By Khalia Strong of Pacific Media Network
Tongan community leaders and artists in New Zealand have criticised the Treaty Principles Bill while highlighting the ongoing impact of colonisation in Aotearoa and the Pacific.
Oral submissions continued this week for the public to voice their view on the controversial proposed bill, which aims to redefine the legal framework of the nation’s founding document, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
Aotearoa Tongan Response Group member Pakilau Manase Lua echoed words from the Waitangi Day commemorations earlier this month.
“The Treaty of Waitangi Principles Bill and its champions and enablers represent the spirit of the coloniser,” he said.
Pakilau said New Zealand’s history included forcible takeovers of Sāmoa, Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau.
“The New Zealand government, or the Crown, has shown time and again that it has a pattern of trampling on the mana and sovereignty of indigenous peoples, not just here in Aotearoa, but also in the Pacific region.”
Poet Karlo Mila spoke as part of a submission by a collective of artists, Mana Moana,
“Have you ever paused to wonder why we speak English here, half a world away from England? It’s a global history of Christian white supremacy, who, with apostolic authority, ordained the doctrine of discovery to create a new world order,” she said.
“Yes, this is where the ‘new’ in New Zealand comes from, invasion for advantage and profit, presenting itself as progress, as civilising, as salvation, as enlightenment itself — the greatest gaslighting feat of history.”
Bill used as political weapon
She argued that the bill was being used as a political weapon, and government rhetoric was causing division.
“We watch political parties sow seeds of disunity using disingenuous history, harnessing hate speech and the haka of destiny, scapegoating ‘vulnerable enemies’ . . . Yes, for us, it’s a forest fire out there, and brown bodies are moving political targets, every inflammatory word finding kindling in kindred racists.”
Pakilau said that because Tonga had never been formally colonised, Tongans had a unique view of the unfolding situation.
“We know what sovereignty tastes like, we know what it smells like and feels like, especially when it’s trampled on.
“Ask the American Samoans, who provide more soldiers per capita than any state of America to join the US Army, but are not allowed to vote for the country they are prepared to die for.
“Ask the mighty 28th Maori Battalion, who field Marshal Erwin Rommel famously said, ‘Give me the Māori Battalion and I will rule the world’, they bled and died for a country that denied them the very rights promised under the Treaty.
“The Treaty of Waitangi Bill is essentially threatening to do the same thing again, it is re-traumatising Māori and opening old wounds.”
A vision for the future
Mila, who also has European and Sāmoan ancestry, said the answer to how to proceed was in the Treaty’s Indigenous text.
“The answer is Te Tiriti, not separatist exclusion. It’s the fair terms of inclusion, an ancestral strategy for harmony, a covenant of cooperation. It’s how we live ethically on a land that was never ceded.”
Aotearoa Tongan Response Group chair Anahila Kanongata’a said Tongans were Tangata Tiriti (people of the Treaty), and the bill denigrated the rights of Māori as Tangata Whenua (people of the land).
“How many times has the Crown breached the Treaty? Too, too many times.
“What this bill is attempting to do is retrospectively annul those breaches by extinguishing Māori sovereignty or tino rangatiritanga over their own affairs, as promised to them in their Tiriti, the Te Reo Māori text.”
Kanongata’a called on the Crown to rescind the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, honour Te Tiriti, and issue a formal apology to Māori, similar to what had been done for the Dawn Raids.
“As a former member of Parliament, I am proud of the fact that an apology was made for the way our people were treated during the Dawn Raids.
“We were directly affected, yes, it was painful and most of our loved ones never got to see or hear the apology, but imagine the pain Māori must feel to be essentially dispossessed, disempowered and effectively disowned of their sovereignty on their own lands.”
The bill’s architect, Act Party leader David Seymour, sayid the nationwide discussion on Treaty principles was crucial for future generations.
“In a democracy, the citizens are always ready to decide the future. That’s how it works.”
Republished from PMN News with permission.
