Te Tiriti as a shield from global terror.

In all of the rich discussions we are having about the role of Te Tiriti in protecting our reo, in protecting our taiao, in protecting our whānau – there is much less discussion in how Te Tiriti might protect us from overseas threats.

Let’s talk about why that’s important.

In the first instance I want to acknowledge and center what drove thousands to meet at Tūrangawaewae:

That there is a specific and increased threat upon Te Ao Māori from this government and their proposed actions.

There are issues that arise out of our enduring colonialism, which we discuss every year, but thousands showed up because this government represents a new level of threat, one that needs a stronger response.

In order to respond we need to understand the source of the threat, and I don’t just mean Luxon, Peters or Seymour. How is it that a far-right government who is so willing to support hate and oppression towards Māori came into power in the first place?

I don’t know if it provides comfort that we are not alone – but it is important to be aware that the political rise of the right that we see here in Aotearoa is a part of a broader, global movement for the far right to seize political control. In the past decade, extreme right-wing parties have been voted into power in Greece, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria, Israel, Hungary, Brazil, Argentina, Poland, USA, India, the UK and more. The global rise of the right has been well tracked and documented.

It’s also important to be aware that in every single one of those countries, the election campaigns of the right all consistently featured disinformation, and the following themes:

• Nostalgia for conservative periods (eg “We have to get back to the good old days”)
• Nationalist xenophobia (eg “Immigrants are taking over the nation”)
• Indigephobia (eg “The natives are trying to steal all the water”)
• A commitment to harsher penalties for the underclass (eg “We will crack down on crime”)

Sound familiar?

As George Monbiot noted recently , in every single case, once those far right parties have gotten into power, they have prioritized the same outcomes:

• Demolition of public services
• Privatisation of public assets
• Centralisation of political power
• Removing constraints on corporations
• Destroying protections for marginalized groups
• Removing protections for the environment
• Supporting landlords against tenants
• Criminalising protest
• Educational reforms that suppress education on the harm of racism or colonialism

If that looks familiar, that’s because it’s a neat checklist of this government’s intentions as well.

It’s almost like they’re sharing notes, right? Well that’s because they are.

To understand what has guided the extreme-right into power, we need to look at the trans-national nature of far-right social movements. The Proud Boys, The English Defence League, the Nordic Resistance Movement or the more corporate styled Atlas Network, are all examples of movements that have international networks, internationally share resources, strategies, and personnel, and regularly collaborate in mutual support. This includes the funding of far-right media outfits like Counterspin, in order to grow public discussions along the themes mentioned above – with the deliberate intent to shift the social discourse to the right and make far-right politics more electable. This would have been much more difficult to achieve in previous generations, but along with offline networks, they now have the internet to grow the support for these ideas – including entire social media platforms. The more money you have, the more space you can purchase in online and offline media spaces.

This is exactly the kind of activity that governments are charged to protect us from, except there is one problem: Most Western governments are rooted in colonialism (by virtue of the Doctrine of Discovery) which makes them completely inept for identifying the colonially violent tactics of the far-right, or addressing it. The bulk of politicians have family members, voters, lobbyists, and financial patrons who are all attached to these far-right movements – much more so than connections to movements for social or environmental justice.

The corporate world, too, who hold the strongest influence upon government, is rooted in imperialism. Let us not overlook that the New Zealand Company was the first joint-stock corporate company to operate in New Zealand, nor that this was a part of a long list of “companies” with a royal charter to carry out the tasks of colonization – including The East India Company (the first joint-stock corporation in the world, which set the scene for modern corporate frameworks), The Royal African Company, The Royal Niger Company (who still exist today as mega-corporation Unilever), The Canada Company, The Virginia Company and so on. This is the lineage of modern corporatism, and represents the transfer of the Doctrine of Discovery into the corporate business world, and corporate democracies.

When I say modern corporate empires are modeled from classic empire, it’s not a metaphor.

So when you have a corporate sector rooted in colonial violence, who influence a political sector rooted in colonial violence, naturally there will be difficulties in politically controlling colonial violence as it rises around the world. This includes the prevention of far-right social movements, and the far-right governments that they guide into power.

This is not a new phenomena, and in fact, our tipuna saw it coming.

If you look to the Paparahi o Te Raki Claim, the most thorough analysis of Te Tiriti o Waitangi that we have, it is clear that the expectations of our tipuna signatories was that Te Tiriti would provide:

peace and prosperity, protection of their lands and other taonga, the return of lands… security from mass immigration and settler aggression… and a guarantee of their ongoing independence and rangatiratanga.

Paparahi o Te Raki Report

Te Tiriti o Waitangi was, as confirmed by the tribunal, not a treaty of cession. It was, in the eyes of the signatories, an alliance that was being formed with the British Crown, to help manage all non-Māori settlers; and importantly, to work with Māori in our protection from overseas threats that were originating from the USA, France and other European nations.

That is exactly the space we find ourselves in today.

Importantly, however, there is a growing anti-colonial movement around the world as a direct response to the rise of the far right. As the far-right conservatism and hypocrisy of the West is exposed (such as the violence of Israel against Palestine and the complicitness of USA, UK, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in that violence), the the previously cloaked fascism and racism of western so-called democracies is on show, and the world is recognising that colonialism is a harm that must end. No longer does the West have the social license to carry on as it once did.

This too is being mirrored in Aotearoa, where Te Ao Māori are responding to the far-right by gathering in the thousands to demand that our Tiriti finally be honoured, and implemented, as was intended, and we must prioritise this immediately, because if we miss this anticolonial opportunity to make systemic change I don’t know when the next opportunity will arise.

Worse still, I fear for what it will look like when the far-right does swing back again.

White supremacist movements overseas are growing in power, capability, violence and political and social endorsement. The mainstreaming of white hate has normalised hate speech and hate acts that would have been considered extreme and unacceptable just 10 years ago. On the current trajectory, the white supremacist movement will have even more violent expectations of those they vote in next time.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi is absolutely an instrument designed to protect us from both internal and external threats to our existence, and those threats are more closely intertwined than we appreciate. In fact, I would argue that it is the only current instrument appropriate to do that job. It would guide our government to implement the Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous peoples, it would guide foreign policy to support our values overseas (including in Palestine and all spaces where Indigenous rights are being attacked), it would lead more effective policies on international issues like climate change or militarism, it would do a better job at protecting us from corporate imperialism and would absolutely do a better job at protecting us from the global rise of the far-right.

If we do not respect its tapu, our own tapu will continue to be attacked. If we miss this opportunity to entrench it at the heart of our nation, everything we have fought for will remain at great risk, including the safety of our mokopuna.

He tapu Te Tiriti.
Me matua Te Tiriti.

(If you would like to hear more on this, register here to join this upcoming webinar on combating far-right politics)