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Queen Elizabeth II in 2020 (Photo: Getty Images)
Queen Elizabeth II in 2020 (Photo: Getty Images)

OPINIONĀteaSeptember 10, 2022

An ariki of the highest order

Queen Elizabeth II in 2020 (Photo: Getty Images)
Queen Elizabeth II in 2020 (Photo: Getty Images)

He aituā Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Elizabeth II, the longest reigning British monarch and the second-longest serving sovereign in human history, is dead at 96. Her Majesty lived her life on a timescale that few others could match. When the Queen was 14 the German bombs dropped, devastating London. At 17, the then princess took to wartime service learning to drive and repair military vehicles as the war drew to its final, bloody conclusion. At 26, en route to a royal tour of New Zealand and Australia, word reached Elizabeth II that her father had died. She would ascend to the throne with immediate effect. The touring party turned back, and the princess was proclaimed Queen across her many realms.

No tribute will omit that Queen Elizabeth was a woman of remarkable dignity. One of the great privileges of royalty is vice. But the Queen herself was strangely self-denying, working like the devout Protestant she was. In her three-week tour to New Zealand in 1990 the Queen maintained hundreds of engagements from opening and closing the Commonwealth Games to marking the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. In an act of royal understatement, she told the country that its founding document had been “imperfectly observed”. In 1995, in an act of regal humility, the Queen herself delivered the Crown’s apology to the people of Waikato-Tainui.

Queen Elizabeth II and NZ prime minister Jacinda Ardern at Buckingham Palace in 2018 (Photo: Victoria Jones – WPA Pool/Getty Images)

The monarchy is, technically at least, non-political. But Queen Elizabeth was a politician’s politician. In the 1950s she made canny use of the emerging medium of television, broadcasting her coronation to the world. For every previous generation the sovereign was more or less unknowable. A distant, almost enchanted figure. But Queen Elizabeth put a body and a brand to the institution by maintaining a careful relationship with the mass media. She was accessible, but sufficiently mysterious. The sort of person you could have a cup of tea with, so to speak. Yet she also had her hard edges. When Princess Diana tragically died in 1997 the Queen refused to descend from the Scottish north to join the many thousands of mourners in London.

In the end, Her Majesty’s reign was itself tragic, presiding over the long, managed decline of her Empire and her country. When the Queen came to the throne in the midst of Sir Winston Churchill’s second prime ministership Great Britain was still a world power. Only a generation earlier it had commanded a quarter of the Earth’s surface and one fifth of its population. But Elizabeth II surely knew that that brief moment in British history had passed. In 1951 – the year before her father’s death – she had met the most powerful man in the world: the president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, whose access to and authorisation of nuclear weaponry made him and his office more fearsome than the Windsors’ over a Britain that was, even years after the war, under rations.

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Perhaps this meant that she had an acute sense of her institution’s vulnerabilities. Historians make much of Elizabeth’s leftist instincts, noting her frosty relationship with the late Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister. In that stormy period of the late 1970s and 80s, the two figures were at odds over apartheid South Africa and the miners’ strike. The Queen supported sanctions against South Africa. Mrs. Thatcher opposed them. The Queen privately expressed her sympathy for the miners – an exceptionally rare break from custom – whereas Thatcher was the cause of the miners’ misery.

Listening to Bishop Vercoe’s speech during the 150th anniversary ceremony at Waitangi, 1990 (Photo: MANUEL CENETA/AFP via Getty Images)

In one sense, this is evidence of the Queen’s progressive politics. But in another sense it is evidence of her conservatism. Monarchies, no matter their tenants, must resist reform. Thatcher’s entire mission was to uproot the post-war status quo. Reigning over decline, in both Britain and across the Empire, the Queen likely understood the pace of change could soon render her own throne redundant. In the 1990s in New Zealand and Australia, the republican movements were gathering momentum. In New Zealand the Irish Catholic Jim Bolger was prime minister while in Australia the Labor Party republicans Bob Hawke and Paul Keating were in office.

Yet on her visits to both countries in the 1990s she charmed. In 1990, when Bishop Vercoe issued a challenge to the Crown to account for its broken promises at Waitangi, she nudged prime minister Geoffrey Palmer to respond and he took to his feet. In 1995 the Queen won the respect of Waikato-Tainui by travelling to New Zealand to personally sign and assent to their treaty settlement. In context, it was a modest act, but at the time it was read as admirable and necessary. Iwi understood that Her Majesty was the descendant of their guarantor, Queen Victoria.   

Queen Elizabeth’s death likely spells the beginning of the end of the monarchy in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada – the last white, English-speaking realms. She was the chieftain of a horrific institution – one that privileges birth right over merit and wealth over charity. But everyone must concede that the Queen herself was a great stateswoman, an ariki of the highest order, and a dignified presence in an increasingly debased society (England). But what comes after? The Queen’s children and grandchildren did not inherit her self-denial. Instead they indulge in all kinds of royal pleasures, from lobbying cabinet ministers to attending American sex parties. This marks the Queen out as much kinder and wiser than her coddled, clueless descendants. It also marks out Her Majesty and her death as perhaps the British Empire’s final close. 


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Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

OPINIONOpinionSeptember 9, 2022

EGGS and bones: Perhaps it’s time for a tikanga Māori month too

Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

Asking two teenagers to recite Māori prayers over old skeletons is a lesson in why we need everyone to level-up on cultural awareness, writes Te Kuru o te Marama Dewes.

Two Māori teenagers being asked to perform karakia over old human remains that were “found” in a high school has left me feeling a little less hopeful about the progress of race relations in Aotearoa. 

I’ve been told by former students that these kōiwi have been known about for years and nothing has been done about it. 

Regardless of the fact that the bones had been donated for scientific purposes, most people will agree that it’s completely inappropriate to ask two students, teenagers, to take up the role of  pou tikanga and provide a spiritual cleanse over the bones. That request, although put forward from a place of good intention, shows the massive deficit of cultural awareness that remains within the psyche of non-Māori.

The Ministry of Education has dismissed any responsibility, stating publicly that it isn’t responsible for the resources being used in schools. Its recommendation to other schools was to ask the Māori teacher, which represents the same mindset that led to this request of the two Māori students in the first place.

The ministry also recommended that schools ask local hapū and iwi for guidance in these circumstances and to have more cultural awareness. That’s great, if the schools take that advice on board. I’m compelled to think the ministry could do more to facilitate those relationships and resource local hapū and iwi to take on that extra responsibility.

Deputy minister for education (Māori) Kelvin Davis said he personally has no problem with bones being used in schools for science if they were blessed appropriately before they were donated. Now, making those comments without knowing the history of the bones in question and whether or not they were given the appropriate rites by Māori is irresponsible, in my opinion, and reflects the minister’s own lack of understanding in the area. That’s not entirely his fault. After all, he is not the minister of Tikanga Māori. 

Although I would ideally like a more culturally sound response from the MP who has been appointed to preside over Māori education in mainstream schooling, I acknowledge that it’s not his area of expertise and that he, like the teacher in this case, should consult with those who are versed in that knowledge base.

The principal of the school has suggested that the teacher acted with good intentions, although she acknowledges that there was a breach of tikanga. Where her understanding of what a breach in tikanga comes from is unknown, as is the plan to develop that awareness further or what new protocols will be put in place. 

To be fair, it’s probably not something anyone was expecting but the fact it is that the dial-a-Māori mindset needs an upgrade. Every week I hear about Māori working within organisations being asked to complete tasks that are beyond their responsibility. Is this the painful process of reaching co-governance across the board? Perhaps. Putting that responsibility solely on Māori is unfair. We need non-Māori to use some initiative and commit to learning some basic principles about our culture. 

‘Hutt Valley, Kāpiti, down to the south coast. Our Wellington coverage is powered by members.’
Joel MacManus
— Wellington editor

If a building is on fire, who do we call? Firefighters. They are the people who have been trained to respond and have skills that make them better-equipped to do so. Who do we call when we find bones? In most situations we should call the police. In the case of bones used for scientific purposes, that’s an area that schools will now be carefully evaluating. 

It reminds us that there is a need for schools, organisations and other groups to strive to form relationships with tangata whenua in their area, as recommended by the ministry of education. That some schools in this country have no existing relationship with tangata whenua is a concern, and is telling of prevailing colonial attitudes. 

We need non-Māori to use some initiative and commit to learning some basic principles about our culture. 

After hearing about the incident, in the ever-supportive role that Māori have led in race relations since the arrival of non-Māori, Ngāti Whātua reached out to the school to offer support. It’s never too late to start building those relationships, only good things can come from it. 

Over the years there has been an incremental inclusion of Māori protocol in not only ceremonial proceedings of national and local government but also within organisations, schools and community groups. 

When the Ventnor ship carrying the human remains of 499 Chinese miners was wrecked off the coast of Hokianga, the bones washed ashore. Those bones were buried by the local Māori, who took it upon themselves to safeguard them until their families arrived. Now, there are strong relationships between that iwi and Chinese in New Zealand, including those who share lineage with the miners.

This is one example of the relationship that Māori have with bones. The word iwi itself means extended kinship group, tribe, nation and often refers to a large group of people descended from a common ancestor and associated with a distinct territory. It also means bone.

The question now is, what next? What will happen next for non-Māori to learn what’s appropriate or not? Are we happy to sit back, without committing ourselves to proactively learning about the ways of Māori, risking potentially traumatic experiences for youth, before we realise what’s OK and what’s not OK?

As we approach Māori language week, which has now grown unofficially into Māori language month, perhaps we need to think about a tikanga Māori Month?


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