Dialogue: Let no one forget we are one nation, one family

Our ethnic diversity should be an asset we share with pride, not the catalyst for disharmony, says New Zealand First leader WINSTON PETERS, continuing the political phase of our debate.

After a decade of ethnic cleansing in Europe, tribal warfare in Asia and the Pacific and an increasing internationalism, it is timely that we examine who we are and cherish and hold on to those values that make us uniquely New Zealanders.

New Zealanders should value their cultural heritage whatever it is. I value my family's rich Scottish and Maori cultural heritage. Ours is a country of diversity but, sadly, it is also becoming a country of divisiveness and thus a country of increasing intolerance and disharmony.

We are a people under pressure, for racial tolerance is proportionate to strain. That straining point writhes and twists with new pressures every day.

Despite that, there is a pathway to proper racial harmony in our development. We are many peoples with differing customs, religions, languages and cultures, but we are one country - the family New Zealand - and let no one, New Zealander or foreigner, forget it.

Today a worthy task is before us to recognise the overall sovereignty of our nationhood and thus reject and abhor any separatist or segregationist movement that divides us further. We must not be diverted from our national destiny.

I acknowledge that New Zealand is now an amalgam of races and cultures. The influx of Pacific Islanders in the 1960s and 70s has continued. Similarly, we have been a country of hope and opportunity for many Asian immigrants. Our diversity should be a strength. Only our weakness will make a sin of that virtue. However, it is manifestly clear that we have reached not just a critical point but a crisis point in the development of race relations.

Such is the widescale economic underperformance of New Zealand and the development of a permanent underclass that economic and social conditions are breeding resentment, distrust and fear.

In such an incendiary environment we confront a direct clash between European and Maori for the control of their own destinies. There is no reason why they both cannot prevail in harmony.

But racism emanating from both Maori and European is an alarming recent development in our midst. Some Maori radicals seeking to sow discord for their own selfish ends see the revitalisation of Maoritanga as a first step to separatism.

They do not want a shared future. They want us apart in thought, deed and law - separate developments, separate schools, separate universities, separate courts, separate government, separate medicine. Their wish is to divide us on the basis of skin colour - even on the basis of tribe.

The question is whether we are prepared to see this country riven by racial hatred and prejudice; whether we are prepared to see New Zealand condemning its native race to be second-class citizens. And whether we are prepared to see some go on claiming additional privileges because of the colour of their skin.

Several years ago there was an excellent television programme on the black American civil rights movement called Eyes on the Prize.

Even in the sickbeds of racism in the Deep South those black leaders of the 1960s identified the institutions that they first had to conquer. They knew real power, real equality existed through the white schools, not the segregated version imposed on them.

For their eyes were fixed upon a prize called equality and they knew that a poor man in today's world is never as equal as a rich man, and that education delivers wealth. They knew that to win, to be free, to choose, to be equal requires the ability to compete.

Meanwhile, in New Zealand today some Maori and their cultural fellow-travellers are arguing for the establishment of separate institutions.

Too many Maori have had that ability to compete effectively stripped from them at birth. Born to parents, often one parent, who too often undervalue education, they have virtually been rendered failures even before they start school.

That is the sad reality of today. If we run away from that reality, we only further condemn young Maori to an unfortunate and unequal future. And in that condemnation, for economic and demographic reasons, we include ourselves.

The new currency for class is not lineage or money, it is education. If you have it, you possess the key to upward socio-economic mobility. If you do not, you are condemned to a narrow range of options that belittle your future.

So where does the Treaty of Waitangi fit into this equation? There can be little doubt that Maori economic development was hindered by actions of settler- and European-dominated governments.

But I do not subscribe to the belief that the Treaty of Waitangi should continue to cast an overt influence on the direction of this country. Were some Maori radicals to have their way, we would experience apartheid in New Zealand. That is not what any of us would wish on the major balance of New Zealanders, Maori and non-Maori alike.

I can understand Maoridom's deep reverence for the treaty. When our language and culture were under threat - indeed, our whole physical being - the treaty stood as a beacon of hope. But that was yesterday. Maoridom will retain its unique place in our society.

But there are new challenges ahead. The time has come for us to shrug off the security blanket that the treaty has become and marry the best that is Maori with the best that is European. Cultures that do not adapt die. To cling to the past is a denial of the future.

Together, New Zealanders must commit to a positive, rational and tolerant path towards one country. Then we can celebrate our ethnic diversity as an asset, an asset we share with pride. For New Zealand should be for all New Zealanders. And no one race, no one people has priority over any other race or people.

Those who deny the unique culture that is Maoridom are the reverse side of the same tarnished coin. It is not adequate, appropriate or politically sensible to articulate complaints about Maori dependency yet offer no way out.

There is much, even yet, that our nation might benefit from by embracing our diversity while still recognising our differences. Real progress is impossible unless we all understand the need for a shared future in which we are one country, with one set of institutions and one set of laws for everybody regardless of who we are.

* TOMORROW: Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons.

Herald Online feature: Common core values

We invite to you to contribute to the debate on core values. E-mail dialogue@herald.co.nz.