Wrestling with Waitangi
Reflections on History, Justice, and Faith
Leigh Harrington
We were burgled the other day. I woke up in the morning to find that someone had been to our shed and helped themselves to meat from our freezer and to my chainsaw. I’m not sure I can fully explain the special connection between a man and his chainsaw, but suffice to say, I felt violated.
Immediately, I found myself wrestling with my emotions—anger, anxiety—and with the question: What would Jesus do? As I processed my feelings, I also began to reflect on something deeper. If this is how I felt after a relatively minor violation, how much more must Māori feel in the wake of the loss of land and culture?
Over the past few years, I’ve done some reflection on Te Tiriti o Waitangi and our national history, guided by conversations, readings, and presentations from those who have been thinking about these issues far longer than I have. Two points have become particularly salient during this time.
The Reality of Colonisation
Despite the commitments made by the Crown in signing Te Tiriti, its representatives subsequently engaged in the same kind of colonising conquest and empire-building that they enacted in various other lands. The Treaty seemingly meant nothing to them. They used their power to take control of most available resources—sometimes through outright acts of violence, other times through more devious means, such as shaping legislation to facilitate the appropriation of land.
At the same time, they established systems of education, health, and church to serve themselves—their descendants and subsequent Caucasian immigrants, including people like me. Māori, like other Indigenous peoples, were left almost completely disenfranchised. There can be no real pretence that Te Tiriti was ever taken seriously by the Crown, making the celebration of its signing particularly tricky.
A Pattern of Human Behaviour
A second, sobering point is the reality that we human beings have a propensity to do awful things to each other. Not long before the signing of Te Tiriti, the Musket Wars took place—conflicts in which iwi with access to European trade and weaponry gained military advantages and used their firepower to decimate other iwi. My wife’s iwi (Ngāti Pāora) was a victim of this power imbalance, while the local iwi where we now live were beneficiaries.
Human history is full of conquest. Yet, despite this recurring pattern, Te Tiriti remains significant because a treaty was made—and that treaty has been breached in every possible way. As someone who believes deeply in God’s commitment to healing and restoration, substantiated in Jesus, I find myself sitting between a deep sadness at the human condition and the hope we have in the overwhelming, prevailing, and (dare I say it) ‘trumping’ goodness of God.
A Call to Action
Recently, I’ve been troubled by the fact that, in my experience, we (Pākehā Christians) haven’t been more sobered and distressed by our history—the injustice and violence from which we undeniably benefit. I also feel some alarm for myself and my Christian kin.
To the extent that we have not cared or probed more deeply to understand our history and our ongoing complicity in injustice, I wonder: What if it will be for us like it was for the rich man in the story of Lazarus? I know how I have benefited from my position in society as a Pākehā male, and I have not sought as much as I could have to channel the benefits of my privilege toward redressing injustice. Yet Jesus’ message is clear, as is the call in Isaiah 58: we are to devote ourselves to putting right these wrongs.
It is too easy to shake our heads, talk about how complex it all is, and then do very little about it. I’m afraid, for instance, that Pākehā learning Te Reo Māori—while valuable—does not ‘cut the mustard’. It is good, but much more important is our work to re-enfranchise, to redistribute resources, and to dismantle colonial systems and practices (which we sometimes need help recognising).
Every Day is Waitangi Day
A local kaumātua said to me last week that every day is really Waitangi Day for him. So, as we approach this Waitangi Day—and every other day—my hope is that we take the freedom we have in Christ, the cunning we inherited from our ancestors (who tricked Māori out of their land), and the generous and tenacious Spirit that God has given us, and use them to tackle the mess that we are called to help tidy.
Leigh is Tangata Tiriti and is married to Joanna Harrington - Ngāti Pāora, the priest in charge at the Venerable Bede, Shannon, where they live on the tūrangawaewae of Ngāti Whakatere.
