possession’ of their ‘property’, the Māori version also granted them ‘full authority’ (tino rangatiratanga) over ‘treasures’ (taonga) also understood in an intangible sense. Moreover, since for Māori society the orala word was worth more than the written word, the signatory chiefs probably attached as much importance to the text as to the explanations given verbally but never anchored on paper.

Nonetheless, the Treaty became a source to appeal to for complaints about acquisitions without due consent or compensation of Māori lands and resources by various governments from 1840 onwards. This dynamic became especially entrenched after the creation of the Waitangi Tribunal, which came into being in 1975 through an Act of Parliament to investigate potential violations of the Treaty. Although the latter is not formally part of New Zealand law, in fact, the Act introduced its principles into legislation, although without defining them specifically.

Since then, the Tribunal has heard more than 2,000 complaints, reaching more than seventy settlements with a total value of more than $2 billion as of August 2018.

Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill

The present bill would aim to complete the 1975 Act by specifying what precisely the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi consist of. In this way, they would be less subject to free interpretation, and the issue of the two versions of the document would be settled once and for all.

According to New Zealand law professor and intellectual Jane Kelsey, the proposal should be credited with ‘exposing the chimera of the treaty principles to fair scrutiny’. Over time, these would in fact have undergone a sometimes-self-contradictory evolution, even fuelling confusion and misinformation around the Treaty itself.

Furthermore, the aim of the proposal would be to implement the "right to equality". According to its sponsor, MP David Seymour, misreading of the treaty would lead to a "racial division" whereby white New Zealanders and Māori would enjoy different political and legal rights. More specifically, the indigenous community, to which, moreover, Seymour himself belongs, would have unduly received special treatment.

The fact that the proposal emerges from the ACT Party, the most right-wing libertarian coalition of the government, however, generates the suspicion that at the heart of the issue is not just a disinterested aspiration towards equality for all citizens.

Colour blindness and myopia

‘The ACT Party [...] has taken it upon itself to try and design things to get Parliament to act as judge, jury and executioner,’ journalist Gideon Porter told Al Jazeera. ‘[ACT] is simply hiding its racism behind a facade of the mantra ‘we are all New Zealanders with equal rights’.’

Critics of the proposal read in it a willingness to backtrack on decades-long efforts to emancipate the Māori community and right the wrongs imposed on them during colonialism. Even today for the Māori, who make up just over 17% of New Zealand's 5.3 million population, there are higher rates of poverty and incarceration and worse health indicators compared to the rest of the population.

With the more or less pretextual intention of achieving legal equality, therefore, in practice there is a risk of further disadvantaging an already disadvantaged community. To use a sports metaphor, it would be like lining up the starting blocks of a 4x100 relay, forgetting that, in doing so, the athletes in the outer lanes will have to cover a much larger circumference before crossing the finish line.

It would therefore be racial colour blindness, that attitude according to which in order to go beyond the issue of race and eliminate discrimination, it would be necessary to stop talking about it. An attitude that claims to be blind to skin colour, but in fact is also short-sighted towards the distortions of yesterday's colonialism and the structural racism that persists today.

Distortions that can be addressed through so-called positive discrimination (affirmative action), i.e., unequal treatment in favour of minorities or the most vulnerable groups.

Shoot blanks?

The response of civil society and politics to the bill was not long in coming.

On Monday 11 November, at the northern end of the country, hundreds of people launched a nine-day march (hikoi) towards the capital Wellington. Thousands joined the march on foot or by car, many displaying T-shirts with the slogan Toitu te Tiriti (Honour the Treaty), just as many waving the black, white and red Māori flag.

On Tuesday 19, some 42,000 gathered to protest peacefully in front of parliament.

Meanwhile, not only the opposition, but also the ACT Party's government allies distanced themselves from the bill.

"You don't go and negate, with a single stroke of a pen, 184 years of debate and discussion with a proposal that I think is very simplistic," said Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. His National Party (NP) voted in favour at first reading as a concession to ACT, much smaller but decisive in supporting the government after the October 2023 elections. Honouring its promise to its ally, however, the NP has publicly said it will go no further.

Although the proposal thus seems destined to stall, the affair is not without potential lessons or alarm bells.

The crux of the whole story

As an Al Jazeera article warns, allowing this discussion at the parliamentary level threatens to fuel social division in New Zealand. Moreover, the proposal would fit into the groove of a series of measures by the government coalition to eradicate "race-based politics" - such as removing a law granting Māori a voice on environmental issues and abolishing the Māori Health Authority.

On the other hand, the affair serves as a thermometer of New Zealand politics. On the one hand, the proposal originated within the most conservative government the country has seen in a generation, rewarded at the ballot box in 2023 by a citizenry disillusioned with the Labour Party's progressive policies. On the other, Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke's Māori Party over the years seems to have abandoned the path of compromise in favour of a more radical and, according to critics, theatrical stance.

Mutatis mutandis, even this archipelago at the edge of the planisphere does not seem immune to a certain inclination towards polarisation and identity politics, observable on both sides of the equator.

The hope, in this case, is that we do not stop at denouncing the limits of racial colour-blindness. Indeed, the debate could provide an opportunity to show the courage and intellectual honesty to analyse positive discrimination, to calibrate it to lead to better results in practice and not merely on a moral level.

Although a haka is more evocative than a bass, the race to be more progressive has lost share. To truly defend hard-won rights, one must be open to confrontation and put forward proposals to be put on the ground.

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