November 19th 2024: Hikoi

I'm not sure how we got to this place. I'm here in Wellington on the eve of hīkoi mō te tiriti, the march into parliament by New Zealanders from all walks of life and whakapapa to stand up for unity and to respect the mana of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

The vibe is good here. It feels like most people stand with the kaupapa of the hīkoi. There is talk that it may be the largest march on parliament we've ever seen. More than 150,000 people protested against apartheid during the 1981 Springbok Tour, but that took place throughout the country. This could be the biggest event to arrive at parliament ... ever. And so it should be.

I don't have any māori blood. But tikanga has been woven into my life. I know my maunga and my awa. I know where to find tuna and watercress. I am tangata whenua. My father and mother are tangata whenua. I whakapapa to the tiny tribe of Pukewhenua in the Waikato. None of us have any māori blood. I'm who I am because of this land and this culture.

To me, David Seymour's Treaty Principles Bill seems extraordinarily stupid – for New Zealand Inc, and for the people of Aotearoa. It seems divisive, like it will dismantle the very fabric that so many people before him had worked to weave, to achieve harmony. It feels like it will drag us back into an age we'd rather not revisit. I certainly don't.

I had lunch with a friend, Raj, this week and he told me, "you need to understand the perspective from where David Seymour is coming before you can judge". Raj is right. You have to be able to walk a mile in another man's shoes to see that perspective. That really challenged me. Raj's father was born here. He's tangata whenua, too. Raj is tangata whenua. Raj grew up with racial abuse as the norm. He did it tough, worked his butt off and survived – thrived even.

He told me Ghandi believed people "were inherently good", which surprised me and him. He thought "they were inherently selfish". I tended to agree. But if you do walk a mile in another man's shoes – shrouded in Ghandi's cloak of inherent goodness – then you start to see something different.

For me, I see that Seymour believes fully in the kaupapa of his Treaty Principles Bill, but I think he forgets that New Zealand has never been, or wanted to be, an homogenised society like America or Australia. And perhaps he forgets the history. Globally, our Māori culture is our point of difference – tikanga māori is the edge we have. I believe that is also going to become critically important in our future in terms of conservation, the correction looming for fisheries, rebalancing society and the big one – dealing with climate change.

I feel like we were on such a good track – I was even proud of Aotearoa New Zealand. I'd hate to see us head down the path that the US has chosen. That's the brink of civil war and we don't need that here.

See you at the hīkoi ... Derek

PS This week's images come from a bunch of Dunedin's best young surfers going to town on a small, shallow sandbank over the hill. Enjoy! They certainly did.