Lizzie Marvelly: Is white supremacy responsible for discrepancies in New Zealand society?

The replica of James Cook's ship, HMS Endeavour, anchors in Mercury Bay during a visit to Whitianga on September 25 as part of the commemoration of his arrival in New Zealand. Photo / Stephan Bosman

COMMENT

In recent times the term "white supremacy" has taken on new meaning in New Zealand. The white supremacist may now be someone hiding behind a computer screen drowning in fallacious ideology and flawed arguments. He's the disaffected, delusional loser. He's the outlier, the unusual. He's not, for example, Captain Cook. White supremacy isn't, for example, colonisation.

Until very recently, the term "white supremacy" wasn't uttered in polite company in New Zealand. The term has been injected into our national vernacular, and we're not quite sure what to do with it. We might be forced to contemplate what colonisation – the annexation of nations inhabited by indigenous (and usually black or brown) people – could possibly be other than a manifestation of white supremacy. Whether the creation of empires for resources, extra land for overflowing populations, power, control of shipping routes and the export of foreign religions and ideologies might have something to do with the idea that one culture and race is somehow supreme over others. Whether the needs of some cultures and peoples are less important. Whether the rights of some cultures and peoples are less inalienable.

We might have to wonder whether the Tauranga City Council's recent decision to revoke its gift of ancestrally significant (and unfairly taken) pā land back to local iwi might have something to do with a system that has consistently afforded power to one group of people over others. And whether it is defensible in 2019 to decide not to right a wrong nearly 200 years old. In 1830, the use of the land in question by the missionaries was granted by local Māori on the proviso that the land would not be sold to raise money – an agreement circumvented when the missionaries gifted it to the Crown, who on-sold it, after which part of the land parcel was purchased by the archdeacon (fancy that!), whose descendants set up a trust that is also angling to receive the gifted land. Complicated, isn't it? It almost makes you wonder whether amongst all that gifting and selling there was something else going on…

A supporter of returning 11 Mission St to Māori in the Tauranga City Council chambers. Photo / George Novak

We might have to wonder whether submissions against the proposal to gift the land to Māori that included arguments like, "The whole Bay of Plenty is being given away and it is never enough. The burglaries, rapes, child murders and car theft will continue unabated," and that the proposal would be tantamount to "giving [Māori] special privileges" and creating a "hate group" might have their foundations in something deeper than a particularly strong affinity with a particular piece of land.

We might have to wonder why there's such enormous opposition to returning Ihumātao – land that was demonstrably stolen by the Crown – to Māori ownership. Why there are hysterical wails about the sanctity of the full and final Treaty settlement process when such settlements force Māori to accept recompense that covers only a tiny fraction of what was lost.

We might have to wonder why we're spending millions of dollars "commemorating" the arrival of Captain Cook, and why a commemoration billed as highlighting "two great voyaging traditions" (ostensibly British and Māori) is using the arrival of our first British colonist as its focal point.

We might have to wonder whether Māori, en masse, clamoured and cried for the "commemoration" of Captain Cook's arrival in New Zealand. Or rather, whether the Crown – the representatives of the British monarch – unilaterally decided that such a commemoration would take place.

Why is there such enormous opposition to returning Ihumātao to Māori ownership, asks Lizzie Marvelly. Photo / NZME

We might have to wonder why there are so many Māori in prison. A white supremacist view would suggest that one race is simply more inherently criminal than others, but of course, there's no white supremacy in New Zealand, so no one thinks that. I wonder then, what's causing our disproportionately Māori prison population…

We might have to wonder why in April 2016, pre-charge warnings (a tool used by police to offer a warning rather than charging an offender with a crime) were used in Northland for 46 per cent of New Zealand European offenders compared with only 22 per cent of Māori offenders, in Counties Manukau 36 per cent compared with 18 per cent, in Waikato 52 per cent compared with 39 per cent, and in Canterbury 36 per cent compared with 26 per cent.

We might, in short, have to do a lot of wondering.

Deep down, in the wee small hours of the morning, if I'm lying awake staring at the ceiling, I sometimes wonder whether white supremacy might have something to do with the gaps and discrepancies in New Zealand society. I've found that wondering such things quietly is the most peaceful option, knowing that talking openly about white supremacy makes you few friends, and also not wanting to awaken my slumbering love with pillow talk about deeply entrenched institutional racism. She deals with enough of that during the daytime.

Pondering white supremacy tends to leave you with more questions than answers, I've found. There's one particular question that I can't quite get my head around. Why are we so afraid to talk about white supremacy? Why are those two words a red rag to a presumably white sacred bull?