Getty ImagesA controversial bill that seeks to amend the country’s founding file between European colonists and Mori people is gathering with thousands of people marching on New Zealand’s congress to take the final actions.
Accommodations are sold out in the investment Wellington- up to 30, 000 people are expected to go Tuesday’s protest outside congress.
The show marks the end of a nine-day hīkoi, or quiet opposition, that’s been making its way through the state.
Mori activists and their followers who oppose the bill introduced by a young partnership part have been a part of the hkoi.
Some people believe that New Zealand is a global leader in supporting indigenous freedom, but many fear that these rights are now in jeopardy under Christopher Luxon’s center-right government.
Stan Lingman, who has both Mori and Swedes ancestry and plans to attend the rally, claims that” they are trying to get our right away.” “]The hikoi is ] for all New Zealanders – white, yellow, red, orange. This bill may be challenged by us.
Stan’s family Pamela says she’s going for her “mokos”, which means children in the Māori speech.
The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi is seen as essential to the country’s civilization relationships.
But under the Luxon state, there’s a problem that the right won by the Māori area are being eroded. The Act democratic party’s act asserts that New Zealand should officially determine the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi.
The group’s president, David Seymour, says that over time the treaty’s key principles have led to racial groups, no unity.
According to Seymour, who has Mori lineage,” My Treaty Principles Bill says that I have the same fundamental rights and dignity as everyone else, regardless of whether their ancestors came around a thousand years ago, as some of mine did, or simply got off the plane at Auckland International Airport this morning.”
” Your starting point is to get a human being and ask, what’s your lineage? Who are you as a person? That used to be called discrimination. It used to be called hatred. It used to be called monitoring and prejudice. You’re then attempting to profit from it. I think that’s a major mistake”.
He is accused of wasting time and causing unanticipated social strife by passing a costs. Prime Minister Luxon has called the act “divisive”- despite being part of the exact partnership.
Despite the differences, lot of followers feel the protest has gone too far.
” They]Māori] seem to want more and more and more”, says Barbara Lecomte, who lives in the southern suburbs north of Wellington. There is currently a cosmopolitan mix of various cultures. We are all New Zealanders. I believe equal freedom may be pursued cooperatively.
Equality, though, is still a way off, says Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, co-leader of Te Pāti Māori ( Maori Party ).
” We ca n’t live equally if we have one people who are the indigenous people living’ less than ‘”, she argues. The partnership government’s “absolute attempt to divide a country that is otherwise democratic and embarrassing” is what it is doing.
The opposition to the bill brought the country’s congress temporarily to a standstill last week by MPs performing a chant, or traditional dance. The video went viral.
” To see it in legislature, in the highest home in Aotearoa, there’s been a true state of shock and I think sorrow and grief that in 2024 when we see politicians and the Trump ends, this is what the Māori are having to endure”, says Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. Because we are typically seen as beating above our fat in all of life’s great things, the government finds it humiliating.
For those watching New Zealand and wanting to witness more hakas, this rally wo n’t disappoint. On Monday, organizers gave the participants a lesson in the words and movements of the haka, Te Tiriti o Waitangi ( the Waitangi Treaty ). Before the march, those in the audience eagerly repeated the songs written on a large white strip.
” This is n’t just any normal hīkoi – this is the hīkoi of everybody”, says grandmother Rose Raharuhi Spicer, explaining that they’ve called on non-Māori, Pacific Islanders and the wider population in New Zealand to support them.
This is HKOI Rose’s fifth appearance. She comes from New Zealand’s northern settlement, Te Hāpua, straight above Auckland. It’s the same town that the most popular hīkoi started from, again in 1975, protesting over land rights.
This day, she’s brought her children and grandchildren.
” This is our grandchildren’s legacy”, she says. ” It’s not just one person or one party – and to alter]it ] is wrong”.
On the grass outside, Leah Land, a 26-year-old from Whangārei, is putting the final touches to a signal for the rally which reads’ Honour It, Do n’t Change It’.
” I am here because I believe as a Pākehā]non-Māori], without those sacred documents I do n’t have a right to live and be on this land, so that’s the foundation of me being able to be here in this beautiful country”, she said, adding that the proposed bill was terrifying.
The saddest thing is that despite being light, my closest friends are Mori and I want Aotearoa New Zealand to be a place where they can live.