No, the state did not ban speaking te reo in 19C schools.

While considering Elizabeth Rata's recent Research Report into the History of New Zealand Education -- which I recommend, by the way -- I remembered a long-ago 'Cue Card' that appeared here on the topic of Education, contrasting liberal, conservative, and libertarian views on the subject:

The 'liberal' view [of education] is that all that is wrong with state education can be fixed with more money, better staff-student ratios, greater control of curriculum, more qualified teachers and more paperwork. But as more and more money spent on education has shown that more of the same just produces more and more failure.  

The view of conservatives is generally that public education needs to be made more efficient. With more efficiency, they say, 'delivery' of education will be better.

Libertarians however maintain that state education is all too efficient: it has been ruthlessly efficient at delivering the state’s chosen values. After generations of indoctrination at the knee of the state we now have several generations who are 'culturally safe' and politically correct -- ‘good citizens’ unable to use the brains they were born with, unthinkingly compliant in every respect with the values in which they've been totally immersed; braindead automatons to whom group-think is good and for forty-two percent of whom the reading of a bus timetable or the operation of a simple appliance is beyond them.

In previous decades the government's chosen values included banning the speaking of Maori in schools; speaking Maori in schools is fast becoming compulsory, along with the teaching of the ordained versions of Te Tiriti and the inculcation of the ideas of multiculturalism and the inferiority of western culture. Governments and their values change, but their use of their factory schools for indoctination doesn't.

The government's recently chosen values are "fairness, opportunity and security." We know that because [then-Prime Minister] Helen Clark said so. Orwell would have recognised these words, as he might the rigid orthodoxies of what passes for teacher training. "What happens in our schools is a very big part of shaping the future of New Zealand," says Ms Clark in the same speech, acknowledging that this is the way to make subjects out of citizens. Libertarians agree with Ms Clark's statement, which is precisely why we want governments away from the schools and away from control of curricula. 

Both Liberals and conservatives endorse state control of schools and of curricula, and they both seek to be the state. Libertarians don't.

They still don't.

But I made an error in the above 'Cue Card,' which Ms Rata's Report neatly corrects.

It is of course a historical fact that it's wasn't so much that the state banned the speaking of Māori in schools. What actually happened, as she reports, is that from George Grey's Education Ordinance of 1847 on, Māori were insisting that their children be taught in English, the lingua franca of the day. This is from Māori parents, Māori politicians, and Māori tribal leaders.

This is unsurprising. English was the entry into 19th century industrial technology – metallurgy for the new era of factories, rail, road and steamships, animal husbandry for livestock farming, and soil cultivation for grain and fruit production. Older crafts included leatherwork and blacksmithing. Combined with the English language, technological knowledge added to the already established Māori involvement in national and international business and trade.

The 1858 Native Schools Act continued the 1847 Ordinance's requirement for English language and industrial training. ...

The purpose of the Native village schools was to ensure that children would be bilingual: Māori at home and in the community and English acquired at school. English was a foreign language to many children so second language teaching methods and English content was used.

These were schools located in Māori villages, at the specific request of Māori elders, often with Māori parents attending classes as well, And in those "native schools" as they were called 

W. Rolleston, first inspector of Native Schools ... noted [in 1867] widespread dissatisfaction with the syllabus and with Māori as the language of instruction.

There was too much of the Bible taught, and too little of other subjects. They were taught moreover in their own language, whereas what they wished to learn was English.

The 1867 Native Schools Act directly addressed these concerns. Māori Members of Parliament supported implementing the Act. Karaitiana Takamoana (Eastern Maori) noted that the missionaries had been teaching the children –

“for many years, and the children are not educated. They have only taught them in the Maori language. The whole of the Maoris in this Island request that the Government should give instructions that the Maoris should be taught in English only”

Four more petitions to Parliament followed: In 1876 from Te Hakairo and 336 others; in 1877 from Renata Renata Kawepo and 790 others; and in 1877 from Riripi Ropata and 200 others. 

The schools gently prised education from the hands of missionaries into those of the state. They were funded by the taxpayer, with control of government funding and the school management transferred to village committees "at least 5 who are elected annually by parents of the children at the school." But above all:

The [Native Schools] Act required teacher competency, English language instruction, and syllabus quality:

The English language and the ordinary subjects of primary English education [said the Native Schools Act, 1867, S. 21] are taught by a competent teacher and that the instruction is carried on in the English language as far as practicable.

In short, while training Māori in English was one of the state's chosen values, it was at the express invitation of Māori parents, patriarchs, and politicians -- and was not to the exclusion of the Māori language itself.

* * * * 

Ms Rata discusses this topic and much more in a fascinating podcast interview with the NZ Initiative's Michael Johnston:

"The Treaty Principles Bill ... provides a coherent and succinct statement capturing what liberal democracy is"

"Consider the two words 'liberal', 'democracy' and their connection. Both give us something that none of our ancestors living in kinship groups had. 'Democracy' gives us a system of parliamentary sovereignty, of law, of regulation. It recognises that our common humanity justifies equal rights. Those rights belong to the individual citizen, not to the group.
    "The word 'liberal' gives us the freedom to be different – as individuals and in voluntary associations based on a range of shared interests –culture, heritage, language, sport, music, religion, politics, and so on.
    "This is what makes liberal democracy remarkable. As citizens we have the same political and legal rights. As members of civil society we are free to be different. This is an enormously important point. It is the combination of rights, responsibilities and freedom within democracy's governance and laws that makes the modern world vibrant and prosperous.
    "That's why I support the Treaty Principles Bill – because it provides a coherent and succinct statement capturing what liberal democracy is – something we should all know, especially ... Members of Parliament ...
    "The Bill is the symbolic link to the hope found in both the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and in the 1852 Constitution Act. Nineteenth century New Zealanders, especially those who had been slaves, decimated by war, of low genealogical birth status, or from impoverished backgrounds – they put their faith in a peaceful and prosperous future for their descendants. In the 21st century we can strengthen that faith for our descendants by agreeing to the principles in this Bill.
    "New Zealand's future may be that of a prosperous first-world liberal democratic nation or a third-world, retribalised state. A first world tribal nation is a contradiction in terms. It is not possible. There can be no prosperity without individual equality and freedom. There can be no social equality without prosperity. ...

    "[A]s early as the 1870s there's the commitment to a united people who belong to, and benefit from, the nation 'New Zealand.' Nearly 150 years later that commitment is under serious threat from those who would replace liberal democracy with tribal sovereignty and, by doing so, create a racialised society – apartheid." 

~ Elizabeth Rata from her Oral Presentation to the Parliamentary Justice Committee on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill

 

Treatyism and re-tribalism

"The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi was, like all human products, of its time and place. One aim – shared by British and Maori signatories alike – was to establish the rule of law by imposing British sovereignty through British governance. Sovereignty and governance go together as two sides of the same coin – with intertwined meaning. In the decades which followed, the treaty lost relevance in the new colonial society. This is the case with all historical treaties.
    "Revived in the 1970s as the symbol of a cultural renaissance, the treaty was captured by retribalists in the 1980s to serve as the ideological manifesto for the envisaged order – a reconstituted New Zealand. It was given a ‘spirit’ to take it above and beyond its historical location so that it could mean whatever retribalists say it means.
    "This treatyist ideology successfully promotes the false claim of partnership between the government and the tribes. However there is a deeper more insidious strategy propelling us to tribal ethno-nationalism. It is the collapse of the separation between the economic and political spheres....
    "The corporate tribes have already acquired considerable governance entitlements – the next and final step is tribal sovereignty. It’s a coup d’etat in all but name, accomplished not by force but by ideology – enabled by a compliant media.
    "Given the enormous success of retribalism is it too late to reclaim New Zealand from the relentless march to blood and soil ethno-nationalism? ...  

    "Retribalism has attacked ... democracy through the covert use of ideology. I want to talk specifically about how this is occurring ...

    "[First] the treaty is transformed from an historical document to a sacred text.... [and then] the second tactic comes into play. It is the diversion tactic. This ‘how many angels on a pinhead’ tactic operates by diverting us into echo-chamber squabbles – about the 1840 meaning of this word, that word, this intention, that intention. This is all interesting and important material for historians but our concern should be, not what the treaty said in 1840 – those days are gone – it served the purpose of the time – but what it is being used to say today – and for what purpose....

    "[Second], our education system is indoctrinating children into retribalism. The so-called ‘decolonisation’ and ‘indigenisation’ of the curriculum is the method. This is a disaster. Decolonisation will destroy the very means by which each generation acquires reasoned knowledge, and in so doing, the ability to reason....

    "[Finally], an ideology becomes omnipotent when it is not challenged. In a democracy the media should inform us of all competing interests and in all their complexity. We, the people, need to know everything, because it is us who will decide what should happen. Mainstream media has failed to do this – indeed is culpable in embedding treatyism."

~ Elizabeth Rata, from her 2022 speech 'In Defence of Democracy'

It's still the "chieftainship" that is the problem

 

THE NEW PRIME MINISTER heads up to Waitangi this week with all his hangers-on expecting, I daresay, to see his brief honeymoon period challenged by tribalists still aiming to be bridesmaids in some kind of ongoing "co-governance" nuptials between Crown and tribal "leaders." Whatever that much-battered word might mean.

Ever wondered why, in a world that's said to be about individuals and individual achievement, we still seem to have government support of a tribal system? Any challenge to which, even in the name of simple individualism, is branded "racist."

What happened? How come these putative leaders see no future for their own various hangers on except through government handouts? What happened to genuine independence?

THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO, while European sailors were timidly tipping about the shores of the Mediterranean, terrified to leave sight of land for fear of who-knows-what beyond the horizon, intrepid Polynesian voyagers set out across the vast blue Pacific Ocean, half a hemisphere wide, to explore and occupy its many uncharted islands. Centuries later, as the world warmed, several of the most intrepid eventually discovered and settled in New Zealand. And then for just over five-hundred years, isolated from the rest of the world, they developed their own culture. They became Māori.

So in that great migration "out of Africa," these islands down here were the world's last great land-mass to be settled by human beings. And then, after half-a-century of autarchic ingenuity, they were almost the last to be brought back into the worldwide division-of-labour.

This sort of conquest and survival should be something to celebrate, no? The tale once proudly told of the Vikings of the Sunrise. Yet if the headlines are to be believed, the descendants of these former adventurers, the so-called tribal "leaders" of the day, see their own great conquest as creeping tribal capture of the government chequebook.

What a bunch of schmucks.

Tribal life

THESE SOUTH PACIFIC 'VIKINGS,' who were these islands' first settlers, were welcomed into the worldwide division-of-labour 250 years ago by explorers, whalers, sealers, timber-traders, and assorted beachcombers, wanderers and adventurers, who offered Māori things for their labour they'd never seen before. And in return for tools, technology and new foods they offered and sold them, Māori in return sold them trees and flax and kumara, and crewed ships, built houses and travelled the world.

But life down here was still mostly tribal -- serfs, and sometimes slaves, overseen by an aristocratic caste of mostly hereditary bossyboots.

However: The treaty signed at Waitangi by tribal chiefs and a recently-arrived Royal Naval captain promised all these New Zealanders their own Emancipation Proclamation, and held out hope of liberating tribal serfs from tribalism. Instead, 180 years later, we are barrelling down a path back to tribalism. Something Elizabeth Rata has called "neo-tribalism": the intentional production of a neo-tribal elite who are busily "marching through the institutions," in which they play "a decisive and self-interested role in controlling shifts in the interpretation of the treaty of Waitangi." [1]

The result: the empowerment of a neo-tribal elite, in which tribal leaders have the upper hand again. And instead of the hope and optimism of those early adventurers, the predominant emotions now are shame and guilt -- shame as a necessary precursor to this tribal shakedown.

Something clearly went wrong.

One reason is the way that treaty was written: hastily. It was written in just a few days by folk wholly unqualified to write a thing that some erroneously call the country's "founding document." It's not that, and never has been. And nor does it contain enough to merit that description.

But what it does have is the material which the neotribalists have been able to exploit. One of which is the problem of 'chieftainship.'

The problem of chieftainship

THE PROBLEM IS THIS: that instead of the treaty being written to protect individual Māori, it promised instead to placate tribal chiefs. It's right there in the wording and in all the arguments today about rangatiratanga. It's understandable. After all, it was their signatures the British Colonial Office was after before allowing colonisation here to receive their imprimatur. "Alive to the record of native extinction that had come with settlement in Tasmania and the Caribbean, and was threatened in Australia," the treaty's aim was to "recognise the rights of the Māori as subject in the agreement, with rights and interests to protect." [2] But in placating those chiefs of the 1840s, instead of promoting individualism and recognising real individual rights, the document has helped promote the neotribalism of today.

It's been argued -- and I've been one of those doing the arguing -- that the Treaty of Waitangi liberates individual Māori. It should have done -- it surely should have treated all Māori as individuals instead of as members of a tribe. But it really does nothing of the sort except by implication.

Instead, as written, it cemented in and buttressed the tribal leadership and communal structures that already existed here -- encouraging the survival of this wreck of a system until morphing, as it has done today, into this mongrelised sub-group of pseudo-aristocracy: of Neotribal Cronyism.

The problem was there from the start. One of the trade goods most sought after in these years of first contact was the musket. And Māori were devastated by the "musket wars" so eagerly embarked up on by every tribe -- eagerly, that is, until the corpses piling up became too much even their hardy stomachs. At which stage most simply hoped for some kind of peace.

But it wasn't individual Māori who had been trading for those muskets, it was the tribal leaders; and it was their own slaves and tribal "serfs" they put to work to cut and process the flax that bought the muskets (one ton of flax was said to buy one musket). And it was their own slaves they sometimes tattooed to "process" the slave into a shrunken head or mokomokai that could also be traded for muskets. (One mokomokai/one musket was said to be the going rate.) This first contact, and the Musket Wars that followed, only served to reinforce rather than diminish the tribal control -- and when a Treaty with Queen Victoria was offered, one primary motivation of trial chiefs to sign was to have the post-war peace enforced by these pakeha outsiders. Another was to preserve their own power, their rangatiratanga as tribal leaders.

Once they recognised what was on offer, the single sheet of parchment written up by William Hobson, James Freeman, James Busby, and Henry and Edward Williams, came as a boon to most of them.

The Offer

MĀORI IN 1840 GENERALLY paid more attention to oral discussion than to written documents, and there's enough evidence to suggest those wily old chiefs knew precisely what they were being offered at Waitangi: the protection of their own power.

As I'll explain here, in three short clauses and a preamble, what they discussed and what was read to them in 1840 was this [3]:

PREAMBLE

The treaty's preamble states the "concern to protect the chiefs and the subtribes of New Zealand" and the "desire to preserve their chieftainship." Nothing in that to promote or protect individualism. Everything to preserve "chieftainship" and to protect the chiefs in their rule.

CLAUSE 1

In Clause 1 the chiefs grant the Queen complete governorship -- kawanatanga katoa -- over these islands. Non-chiefs, i.e., individual Māori, are neither asked about this nor recognised. Because they are not part of this agreement. 

CLAUSE 2

In Clause 2 the same theme is there again: ignoring the rights of individual Māori and protecting the chiefs in their land, forests and fisheries. Specifically, protecting "the chiefs, the subtribes and all the people of New Zealand in the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship [their tino rangatiratanga]" over all their various treasures -- while prohibiting their sale to anyone but the government. 

Yes, there's a mention there of "all the people of New Zealand" (tangata katoa o Nu Tirani). But unless you're a rangatira yourself, your own personal rangatiratanga was pretty close to zero. You didn't have any. 

So the effect of this clause (unless you're a rangatira yourself) is neither protection nor recognition of full ownership nor real property rights, except perhaps by implication. After all, Māori of 1840 had no such concept of rights, except perhaps for small personal possessions; and no words for "owner," so difficult for a translator to find one. Yes, they could express ownership for these small things at least -- the preposition na for example (or sometimes no), meaning 'belonging to.' [4] But the Williamses did not use these words. Instead, their agreement promised to protect only the unqualified exercise of chieftainship -- something not available to "all the people of New Zealand," even if they do get a mention, but only to those of that status. Only chiefs. 

So this promise of "rangatiratanga" undercuts everything else, as the chiefs themselves understood.

CLAUSE 3

Clause 3, however, appears to have something for everyone. Here we read the promise to "protect all the ordinary people of New Zealand," and to "give them" the "same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England." (Ka tiakina e te Kuini o Ingarani nga tangata maori katoa o Nu Tirani ka tukua ki a ratou nga tikanga katoa rite tahi ki ana mea ki nga tangata o Ingarani.) Not to recognise rights, which is how it should have been written, but to give them, which makes them a political gift -- the gift of those who do exercise sovereignty by this treaty: the governor and the chiefs. 

And the translation (rendered above) is even worse. Lacking a word for "rights" -- the concept itself being only two centuries old, by then, and poorly understood even by those writing up these words -- the offer essentially reads as being to "protect all the natives of New Zealand" and to "grant them all the same conditions as she has for the people of England."

This is thin gruel indeed. 

And as any student of law or the history of feudalism or the welfare state might tell you, it's a very different thing for a government to promise to protect rights, than it is to promise to protect people. The former leads to a robust individualism; the latter to a wet mollycoddling paternalism.

And by then, with only one page of parchment, any hope of  an individualist interpretation of this Treaty is gone -- and those with "a decisive and self-interested role in controlling shifts in the interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi" are now able to interpret this not as a promise of individual rights (since earlier clauses and the preamble take precedence), but instead as the chiefs essentially holding the rights of their people in trust, with the governor "being or becoming a 'father' for the Māori people." 

No surprise then that "this attitude has been held towards the person of the Crown down to the present day, shaping (according to the self-interested neotribalists who now interpret these things) "the continued expectations and commitments entailed in the Treaty." [2] 

It's evident from documents of the time that the Colonial Office in London had not intended to lock Māori up into that pre-existing tribal structure. Their intention was, as that last clause almost says, to recognise the same rights in every Māori as were enjoyed by all British citizens. 

But the treaty's wording and practice has essentially limited those rights while elevating chiefly status. It's the chieftainship, stupid. In other words: the problem is failing to properly recognise and to protect individual rights -- and instead to protect and nurture the status of those tribal leaders.

Is it any wonder today's tribal leaders favour the perpetuation of the tribal structure? Any surprise that the feudal structure continues? Or that today's neotribalists wish to continue benefiting from their feudal privileges of the past? With the government as "father" and taxpayer as today's serf ...

Poor drafting, poor treatment

WITHOUT A DOUBT, GOVERNMENT and the mostly-British settlers often treated Māori poorly in those early days. But the biggest structural harm was the failure to properly recognise them as individuals instead of as part of a tribe. By treating all Māori as part of a collective, there were few chances offered to change this trajectory -- and when they were tried, they were poorly done. The poor draftsmanship of this treaty is reflected in the poor treatment of Māori in those early days.

As a rights-respecting commentator says of the treatment of native Americans in the United States of America, "it could have been done in a more rational way, a much more rights-respecting way, and in a way that would have led to a lot less violence at the end of the day." (Later quotes are from this same source.) It could have been done here in a way that recognised Māori as individuals, with individual lives, rights and choices. But for the most part, it didn't.

Yes, colonisation here was far less violent here than in Australia, or in the Americas. And thank goodness for that. It was still not entirely peaceful here, but in the Americas and Australia it was savage -- particularly if you think of how the British treated the Aboriginals in Tasmania, or the Spaniards treated the natives of South America. And in the case of the US of A itself, "the American government made treaties with the Indians and then reneged on them whenever it was convenient to do so." [5]

Not so much here, at least. The treaty signed here was offered with the best of intentions, but the poorest of drafting. It barely lived up to the intention, and the neotribalists now exploit the drafting.

Individuals possess rights (not collectives)

But the biggest mistake, and the biggest ongoing tragedy -- there, as here -- is that the respective governments did not treat either Indians or Māori as individuals possessing rights. They treated them instead just as members of a tribe. Of a collective. Not as individuals with their own individual rights demanding recognition and protection, but as members of a tribe whose chief no longer held the power of life and death, but still held the power of property, and of making choices for them all.

And therefore [in the United States] all the deals, all the negotiations, were between the U.S. Government and a tribe -- a tribe who was fundamentally a collectivistic unit that was oppressing its individual members. And what the American government in my view should have done was in a sense annex the Indians into America, recognised their innate individual rights (the fact that every Indian like every human being on the planet has individual rights), protected those individual rights under the law, divvied up the property of the tribe among individuals (let American Indians own their own land, not just give it and have the tribes own reservations; the whole idea of reservations was a horrific idea).  They should have basically integrated Indians into American society: by treating them as individuals, by endorsing individualism among the Indians. And then, if the Indians then wanted to get together and live in a commune, then so be it.  But the American government's position should have been: "We are dealing with you as individuals. Here is your land; here is John Smith's land; here is somebody else's land... If you want to now unite those lands and do some collective-type stuff then that's your problem. But here's the benchmark: 'We're a country of individuals. That's the principle'."  And instead, they didn't do that. There was a lot of racism and there was a lot of just treating them as a collective and, as a consequence, slaughtering whole villages and so on.  Now, that is not to say that there weren't a lot of American Indians (and a lot of indigenous people around the Americas) who were very violent and needed to be dealt with violently. I'm not criticising violence when it was motivated by self-defence.      I am however criticising violence when it was not necessary for the defence of the European immigrants or settlers, and there was basically an attempt just to annihilate certain indigenous peoples.  And again that happened more in Latin America than it did in the United States of America. But it happened [in the US] as well. So, you know, it's a tragic part of history and to some extent inevitable because it seems to happen whenever a kind of a civilisation encounters barbaric tribes, barbaric peoples, that inevitably lands up in a physical violent struggle.      I think that particularly in the United States of America it could have been done in a more rational way, a much more rights-respecting way, and in a way that would have led to a lot less violence at the end of the day. [5]

Could it have been different here? Less violent? More rational? More rights-respecting? Yes. Yes, of course it could. But reinforcing tribalism today will not fix a single historic tragedy. And in any case, the guilt-ridden politics of today -- shaming today's New Zealanders by the actions of people in the past -- is not primarily about history anyway. 

The shaming of New Zealanders today is intended simply to precede and encourage their ongoing shakedown tomorrow. That's the effect of today's neotribalism: to put taxpayers on the hook for the perpetuation of this chiefly privilege.

Because, you see, in this new postmodern neo-tribal age of identity politics and cancel culture, history doesn't so much provide lessons from the past as an arsenal full of ideological weapons. The neotribalists, and their enablers, are happy to pick them up and use them. You should be ready to counter them.

* * * * * 

NOTES: 
1. Elizabeth Rata, '‘Marching through the Institutions’: The Neotribal Elite and the Treaty of Waitangi,' Sites (December 2005)
2. James Heartfield, The Aborigines' Protection Society: Humanitarian Imperialism in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Canada, South Africa, and the Congo, 1836-1909 (London, 2011) p. 126
3. Te Tiriti: Translation of the te reo Māori text by Hugh Kawharu
4. Raymond Firth, Economics of the New Zealand Maori (Wellington 1972), pp. 338-366 passim
5. Yaron Brook, 'Q: To what extent was the European treatment of the indigenous peoples of America immoral?' www. Peikoff.Com (3 August 2015)

NOTE:
Peter Winsley, for one has a different view, arguing that "Article Two transfers Magna Carta and English common law property rights to Māori. "

These tino rangitaranga rights over land and other properties (taonga) were given explicitly to individuals and whanau as well as chiefs and tribes...
Treaty of Waitangi settlements have so far focused on iwi or hapu on the assumption that these collectives will act for all their members. What is lost sight of is that individuals are specifically mentioned in Treaty Article Two, yet Treaty settlements have not been made to 
individuals. In a future post, this issue will be discussed...

By contrast, Ned Fletcher's recent book, The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi, argues along similar line to those I've argued above (but, of course, in infinitely more detail -- his book is a fine piece of work). The difference between us, apart from his elevated scholarly stature, is that he evaluates the tribalism as positive and the promises made to reinforce tribalism by treaty to be good ones. I don't.

What is 'He Puapua'? [updated]

He Puapua is a report commissioned by the Ardern Government to carry out The Key Government's commitments after signing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), a "legally non-binding resolution passed by the UN in 2007" without New Zealand's vote -- which was withheld by the Clark Government. Among other rights and pseudo-rights asserted in the Declaration are said to be "the indigenous peoples' right to [their] own type of governance." That is almost specifically the aim of the He Puapua report, which 

sets out a timeline for ... transformational constitutional change which will divide the polity into "'three streams: the Rangiratanga stream (for Maori), the Kawanatanga stream (for the Crown) and the Rite Tahi stream (for all New Zealanders).'

In the words of Elizabeth Rata, the report's commissioning and conclusions make it "clear [that] New Zealanders are at a crossroads." 

We will have to decide whether we want our future to be that of an ethno-nationalist state or a democratic-nationalist one.

The report itself makes its own aim abundantly clear: it "describes our future as an ethno-nation."

Delivered to the Ardern Government last year, and only released because it was leaked to the Opposition, the words "He Puapua" themselves translate as "a break," or "a separation."

While it’s usually used in reference to the ocean and a break in waves, in this case the expression centres on a 'breaking of the usual political and societal norms and approaches.’

Such a sundering is not a trivial thing. It brings to mind another famous Declaration, which recognised that "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

Neither decency nor respect has impelled any such declaration in this case. Instead, as Rata says in an excellent take-down of the report:

Displaying an astonishing confidence, the authors claim that 'We consider Aotearoa has reached a maturity where it is ready to undertake the transformation to restructure governance to realise rangatiratanga Maori (self-determination).' I hope [says Rata] that this 'maturity' can accommodate the vigorous debate that is certainly needed if we are to abandon democracy - for what exactly? While each sentence of the Report deserves scrutiny I will confine myself to two points. The main one is the Report's premise of the political category as an ethnic one. The second concerns judicial activism in constitutional change.
    He Puapua envisages a system of constitutional categorisation based on ancestral membership criteria rather than the universal human who is democracy's foundational unit. Ancestral group membership is the key idea of 'ethnicity'.... The word entered common usage from the 1970s followed by 'indigenous' in the 1980s. 'Ethnicity' was an attempt to edit out the increasingly discredited 'race'. However changing a word does not change the idea. 

The report, in total, and the separate future it demands, is race-based. Explicitly. 

"When we politicise ethnicity by classifying, categorising and institutionalising people on the basis of ethnicity," warns Rata, "we establish the platform for ethno-nationalism. Contemporary and historical examples should make us very wary of a path that replaces the individual citizen with the ethnic person as the political subject." No such worries appear to occupy the report's authors.

"Interestingly," she continues, "those examples show the role of small well-educated elites in pushing through radical change." The report's authors are exactly as described. And as well-educated, well-heeled, and well-connected "culturalist intellectuals," their bios reveal them to be virtually all of one mind:

• Claire Charters, "(Ngāti Whakaue, Tainui, Ngāpuhi, Tūwharetoa) [and the Report's chair] gained her LLM from NYU in the US, and her PhD from Cambridge University. She is an associate professor at Auckland Law School, University of Auckland, and Director of the Aotearoa Centre for Indigenous Peoples and the Law. She has been an advisor to the UN President of the General Assembly on Indigenous Peoples’ participation at the UN (2016 – 2017); chair of the UN Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Peoples, Trustee (2014 -2020); chair of the cabinet-appointed working group to provide advice on the realisation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2019-2020); co-chair of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission Kaiwhakatara Advisory Group on human rights, Te Tiriti rights, and Covid-19; and worked on the negotiations for the adoption of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (1998 – 2007)."
• Canadian Kayla Kingdon-Bebb is "the current Director of Policy at Te Papa Atawhai / Department of Conservation. Previously she served for three years as Principal Advisor (and earlier, Private Secretary) to two successive Ministers of Conservation. Kayla has extensive experience in the machinery of government, and has led programmes of cross-agency and collaborative work on policy issues relevant to indigenous rights and interests... Kayla has a PhD and MPhil from the University of Cambridge. Her doctoral and master’s theses focused on Treaty law, indigenous customary law and legal pluralism in the context of natural resource management."
• Tamati Olsen is the "Chief Advisor Maori at Housing New Zealand Corporation" and "Director (Acting), Wellbeing, Policy Partnerships. Te Puni Kōkiri – New Zealand Ministry of Māori Development" formerly "Manager Cultural Wealth" at Te Puni Kōkiri"
• The 26-year-old Waimirirangi Ormsby "is project manager at Ka Awatea Services Ltd, developing Ka Awatea strategic vision document base on Mātauranga Māori principles." "Of Waikato, Ngātiwai and Te Arawa descent, [she] has foraged deep into her whakapapa to help environmental sustainability resonate more with her people. But for her the key is to live it herself every single day.... Together with her husband she created Pipiri Ki A Papatūānuku or PKP, which encourages a month of passive environmental action every year. People agree to a period of minimising their waste, tūkino free eating where they try to avoid industrially-farmed produce, begin composting or recycling and minimising plastic waste, or anything else they feel they can commit to.... Longer term, she has much grander ambitions for the recognition of traditional ways. “Te pae tawhiti, my vision for the future is, to be honest, one or two generations from now to have indigenous people leading the way and having indigenous knowledge systems be implemented into constitution, into law and policy, into the way that we live our lives, for everybody.” 
• Previously at the Office of Treaty Settlements, Emily Owen is "General Manager Policy, Department of Corrections NZ. She holds a Masters in History from Massey University."
• "Passionate about Te Tiriti o Waitangi and human rights," Judith Pryor holds "a PhD in Critical and Cultural Theory from Cardiff University in the UK (2005)." Her "doctoral research in constitutions - examining law, history, policy and practice from a theoretical perspective - was published in 2008 as Constitutions: Writing Nations, Reading Difference." "Since returning to Aotearoa in 2006 from the UK, I have predominantly worked in Te Tiriti or human rights-related areas, including at Te Kāhui Tika Tangata, the Human Rights Commission; the Waitangi Tribunal, and the former Office of Treaty Settlements." She "can advise and support you and your agency to develop a capability plan as now required under the Public Service Act 2020. I can also devise a training programme for you, and can deliver Te Tiriti analysis training. Drawing on my previous experience in Policy, my workshop is particularly aimed at policy practitioners, and can be adapted for other audiences. The training covers:​ What the role of the Crown is in the Te Tiriti relationship; Why Te Tiriti analysis is critical for developing sound policy; How to embed Te Tiriti at each stage of the policy process (including engagement); How to practically work through a policy problem using a Te Tiriti framework."
• Jacinta Ruru "is co-Director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga [New Zealand's Māori Centre of Research Excellence], and Professor of Law at the University of Otago." Her "research interests focus on exploring Indigenous peoples' legal rights to own, manage and govern land and water. Jacinta's PhD thesis (University of Victoria, Canada, 2012) is titled "Settling Indigenous Place: Reconciling Legal Fictions in Governing Canada and Aotearoa New Zealand's National Parks."
• Naomi Solomon has an LLB from VUW. She is Ngati Toa's "General Manager, Treaty and Strategic Relationships."
• Gary Williams is a "Disability Sector Leader ... [whose] particular interests are issues for disabled people and especially disabled Maori, leadership development and training, the rights of disabled people and effective organisational governance and management. [Formerly] CEO of DPA [Disabled Persons Assembly], he has extensive sector networks, both nationally and internationally, and networks within government agencies."

Rata herself is explicit that what begins in ethno-nationalism often ends in bloodshed. "In Rwanda the ethnic doctrine 'the Mahutu Manifesto' of 1953 was written and promulgated by eleven highly educated individuals identifying politically as Hutu. The raw material of the ethnic ideologies that fuelled the violence in Bosnia and Serbia was supplied by intellectuals. Pol Pot began his killing campaigns immediately on his return from study in Paris." In all these cases, the bad philosophy preceded the horrific outcome. In Rata's 2006 speech to the NZ Skeptics she said: 

In New Zealand we are obviously not far down the track towards ethno-nationalism. However we need to recognise that the ideas which fuel ethnic politics are well-established and naturalised in this country and that the politicisation of ethnicity is underway". Fifteen years later the He Puapua Report shows the progress towards ethno-nationalism. Why has this racial ideology become so accepted in a nation which prides itself on identifying and rejecting racism?

The answer, of course, is what the report's authors call their philosophies. PhDs in subjects like Critical and Cultural Theory* have a real-world impact that appear in documents such as these. As Rata concludes:

'He Puapua' means a break. It is used in the Report to mean 'the breaking of the usual political and social norms and approaches.' The transformation of New Zealand proposed by He Puapua is indeed a complete break with the past. For this reason it is imperative that we all read the Report then freely and openly discuss what type of nation do we want - ethno-nationalism or democratic nationalism?

* * * * * 

* Quick reminder that Critical Race Theory and the like are not merely “Let’s teach the bad parts of history too” -- it's more like "Let's teach that history is all bad. And racist." Richard Delgado, for example, founder of the critical race theory school of legal scholarship, noted for his 'scholarship' on hate speech, and for introducing storytelling into legal scholarship baldly asserts:

Unlike traditional civil rights [e.g., Martin Luther King’s approach], which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.

Also, Critical, Cultural Theory etc, its not a theory. 
"The critical race theory (CRT) movement [says Delgado in Movement, Activists, Transform, Power] is a collection of activists and scholars interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power."

So it's a "theory" only in the same sense that AntiFa is an idea.

Don't say you haven't been told. 

[Hat tip Stephen Hicks, Peter Renzland]

It's the chieftainship, stupid [updated]

The Government goes to Waitangi this week expecting to be challenged on water, on Ihumatao, and on Whanau Ora. That is to say, they expect tribal leaders to challenge them on the issues of tribal control of water, the tribal control of land, and the direction of government welfare payments and welfare services through Maori tribal hands.

Ever wondered why, in a world that's said to be about individuals and individual achievement, we still seem to have government support of a tribal system?

What happened?

Thousand of years ago Polynesian voyagers set out into the vast blue seas to explore and occupy the South-eastern Pacific. Several eventually discovered and settled in New Zealand. And then for just over five-hundred years, isolated from the rest of the world, they developed their own culture. They became Maori.

So in that great migration "out of Africa," New Zealand was the world's last great land-mass to be settled by human beings. And then almost the last to be brought back into the worldwide division-of-labour.

This should be something to celebrate, no? Yet if the headlines are to be believed, the descendants of these former adventurers see their own great conquest as creeping tribal capture of the government chequebook.

Tribal life

Those early New Zealanders were welcomed into the worldwide division-of-labour by whalers, sealers, timber-traders and assorted wanderers and adventurers who offered Maori things for their labour they's never seen before. And in return for tools, technology and new foods, they sold trees and flax and kumara, and crewed ships, built houses and travelled the world.


The treaty signed at Waitangi by tribal chiefs and a recently-arrived Royal Naval captain promised all these New Zealanders their own Emancipation Proclamation, and held out hope of liberating tribal serfs from tribalism. Instead, 180 years later, here we are barrelling down a path back to tribalism. Something Elizabeth Rata has called neo-tribalism: the intentional production of a neo-tribal elite who are busily "marching through the institutions," in which they play "a decisive and self-interested role in controlling shifts in the interpretation of the treaty of Waitangi." [1]

The result: the empowerment of a neo-tribal elite, in which tribal leaders have the upper hand again. And instead of the hope and optimism of those early adventurers, the predominant emotions now are shame and guilt -- shame as a necessary precursor to this tribal shakedown.

Something clearly went wrong.

One reason is the way that treaty was written: hastily. It was written in just a few days by folk wholly unqualified to write a thing that some erroneously call the country's "founding document." It's not that, and never has been. And nor does it contain enough to merit that description.

But what it does have is the material which the neotribalists have been able to exploit. One of which is the problem of 'chieftainship.'

The problem of chieftainship

The problem is this: that instead of the treaty being written to protect individual Maori, it promised instead to placate tribal chiefs. It's right there in the wording and in all the arguments today about rangatiratanga. It's understandable. After all, it was their signatures the British Colonial Office was after before allowing colonisation here to receive their imprimatur. "Alive to the record of native extinction that had come with settlement in Tasmania and the Caribbean, and was threatened in Australia," the treaty's aim was to "recognise the rights of the Maori as subject in the agreement, with rights and interests to protect." [2] But in placating those chiefs of the 1840s, instead of promoting individualism and recognising real individual rights, the document has helped promote the neotribalism of today.

It's been argued -- and I've been one of those doing the arguing -- that the Treaty of Waitangi liberates individual Maori. It should have done -- it should have treated all Maori as individuals instead of as members of a tribe. But it really does nothing of the sort except by implication.

Instead, as written, it cemented in and buttressed the tribal leadership and communal structures that already existed here -- encouraging the survival of this wreck of a system until it morphing, as it has today, into this mongrelised sub-group of pseudo-aristocracy: of Neotribal Cronyism.

The problem was there from the start. Maori in 1840 paid more attention to oral discussion than to written documents, and there's enough evidence to suggest those wily old chiefs knew what they were talking about;  what they discussed and what was read to them in 1840 was this [3]:
The treaty's preamble states the "concern to protect the chiefs and the subtribes of New Zealand" and the "desire to preserve their chieftainship." Nothing in that to promote or protect individualism. Everything to preserve "chieftainship" and to protect the chiefs in their rule.

• In Clause 1 the chiefs grant the Queen complete governorship -- kawanatanga katoa-- over these islands. Non-chiefs, i.e., individual Maori, are neither asked nor recognised. Because they are not part of this agreement. 
• In Clause 2 it's there again: protecting chiefs in their land, forests and fisheries. Specifically, protecting "the chiefs, the subtribes and all the people of New Zealand in the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship [their tino rangatiratanga]" over all their various treasures -- while prohibiting their sale to anyone but the government. (Note that this does not protect or recognise full ownership or real property rights except by implication: after all, Maori of 1840 had no such concept, except perhaps for small personal possessions; no words for "owner," so difficult for a translator to find one. But they could express ownership for these small things at least -- the preposition na for example (or sometimes no), meaning 'belonging to.' [4] But this was not used. Instead, the agreement promised to protect only the unqualified exercise of chieftainship, something not available to "all the people of New Zealand," even if they do get a mention, but only to those of that status. Only chiefs. 
• Clause 3, however, does promise to "protect all the ordinary people of New Zealand," and to "give them" the "same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England." Not recognise rights, which is how it should have been written, but give them, which makes them a political gift -- the gift of those who do exercise sovereignty by this treaty: the governor and the chiefs. So by then, the damage is done -- and those with "a decisive and self-interested role in controlling shifts in the interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi" are now able to interpret this not as a promise of individual rights (since earlier clauses and the preamble take precedence), but instead as the chiefs essentially holding the rights of their people in trust, with the governor "being or becoming a 'father' for the Māori people." And "this attitude has been held towards the person of the Crown down to the present day, shaping (according to the self-interested neotribalists who now interpret these things) "the continued expectations and commitments entailed in the Treaty." [2] 

It's evident from documents of the time that the Colonial Office in London had not intended to lock Maori up into that pre-existing tribal structure. Their intention was, as that last clause almost says, to recognise the same rights in every Maori as were enjoyed by all British citizens. But the treaty's wording and practice has essentially limited those rights while elevating chiefly status. It's the chieftainship, stupid. In other words: the problem is failing to properly recognise and to protect individual rights -- and instead to protect and nurture the status of those tribal leaders.

Is it any wonder today's tribal leaders favour the perpetuation of the tribal structure? Any surprise that the feudal structure continues? Or that today's neotribalists wish to continue benefiting from their feudal privileges of the past? With the government as "father" and taxpayer as today's serf ...

Poor drafting, poor treatment

Without a doubt, government and settlers often treated Maori poorly in those early days. But the biggest structural harm was the failure to properly recognise them as individuals instead of as part of a tribe. By treating all Maori as part of a collective, there were few chances offered to change this trajectory. The poor draftsmanship of this treaty is reflected in the poor treatment of Maori in those early days.

As a rights-respecting commentator says of the treatment of native Americans in the United States of America, "it could have been done in a more rational way, a much more rights-respecting way, and in a way that would have led to a lot less violence at the end of the day." (Later quotes are from this same source.) It could have been done here in a way that recognised Maori as individuals, with individual lives, rights and choices. But for the most part, it didn't.

Yes, colonisation here was far less violent here than in Australia, or in the Americas. And thank goodness for that: It was still not entirely peaceful, but in the Americas and Australia it was savage -- particularly if you think of how the British treated the Aboriginals in Tasmania, or the Spaniards treated the natives of South America. And in the case of America itself, "the American government made treaties with the Indians and then reneged on them whenever it was convenient to do so." [5]

Not so much here, at least. The treaty signed here was offered with the best of intentions, but the poorest of drafting. It barely lived up to the intention, and the neotribalists now exploit the drafting.

But the biggest mistake, the biggest ongoing tragedy -- there, as here -- is that the respective governments did not treat either Indians or Maori as individuals possessing rights. They treated them instead just as members of a tribe. Of a collective. Not as individuals with their own individual rights demanding recognition and protection, but as members of a tribe whose chief no longer held the power fo life and death, but still held the power of property, and of making choices for them all.

And therefore [in the United States] all the deals, all the negotiations, were between the U.S. Government and a tribe -- a tribe who was fundamentally a collectivistic unit that was oppressing its individual members. And what the American government in my view should have done was in a sense annex the Indians into America, recognised their innate individual rights (the fact that every Indian like every human being on the planet has individual rights), protected those individual rights under the law, divvied up the property of the tribe among individuals (let American Indians own their own land, not just give it and have the tribes own reservations; the whole idea of reservations was a horrific idea).  They should have basically integrated Indians into American society: by treating them as individuals, by endorsing individualism among the Indians. And then, if the Indians then wanted to get together and live in a commune, then so be it.  But the American government's position should have been: "We are dealing with you as individuals. Here is your land; here is John Smith's land; here is somebody else's land... If you want to now unite those lands and do some collective-type stuff then that's your problem. But here's the benchmark: 'We're a country of individuals. That's the principle'."  And instead, they didn't do that. There was a lot of racism and there was a lot of just treating them as a collective and, as a consequence, slaughtering whole villages and so on.  Now, that is not to say that there weren't a lot of American Indians (and a lot of indigenous people around the Americas) who were very violent and needed to be dealt with violently. I'm not criticizing violence when it was motivated by self-defense.     I am however criticizing violence when it was not necessary for the defense of the European immigrants or settlers, and there was basically an attempt just to you know annihilate certain indigenous peoples.  And again that happened more in Latin America than it did in the United States America. But it happened here as well. So you know it's a tragic part of history and to some extent inevitable because it seems to happen whenever a kind of a civilization encounters barbaric tribes, barbaric peoples, that inevitably lands up in a physical violent struggle.     I think that particularly in the United States of America it could have been done in a more rational way, a much more rights-respecting way, and in a way that would have led to a lot less violence at the end of the day. [5]

Same here.

Could it have been different? Yes. Yes, of course it could. But shaming today's New Zealanders by the actions of people in the past is not primarily about history -- the shaming of New Zealanders today is intended simply to precede and encourage their ongoing shakedown tomorrow. That's the effect of today's neotribalism: to put taxpayers on the hook for the perpetuation of this chiefly privilege.

In this new postmodern neo-tribal age, history doesn't provide lessons from the past so much as an arsenal full of weapons. The neotribalists, and their enablers, are happy to pick them up and use them.
NOTES: 
1. Elizabeth Rata, '‘Marching through the Institutions’: The Neotribal Elite and the Treaty of Waitangi,' Sites (December 2005)
2. James Heartfield, The Aborigines' Protection Society: Humanitarian Imperialism in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Canada, South Africa, and the Congo, 1836-1909 (London, 2011) p. 126
3. Te Tiriti: Translation of the te reo Māori text by Hugh Kawharu
4. Raymond Firth, Economics of the New Zealand Maori (Wellington 1972), pp. 338-366 passim
5. Yaron Brook, 'Q: To what extent was the European treatment of the indigenous peoples of America immoral?' www. Peikoff.Com (3 August 2015)

UPDATE:
Peter Winsley has a different view, arguing that "Article Two transfers Magna Carta and English common law property rights to Māori. "

These tino rangitaranga rights over land and other properties (taonga) were given explicitly to individuals and whanau as well as chiefs and tribes...
Treaty of Waitangi settlements have so far focused on iwi or hapu on the assumption that these collectives will act for all their members. What is lost sight of is that individuals are specifically mentioned in Treaty Article Two, yet Treaty settlements have not been made to individuals. In a future post, this issue will be discussed...

.

"One of the benefits of colonisation, and there are a number, is the destruction of tribalism... Tribalism must be destroyed for democracy to exist." #QotD

"The case for ‘co-governance’ between the government and iwi is justified according to cultural recognition and social justice beliefs. However, that is to make a fundamental error, one that ignores the dangers of including ethnicity into the political arrangements of a democratic nation... there is a fundamental incompatibility between the two sociopolitical systems...
    "From the 1980s, the rather benign idea of recognising Maori culture in the wider society became a political biculturalism that has enabled a small but extremely influential group of retribalists to capture the moral high ground of social justice advocacy – but in their own interests.
    "(It shouldn’t be forgotten that the numbers of Maori in poverty has actually grown during the bicultural decades.) ...
    "Throughout these four decades of biculturalism the retribalists sit easily, even smugly, on the side of the righteous. They use a history, written by the Waitangi Tribunal in the interests of the submitters, to claim the inheritance of the past. The Treaty is the document of that inheritance.
    "The justification for this elite’s power is its claim to represent a tribal people – so such a people must be created and maintained – hence the aggressive retribalisation that we have seen in recent years ... It is no longer enough to be Maori; one must be tribal Maori...
    "One of the benefits of colonisation, and there are a number, is the destruction of tribalism. For slaves and lower caste people it was liberation. Of course the chiefly caste did not agree and today we see the resurgence of those who would be their inheritors. The new elite is a self-proclaimed aristocracy justifying their ambition in romantic appeals to an Arcadian past.
    "Tribalism must be destroyed for democracy to exist... The history of progress in the world is the history of detribalisation and the race or ethnic politics that goes with tribalised societies...
    "So the question for us is not why is the iwi elite using retribal strategies to gain increasing political power and economic wealth – any emerging elite that chances upon a direct and easy means to get its way will take it. The intriguing question is how has a population with 161 years of democracy under its belt allowed this to happen."
    ~ Dr. Elizabeth Rata, from her 2013 op-ed 'Democracy and Tribalism'
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Empty-headed know-nothingism not good enough, says educator

This is a long post, but it is, I think, worth your time. There is no subject that could be more important than this—and I bring good news…

I was overjoyed to see Associate Professor of Education Elizabeth Rata writing in the Weekend Herald about a serious affliction brought on by the Ministry’s national curriculum. Knowledge, she says, has been removed from school curricula, “increasingly abandoned for a misguided focus on skills and the process of learning.”

I was overjoyed to see her say that—not because I’m happy it’s happened, but because it’s long overdue that a well-placed educator has the courage to speak out against it, and because the paper on which her well-targeted criticism was based won the won the 2012 British Educational Research Journal paper of the year. Indicating both the problem, and the growing opposition to it, is worldwide.

Read:

• Knowledge lost from our kids' learning: expert – Elizabeth Rata, WEEKEND HERALD
  Let's bring knowledge back into schools – Elizabeth Rata, WEEKEND HERALD

Rata’s thesis is blunt, well-written and cogent. And it is desperately important. She begins…

One of the great puzzles in education today is what has happened to knowledge.
    Bewildered parents suspect something has happened in schools but are not quite sure what. Knowledge is after all what schools are about, surely - so what is going on? Why does our national curriculum not mention content knowledge? Why is it all about skills, competencies, and values?
    That a problem does exist can be seen in the general unease felt by many parents…
    Knowledge is actual content … a lesson forgotten at our peril. We need to learn it from those who know the content. Good teachers are knowledgeable teachers. When we remember this we will value them again. But it is a status that must be earned. A teacher who says "I co-inquire with my students", "I learn from them", "we construct knowledge together" does not deserve that status. If we are to value teachers again, we must first value what teachers have (or should have). This is the academic knowledge found in school subjects that most parents don't have at home  …  it is misguided to believe that "dumbed down" knowledge or using technology can compensate for the hard graft of knowing what you didn't know.
    To deny children academic knowledge is to deny to the very children who need the knowledge the most the means by which they can succeed in life. Worse still is the return to the belief that some children can't handle knowledge..
    All children deserve the chance to know more than what their culture and community can teach them. It is true some will go further than others but all must have the opportunity. Let's bring back content knowledge into our schools, before … there is no knowledge left to teach.   

Elizabeth Rata is spot on. But it is hardly a puzzle.

To help solve this puzzle is to understand that this educational  is hardly confined to New Zealand, as this one illustration from an American newspaper clearly suggests …

FRIDAY MORNING RAMBLE: The “Dunne Nothing” Edition

If measured by what appears in MSM political commentaries, this ramble should be full of references to Mr Dunne Nothing. 
But it won’t be.
Instead, I’ll just point you to Graeme Edgeler, who likes this sort of thing.  And bring to mind Cromwell’s exhortation to the Rump Parliament: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing … Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”).
And now, here’s one of the most stunningly beautiful photos of Auckland you will see. (Yes, it enlarges. No, I can’t find out who took it. Yes, it’s much better looking than a photo of Peter Dung.)

“How have we descended to this situation where so many citizens feel no moral qualms in living off their fellow citizens' toil? Our welfare society's excesses are morally bankrupt and we all know it.”
Too many people have sense of entitlement – Bob Jones, NZ HERALD

“If you saw a heavyweight prize fighter pummeling a small child, would your main concern be that the kid’s pocket change was spilling onto the ground? That’s how I feel about the debate over entitlements. It takes place almost purely on a narrow, economic level. How much does welfare cost? How much of that cost is funded? Is there a trust fund or a pile of worthless IOUs waiting for us down the road?
Those are all fair questions, but they aren’t the most important questions. The entitlement state is at odds with something even more profound than our paychecks. It’s at odds with a whole decent way of life.”
The Death Of The American Way Of Life – Don Watkins, LAISSEZ FAIRE

“A conspicuous absence in the Constitutional Advisory Panel’s “conversation” is debate about the role of the Waitangi Tribunal, a body that exerts disproportionate influence over public life. The Waitangi Tribunal is the “elephant in the room” – and its absence in the terms of reference that define the constitutional review implies that the Maori Party thinks it is doing a good job advocating for tribalist interests. This article gives seven reasons why the Waitangi Tribunal should be abolished.”
Seven reasons why the Waitangi Tribunal must go – Mike Butler, BREAKING VIEWS

It took the Greatest Generation 1,366 days to fight and win World War II. EQC has 536 days left to either meet their deadlines, or move more goalposts.
EQC Quietly Moves More Goalposts – STUFF

“’School choice’ between one government school
and another government school is no choice at all.”
- Rob Abiera

In a speech delivered to the Fabian Society last week, Elizabeth Rata, the Director of the Knowledge and Education Research Unit of Auckland University and a member of the Independent Constitutional Review Panel, explains the foundations of biculturalism and how, by being elevated into a belief system, it has become a race-based political movement that evades scrutiny: “Biculturalism is a religious retreat for the secularised ex-socialist and the newly conservative 'liberal' alike. By understanding biculturalism as a belief system one can explain why it doesn’t need to be logical and why it has become so pervasive despite meaning different things to different people.”
Democracy and diversity [pdf]– Elizabeth Rata, FACULTY OF EDUCATION, AUCKLAND UNI

“Dr Elizabeth Rata’s recent article “Democracy and Diversity” (above) makes some excellent points about why equality in citizenship and one law for all must always trump identity politics in the public square. However, she seems to have skated somewhat lightly over how it is that “liberals of both the Left and the Right embraced biculturalism with such religious-like commitment.” …
The ideological underpinnings of the Maori Sovereignty/bicultural movement trace back to the early 20th Century writings of Communist revolutionaries Lenin and Stalin on a topic they called “The National Question.”
All ideas have a pedigree – Reuben Chapple, BREAKING VIEWS

“A new grassroots political party launches aimed at ending racial separatism in New Zealand.
One Law for All has a sole objective - that all New Zealanders are treated equally in law, regardless of race. The party’s policies include abolishing the Waitangi Tribunal, abolishing race-based seats and positions in central and local government and stripping all references to the Treaty of Waitangi from legislation.
    “With the party yet to select a leader, 74-year-old Napier man Tom Johnson is temporarily fronting the party and says racial inequality is the most important issue facing New Zealanders.
    “’I have felt that for some time. I love my country and I am not prepared to see myself become a second class citizen here, and I don’t want to see my nine grandkids grow up in a country that becomes an apartheid state, in whatever form.’” …
    “Tom says the response so far has been overwhelmingly positive – from a variety of ethnicities.  The party’s website received about 4000 hits across two days last weekend. “My phone has been red hot, and I don’t think I have had a derogatory comment yet, no doubt they will come.’”
New party wants one law for all – SUN LINE

Richard Milhous Obama…

You wish it were exaggeration.
Obama White House spying on half of America – Judge Andrew Napolitano, FOX NEWS

Meanwhile, back in the MSM…
"Mainstream Media Fail to Break Even One of Four Obama Scandals" – BREITBART

The Turkish prime minister may have miscalculated with both his increasing Islamism in the world’s only secularly Islamic country,and his brutal crackdown at those protesting it.
What’s eating Turkey – Norman Stone, SPECTATOR
Erdoğan Over the Edge – Claire Berlinski, CITY JOURNAL

The always stonking Pat Condell has updated his website with better access to the videos.
Godless Comedy – PAT CONDELL

So…

Could it be the reason there aren’t more libertarians is simply due to the fact we haven't valued our beliefs enough? Here’s what I mean…
The Failure of the Libertarian Movement – FREE-MAN’S PERPECTIVE

“His arguments are so persuasive, so sensible, that the reader is left wondering what in Hades is wrong with our society that we almost never hear anyone say these things.”
Why Fossil Fuels Improve the Planet – NO FRAKKING CONSENSUS

Oh, really?
'The Question Libertarians Just Can’t Answer' – TOM WOODS

So why aren’t we talking about it more?
Take a bow, capitalism - nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years, thanks to markets. – AEI

“‘All of them should have been very happy,’ Robert A. Heinlein begins his 1942 novel Beyond This Horizon. The material problem has been solved on this future earth, poverty and disease have been eradicated, work is optional. And yet parts of the citizenry are not enthusiastic. Some are bored, others are preparing a revolt. Why should that be, in such a utopian world? A similar puzzlement has been the dominant reaction from commentators after riots broke out and cars and buildings were burned in heavily immigrant-populated suburbs of Stockholm in late May. Sweden?
Why Sweden Has Riots – John Norberg, CATO INSTITUTE

So we haven’t had warming on earth for at least seventeen years. But the models predict catastrophic warming all the way into the future, and they’re accurate, right? Oh, maybe not. (See above.)
EPIC FAIL: 73 Climate Models vs. Observations for Tropical Tropospheric Temperature – Roy Spencer, WATTS UP WITH THAT 
Climate modeling EPIC FAIL – Spencer: ‘the day of reckoning has arrived’ – Roy Spencer, WATTS UP WITH THAT

They’re making stuff up again. A recent “study” showing a 97 percent consensus among scientists that humans are causing a global warming crisis was faked, fudged and fraudulent.
Global Warming Alarmists Caught Doctoring '97-Percent Consensus' Claims – HEARTLAND

The next time an environmentalist warns us of a pending disaster or that we are running out of something, we ought to ask: When was the last time a prediction of yours was right?
Environmental Wackosim: We Are the Idiots – Walter Williams, CAPITALISM MAGAZINE

It all makes you wonder whether Simon Tunhill’s 8-step plan of the modified Scientific Method followed by alleged climate scientists might not be true.
How Australian scientists Cook ‘n’ Lew do science – AUSTRALIAN CLIMATE MADNESS

“Perhaps understandably, in the absence of any public choice perception, Keynes
made no reference … to the special interests that would dictate the pattern of
government intervention once the political market was unleashed from its 
laissez-faire constraints.  But, he had no excuse whatsoever, other than 
[Oxbridge] elitism, for ignoring the warnings of Hume, Smith and Mill
concerning the self-seeking corruption endemic in an extended polity.”
- Charles Rowley, “John Maynard Keynes and the Attack on Classical Political Economy,”

"As for your claim that Ben Bernanke’s expansion of the fiat money supply has not caused inflation: That is ridiculous on its face. . . The expansion of fiat money is inflation. The two are the same thing. How, where, and when inflation manifests in market prices—including commodity prices and long-term interest rates—is a complex issue. But the printing of money unmoored to any actual value in the marketplace, or the extension of credit unsupported by so much as the reputation of a private bank, is the devaluation of real money and real credit. Ask any nine-year-old about the value of a dollar bill when the marketplace is flooded with them as compared to the value of a dollar bill when there are relatively few in circulation, and he will further clarify this for you."
Open Letter to Paul Krugman re Intellectual Impotence, Inflation, and Ayn Rand – Craig Biddle, OBJECTIVE STANDARD

With Spanish youth unemployment reaching record high rates of over 50 percent, the governor of the Bank of Spain is (finally) recommending suspension of the country's destructive minimum wage law that has helped cause the misery.
Minimum wage update: The Spanish version - ON LIBERTY STREET

The world bailout agency, aka the IMF, has a problem highlighted by that chart above (one of man similarly flawed): it hasn’t got a fucking clue. And it knows it.
The Most Disturbing Chart From Today's IMF Outlook Revision – ZERO HEDGE 
IMF Admits It Is An Idiot And A Liar – ZERO HEDGE 
IMF Demands $18 For Hard Copy Admission That It Is An Idiot – ZERO HEDGE

The world’s largest bond buyer outside the Federal Reserve has taken straight aim at the Fed and its Chairman Ben Bernanke, charging its ultra-loose monetary policies are holding back economic recovery.
Pimco's Bill Gross Skewers Bernanke: You're Part of the Problem – CNBC

“The last couple of weeks have been very interesting… Are markets beginning to realize that all these bubbles have to pop sometime and that sometime may as well be now? Are markets beginning to refuse to dance to the tune of the central bankers and their printing presses?”
Are central bankers losing control? – DETLEV SCHLICTER

A criminal indictment filed in New York against Liberty Reserve has shaken the burgeoning world of digital currencies.
Taking a liberty – ECONOMIST

Direct from the we’ll-believe-it-when-we-see-it file: China Plans to Reduce the State's Role in the Economy ...
Elite Retreat: Now Chinese Leaders Plot a Freedom Reformation! – DAILY BELL

In which a child of two and a child of 2 explain Keynes and Hayek to their 34-year-old economist dad. Questions?
Keynes v. Hayek: A Dialogue With Two of My Children – Art Carden, ECON LOG

Hayek characterised the fundamental economic problem not as some “allocation” of scarce resources among  omniscient agents (which is what most alleged economists still think of as economic activity), but rather as the coordination of actions and plans among dispersed agents with diffuse private knowledge.
Happy birthday Hayek! – Lyn Kiesling, KNOWLEDGE PROBLEM

Capital accumulation creates prosperity. So why tax it.
In Defense of the Capital-Gains Loophole – BLOOMBERG

Yes, it’s an hour long. Yes, it’s called “capital-based macroeconomics.” But if you want to hear a fellow cogently explain why capital creates prosperity, how the world economy crashed, and why Keynes (and Friedman) helped cause it, all you need is a very basic grasp of economics (and its graphs), and one hour.

Yep, the Marginal Revolution really was cool.

"[T]he more experienced professors tend to 'broaden the curriculum and produce students with a deeper understanding of the material.' (p. 430) That is, because they don't teach directly to the test, they do worse in the short run but better in the long run.
"To summarize the findings: because they didn't teach to the test, the professors who instilled the deepest learning in their students came out looking the worst in terms of student evaluations and initial exam performance."
Do the Best Professors Get the Worst Ratings? – PSYCHOLOGY TODAY

“Researchers have been able to teleport information from light to light at a quantum level for several years. In 2006, researchers succeeded in teleporting between light and gas atoms. Now the research group has succeeded in teleporting information between two clouds of gas atoms and to carry out the teleportation -- not just one or a few times, but successfully every single time.”
Quantum Teleportation Between Atomic Systems Over Long Distances – SCIENCE DAILY

“Don’t believe the anti-biotech hype… No reputable studies find a danger with Genetically Engineered crops and dozens find it safe. If the fears about hormones, chemicals, and pesticides in food are true, then why do we use more of them, and live longer?
    “Also, the free market provides options – Harvest Whole Foods for example says all their organic products are GMO-free. If consumers demand GMO-free, they can get it.”
The Top 5 Lies About Biotech Crops – Ronald Bailey, REASON

Well, this is awkward. Katherine Flegal of the US National Center for Health Statistics reported that people whom the government deems "overweight" appear to be healthier than people who stay within their “recommended” weight range.
Obesity Researchers Outraged by Inconvenient Truth About Weight and Mortality – Jacob Sullum, HIT & RUN

See, the UN can do something useful.
Making data meaningful – STATS CHAT

East and West Berlin are still viseble from space…
East/West Berlin divide – Earth Porn, TWITTER

“The Brazilian health ministry has had to drop a sexual-health awareness campaign with the tagline 'I'm happy being a prostitute'. But it's hardly the first STD awareness campaign to stray into the realm of the daft. We take a look at some of the silliest sexual health warnings from the second world war".”
VD is not victory: the second world war guide to sexual health - in pictures – GUARDIAN

“New Zealand's geologic hazards agency reported this week an ongoing, "silent" earthquake that began in January is still going strong. Though it is releasing the energy equivalent of a 7.0 earthquake, New Zealanders can't feel it because its energy is being released over a long period of time, therefore slow, rather than a few short seconds. These so-called "slow slip events" are common at subduction zone faults..”
New Explanation for Slow Earthquakes On San Andreas – SCIENCE DAILY

Richard Branson visited Portugal as a Global Drug Commissioner to congratulate them on the success of their drug policies over the last 10 years.  Ten years ago the Portuguese Government responded to widespread public concern over drugs by rejecting the “war on drugs.”  “Now with a decade of experience Portugal provides a valuable case study of how decriminalization coupled with evidence-based strategies can reduce drug consumption, dependence, recidivism and HIV infection and create safer communities for all. I will set out clearly what I learned from my visit to Portugal and would urge other countries to study this…”
Time to end the war on drugs – Richard Branson, VIRGIN

Since we were talking about this last night at the pub…
Stalin’s Bank Robbery of 1907: A Tale of Blood and Murder. – Giles Milton, SURVIVING HISTORY

To read the news, or note read the news. That is the question for those wishing to stay psychologically healthy.
Is reading the news helpful or harmful? – Burgess Laughlin, MAKING PROGRESS

Who are your culture’s heroes, warriors or merchants? It makes a difference that makes the difference, to war, peace and much more.
Werner Sombart on heroes versus merchants – STEPHEN HICKS

You’re kidding, right?
Does This Ad Make Me Look Racist? (Chapter 3) – POWERLINE

3d printers are hitting the consumer market and they’re not cheap. But then, neither were PCs when they first hit the consumer market…
You May Get Your Own 3D Printer Sooner Than You Think – Scott Shackford, HIT AND RUN

“Joseph Schumpeter, the originator of the phrase “creative destruction,” authored a less well-known corollary at some point in the 1930s. “Profit,” he wrote, “is temporary by nature: It will vanish in the subsequent process of competition and adaptation.” And so it has…”
Wounded Heart – Bill Gross, PIMCO

So…
Anti-capitalists complain Ayn Rand Collected Social Security… – DOLLARS AND CROSSES

“It is not really news that Victor Davis Hanson has written another outstanding and eye-opening book. He has done that before and repeatedly, on a variety of subjects. The subject of his latest book, The Savior Generals, could not be more timely. It is about how seemingly hopeless situations can be– and have been– rescued from the brink of disaster.”
Historic Rescuers – Thomas Sowell, CAPITALISM MAGAZINE

And just like that, Positive Discipline Objectivists--for Objectivist parents, teachers, coaches, aunts, uncles, etc. who use or are interested in learning about non-punitive discipline tools--has 100 members! Pretty cool.
Positive Discipline Objectivists – FACEBOOK

Like Brutalism? Then why not buy the wallpaper.
Brutalism Lite: Concrete Comes Inside to Play – ARCHITIZER

See, I try to tell guests this every time they wash up at our place…
35 Ways to Love Your Cast Iron Skillet – THE KITCHN

PS: You can watch all AFL Games LIVE this weekend, on your telly, on Sommet Sports. That’s all the games, live and free! (Tune in on Channel 114.) My tips to win in bold:

• Friday 7th June:
  Essendon vs. Carlton- 9.30pm
• Saturday 8th June:
  GWS Giants vs. Geelong Cats – 3.40pm 9 (Go the Cats!)
  Adelaide Crows vs. Sydney Swans - 6.40pm
  Gold Coast Suns vs. North Melbourne – 940pm
• Sunday 9th June
  St Kilda vs. West Coast Eagles – 6.40pm
• Monday 10th June
  Melbourne vs. Collingwood – 3.20pm
• Wednesday 12th June: Highlights – 8pm

[Hat tip Amanda BillyRock, Peter Klein, The Stateless Man, Campaign for Liberty, Frederick Gibson, EQC Truths, Small Dead Animals, Joshua Hitchcock, On Liberty Street, Cafe Hayek, 1 Law 4 All, Cathy, Alex Needham, Pat Condell, Shaun Coffey, Energy and Commerce ‏, TakingHayekSeriously, Libertarianz, Russell Brown, Watts Up With That ]

Thanks for reading,
Have a great weekend!
PC

PS: My beer recommendation for the weekend, a Liberty “Roggenator” Winter Rye Ale. Hits you like a sack of ryed-up hops. Delicious.