{"id":11568,"date":"2012-02-06T17:59:12","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T04:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=11568"},"modified":"2012-02-06T22:38:45","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T09:38:45","slug":"waitangi-day-he-iwi-kotahi-tatou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/02\/06\/waitangi-day-he-iwi-kotahi-tatou\/","title":{"rendered":"Waitangi Day: “He Iwi Kotahi Tatou”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Treaty House, at Waitangi<\/p><\/div>\n

Today, 6 February, is Waitangi Day, New Zealand’s national holiday. For blog readers who are not Kiwi (aka a New Zealander) the significance of\u00a0 Waitangi Day is that it marks the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi 172 years ago by the Maori chiefs of NZ and the British Crown. As a result of the treaty, NZ officially became part of the British Empire. It’s celebrated on 6 February and called “Waitangi Day” because although the treaty was subsequently taken all around New Zealand, it was first signed on 6 February at Waitangi in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands.<\/p>\n

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Te Whare Runanga (meeting house) at Waitangi<\/p><\/div>\n

The words “he iwi kotahi tatou: now we are one people” were spoken by Captain Hobson, who signed the treaty on behalf of the Britsih Crown and subsequently became the first Governor of New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Sadly, the chequered history that followed the signing of the treaty and the subsequent settlement of New Zealand by “Tangata Tiriti”—all those peoples who settled in New Zealand following the treaty, including people of British, Chinese, Indian, Dutch, Pacific Island and many other ethnicities—has often fallen short of the aspiration voiced in Hobson’s words.<\/p>\n

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The Bone People, by Keri Hulme<\/p><\/div>\n

Nonetheless, I still feel that we do have something to celebrate as a nation today, including:<\/p>\n

~ that 172 years on we are still, as<\/em> a nation, trying to make that aspiration of kotahitanga, unity, work—we haven’t given up.<\/p>\n

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Whanau, by Witi Ihimaera<\/p><\/div>\n

~ Something I feel is really important about the Treaty—and that I feel we overlook too often—is that because of it, subsequent immigration into\u00a0New Zealand by peoples from other parts of the world has been lawful, and this is the fundamental principle that underpins our society, not conquest or seizing by force. This is not to deny the subsequent wars, land confiscations and injustices that took place—but I feel that it is a very important part of our cultural and political heritage, one we should be both proud of and try to live up to, ie it’s why we can’t just push aside claims of past injustices on the basis that ‘bad stuff happens’—because if the whole reason we’re here is lawful, then we have to honor and uphold that lawfulness and justice as we go forward. Well, that’s what I reckon, anyway.<\/p>\n

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Tu, by Patricia Grace<\/p><\/div>\n

~ And as a country, I think we have a great deal to celebrate that is about being here together. As a writer, a big part of what I can celebrate is the contribution of Maori to New Zealand literature, through distinctive voices such as Hone Tuwhare, Witi Ihimaera, Patricia Grace, Keri Hulme, Apriana Taylor, James George, Hinemoana Baker—and many more. But these are amongst New Zealand’s most outstanding writers, in our eyes as a nation & also in the world’s eyes, and to me that is a small—or\u00a0 a large, depending on how one looks at it—realisation of “he iwi kotahi tatou” in practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, 6 February, is Waitangi Day, New Zealand’s national holiday. For blog readers who are not Kiwi (aka a New Zealander) the significance of\u00a0 Waitangi Day is that it marks the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi 172 years ago by the Maori chiefs of NZ and the British Crown. As a result of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11568"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11582,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11568\/revisions\/11582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}