Rob Rattenbury: How New Zealanders could show their patriotism

Rob Rattenbury asks what patriotism means to New Zealanders. Photo / Mark Mitchell

OPINION:

When I look at Australians and Americans and their undoubted patriotism, I sometimes wonder where New Zealanders seem to keep their patriotism.

I love my country and I am proud of being a New Zealander and consider myself very lucky to live in this land.

But I have never felt the need to shout it from the rooftops as citizens of other nations do.

Anzac Day is probably the most identifiable symbol of New Zealand patriotism we have achieved.

Sadly it took us, as a community, decades to work up the emotion to attend Dawn Parades in our thousands to remember the many thousands of young New Zealanders who died, primarily in the two world wars of the first half of the 20th century, but also all wars since 1945.

To show our gratitude and remember our forebears, many of whom did return home but returned scarred and broken by years of war, to live shortened blighted lives.

We seem to have got it in terms of patriotism for this particular day of the year.

It is now more than just another day off work, seeing dad disappear in the dawn with his medals on, coming home later in the day quiet, a bit tired and emotional.

Now all the family wakes in the dawn hours to head off to the local cenotaph to give thanks to those who made such huge sacrifices so that we can live in peace.

Why then can we not get as emotional about Waitangi Day?

Australia has Australia Day and America has the 4th of July, huge events celebrating the founding of those nations.

We have another day off or, even better, a long weekend.

We go to the beach, stay home and relax, nothing special, just a day off topped off by watching the yearly bunfight at Waitangi on the evening news.

Waitangi Day is our version of the Magna Carta or the American Declaration of Independence. It marks the day our country became a British colony in 1840.

The romantic in me likes to think of two noble and honourable peoples coming together to found a great nation.

The cynical realist in me just sees it as a con job foisted on tangata whenua to keep the French from getting their mitts on New Zealand.

There was no love lost between Britain and France at the time, they were either at war, planning war or just finishing war with each other, had been for centuries.

Britain also had some concerns about those upstart Americans sniffing around the New Zealand coast.

Britain was still smarting from being booted out of their former colony 60 years previously.

Britain was ambivalent about New Zealand becoming yet another colony they had to administer but when one is empire-building, "civilising" the dark races, one has to take what one can get.

Many Māori could see advantages to the Treaty; British-imposed laws to stop warring tribes and trade being the two best reasons to sign.

Rob Rattenbury.

Of course, once the Treaty, or the two versions of it, was signed it was within a short time consigned to the bottom drawer of some junior clerk's desk in Governor Hobson's office to gather dust and be forgotten about unless needed.

Then followed decades of land confiscation, dodgy land sales, war and displacement of the indigenous Treaty partner.

The Treaty never figured much in my consciousness prior to such events as Bastion Point.

I do not remember it being a topic of conversation growing up.

In those days Waitangi Day was not even a holiday.

Māori seem to celebrate Waitangi Day much more than Pākehā do.

One explanation could be that many Pākehā simply do not see Waitangi Day as the founding date of our nation.

There are other days. It was not until 1907 that New Zealand became a Dominion, well behind Australia, 1901 and Canada, 1867.

New Zealanders were still British citizens up until 1948 and did not become legally fully independent until 1986.

New Zealand was still bound to the English legal system until 2003 when the English Privy Council stopped being our highest law court.

Some would say that while the head of the British royal family is our sovereign we are not yet independent from Britain.

Like it or not, that Treaty signed in 1840 is the founding document of our country and is here to stay.

Some know its contents verbatim, both versions, others know its principles but I suspect many have no real idea of what it means to many tangata whenua and how seriously they take the Treaty.

As a country we all need to show our patriotism to this Treaty.

We all need to celebrate it with pride and honour its intentions. Non-Māori need to step up, to become Tangata Tiriti – "People of the Treaty".