Fran O'Sullivan: Clumsy jibe hardly cause for outrage

Emotional: Tuhoe meet Labour at parliament in 2008. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Tuhoe fortunate to be part of modern nation with some sense of past injustice

Just 60 years before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed satirist Jonathan Swift wrote a rather macabre pamphlet to draw attention to the horrific conditions of the Irish poor.

Swift - who was the Protestant dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin - suggested Ireland could solve its economic problems by fattening its over-abundance of Catholic children and selling them for meat.

"I have been assured by a very knowing American ... that a young healthy child, well nursed is, at a year old, a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food; whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in fricassee or ragout ... I grant that this food will be somewhat dear and there- fore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents seem to have best title to the children."

The Swift pamphlet came to mind when I was reflecting on the faux anger over Prime Minister John Key's slightly insensitive jibe about Tuhoe cannibalism this week. It's the kind of off-the-cuff remark Key makes when he is full flight at a function.

But hardly anything to get wild about given it was factually based.

In Swift's case his A Modest Proposal was a drastic read. But in an environment where Ireland had been enslaved by the Brits, it usefully underscored why the Irish were so desperate to win a battle for freedom from the British hegemony which dated back to Cromwell's bloody raids in the 17th century.

By the 19th century hundreds of thousands of Irish were being forced off their lands by unscrupulous landlords who set rents at usurious rates. Others were burned out of their cottages.

Many more starved to death in the great famines.The more adventurous ran for their lives and emigrated to the New World: The United States, Australia and New Zealand.

In deepest Firies in County Kerry where one set of my own Irish relatives still live, there are still plenty of "patriots" in situ. Even though Southern Ireland has long been a republic, and the Good Friday Agreement was supposed to underwrite peace in the North, Irish sentiment about their deprivations at the hands of the British still simmers beneath the surface.

What the Irish predicament demonstrates is that it can take an enormous length of time to get to the point where all parties are ready to settle centuries-old grievances. Even longer for the pain to go so that people can "move on".

So it is not difficult to empathise with the Tuhoe whose own forbears suffered through similar treatment by the predominantly British-led colonialists in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The "Crown" - that same nebulous beast that abused the Irish - also acted immorally in its relationship with Tuhoe.

But today's "Crown" - effectively John Key's Government - was gazumped by the decision of Tuhoe's negotiators to leak the proposal to vest ownership of Te Urewera National Park in the tribe before the political preparation had been done.

Even though the Tuhoe were not party to the Waitangi Treaty, the Government is fearful that vesting ownership of a national park in their hands will simply spark a new round of demands from Ngai Tahu and Tainui for similar ownership rights. It also fears it will incur great anger from many other New Zealanders who believe they will be divested of their own "ownership" of the national park through the current Crown ownership.

But the issues go deeper than that.

The proposed Tuhoe settlement is arguably the first steps towards self-governance by a tribe which insists it never gave up its sovereignty in the first place.

A one-page summary of the deal to Maori TV a fortnight ago indicated the settlement would also ensure particular Government services would be devolved over time. It wanted other tribes to apologise for assisting Government troops to drive them off their lands.

Negotiator Tamati Kruger indicated the tribe would be able to "tax" its people and other sources suggest it wants to represent itself separately on the international stage.

In substance this is probably not too far a stretch from the Scottish home rule movement.

In reality it may not turn out to be such a frightening prospect for New Zealand to accommodate. But the hurdle that must first be passed is the necessity to build trust among other New Zealanders that Tuhoe will honour a settlement and not freeze others from access to the park or force them to pay a small fortune to enjoy its treasures.

Nearly three years ago, Police Commissioner Howard Broad ordered armed police to raid the Ureweras for "terrorist" camps. It was a fiasco.

But despite this I still believe Tuhoe are fortunate that they are part of a young nation which has enough of a sense of justice to try to right these historic grievances.

As the Irish might comment - the grievances are only 160 years young.