Lizzie Marvelly: Waitangi Day should not be whitewashed

Waitangi Day could become the beating heart of our nationhood. Photo / John Stone

Opinion

Each year, February 6 approaches as a looming shadow at day's end. It stretches across the weeks, as if drawn to the scent of nascent discord, and I find myself feeling apprehensive in mid-January. As Waitangi Day dawns in our national consciousness, I feel wary, and weary. But I am also filled with hope.

In years past, some commentators (and commenters) have developed a bad habit of spitting venom onto the page in the lead up to our national day. It has been branded with epithets that I won't repeat here, tarred and tarnished by the words of those who never made an effort to truly understand it. Because to understand it is to grapple with emotions like grief and guilt, to wrestle with the desire to celebrate when commemoration is more appropriate. To understand it is to acknowledge that it is uncomfortable, it will always be uncomfortable, and it shouldn't be any other way. To defuse it would be to engage in whitewashing.

So I won't do that today. I won't smear our national day, and nor will I try to paint it in rosy colours. I will instead look forward with hope.

One beautiful day – a tōna wā, kia whiti mai te rā – I hope that we will acknowledge Waitangi Day as the beating heart of our nationhood. I hope that we will be able to take a moment during our day off to think about all that it symbolises and commemorates without fear of being overwhelmed by prickly emotions. I hope that we will be able to look back with honest eyes, and then turn our gaze to a future that honours the promises made 178 years ago.

I can only speak for myself. I can no more speak for Māori than I can speak for Pākehā, but my greatest personal hope for the future is that it will be one into which we walk forward not as one people, for we are many who call this country home, but as friends.

True friendships are not those that are built on palatable half-truths, they are those that are honest. My friends tell me not what I want to hear, but what I need to hear. They are the mirrors I can't fool, because they see me without artifice.

Friendship is built on respect and equality. The relationship between Māori and Pākehā is so particularly fraught because it was built on neither. And while it may anger some people to read such a sentence, it is a statement of fact. It is part of the grief and guilt that blankets our history like a fog. There is no way to deny or change what happened, so our challenge now is to make our future something we can be proud of.

It is true that the Treaty of Waitangi didn't explicitly mention partnership, but in its signing a partnership was created. Māori and Pākehā will be forever connected, and while the relationship hasn't been an easy one, there is much strength to be found in that togetherness. To see that I only need to look to my hometown – my tūrangawaewae – Rotorua.

In Rotorua, generations of working together – an undertaking that hasn't been without controversy or difficulty – has created a city that is in its heart and soul inherently bicultural. Which is perhaps ironic, given that my own iwi didn't sign the Treaty itself. Rotorua, however, is the embodiment of a living, breathing partnership. Maybe that's why I can look forward with hope. That spirit of partnership is in my bones and my blood.

It is that togetherness that inspires me. It provides me with a glimpse of the great future that we could create. A future in which every Kiwi child, regardless of their cultural background, will be able to speak the oldest language of our land – te reo Māori. A future in which every New Zealander will be well versed in our fascinating history. A future in which a Māori Prime Minister will be unremarkable for its ubiquity.

But most importantly, a future in which the Treaty of Waitangi is understood. When Māori and Pākehā can stand side by side, when grievances have been acknowledged, inequalities redressed and respect sanctified as the cornerstone of all dealings. When the idea of tino rangatiratanga, or self-determination, can be discussed without fear, and the system can stretch and grow to accommodate different ways of doing things. When racism has been stamped out of our institutions and our minds.

The future I hope for is one when we will not fear each other. When we can feel the uncomfortable emotions raised by the past and sit with them, allowing them to wash over us peaceably, whilst holding them as reminders of the attitudes that must never be allowed to flourish again.

The future I hope for is one in which I will never have to feel wary in the lead-up to Waitangi Day, because the day will be simply allowed to be what it is – honest, raw, uncomfortable, and real. Because our respect for each other will be deep enough and strong enough to withstand the difficulties of the past.