Tangata Whenua, Tangata Tiriti

Like the Treaty of Waitangi itself, the current 'Maori Rights' debate is not a Maori issue because it is not primarily about Maori. It is about the place of Pakeha in this land.

Unlike some Pakeha, I cannot claim that my ancestors have been here for six generations. I am a first generation New Zealander. Nevertheless many of us share a common, almost unconscious, anxiety: what right do Pakeha have be in Aotearoa?

That anxiety has grown as Pakeha dominance of political and cultural affairs has lessened. The recent re-examination of history by such scholars as Belich, Walker, Salmond and Binney has threatened our simplistic views of the past. Waitangi Tribunal hearings and reports have made public a number of tragic stories previously kept private. The promises of the Treaty of Waitangi have become familiar in our minds.

Accounts of the past indicate that Pakeha have long held a tenuous position in Aotearoa. We probably underestimate today the psychological effect of the fear of war in many early Pakeha communities. With the constabulary's invasion of Rua Kenana's peaceful community in 1916 those fears would have largely come to an end. The place of Pakeha in New Zealand seemed settled.

Growing awareness of the injustices of the past, along with a growing Maori population, has again threatened the peace of Pakeha. It was, after all, a peace built on the myth of exemplary race relations and "One New Zealand". Most Pakeha seemed simply unaware during the 1940's to 1980's of constant Maori agitation for the rights affirmed to them from the beginnings of Pakeha settlement here.

No Pakeha is today unaware of those demands. It creates in us a difficult cognitive tension. We know that the past has been characterised by gross injustices. We know that as a result Maori feature in the worst health, education, and imprisonment statistics. Many of us do feel guilty about it, and we resent that.

One way of dealing with our painful and difficult past is to return to historical amnesia. Arguments that "it was all a long time ago" and that we should "just get on with it" are part of that strategy. Ultimately such an approach is doomed to failure. Too much knowledge is now in the public domain, Maori culture is flowering anew, and if we haven't managed to destroy all traces of it over the past 164 years, the chances of doing so in the next 160 are basically zip.

In fact until Pakeha are able to feel certain about our place here we will continue to show signs of anxiety, defensiveness and intolerance, always underlined by the question "when do I become tangata whenua?"

Pakeha do belong here in Aotearoa. One reason that I use the term Pakeha proudly is because it denotes that very thing. People can have pedantic and irresolvable etymological arguments about the origin of the term Pakeha, but they are irrelevant. Pakeha is an indigenous word that refers to New Zealanders of primarily European descent. The word indicates our place here.

Pakeha do have a right to be in Aotearoa. The Treaty of Waitangi confers that right on us. That is why I argue that the Treaty is not primarily a Maori issue. It is a Pakeha one. Maori have a right to be here as tangata whenua. Pakeha have a right to be here because we signed a treaty giving us that right. But the right carries an obligation. It means we do not get to be here 100 per cent on our own terms.

When Tariana Turia said that "Maori have nowhere else to go" some misinterpreted it as saying that Pakeha should all go home. Many Pakeha pointed out (correctly, if unnecessarily) that this is home. I agree, so long as we honour the obligations we collectively agreed to when we moved here.

That means we do not need to feel guilty for the past, or for the actions of others. But we do need to take responsibility for the future. We dishonour ourselves as Pakeha New Zealanders if we allow injustices to continue. The foreshore and seabed policy is simply the latest and most blatant example of Maori being dispossessed unfairly of their property and the right to go to court to secure it.

It is time for Pakeha to secure our place in this land, and our relationship with its indigenous people. However, if we fail to honour the agreement that confers the right to be here, if we continue to locate our emotional, intellectual and institutional homeland on the other side of the planet, perhaps we really don't belong here after all.