Elizabeth Rata: Strands must be knit into a national whole

COMMENT

The bicultural ideal of two peoples, two cultures, Maori and Pakeha, within one nation was a product of its time. Until the 1970s, New Zealand by and large ignored the Maori cultural strand.

The consequences for Maori culture are well-known. The language was in danger of extinction. Historical injustices were kept alive by ongoing economic marginalisation.

Biculturalism was to be the answer. Three decades later, we need to judge its outcomes and decide whether the principles and practices of biculturalism are still relevant. What are some of the intended and unintended outcomes?

For the Maori language, the outcome is an interesting mixture. In 1987 only 700 children under 9 were fluent in the language. By 2001 about 25,000 people under 55 claimed to speak Maori well or very well.

While this looks promising, the improvement may not be sustainable. Among those speakers, few converse in Maori within the household, restricting their Maori language use to traditional Maori settings. There is a decline in kohanga reo numbers and a slight downward trend in Maori medium education at pre-tertiary level.

Most Maori children (85 per cent) are in the general school system, yet less than 10 per cent study Maori as a subject. Among non-Maori, less than 1 per cent speak Maori.

This overall picture suggests the social context required for Maori to survive and grow as a living language has not been established. Hopefully, Maori Television will be the catalyst for change.

The economic and social outcomes of biculturalism, which include Treaty of Waitangi politics, indicate a similar mix of success and failure. Several powerful tribal economic corporations are under the control of prosperous elites. A visible Maori professional class has emerged.

However, the large number of struggling urban Maori whose marginalisation fuelled bicultural ideals in the 1970s, indicates that conditions have changed little for this group.

It is tempting to conclude that biculturalism has failed, and to turn against the ideology. Recent events in the fortunes of Labour and National point to the growth of rejection, resentment and resistance politics.

Creating a unified society out of the "raw material" of different ethnic groups is a long-term process. We have passed through many stages since 1840. The latest stage - the era of biculturalism - appears to be ending.

It may be replaced by a new socio-political project that builds upon the bicultural ideals of national unity, social justice and cultural recognition. Equally, its replacement may be a directionless and divisive future characterised by increasing ethnic resentment and hostility.

A new social-political project needs to start from contemporary realities. Biculturalism was a response to the conditions of the 1970s. Times have changed. Our population is far more multi-ethnic. Within those ethnic groups are large numbers of people of mixed ethnicity - people who may have ancestries as diverse as Maori, Chinese, Slav and Celtic, all in different proportions and of varying importance to the individual.

Impatience is growing with ethnic-based politics. People want to move on. Biculturalism may have run its course but the lessons learned should remain. Maori culture does matter - for all the reasons that launched biculturalism. The issue now is Maori culture - for whom?

To answer that, we need to move from the culturalist approach that equates ethnicity with culture. "Ethnicity" is a recent replacement for the older term "race". It means a genetic connection to a group of people. Ethnicity is "who we are" in that genetic sense.

"Culture" is a completely different idea. It means "what we do". Culture is our language, history, customs, religion and values. Ethnic belonging can't be shared with those who are not "of the blood" but culture can be.

Separate the idea of ethnic belonging from cultural identity and we are freed from the restrictions of history. We can turn to the future and to the culture we want for our descendants.

If we reject the ethnicity-culture link for a cultural identity open to all people regardless of ethnic or genetic origin, Maori culture becomes a constitutive strand in New Zealand culture. It becomes the inheritance and the responsibility of all New Zealanders - those whose ancestors arrived 700 years ago, 100 years ago, or yesterday.

Success in building a national culture depends most on what happens in our schools. The curriculum of a culture-building nation should be as vibrant and textured as the contributing "raw material" itself.

Children will only identify fully with a national culture when they know its history, geography, languages, politics and literature - when they can see the contribution that links back to their ethnic group is included in a national culture; when they are able to criticise the values and practices of some of these contributions without the straitjacket of political correctness; when they learn that history is not about simple rights and wrongs but about flawed human beings who live as best they can, often in circumstances not of their own choosing.

The existence of a robust national culture will ensure the continued growth of a dynamic society. It is not enough to sit back and think that a national culture worth having will emerge of its own accord. As a nation we have to want such a culture and make it happen.

How that culture develops depends on the integration of the three main cultural strands - Maori, settler-descendant and recent migrant.

Democratic values, practices and customs consciously chosen from all three strands are the raw material of a national New Zealand culture. Democratic principles of equitable inclusion and integration are the glue that will bind that material. The outcome depends on material and manufacture. We can choose both.

* Dr Elizabeth Rata was a 2003 Fulbright senior scholar at the Centre for Australian and New Zealand Studies, Georgetown University, Washington DC. She teaches at the Auckland College of Education.