Waitangi Day

National Radio advertised their Waitangi Day programme with: "How did a document signed in good faith by both parties, become some controversial." Well we could start with the fact that the side with the power wasn't that into following it (even if we agree that it was signed in good faith, which is doubtful, and ignore the fact there was more than one document signed by the parties). I thought I wouldn't just shout at the radio, but try and articulate my views of the Treaty of Waitangi.

I know this'll make limited sense to non New Zealanders (all 30 of you). I'd like to recommend some really good links, but I don't have any, but this or this might give you some background.

My starting point in examining the treaty of Waitangi is as a historian. I believe that before we can talk about the role, or importance, of the treaty today we have to examine the particular historical circumstances under which it was signed (and then broken). To state something slightly obvious, the aim of the crown was to colonise New Zealand, therefore the purpose of the Treaty of Waitangi from the Crown's point of view, was to help colonise New Zealand (yes I know there's some serious simplifying going on there - feel free to complicate things up in the comments). The Treaty was initiated and written by the Crown, and so its purpose, from the beginning, was to facilitate the aims of the Crown, including colonisation.

But I wouldn't be a left-wing historian if I didn't start getting concerned about agency at this point. Because Maori did not just sit around waiting to be colonised; we cannot analyse the Treaty at the actions of the Crown. Particularly as the Maori version of the Treaty is somewhat different from the English version. Maori did sign the Treaty, and it promised, among other things, Tino Rangatiratanga.

Well we all know what happened next, lots of ignoring, lots of breaking, lots of land stealing. Because the Treaty didn't do quite as good a job of colonisation as guns could.

To me, there are two important points to my analysis of the Treaty:

1. That it has been broken on a regular basis for the last 166 years.
2. That it was part of a plan to colonise New Zealand.

I think that anti-colonial analysis of the treaty tends to focus on the 1st and ignore the second. The historical (and not so historical) breaches of the Treaty by the Crown, must be addressed (and all the new ones fought tooth and nail), but that doesn't mean if the Treaty had been followed for the last 150 years, everything would have been OK.

The Treaty should be the minimum Pakeha demand from the crown, not the ultimate goal for our society. I don't think we should accept a document written 166 years ago to help colonise New Zealand as a blue print of how to organise our society. Just the fact that various governments have been prepared to refer to 'the principles of the Treaty' is a sign that those principles aren't good enough.