Danger in privileges on racial grounds

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33065, 4 November 1972, Page 12

Danger in privileges on racial grounds

(By

ROBIN MITCHELL)

I ended my second article about New Zealand’s race-relations by pointing out that a good deal of the apparent harmony depends on bribery—special privileges for Maoris. To this I add that privilege because of race is unjust and invidious whatever the motive, for help should be given in response to need, not race.

The system of Maori privilege must inevitably be self-defeating, bribery or not; for in so far as it is in fact bribery, aimed at keeping the Maori activists quiet, the success it offers them will encourage them to demand more; and in so far as it is a kind of astigmatic do-goodism, aimed to lift the Maoris to the British level, the very implication degrades and debilitates them.

Special privileges for members of a minority race, for no other reason than their race, is not restricted to New Zealand: it is the pattern also for whites in South Africa. We condemn the system there, in word if not in deed, but are curiously blind to it in our own country. The main difference between the system here and in South Africa is that there the minority has voted the privileges upon itself, whereas here the minority’s privileges have been voted by the majority. This is why the world abhors South Africa’s system but ignores ours. Yet the underlying assumption is the same — that individuals are what they are because of their race, and that each member of one race is fundamentally different from each member of another race. And the ultimate effects on the people getting the privileges must be the same — they become so used to support from everybody else that that cannot manage without. In New Zealand the deterioration of the privileged race is likely to be even faster than in South Africa, because of the spirit in which the privileges are given. For South African privileges have been voted in the spirit of arrogance: “We are better than they”; and the arrogance protects like the wax on an apple; whereas New Zealand privileges have been voted in as a spirit of condescension: “We are better than they,” and the rot sets in. Source of respect The reaction to the rot is to try to wax the apple again. There is talk of a magnificent heritage: proud ancestors, noble traditions, rich cultural values. But this manufactured wax is a poor imitation: the rot accelerates, the apple falls. The true wax of personal and racial self-re-spect comes from the tree, the tree of humanity; the apple is expendable. If we think the Maoris are expendable, how well we’re doing. In case you should think the killing-by-kindness theory requires supporting evidence, I quote a high’ authority: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” And as for instances, think of the North American Indians and Eskimos. Think also of the misfiring of our early foreignaid programmes, when we set out to feed the hungry as if this was the sum of their needs: nowadays we only help people who help themselves, and we tell them the limits of our help. Why not apply this dearly-won knowledge at home? There is another lesson from foreign aid: what we have never done overseas, and on principle never would do, is to give help on the basis of race. Why do among our people what we would scorn to do among others? Bribery is, of course, fortunately not the only means of preserving good race relationship. In my second article I mentioned four ways in which the Maori resurgence is being restrained, of which bribery was but one: the others were tradition, intermarriage, and the fact that Maoris are still very definitely in a minority. Of these other restraints, the weakest is minority status, since minorities can be quite vocal. Tradition seems to have become irrevocably weakened through the Maori drift to the cities. Best insurance Intermarriage is the best long-term insurance against racial animosity, for few people could be openly prejudiced against a racial group to which some of their ancestors belonged. But racial mixture takes a long time, especially with new blood continually entering the country; and the danger is that an early hardening of racial lines could slow intermarriage to such an extent that integration would be forestalled by a racial donnybrook and possibly, as a reaction, by some form of apartheid. Our task is to maintain an absolute equality of races over the long haul until true integration is achieved; because of racial bribery and privilege, the going is progressively harder. In a few cases special arrangements may be needed

to protect the Maoris as a race, or indeed other races. The special Maori seats in Parliament seem to come into this category. But personal assistance to people simply because of their race is compromising and disruptive. If people need help they should get it because of their own personal circumstances, quite irrespective of race or any other group characteristic. Imagine the outcry if people got special help because they were Masons, or Roman Catholics, or National Party members. Yet year after year we make new regulations giving preference and privilege to Maoris. Logically, it would be more sensible to reward people for adhering to a political or religious dogma than for belonging to a race, as presumably they could choose the dogma. And speaking of logic, where is that logic in the choice of criteria as to who gets the help and who doesn’t? For either the boundary is set at some particular fraction of Maori blood, which is invidious (as well as being biologically suspect); or one merely has to have some distant ancestor who was a Maori, which is ridiculous. One hears of people who go through school as Europeans and then, when the time comes to look for scholarships, suddenly discover themselves Maoris. One hears of Maori activists who have one-quarter or oneeighth Maori ancestry: are they only looking for handouts? One hears of Maori families getting Governmentowned rental houses in short order when other families have to join lengthening queues. Special trade-train-ing schemes are opened for rural Maoris while shepherds’ sons have to work as labourers. Some academic standards are lowered for Maoris. Stupid distinction No doubt there are families who need help more than other families do, and it could well be that many Maori families need help. But to help a well-to-do family because it happens to have Maori ancestors while refusing a poor family because it happens to be European or Samoan or Chinese or whatever is not only the height of injustice: it is also the height of stupidity. For to give people help whether they need it or not is to teach them to be improvident—to spoil them. We ail know what is likely to happen when a child is spoiled, and the thing is worse when he is a teenager. Maoris as a race are, figuratively, in their teens as far as entry to the Western world is concerned: they have ideas which are fresh and useful, they have boundless energy; but they need guiding and encouraging, not pampering. A pampered teen-ager is liable to erupt into violence and vandalism. Are we inadvertently preparing such an explosion among the Maoris? And if we are, what will be the backlash? Those lists of Maori families in Government archives—will they become blacklists for some future apartheid? Maori land Even with the Maori Parliamentary’ seats there are racial underpins. In particular, the arrangement does not contain the seeds of its own dissolution, as even Mr Smith’s rejected Rhodesian constitution did. Moreover, the criterion as to who is and who is not a Maori is set far too firmly, at 50 per cent Maori ancestry; and there is no automatic adjustment of seat numbers to ensure fair representation. The whole system is open to political jobbery. (It is not simply a method of ensuring seats for Labour, as the destination of the votes if the seats were abolished has to be considered.) Perhaps at some stated time people could be asked to choose whether or not to be on the Maori roll, which thereafter would be limited to them and their descendants, who also could opt off, on the understanding “once off, always off.” As for Maori land, with its attendant system of a multitude of owners, usually ab-

sentee, the present law is reasonably satisfactory m that it encourages rationalisation. What worries me is the pressure to reverse the trend. As I see it, anyone in favour of the Maori land system is in favour of fern and rabbits.

The multiple ownership is the tail-end of a tribal scheme under which the land was held by everybody, or at least everybody who mattered. This ancient scheme foreshadowed our current system, under which all land is under the direction of the community. It is a cruel twist that the enlightened system of the past should have run out into such an anti-social arrangement as the multiple-ownership system, and a paradox that present-day Maoris should be defending the arrangement on behalf of ancestors who devised the historic communal scheme. The land of New Zealand belongs ultimately to all New Zealanders, to be used as the elected New Zealand Gov ernment thinks is in the high est interest of all New Zealanders. One people In these articles I have argued that, if New Zealanders are to be really one people, no-one should have special difficulties or special privileges simply through race. This, I have pointed out successively in the three articles, involves one language, one commitment, one law. The article on language drew sharp rejoinders on the grounds that Maori language was an essential part of Maori culture, and that the culture should be free to develop irrespective of Western influence. I do not believe the language is necessary to the culture, especially when there is no literature; but, beyond this, I do not believe either that Maoris want to develop their culture independently: they want the comforts of Western civilisation as the rest of us do, and that involves conforming in very many ways to that civilisation. Supposing, however, Maoris do want a separate culture, the way to it is not through privilege in a Western culture. Through pressing the point that New Zealanders should be one people, to the exclusion of racial pride or of national commitments other than to New Zealand, I have been accused of being a New Zealand nationalist. I adopt the accusation. In this world of nationalisms, we need a strong nationalism of our own or we shall be tom by internal dissensions which others will exploit. When the nations agree to merge their nationalities under a world government, I will be gladly a world citizen; but for the meantime I am gladly a New Zealander. Moreover, it is essential to my peace of mind that all my compatriots shall be similarly committed: not British or Maori or of any other race or nation, but New Zealanders.