Interpretation, history and the Treaty

MOST political leaders agree, we are told, about the need for schools to actively teach the Treaty of Waitangi in the context of New Zealand.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, National leader Simon Bridges and Hobson’s Pledge spokesman Don Brash all have said they supported education on the Treaty.

Mr Bridges said it would need to be ‘‘fair and balanced’’. Mr Brash said pre1840 history including deadly intertribal warfare should also be included.

No doubt views of what is ‘‘fair and balanced’’ will always differ.

In the 19th century one judge called the Treaty a ‘‘simple nullity’’, eons away from today’s understanding. It was not until after the famous (or in the minds of some infamous) court decision of Justice Robin Cooke in a 1987 that the term ‘‘partnership’’ took hold.

While a minority might view the Treaty as a means to deal with specific issues at a specific time, the current orthodoxy is that it is New Zealand’s founding document, that it has enormous significance. It is now treated like a sacred text.

So, should it be read literally, endeavouring to finely study the English and Maori versions? Should it be broadened into its ‘‘principles’’? Should it be interpreted in its context? Inevitably, New Zealand and New Zealanders are very different from 1840. How does the situation in 2019 affect the application of te tiriti and the nature and responsibilities of the parties to it? What, too, about the ‘‘breaches’’ of the Treaty in the intervening years?

In the popular mind, history is about ‘‘facts’’. To a degree, history is built on events. But even socalled facts themselves can require elucidation. What ‘‘facts’’ are chosen? How are they expressed? How are they put together? What is emphasised and what is downplayed or ignored?

Even naming events contains interpretation. What are now known as the New Zealand Wars or Land Wars were called the Maori Wars until the 1980s.

The politicians’ responses came after the launching of a petition by the New Zealand History Teachers’ Association calling on Parliament to require ‘‘the coherent teaching of our own past across appropriate year levels in our schools, with professional development and resources to do so provided’’.

Ms Ardern herself, commenting on the issue, said she thought there was an expectation New Zealand’s colonial history would be taught in schools and she hoped there would be conversations about it.

Mr Bridges, for his part, said what was taught could not be simply a Brash view or that of a Maori radical. But sometimes what is considered ‘‘radical’’ by one generation becomes mainstream. Likewise, what might be considered ‘‘reactionary’’ can become accepted as authoritative in another time and place.

Nonetheless, there will be widespread acceptance of the importance of more understanding about our past. While the Treaty and matters Maori are threaded into expectations of public organisations and public staff and as well as into schools, just how and when ‘‘history’’ is integrated into modern learning will itself take some understanding.

At more advanced levels, pupils can evaluate differing interpretations and compare narratives. They can look in more depth at cause and effect and the likes of the importance of individuals, of ideas, of chance. They can recognise conclusions are tentative and change as new interpretations are broached.

The motives and perspectives of the players and peoples can be considered. We as a broader community, too, should view understandings of the past with a questioning eye.

No doubt, what is taught will fit the official views of our time. But, at whatever level, and as the history teachers’ chairman, Graeme Ball, said, his association would view any sort of mandated national story ‘‘with horror’’, opting instead for multiple views.

Tellingly, he said: ‘‘Nor should there be any trace of blame in the present for events of the past. This too would be an unhistorical and unproductive approach.’’