27
2010
Colonial Cast Offs
An article by 
Greetings from the republic of Aotearoa – a progressive and peaceful nation in the south Pacific which leads the world in caring for its multi racial populace and its natural environment. Yeah, right! How sad that this statement is so far from the truth.
Like so many nations Aotearoa has a shameful legacy of colonialism. The Maori people were cheated and robbed of their land, their culture was repressed and their race nearly destroyed. When Goldie painted his famous portraits in the early 1900s it was believed that he was creating images of a dying people.
Thank God we’ve come a long way since then. There has been a tremendous renaissance of Maori culture. Apologies and reparations have been made. But there is still a long way to go to make Aotearoa into a whole and healthy society in which the indigenous people, the tangata whenua are not so disproportionally located at the bottom of the heap.
Any progress we can make towards a more just and compassionate society, which celebrates both diversity and unity is highly desirable and surely a good big step in that direction is casting off the vestiges of our colonial past.
Let’s start with the flag. Our current flag sucks! It’s dull, it doesn’t convey anything about our country now and it’s little more than a cheap copy of the Aussie flag – which is a dreadful state of affairs. The Union Jack in the corner – come on! Great Britain dumped us nearly 40 years ago to make more money in the EU. Four stars… what’s that about? I couldn’t find the Southern Cross in the night sky and even if I could… so what?!?
I know some of our older folk get all sentimental about the flag. “Men fought and died for that flag!” they might say. Rubbish! People fought and died believing they were defending our country not a piece of cloth.
A good flag would represent our country so much better. I’ve seen some great designs that incorporate the Maoritanga, the stars, the hills, the ocean. Why haven’t we already adopted one of these vastly superior designs? What’s the hold up? How do we get this show on the road?
In case you doubt the importance of having a flag check out Eddie Izzard’s excellent exposition on youtube…
Next – the name of our country should be Aotearoa. In 1642 a remarkable Dutch explorer – Abel Tasman – sailed past, chucking out names as he went. He called our country Staten Landt in the belief that it was part of the South American continent. Back in Holland, after his return, Dutch cartographers labeled our country Nova Zeelandia, after their province of Zeeland.
What arrogance those European explorers displayed thinking they had the right to name all the main features of a country which had already been named well by the indigenous people. Why shouldn’t we fly over to Holland and rename their country New Waikato?
Again we’ve made a bit of progress in terms of restoring original names – Mt. Egmont to Taranaki for example… but how about renaming Auckland, Akaranga or Tamaki… or Wellington, Poneke. English aristocrats like Egmont, Auckland and Wellington have nothing to do with Aotearoa and are sufficiently memorialized in their own country.
Admittedly the name Aotearoa was only given to the whole of our country fairly late in the piece but it’s a great name. It rolls off the tongue and even in translation is poetic – land of the long white cloud. Tell me you haven’t thought of that flying back into your cloud covered homeland.
OK we’d have to drop the English version of our national anthem but by now we should all know the Maori version anyway and it would save time at rugby matches only having to sing it through once.
I’ll leave the debate about becoming a republic for another blog. Again it’s a just a question of when not if we finally throw off British sovereignty. Let’s concentrate for a moment on getting a decent flag and the right name for our nation.
These are not just cosmetic changes. They would go a long way to strengthening our unique national identity, honoring our tangata whenua and casting off our colonial attitudes to create a more just and righteous nation.
I want to finish with this prayer from Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore – which is also my prayer for Aotearoa… my beloved country.
Where The Mind Is Without Fear
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
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Did someone miss their cup of coffee this morning??
HAHAHAHA! I think Drew was drinking it as he wrote this
I’d agree with most of this on some level, except doing away with the English version of the national anthem. If we did away with that, we’d have to rewrite it as an anthem for the UN or something.
You speak of the ‘Republic of Aotearoa’. I’m sorry, we can’t dump the Crown without simultaneously cancelling the Treaty of Waitangi – and then what basis would non-Maori have for living here? We’d all have to find our way back to wherever we’d come from.
On becoming a republic, I personally don’t care. I can see merits in staying as we are.
Shifting to a Republic doesn’t have to mean cancelling out the treaty though, it just means we would have to carefully analyse any constitution put forward and if desired, incorporate a recognition of the place of the treaty.
Any movement in that direction would need to involve careful and inclusive discussions and negotiations.
I enjoyed my cup of fair trade coffee this morning – thank you for your concern Urban Kiwi. My blog however is not a rant generated by caffeine withdrawal but rather a rant generated by my genuine pride in Aotearoa and my concern that we make real progress as a nation. Having an inspiring flag and using a Maori name for our nation would be small but real steps forward.
Thanks for your comments Paul. Why not rewrite the national anthem? I’m sure Dave Dobbyn could write us a ripper. It’s always bugged me the the Aussie’s have the bold “ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FAIR” whereas we have the timid “God defend New Zealand”
I’m not sure why you think that if Aotearoa became a republic we’d all have to “find our way back to where ever we’d come from.” I don’t know where the Clutterbucks came from. I was born in Wellington and that’s not difficult to find.
My 2c:
1c. Our national anthem is pretty weak when you look at it with an objective eye.
2c. I’d like to see us become a republic with a well-thought-out constitution.
Some interesting thoughts and I agree, there are some things that could be organised properly. But like the name change from Wanganui to Whanganui, could you imagine removing New Zealand and putting in Aotearoa? My goodness that is going worldwide… what a great impact that would be.
In relation to a flag. Why do we need one? We already have the haka that has made more of an impact around the world than the flag or the national anthem?
Remembering of course that Thomas Bracken wrote the National Anthem, but he wasn’t consigned to write it? What then is the background behind the writing of it let alone the whole lets also have a flag?
I love the link to Eddie Izzard, absolutely fantastic and brings back memories of one of the First Nations talks about the cross and the flag and how this all played a major part in getting in first to claim a country that was already occupied.
By others understanding tangata whenua were not civilised, yet tangata whenua bathed regularly, didn’t litter as everything went back to Papatuanuku properly and with respect…and the list could go on.
Kia ora Anahera… brilliant comment. You’re right – what a great values statement changing our name would make to the international community.
The haka is tremendous but I think we need a flag as well. On the rare occasions that we win medals at the Olympics we need something to hoist up the pole.
Personally i’d be happy to adopt the Tino Rangatiratanga flag but I guess that would tread on too many toes… Maori and Pakeha.
We’d need a decent name for the anthem. Advance Australia FAIR is clearly a misrepresentation…
Man you’re down on our flag, our anthem, our name and who knows what else. You claim to be a proud New Zealander but then you’re critical of everything about your country. The flag and the anthem have served us well…leave them alone. As for your ridiculous idea of changing our name to Aotearoa… No one would be able to spell it or pronounce it overseas and what about the billions that have been spent establishing brand New Zealand and the billions that would have to spent changing it. Your idea is totally impractical, unpatriotic and plain stupid. The name’s New Zealand, buddy, love it or leave it!
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Hi Waylander… good to see another David Gemmel fan commenting. I assure you I do appreciate this country of ours but that doesn’t mean that I’ll be uncritical of it. On the contrary it means I long for it to make real progress – not towards the shibboleth of economic growth but towards harmony, justice, compassion and vision.
You’re quite right – changing the name would be hugely expensive but all good change costs. Getting rid of slavery was costly. Changing to MMP was costly. Even changing the name chinese gooseberry to kiwifruit was an expensive marketing exercise.
If you only considered the cost, you’d never change anything. What we should really be asking is whether the cost is worthwhile, whether the end result justifies the expense. In the case of changing our name to Aotearoa, I believe the advantages would thoroughly outweigh the dollars spent.
WOW great to see that we can have a civil korero about our New Zealand\Aotearoa identity without all the BS. Are we growing up, maturing as a nation of many different cultures?
response to the one who calls themself “Waylander” Aotearoa is NZs real name buddy try pronouncing New Zealand without sounding like an Aussie or worse, from Tawa.
Alot of NZers and not just Maori unoffically use Aotearoa already in marketing, conservations, emails etc..
NZ anthem needs some sprucing up the language is kind of last century. In Maori and English. Cheers, Whina
Oh dear, More of the same, but at the same time I guess necessary in the evolution of a young nation.
Art is supposed to reflect the world at a certain time in human history. If this is the case, New Zealand is still stuck in a time warp of parochialsm, introspection and nationalistic neurosis. When will New Zealanders of all races get their head around the idea that Aotearoa isn’t the centre of the universe? When will they use their identity as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. The product of that mindset is trite art which conversely suggests New Zealanders are self absorbed thinkers without a notion of the rest of the world. This frame of mind is akin to religious fundimentalism and like such social structures, it has an undercurrent of sinister control over how its people should think. Get over it and move on. There is a universe out there.
One place to start would be to lead the world in conservation, something that New Zealanders have failed horribly at over the last 900 or so years. Conservation is a facade of New Zealand’s tourism industry when in fact it is a huge lie. But its not too late, the population is such that negative environmental impact can be controlled and reversed so that we could be a global model.
I could go on and on about the contributions that New Zealand could make to the world. But until we get over our self absorbtion we are just another boring outer island.
Mark Cross
Niue Island
(Currently in the Ile d’Orleron)