Sharples: Rotary Club of Pencarrow
te-pati-maori
Tue May 08 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Sharples: Rotary Club of Pencarrow
Tuesday, 8 May 2007, 1:23 pm
Speech: The Maori Party
Rotary Club of Pencarrow Celebrity Dinner
Days Bay, Eastbourne; Monday May 7 2007
Dr Pita Sharples, Co-leader of the Maori Party
As we travelled along Petone esplanade on our journey to the Eastbourne foreshore, I thought about an email I received last week.
The email was from Brad Butterworth.
That’s Bradley William Butterworth OBE; Te Awamutu bred, and tactician for three winning boats, New Zealand’s Black Magic in 1995 and 2000, and Switzerland’s Alinghi in 2003.
In the long history of the America’s Cup, no other after guard member has won so many races in succession as Mr Butterworth. Indeed, as an all-round champion, Butterworth has been elected into the America’s Cup Hall of Fame.
And before any conspiracy theory gathers momentum, let me just explain why it is that Mr Butterworth took time out of his busy schedule in Valencia to write to the Maori Party.
No, we’re not conducting secret negotiations for Ernesto Bertarelli to underwrite our 2008 election campaign.
The reason lies in a simple red, white and black flag, the Maori flag.
A flag which keen New Zealanders might have spotted flying high in the opening days of the Louis Vuitton Challenger Series.
Well, we in the Maori Party, are always on the lookout for symbols of hope and pride in te Ao Maori, and so I mentioned that flag in a speech I gave to students at Auckland University a fortnight ago.
I mentioned how sad it was that our Prime Minister had misread the fact that the flag was flying from the Alinghi base as a trick of the trade, describing it as part of the psychological mind-games that she considered to be part of international competitive sport.
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Meanwhile over in Valencia, Mr Butterworth had obviously been sent a copy of my speech, and he wrote to me, stating:
“For years we have been competing for and against New Zealand teams. We always have and will look at New Zealand teams with pride.
We raised the tino rangatiratanga flag to support the boys in the waka and their effort to show our culture to Europe. The New Zealanders in the Alinghi team, not only the Maori, have always enjoyed and are proud of our Polynesian culture and we try when ever we can to promote it”.
That email was a moment of real joy for me. What Brad was doing was acknowledging difference, not division, not fear but difference. Amazing that it took New Zealanders on a Swiss boat to promote that difference. Perhaps it might have something to do with the wonderful acknowledgement of cultural differences that exist within western Europe.
It spoke to me of nationhood, of pride in our identity, of cultural strength. “We are proud of our Polynesian culture and we try when ever we can to promote it”. He went further to report that there are over one hundred New Zealanders working for teams other than Emirates Team NZ.
The Maori Party wishes them all every success. The irony is, I believe that regardless of which boat eventually wins whether it be Alinghi with Butterworth, Oracle and Chris Dickson or our Team New Zealand and Dean Barker it will be a victory for New Zealanders.
To think of our people, Maori and Pakeha, out there at the top of the international sailing grades, succeeding and demonstrating their pride in our very foundations as a nation, made me think that perhaps the promise of Te Tiriti o Waitangi is gaining room for optimism.
That email is a great basis to build on, as I think about the conversations we will have, and have had already, tonight.
I was happy to accept the invitation to attend your celebrity dinner, and to spend some time enjoying the ebb and flow of Pencarrow.
But as I glanced over your Pencarrow Tide, I have to admit to being impressed by the celebrities that are gathered amongst your midst.
I understand that your President, Douglas Day, was honoured with the China National Friendship Award at a ceremony in the Great Hall of the People of Beijing – an award presented to foreign experts who have contributed "to the training of Chinese personnel as well as to China's social development and economic, scientific, technological, educational and cultural construction".
And then I heard that your guest last week, Professor Paul Callaghan, has been awarded New Zealand's top science award, the Rutherford Medal, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 2001; and is the first scientist from outside of New Zealand to win the prestigious European Union Ampere Prize. This is someone, who for fun, writes books like ‘the Elegant Universe of Albert Einstein’.
By now I was really impressed, so I thought I’d look down the list at some of the core membership, and I started off with Beverley Barclay who is a registered Educational Kinesiologist and Feldenkrais teacher. At that point I gave up looking in case Nelson Mandela or His Holiness the Dalai Lama were also members.
But if there is one thing that serves to uplift and inspire me – whether it is as a politician, an academic, a kapa haka proponent, an orator or as a boy from Takapau – it is the challenge of searching for a connection – a link from which a relationship can develop.
And so again, I thought about what it is that you and I have in common.
Perhaps it is our passion for education – I understand there’s more than a few former school principals amongst the crowd and I know that your support for Books in Homes at Sacred Heart is one of your key projects.
Or having been a recent and enthusiastic supporter of Mercy Hospice in Auckland, perhaps our connection comes through the fact that tonight’s dinner will support the Biography Recording Service at Te Omanga Hospice – which I am pleased to endorse.
But no, that still didn’t seem enough to me, to build a relationship on.
Then I thought again about the Pencarrow tide, the foreshore and seabed which unites us here as tangata whenua and tangata tiriti.
And I recalled the voyage of Kupe. According to our histories, the great navigator Kupe was led to Aotearoa by the giant octopus Te Wheke-o-Muturangi. Kupe pursued Te Wheke o Muturangi down the East Coast, eventually arriving at a huge open harbour, Te Whanganui-ā-Tara (Wellington Harbour).
While his whanau rested here, at the head of the fish, Kupe and his warriors continued on the trail to chase the octopus, sailing his vessel into Te Moana o Raukawa (Cook Strait), a hazardous stretch of water which separates the North and South Island.
In the process of the pursuit, Te Wheke-o-Muturangi, thrashed and flailed as Kupe led the attack. Kupe’s vessel was flung from side to side, a tumultuous battle took place, and all was a state of crisis before peace was finally restored.
Ok – you’re probably saying – so what does this have to do with the Maori Party and the Rotary Club of Pencarrow?
I believe the journey to nationhood involves a constant process of challenge and upheaval before we can achieve reconciliation and peace. Much like the encounter in the seas between Kupe and Te Wheke-o-Muturangi, there may be experiences of high winds and storm before we can reach enduring peace.
Emails like those from Brad Butterworth are sadly, juxtaposed against other emails which quickly remind us of ‘our place’ as Maori, when we dare to rock the boat.
It is a tragic circumstance of our path to nationhood, that there are still people in this country who prefer to practice the policy of assimilation, or integration – that is the civilisation of the savage native.
I want to be quite clear - the Maori Party is not interested in replicating the chase between Te Wheke-o-Muturangi and Kupe; to incite a battle between the Treaty partners.
We do not consider the raising of the rangatiratanga flag as a symbol of division, a psychological mind game. We see it as a symbol of pride which Pakeha can also consider their own.
For in signing Te Tiriti o Waitangi, our ancestors, yours and mine, willingly signed up to a relationship, a solemn pact of faith in each other.
We – that is our tipuna – our ancestors - made a commitment towards each other.
A commitment to embark on something wholly new, a foundation for our nationhood. If you like it was a Bill of rights for tangata whenua – the indigenous people of the land and for tangata tiriti – the peoples who have a right to be here, by virtue of signing up to that Treaty.
Article one laid the way for the British to have the right of governance alongside the promise of protection for Maori, whilst retaining our authority to manage our own affairs
Article two was the guarantee of our rangatiratanga, our status and authority over our lands and taonga.
Article three saw the Crown promise to Maori the full benefits of citizenship and equality.
And with that a recipe for a relationship was constructed.
But as we all know, the period that followed, of land confiscation and raupatu, of legislative theft, of military conquest, of education policies which served to suppress the native race, was far from the promise anticipated in 1840.
A relationship which fast was approaching a state of shipwreck and disaster – not a relationship of mutual respect.
I could have come here tonight, and spoken to about our policy positions on climate change, on water trading, on sedition, on immigration, on superannuation.
We might have talked about our views on reducing welfare dependency, the progress we have made on repealing the Foreshore and Seabed Act, or the position that the Maori Party took in the repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act.
For those who are interested in the policy detail of course there’s the Hansard available at www.parliament.govt.nz - or indeed, I’m more than happy to answer any questions that come from the floor.
In reality, because of our firm belief that every issue is a Maori issue, which has translated into at last count some 226 speeches just in the House alone, I thought it might be better to hold a weekend seminar on ‘key issues for the Maori Party’.
Instead I deliberately chose not to promulgate the planks of our policy position – and instead to place priority on opening up possibilities for a dialogue to occur.
I believe that until we are comfortable in our connections we will never be able to understand and accept our differences.
You and I may in fact share connect on many different levels.
It’s like that Gershwin classic, I say toh-mah-toh, you say toh-may-toh, you say poh-tah-to, I say poh-tay-toh (or in my case I say huawhenua; or riwai).
In many situations we may have more in common than we think. I look at your Rotary mission, Service Above Self; and I think to myself – that’s manaakitanga - acknowledges the mana of others as having equal or greater importance than one’s own, through the expression of aroha, hospitality, generosity and mutual respect.
I believe if we talked about our mokopuna, our grandchildren, we would dream together of the aspirations we have for their future.
If we talked about our love for our whenua, our land, there may be common themes in the beliefs we hold about creating a sustainable environment. We might explore new territory together, such as the Genuine Progress Index we are promoting – which in essence, factors in the social and environmental costs and benefits associated with growth.
It may be that there are members here who are as passionate about their genealogy and understanding their ancestry as the pride I hold dear to my heart in our whakapapa as Ngati Kahungunu.
We, in the Maori Party, believe that for our future as a nation to be strong, we must create the space and opportunities for such connections to be formed. Then together, we may talk about OUR Treaty, our partnership, and how we can honour its intentions.
Together we might be proud to hoist the Maori flag; to engage in lively debate about how to enhance our mutual prospects and rights of citizenship, and ultimately how to plan a future which embraces a shared vision for all whom call Aotearoa home.
ENDS
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