Does Anyone See Anything Coming? (Reflection on the Treaty of Waitangi)

In another world of conversation recently, the question came up, in my words, Why didn't evangelical historians see ahead and predict the emergence of Trump and evangelical support for him? There are some obvious answers about that: historians look back not forward; history never repeats itself exactly; since when was it a moral indictment on an historian to not also be a clairvoyant?!

A simple case in point involves Trump himself in the past month or so: suppose you had predicted ten or twenty years ago that a Trump would burst onto the US political scene and [many] evangelicals would swoon at his anti-abortionist feet. Well done you! But would you have predicted this year's turn of events in which Trump has suddenly and (as far as I can tell) unexpectedly changed tunes on abortion, stating a position closer to the centre of US politics, and pretty obviously designed to pick up (if possible) a bunch of votes otherwise likely unavailable to him in November. Cue angst and dilemma for a section of US Christian (Protestant and Catholic) pro-life voters: where does the lesser of two "evils" now lie when going into the polling booth?

Down Under, have we ever seen what is coming in respect of relations between Maori and Pakeha?

Marsden in 1814 could have foreseen the arrival of European settlers. He would not have foreseen the Treaty of Waitangi in the form it actually took.

The Treaty itself was the outcome of a variety of hugely interesting factors, from the local (the role of the likes of Bushby, Hobson, the Williams' family, Maori chiefs) to the wider movement of people (the interests of and interests by British, French, American settlers, sailors and sealers in carving out better lives through farming and trading), to the distantly international considerations of the British offices of state overseeing colonial developments and how they were, in their view, often a deeply evangelical Christian view, best shaped and supported by agreements such as the Treaty of Waitangi - all admirably told in various histories of our Treaty, most recently in respect of "big books" by Ned Fletcher, The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi, and in terms of "small books" by Alistair Reese in He Tatou Pounamu .

I think I am right in saying that on 6 February 1840, no one signing the Treaty in with the English or Maori versions could see coming some 135 years later [1975], through till the present, and, no doubt beyond today, that having the Treaty in two versions would be highly controversial!

Also on that day, I assume that what the signers assumed was that the Treaty would be a document acknowledged appropriately as European settlement of Aotearoa developed through the decades ahead. Not so. Fairly quickly the Treaty was ignored. Its relevance to the settlement of our country died away as the document settled into a comfortable (for the settlers and their political leaders) existence in the bottom of the bottom drawer of the Premier's desk!

At the lowest point in the general fortunes of Maori (when illness decimated numbers of Maori in the late 19th century), no one foresaw the reviving of the relevance of the Treaty in 1975, let alone the revival of the number of Maori in our society (so that the general reckoning now is that 1 million of 5 million NZers identify as Maori).

And that initial reviving of the fortunes of the Treaty as a foundation document of our nation, through the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal, was not in 1975 a predictor of how as a society, including churches, educational institutions, local and central government, and departments of such governments, we would develop principles of the Treaty to guide us in giving effect to the Treaty. Or, more simply, that we would make actual big strides as a bicultural nation. We are far from becoming what the Treaty envisaged we might be; but we have moved on a long way from days when Maori were refused entry to some pubs and public facilities, and when we would go along with South African requests not to bring "coloured" players on All Black tours to that country. 

We do, of course, see that in 2040 we have opportunity to celebrate 200 years of the Treaty. Sixteen years to make further progress? Sixteen years to wind back the clock (per current machinations by the ACT Party)? While I am committed to not winding the clock of history backwards, I am not going to make a prediction about where we will be in 2040. (I would be 80 by then, so I am not even predicting I will be alive to ruminate on the state of Aotearoa New Zealand in that year!!)

Although last week's ADU post was not directly about the Treaty, a long string of comments were about the Treaty and related matters of relationship between Maori and Pakeha. The following are some ruminations on such matters (but not intended to be a point by point response to points made in the thread of comments).

There is no definitive understanding of the Treaty, there may never be, but there is a definitive state of affairs, namely, the present situation we face as a nation, as a society, as a series of community and whanau networks, and we have a choice to face the present with the Treaty informing us and influencing us, or to sideline it, to put it back into the bottom of the bottom drawer of the Prime Minister's desk. Like many - I suggest most - Kiwis, I think it better to keep on working out the meaning of the Treaty for life today, than to give up, to seek some other basis for how we honour and respect one another as the mix of indigenous and non-indigenous people that we are.

Nevertheless, even if there is no single definitive understanding of the Treaty, there are claims as understandings which are at best unhelpful and at worst injurious to our moving forward as a nation to a better state of affairs than we currently experience.

One such claim is the notion that the Treaty makes us all "equal" with the consequence that there should be no special advantage to Maori as measured by, say, some medical treatments being available to Maori ahead of Pakeha, or some other forms of material assistance in life. This is an odd claim to make when on a bunch of significant statistics, from prison population to academic achievement to life expectancy, it is very clear that in the warp and woof of life and how it unfolds for each NZer, Maori are not treated equally. Perhaps when we are statistically equal we could propose that everyone, irrespective of racial/cultural identity, is treated "equally." In the meantime we have a long way to go and we are only just beginning to understand the effects of colonization on Maori - let alone how those effects might be undone.

Another claim being advanced today is that the Treaty amounts to nothing more than property rights: I as a Pakeha have rights as to how I use and what I do on my suburban city property; a Maori (individual, whanau, hapu, iwi) also have property rights for lands and waterways to which there is clear title. But - the kicker - that is all: stay out of attempts to co-govern, say, the quality of water in the rivers of Canterbury; do not aspire to have specific Maori representation on city and district councils; and so forth. There is a lot to discuss about the meaning of the Treaty, and we may never settle on one single, agreed definition of what the Treaty means for each nook and cranny of these islands, but there is agreement by most scholars - historians, legal boffins - that the Treaty is not reducible to property rights. We need - I suggest - an approach to the Treaty which respects and assists Maori seeking to be Maori.

On Saturday I was at a bicultural event in one of the pa of the Canterbury district. A Maori leader made the simple point about this particular place (calling it a "reservation" - reserved from being for sale to settlors): It has allowed Maori to be Maori. How might our approach to understanding and applying the Treaty do this across our nation?

There are lots of questions to ask, discuss and find answers to. There are and will be proposals that need testing. For instance, also over the weekend, I saw a social media post along these lines: In institution X, a law professor teaches that there are and always have been two legal systems, Maori and Pakeha; this is a bad thing because there must be one law for all, and only one law for all. This sounds like something that needs testing: there can be two legal systems within one nation (the church has canons!!!!!!!), but can there be two wholly parallel systems without one system being available to appeal to when within either system a matter needs a final arbitration? (Even the church operates within its constitution and canons on the basis that potentially an appeal can be made to the secular legal system.)

Similarly, as we discuss concepts of sovereignty/rangitiratanga/kawanatanga, can we find a way to a single parliament within which are two houses, Maori and Pakeha, with all important decisions being agreed by both houses? The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia has something to offer on this possibility.

Yesterday I spoke at a service on Micah 6:6-8, the threefold summary (in my view) of all the teaching in the OT: do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God.

At the heart of all debates on the Treaty, can we Christians engaging in the quest for the meaning and application of the Treaty today press for justice to be done and kindness to be shown? To do otherwise is incompatible with walking humbly with our God, is it not?

Might we be open to futures we cannot yet see which fulfil intentions in the Treaty and requirements of Scripture?

Postscript: a different topic

Also in the thread of comments to last week's post, this comment was made:

"People don’t go to Church anymore because they simply do not believe in the supernatural - outstanding claims require outstanding evidence. People need to be taught the deeper meanings within scripture if any form of Christianity is to survive. Science has beaten back the grey haired man in the sky that parts seas and raises the dead."

No doubt this is so for many people, even though I hardly ever hear people frankly express such explanation for non-involvement in church. People are polite!

Yes, there is "deeper meaning" within Scripture to find and to expound. John himself ensures this is so when he takes the kinds of miracles we now apparently object to (Feeding the 5000, Walking on Water, 6:1-21) and makes them the occasion for Jesus to offer "deeper meaning" about himself as the bread from heaven.

But may we so deftly set aside all testimonies to the supernatural within Scripture, whether Parting the Red Sea or Walking on Water, Healing the Sick or Raising the Dead?

On the one side of this question is the fact that "something(s) happened" which in OT times fuelled Israel's conviction that the "god" of Israel was like no other "gods" and in NT times fuelled Christian conviction that Jesus was more than another itinerant rabbi. Miracles, supernatural acts, call them what you will, were critical to the case advanced, whether in preaching the gospel to Jews or to Gentiles, that God's acts of power in and through Jesus, and supremely in raising him from the dead underscored the claim that Jesus was both son of David and son of God.

On the other side of this question is the result of "deeper meaning" as we engage with Scripture: that God is Being (not just a Supreme Being, or the Supreme Being), the very life and power of the universe able to work within the universe to do marvellous things. The distinction between "nature" and "supernature" can be argued to fade away when we dig deep into the meaning of God as Being itself.

And then, perhaps as a third side of this question, is the matter of many Christians' own testimonies: that the Jesus we have met and who has met us, is precisely the powerful Son of God as well as the vulnerable, mocked, humiliated, executed son of Mary.