By STAFF REPORTERS
Don't give up on Waitangi Day was the plea yesterday from the Governor-General, Sir Michael Hardie Boys, despite protests that again marred commemorations on the Treaty Grounds.
The day was marked by ceremony and protest at Waitangi, continuing recriminations about the Prime Minister's decision to attend low-key multicultural events elsewhere and, for many, indifference.
About 300 protesters with banners and Maori sovereignty flags faced a cordon of police and later disrupted the Waitangi Day church service, drawing an angry condemnation from Prime Minister Helen Clark as "downright rude."
Sir Michael, in one of his most strongly worded speeches and his last for Waitangi Day before he leaves office, said many New Zealanders now questioned whether the day should be marked at all.
"Yet it is imperative that we do so. This is vital - our very identity as a people requires us to commemorate our beginnings.
"How can we build a nation if we treat our founding as unworthy of celebration?"
A November cabinet decision instructed Sir Michael and other representatives of the Crown not to attend official celebrations in Waitangi this year.
Sir Michael, speaking in Wellington, said that while the country could not obliterate its past, New Zealanders must not allow the legacy of history to be forever a millstone around their necks.
It was important to reclaim the Waitangi "headland" as a place of genuine celebration and commitment to the country's good.
Waitangi Tribunal chairman Justice Eddie Durie told the main church service on the Treaty Grounds that while much goodwill existed to settle grievances, there was a danger that the spirit of the Treaty of Waitangi could be worn away.
"It is threatened by Maori on one side but equally by insensitive Pakeha views on the other. I think it is time to hear another tune."
The commemorations at Waitangi began with a karakia (prayer) at 5 am before the church service at 10 am and an afternoon hui to launch a 40-year Maori development plan.
But shortly before the service, 300 protesters, including children and young people, made their way onto the Treaty Grounds holding banners and chanting, "Aotearoa is Maori land."
The front line stopped only centimetres from the faces of a row of police protecting the flagpole.
Several protesters tugged at the ropes holding the New Zealand flag, but the police blocked their way. The activists then made their way noisily to the church ceremony and surrounded an already-seated crowd.
When the national anthem was sung, the protesters tried to drown it out with their own song in Maori.
At the end of the ceremony, organisers invited Trudy Brown, a member of the protest group Te Kawariki, to speak.
"If you saw the march this morning, you would have seen that 80 per cent of it was rangatahi [young people] who are worried about their future," she said.
Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia criticised the protesters for using children.
"They are putting young children up against the elders and tikanga [custom] of these marae ... It's not the done thing."
Mr Horomia and his associate minister, Tariana Turia, travelled to Waitangi after a last-minute decision by the Prime Minister allowing them to go, mainly to attend the development hui.
However, the ministers also turned up at official events.
Helen Clark was not concerned. "I've left it to their judgment to go with the flow, respect the tikanga of the occasion and hope that out of the hui we will get a positive vision for Maoridom.
"I think it's better that the Pakeha part of the Crown stay away this year to give Maori space to talk through the issues."
Helen Clark, who has stayed away from Waitangi since 1998 when her speaking rights were challenged by activist Titewhai Harawira, instead attended celebrations in Wellington and Manukau City.
In a brief speech in Manukau, she said the multicultural event was one where everyone could take part and the kind of day she would like to see occurring all over the country.
Elsewhere, Waitangi and nationhood took a back seat.
At Takapuna Beach, Norm McFarlane, a 28-year-old out jetskiing, said: "It's a day off work, isn't it?
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