Dialogue: For freedom we have to be two nations united

By DAVID BEDGGOOD

The death of Sir Robert Mahuta signifies an important moment in the history of Aotearoa-New Zealand as a nation. It represents a transition in the leadership of Tainui, the iwi that raised the first call for nationalism in the 1860s - kingitanga.

Attempts by Pakeha to redefine themselves as a nation must begin by rediscovering their roots in the past so that we understand the present and can move forward into the future. Kingitanga is the historic "core" - a national rite of passage.

In the 1860s, Pakeha settlers where still British or Irish. Kingitanga sought to assert its rights to tino rangatiratanga under the treaty.

The settlers used the British Army to suppress this nation and only today have Maori succeeded in once more pressing their claim to be a nation, again in a binational state with the Pakeha nation as Aotearoa-New Zealand.

But what is this Pakeha nation? Has it ever existed and can the concern to revive a patriotic core of Kiwi nationalism succeed?

New Zealand remains linked to Britain culturally and politically. The onset of the Cold War pushed New Zealand under the American umbrella. Old loyalties to Britain underlie new loyalties to the United States.

Those who want to join Australia are countered by those who say we should join the United States. Those who say we should stay where we are do so without confidence.

Most of our successful businessmen have moved abroad. It seems patriotism has its price. Those who remain behind are consumed by an identity crisis. No wonder they are confused.

But is the answer a separate national identity? It seems that it does not matter what nation we belong to. Too many people move across borders today for that to be true. The United States is about to become the largest Latino country after Brazil and Mexico.

But, of course, those who migrate to new nations still want to be patriots. Is it patriotism that underlies this identity crisis?

When we look closer, it is the need to belong to a community or family that feeds patriotism. Patriotism is loyalty to the community-family that materially sustains you.

Which means that today our loyalties should be simultaneously global and local, because we are embedded in the global economy and interdependent with billions of others in the world community. But we also need families and local communities.

In New Zealand today we can find our "core" identity only by recognising two facts.

First, we are citizens of the world. We have "core" economic relations with Australia, Singapore and soon Hong Kong, as well as dependence on the Asia-Pacific region with the United States at its centre. Our material existence is integrated into the Asian-Pacific world and the billions who inhabit the region.

Secondly, at home the only "core" community-family nexus in which we can ground our place in the world is that of the Maori nation which the Pakeha settlers suppressed in the Land Wars.

The anxiety and rootlessness of Pakeha today signify that we cannot live as a nation that condones the ongoing oppression of Maori. No nation is free while it oppresses another.

Not until Pakeha support the self-determination of the Maori nation will they have the right to share Aotearoa-New Zealand. When that happens the quest for national identity will be resolved in the common culture of all the people of the land here and everywhere.

The death of Sir Robert Mahuta, which is a moment in the historic continuity of kingitanga, should remind us that this common universal culture is what we know locally as tino rangatiratanga, which I interpret to mean being at harmony with nature and having control over one's destiny locally and globally.

* Dr David Bedggood is a senior lecturer in sociology at Auckland University.Herald Online feature: Common core values

We invite to you to contribute to the debate on core values. E-mail dialogue@herald.co.nz.