Aotearoa as a New Zealander

Intolerance
It never stops amazing me how intolerant we Christians can be! I remember back to when I was first out working and was visiting relations up north, this extended family over the years had had a profound and positive effect on my young Christian life. Now this particular part of the family I was visiting astonished me when they started talking about Maori people. They were so offensive, racist and intolerant. But especially displayed a lack of Christian love or Christian character. Their behaviour seemed out of place with all I had held dear in my Christian journey so far. My own family had always had an inclusive approach and a very respectful way of talking about those of different ethnicity's.

Unfortunately I came to discover that this intolerant and racist attitude was all to common amongst many of my Christian friends and relatives. I struggled to reconcile this attitude with the message of reaching out to people with the gospel. How can you say with words that God loves the world and that the 'great commission' commissions us to take the gospel to all the world when one denigrates those of a different background to us!

I also discovered that often Christians in New Zealand had no problem showing compassion to those from distant lands but not towards their fellow NZ'ers of Maori (or Asian) descent! It became obvious to me that it wasn't necessarily that these folks were racist but just had an intolerance towards people who were different and who seem to be at the bottom of our social structure. They had accepted the stereotypes that the news media betrayed; that Maori were responsible for most of our crime, therefore you can't trust them. Maori were responsible for most violent crime therefore we had to fear them. Maori were bludgers of the welfare state therefore they were lazy. These images were projected onto everyone who stood out to be Maori or had a brown skin.

How can you have an unconditional love for a people when you don't trust them, or denigrate them? So if they aren't racist then what generates this antagonism towards Maori? Is it connected to the issues of ethnicity and the 'Waitangi Treaty'. These are issues which New Zealanders are struggling with and the outcomes will have ramifications on how we treat others coming here who are different because of culture, colour or religion.

Where do we belong?
New Zealanders of European ancestry who are second or third generation NZ'ers I believe have a struggle trying to decide who they are as a 'people'. The problem is that we have a mixture of ancestral heritage. As an example in my family; we have a German surname but we have just as equal amount of English, French, Irish ancestors as well. So where do i come from (my tupuna)? I am not really German, or English, actually I really can't say that I'm European, I don't have a sense of connection, I don't feel that I belong there. I live on the edge of Polynesia but I'm not a Polynesian. I could claim the German side of my heritage because that is where my name came from and I must admit that I do look back to Germany as having a slightly stronger claim on my past. But this is based not on anything scientific but how I feel. However this is looking back not answering the question of who I am now! I don't really feel I am connected to Germany now or geographically. I live in the pacific close to Polynesian a bit further from Asia and close to Australia. I am a New Zealander, whoever that is.

I think until we can accept who we are as a nation, as an ethnicity, we will struggle with gaining a mature outlook to 'others who are different', accepting migrants from different backgrounds. Maybe the problem we have towards Maori is that they seem to be able to stand tall as Maori people; they feel they are Maori even if they have mixed ancestral backgrounds. Ethnicity is not a fact it is a feeling, it's me being happy with who I am as a people, being proud of my tribal canoe. Connecting with the geographical anchorage of where I live now. It would be nice if one day I can say I'm a New Zealander from Aotearoa. I believe we all should be "tangata whenua", although with special place to those original four canoes.

The Waitangi Treaty is possibly another factor that causes some New Zealanders to feel aggrieved and to feel that Maori are 'getting another hand-out'. I struggle myself with the Treaty claims, I have no problem with settling past injustices, giving back land that was illegally taken, but when the claims start trying to settle 'customary rights' then I feel a little uncomfortable. We live in an entirely different society today, no longer a British colony, no longer a Polynesian people, nor a prominently English people. We are a mixture of different backgrounds, the Maori of today are very different from their ancestors so we need to be careful that we don't create laws that divide us on a subjective classification of ethnicity.

Colour blind
It is very easy to glibly go on to say that we are all one race, colour or culture, they don't matter we should be colour blind. We can quote scripture that says there is no more Greek, slave, male or female" etc "we are all one in Christ". That is right in as far as our relationship with God goes. We all stand before our heavenly Father as 'sinners saved by grace'.

When we say this within the context of race or culture then it usually comes from those within the dominant culture with it's structures firmly in place and with a culture that isn't disadvantaged. Those on the 'outside' feel they need an identity to give them a sense of significance or prevent their official invisibility and consequent discrimination. Although they want to be part of this new culture they also value where they have come from. We need to embrace unity in diversity, allowing people to be different to be Maori, German, black or white but accepting common values that have been shaped within this New Zealand culture. We need to be certain what our common values are and articulate them loudly so everyone is aware of them.

Because we are not a Christian nation we need be careful in how we express values that come out of our Christian heritage. We don't need to be ashamed of that Christian heritage and we should strive to keep truly Biblical values within our culture but outside that we should be flexible in what we proscribe for others who share different backgrounds.

I should say that these are thoughts getting typed out, not completely formed yet, so am open to a different slant on the above. Will continue on with the next blog on how we respond to people of other faiths especially Muslims.