Whilst one should never ground matters of civil government upon the vagaries of personal experience, we acknowledge some limited experience with the people of Tuhoe. Once, when returning from a Waikaremoana hunting trip along the road to Murupara, we found the way blocked by a bulldozer--which is not uncommon for that stretch of road.
A rather burly Tuhoe "ambassador" tried some spontaneous standover tactics. Leaning on our driver's door after our car stopped, he asked whether we had caught any trout. When we replied in the affirmative, he suggested that he would move the bulldozer as soon as we handed over some of our catch. When we exploded in "Yeah, right" laughter, he figured his bluff had been called and he retreated and moved the 'dozer. But there had been a clear undertone in his actions.
On a more positive note, on another hunting expedition to Waikaremoana, one of our party was badly injured and in the end had to be air-lifted out to hospital. The local Tuhoe people were magnificent: generous, hospitable, kind--going well beyond the call or requirements of duty. During a long cold night when it was a near-run thing, the locals felt it their responsibility to spend the night with us, encourage us, keep out spirits up, keep us talking, and help us endure the dark hours while we waited for a helicopter to get in for what we fully expected would be a body recovery, which mercifully turned out to be not the case in the end.
For better or for worse we in New Zealand live under a "redress of historical grievances" paradigm. Our view is that it is for the worse. There is no end to grievance redress: in our case we have seen several "full and final" settlements with Maori revisited, relitigated, re-redressed. There will be no end to it: even if "treaty settlements" are finally concluded in this present generation, within one or two generations the whole process will start all over again. The longer term result is the enslavement of Maori to intergenerational abnegation of personal accountability and responsibility.
Every person on earth, if they looked far enough back into their history, would find forbears and ancestors who had been unjustly dealt to and ripped off. They could credibly claim that their ancestral line had been victims of injustice, and that they were heirs of injustice. That's simply what happens in a sinful world. Redress for slights and hurts and injustices in previous generations only leads to more and multiplied grievances to others. The solution is always in the here and now. People choose whether to live enslaved in historical grievances. When they do, the (real) grievances reach out to oppress and degrade and enslave. But it is their choice. And when their, now fresh, grievances are addressed it simply begins yet another cycle of grievance, bitterness, and anger.
So, in New Zealand a significant body of citizens (rightly) believe they are being stolen from (though the tax system) to pay for settlements and redress of historical grievances to Maori that they have had nothing to do with, are not accountable for, and yet must pay. A whole new cycle of anger and grievance begins.
Notwithstanding all this, however, if ever there was a just and sustainable claim to redress, it would probably be the Tuhoe people--who never signed the Treaty of Waitangi to begin with and so clearly never ceded sovereignty to the Crown. Yet their lands have been systematically expropriated from them by the Crown, for no just cause. According to historian Bruce Stirling, the historical record shows that the Crown broke its own commitments to Tuhoe.
Historian Paul Moon, professor of history at AUT, not a cheerleader for tino rangatiratanga by any stretch of the imagination, recently wrote in The Herald
By the time Elsdon Best was jotting down notes for what would be a pioneering study of Tuhoe at the beginning of the twentieth century, the iwi had already been shunted into the hinterland of the Ureweras as a result of one of the most avaricious land confiscations in New Zealand history.
Condemned as anti-Crown collaborators, in 1866, Governor George Grey assented to thousands of hectares of Tuhoe land being confiscated, depriving the iwi of most of its arable terrain, and vital access to the coast.
As unedifying as the fact of the confiscation is, it was overshadowed by the means in which it was executed. Crops were destroyed by Crown troops, communities forcibly uplifted and re-settled elsewhere, and the means of economic survival deprived from some Tuhoe hapu, to the point where they endured starvation, on top of all the other Crown-instigated privations.
Within the current paradigm of "grievance redress" the Tuhoe appear to have a substantial claim. For our part, we would have no objection to returning Te Urewera to them (provided it could be ring-fenced and not end up with another grievance round with tribes which have already had "full and final settlement" awarded and signed.) Nor would be object to having to pay koha to enter their lands and enjoy the hunting, fishing, and hiking--provided it was negotiated in advance, not ex-post.
But, we enter this caveat. Such things will not restore mana to Tuhoe people. It will not deliver them from abject poverty, drug abuse, illiteracy, intergenerational welfare dependency--and all the other social evils which afflict them. As one of their favourite sons, Sir Howard Morrison has powerfully demonstrated, living well--whether in abundance or poverty--comes from the heart, from within. It proceeds by taking personal responsibility for one's own actions and life--as well as loyalty to family. It sees entitlements as evil, degrading, and enslaving. This is not pakeha propaganda--but the universal fundamental of what it means to be a human being, created in the image of God and responsible to Him above all.
The Government will not save Tuhoe. The return of Te Urewera will not save Tuhoe. In fact, we predict that whilst hope deferred makes the heart sick, a false hope realised makes the heart empty. God alone can deliver Tuhoe--and He delivers through His Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Ancestral lands are not the Christ of the Living God.
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