Our struggle to emerge
Sometimes in life you have to get your head out of the reeds and look at the entire sealand. In June, the Ma¯ori Party handed to Parliament its 70,000-signature petition to adopt Aotearoa as our official name. Eventually the reo Ma¯ori names of all towns, cities and places would be restored. Now the petition has been referred to the Ma¯ori Affairs select committee.
Please, before we make any hasty changes, I would ask that we consider our beautiful historical and frankly spiritual homeland: Zeeland. We were named after the westernmost part of the Netherlands. They’re our neighbours, if not physically, then culturally.
Our namesake’s Latin motto is, of course, Luctor et emergo (I struggle and emerge), and who of us doesn’t? I whisper the words like a Hogwarts spell every morning as I try to summon the energy to get out of bed. Meanwhile, the really hardcore Zeelandophiles among us can stick to the Dutch translation, Ik worstel en kom boven. I hope I got that right, but you know me: I always worstel with my spelling.
Zeeus Volkslied (Zeelandic Anthem) is of course our provincial anthem. I sang the immortal line ‘‘Ik worstel moedig en ontzwem!’’ (I struggle bravely and swim) as my child was born.
But seriously, living below sea level has obviously had some impact on the Dutch psyche. Zeeland does, in fact, mean Sealand. How cool is it that we’re essentially named Waterworld – sorry, New Waterworld, or Waterworld II. It’s like we’re a theme park, or the sequel to the world’s secondworst Kevin Costner movie.
Our namesake’s banner includes a lion rising from the waves, which is at least 50% applicable as we, too, have waves. Hell, we used to have easily accessible lions as well. Back in the 80s and 90s you could drive through lion parks for the thrill of having the beasts casually swat the aerial off your Datsun Sunny, or sink their teeth into your tyres; menace your children through the windows while you flicked Pall Mall menthol ash out the top of the cracked window, and waved them away.
But of course Abel Tasman presumably didn’t know our lion status when he came for a quick visit in 1642 and ‘‘discovered’’ our islands. Afterwards, some Dutch guy did a drive-by christening of these islands, and somehow Nieuw Zeeland (subsequently Anglicised) stuck.
In all seriousness, it seems unacceptable. But when it comes to the formation and history of our modern state, unacceptable has been the gold standard. I initially thought that there were more important things for Te Pa¯ti Ma¯ori to be doing than expending energy on name changes – a point that has been raised by others. Every day I feel the weight of the complex challenges facing Ma¯ori, and think there are so many other things to put to right first. But perhaps this is exactly what we should be doing. Starting at the beginning.
There is something clean and elegant about accepting who we were, and are. We talk about the impacts of structural racism, and I can’t help but think that change starts with the very words we use to define ourselves. Our own name.
On the map, Zeeland comprises a river delta, fingers of land, fanning out into the North Sea. Brave people settled there, established their history and culture and generations of lives, spanning centuries – mostly below sea level – showing the tenacity of humanity.
Here in Aotearoa we crossed the world’s greatest ocean to find islands already above the waves. We have our own story, our own language, our own history. Let’s embrace them.