Is There a Reasonable Compromise?

This article was originally published for paying subscribers for Good Oil News INSIGHT and is reproduced here for all Right Minds readers on a delayed basis.

Dieuwe de Boer
Insight

We're in a bit of a tough spot. Since the 1970s Maori have developed a bit of a racial consciousness—the "Maori Renaissance" as they call it. They managed to push things pretty far in terms of gaining political power up to the height of the Ardern regime. National continues to treat them very favourably, they get a lot of money and influence over New Zealand.

Opposition to this Maori movement has been steadily growing with various attempts to cut down its avenues to power. Winston Peters has campaigned on deleting the "treaty principles" and even abolishing Maori seats. David Seymour has taken "one law for all" all the way to the top now and is on the cusp of forcing a referendum on the issue. Not the Treaty Principles Bill, that will fail, but what comes next will not. Either a citizen's initiated referendum or the next election will be fought on this, and the majority will win.

Is there a reasonable compromise somewhere between winner-takes-all? I don't see the threat of a civil war as serious, but the Maori independence movement is fast on a track to losing everything. They don't realise it yet, but democracy will turn on them. Maori wards will be rejected almost everywhere at the next local elections too.

There is the difficult problem of throwing out a compromise. Are these people actually serious? Many are "decolonisation" advocates and if you cut through what their leaders want it's the total destruction of New Zealand. They won't be satisfied with anything less, so the kind thing to do is to crush them every way possible.

What about the sincere desires many have for self-determination in their own little corner of the country? Can we work out a deal?

I've spoken with people oppressed by their government, such as AfriForum building their own replacements for police, schools, and infrastructure maintenance in South Africa. The town of Orania is building a little independent state in the desert from scratch. You have an ethnic group actively being oppressed by their government and their response to it is to build their own solutions.

These are no Maori equivalents. The problem that Maori have is that they're not being oppressed. The biggest thing holding Maori nationalism and self-determination back is reliance on the government.

There is a Canadian model that I haven't seen discussed much, at least not until Eric Crampton from the NZI published it in the Post: "a pathway to indigenous autonomy" and the idea put simply is to take existing Maori land (already defined in legislation) and create a local council for each iwi or hapu that wants to take this model. The largest bits of contiguous land any iwi or hapu own would be sufficient.

Currently this land is unratable by councils with various other restrictions and obligations. Maori would then be free to build, make by-laws, enjoy tino rangatiratanga move to their own "state", and most importantly New Zealand law and jurisdiction (kawanatanga) would continue to be exercised. The pressure would be released from the national stage. Energy could go into building their own local economies where the rangatira is truly the mayor in both name and power.

This would require some concessions on ethnic reality and self-determination from the "equal rights for all" crowd. This would require plenty of concessions from Maori to other issues. This would have to be a "treaty resolution" deal that would allow it to become the historical document it deserves to be with a new deal for everyone.

There's little I can do other than argue that the right-wing should consider and discuss this idea further, if there is serious interest from Maori in it. It's certainly a better deal than the destruction the Marxists and progressives have on offer with their decolonisation programme. A true compromise where we keep our country and settle historic grievances permanently.

About the author

Dieuwe de Boer

Editor of Right Minds NZ, host of The Dialogue on RCR, and columnist at The BFD. Follow me on Telegram and Twitter. In addition to writing about conservative politics and reactionary thought, I like books, gardening, biking, tech, reformed theology, beauty, and tradition.

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