Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Open letter to Don Brash and Pita Sharples

Dear Don and Pita

I watched you both on Native Affairs last night. You are talking not to each other, but past each other. You are not so far apart in age that it is a generational difference in views. You have grown up in the same times and the same country. But you have grown in different coloured skins and different social environments.

Don, you approach matters dispassionately, academically and logically. That is part of your world view. Pita, you approach matters emotionally, pragmatically and intuitively, again a result of your life experiences.

For example on the matter of 'privilege'. Don uses the literal meaning. A privilege is a special right which confers advantage often at someone else's disadvantage. Pita sees privilege in the broader sense. Being privileged as in being born into homes where you are loved, protected and given the best launch in life possible.

Hence, strictly speaking, Maori are both privileged and under-privileged. You are both right. There is little to be gained from going round in circles over a word.

Pita sees the Waikato river as having deep, spiritual meaning for Maori. It has a life force. Don sees it as a body of water. It is an organism.

This is only the difference that has lived between and within cultures and races for time immemorial. It is religion versus lack of it. But faith can never be rejected in another and I think Don would agree with that. Belief is an intensely personal matter. However, for the sake of living together with the greatest degree of freedom possible advanced societies have abandoned allowing religious belief to shape law, for most part. Application of some religious beliefs would make life intolerable for some minorities. As part of a minority Pita would appreciate other minority's rights. Usurping individuals rights to develop their own property because of what are essentially religious beliefs cannot be a good thing.

But denial of another's faith is also doomed. And as long as tolerance is a two way street, unnecessary.

Many Pakeha can or have attempted to try to understand what being Maori means for Maori. The talk of blood parts is superfluous and even offensive when someone has a conviction about which culture they primarily belong to. To varying degrees, Maori feel different and feel differently. It is arrogant to fail to recognise that.

What New Zealanders are looking for is the way in which we can all progress. That is not going to happen when people talk past each other. Or when people intentionally or through ignorance misunderstand each other.

No one-on-one relationship ever truly succeeded without respect, compromise, humility and deep communication.

Don, for all the representations you receive from aggrieved Pakeha I do not think they justify an assumption that race relations are critical and we are headed down a dangerous separatist path which must be halted at any cost.

Pita, your race is generally on the 'up'. Your attention should fall to the deep disaffection felt by a minority of Maori due to urban drift, whanau breakdown and the social ills that ensue from that. The rights you seek regarding extra representation and environmental consultation will not address the disadvantage of your poorest. Resolving that lies largely in their own individual and community efforts.

Despite the fact that last night you talked past each other, at least you didn't talk over each other. You are both men who I have utmost respect for and we need more talking - not less. But it bothers me enormously that ACT and now radical Maori (in the form of the Mana Party) are polarising and subsequently dividing people along racial lines.

As a former ACT candidate I know this letter will alienate some people who have supported me in the past. The One Law For All stance cannot encompass the give and take required to get ahead. Sir Apirana Ngata has been mentioned many times over the past few days. He was not an assimilationist. He took the best from the Pakeha world, eg the acquisition of state loans for developing dairying but urged the retention of the Maori language, spirituality and culture. He is buried under a mountain that for Maori is more than just organic. If Pakeha cannot feel that same regard for natural phenomenon they should at least respect it, or at worst, tolerate it.

The way you are approaching matters differs, as I said. But neither is totally right or wrong. Please resolve to make some concessions so much of the good that has been achieved over the past decades will not be undone.

Lindsay Mitchell

10 comments:

Kiwiwit said...

Excellent blog, Lindsay. However, there is one fundamental difference between Hone and Don's positions - only one of them is advocating that the rest of us sacrifice ourselves to pay for his policies. Don's position is essentially "let and let live", Hone's position is "you owe me everything". As British journalist James Delingpole puts it, Hone wants us to eat dog-shit yoghurt and no matter how small the amount of canine turd that is added, it's still a very unpalatable mix.

Mark Hubbard said...

Good post. I find it hard to get too exercised over race issues (or gender for that matter). Both are simply symptoms of the real problem: the not so creeping power of the Nanny Police State. A State that was of the correct smaller size, a minarchy, wouldn't have the power to privilege any group over any other group.

That's got to be the mission. Kneecap the State down to a 's'tate, there to serve us, not boss us all around, and taking such vast amounts of resources, and our freedoms and our privacy, to do so.

Adolf Fiinkensein said...

Excellent commentary Lindsay.

As a pakeha with a little Maori blood who was raised and schooled in an almost entirely Maori community, I can see both sides and Dr brash is really stuffing it up badly.

And Kiwiwit if you don't know the difference between Dr Sharples and ratbag Harawira I suggest you don't bother writing blog comments.

Anonymous said...

"Assimilationist" I cant wait to drop that word at my next dinner party!

Dirk

Anonymous said...

Well said, Lindsay.

If these two could stop talking past each other they'd find they agree on what really matters - we have to solve the problem of Maori being over-represented in negative statistics and under represented in the positive ones.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Dirk, Given the time you kick off each day, pronouncing it may present some difficulty by dinner time?

James said...

Agree with Kiwiwit....one side wants to enslave the other to grievance redress.Sorry but I'm not responsible,nor are any other living Kiwis for matters that occurred hundreds of years ago.Maori have no excuse not to better themselves by their own efforts...all the tools and means to do so have been provided to do so.If they won't take them up then tough...die out.

Anonymous said...

Me thinks you got me figured out Lindsay. I'm still laughing.
I started practising, but after my fourth gin my wife found it embarassing to listen to.

Its wet,windy and cold here in Tui-ville today, but again your clear thinking brightens my outlook.

Dirk

Michael said...

the racial divide already exists lindsay but unlike in Australia its not overt as much.

Also you want me, as an immigrant, to supposedly tolerate stupid mystical ideas about life force and spirituality stemming from rivers and trees?

sorry but I have very little respect for such nonsense let alone people who choose to hold it.

jon said...

The beliefs a person may have about some object will not change what it physically is.
One does not need to believe anything about an object in order to value and care for it.
Irrational beliefs lead to irrational acts and I think we would be better off not encouraging them.