Month: August 2022 (page 4 of 4)

Indigenous rights, Co-governance, and the Church.

The following article by Richard Randerson was published in the NZ Listener in February 2022. It has implications for both Australia and New Zealand as signatories to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

A  video link last year suggested that the recently published He Puapua Report (see below) is an exercise in separatism that will take Aotearoa New Zealand down a path to apartheid.

Against an apocalyptic background of darkened skies, lightning and thunder,  presenter Elliot Ikelei, a recent leader of the New Conservative Party, warns viewers of a looming political disaster that will engulf the nation.

He Puapua is a document with an 18-year window for public discussion to formulate proposals to mark (in 2040) the 200^th anniversary of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. He Puapua means a break, as in the breaking of waves, in this case the breaking of inequitable political and constitutional structures.

The He Puapua working group was set up to consider how to give effect to the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, signed by Australia in 2009 and by New Zealand in 2010. A letter of protest is in preparation urging a new government in 2023 to withdraw from the Declaration.

The Dominion Post (15 July 2021) wrote of He Puapua:  “the crux of it is this: outcomes for indigenous people improve when they are in charge of their own destiny”.

The principle of one person, one vote lies at the heart of democracy, but parliamentary democracies in the western world inevitably lead to majority white rule which preferences the majority. Like runners in a race, all have an equal right to enter but some are starting way behind the rest.

There can be no doubt of the need for greater equity in Aotearoa. Socio-economic indicators show that Maori and Pacific Islanders are at the bottom of the heap in housing, incomes, employment, health, education, imprisonment, longevity and inequality. The trends have worsened since 1985.  Inequality is the result of institutional racism whereby majorities are blind to the impact of institutions and the dominant culture on minorities.

He Puapia aims to “refocus on rangatiratanga (Maori self-determination)”…which could range “from “full independence at one end of the spectrum to participation in state government at the other”.  Central to the repot are “government’s priorities of well-being, inclusivity and pride in Aotearoa”.

The slow roll-out of Covid vaccinations for Maori and Pacific communities was greatly improved with the planning of the roll-outs being handed to indigenous leaders. The recent restructuring of District Health Boards, and the creation of a Maori Health Authority with equal standing, is likewise recognition of the principle that “by Maori for Maori” is likely to improve health outcomes.

Since the 1970s the work of the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal has been another example of partnership between Maori and the Crown. Investigation of the wrongful alienation of Maori land and taonga (treasures, resources) in the 19^th century has led to acknowledgment and apology by the Crown, a framework for compensation and the recognition of iwi as kaitiaki (guardians) of sacred sites and indigenous species. The recognition of wrong has been a key feature in enabling a spirit of reason and goodwill in the settlement process.

 He Puapua asks how we can make democracy work to provide a better outcome for all New Zealanders. There may be different strategies but no special privileges for one race over another. Rangatiratanga enables Maori to achieve better outcomes across the whole range of social and economic deficits. Restorative justice, under judicial oversight and with its emphasis on rehabilitation rather than retribution, likewise offers a better future to both victims and offenders, not just for Maori but for all citizens.

He Puapua lays down a challenge: as a nation do we want to be swayed by the apocalyptic visions of the fearful, or will we choose to build on our experiences of partnership and frame a better future for 2040 and beyond?

Footnote:  The Anglican Church in New Zealand adopted in 1992 a system of co-governance whereby Maori, Pakeha and Polynesia are three equal partners and the Pakeha majority can no longer outvote the other partners. General Synod decisions must not only pass in the houses of Bishops. Clergy and Laity, but must also be supported by the three tikanga (cultures) of Maori, Pakeha and Polynesia. Over 30 years this has led to better listening, better understanding, consensus decision-making and more equitable sharing of resources

Richard Randerson was assistant bishop in Canberra and Goulburn 1994-1999 and former Anglican social justice officer in New Zealand.

Reporting on the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust, the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) used the phrase “the banality of evil.” It is a shocking phrase to many because it flies in the face of our idea that evil is demonic, monstrous, and villainous, something that everybody immediately recognizes as grotesque and terrible. Arendt’s phrase actually helps explain how the Holocaust or Shoah (catastrophe) could happen. Somehow evil became commonplace.

In his introduction to Arendt’s book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Israeli journalist Amos Elon writes:

[Arendt] concluded that Eichmann’s inability to speak coherently in court was connected with his incapacity to think, or to think from another person’s point of view. . . . He personified neither hatred or madness nor an insatiable thirst for blood, but something far worse, the faceless nature of Nazi evil itself . . . aimed at dismantling the human personality of its victims. The Nazis had succeeded in turning the legal order on its head, making the wrong and the malevolent the foundation of a new “righteousness.” In the Third Reich evil lost its distinctive characteristic by which most people had until then recognized it. The Nazis redefined it as a civil norm. . . . Within this upside-down world Eichmann . . . seemed not to have been aware of having done evil.

As both Thomas Aquinas and C.S. Lewis taught, for evil to succeed, it must disguise itself as good, which is apparently much easier to do than we imagine. What previous generations called “the devil” is still quite active, though disguised in the banality of evil. The devil isn’t going to appear in red with horns and a tail and entice us to follow him. When Paul talks about the devil, he uses words like “powers,” “principalities,” and “thrones” (see Colossians 1:16). These are almost certainly his premodern words for what we would now call corporations, institutions, nation-states, ideologies of supremacy, and organizations that demand our full allegiance and thus become idolatrous—not just “too big to fail,” but even too big to be criticized. Suddenly, the medieval notion of devils comes very close to home.

We must first convict evil in its glorified organizational form. When we idolize and refuse to hold such collective realities accountable, they usually become demonic in some way. We normally cannot see it until it is too late. Hannah Arendt wrote, “The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.” While evil may reside primarily in “corporate” form, the resistance to it begins with us as individuals. The rest of this week is dedicated to the stories and wisdom of individuals who made a clear decision to confront evil and hatred with goodness and love, even at the risk of their own lives.