The shame behind the niceties
In the arena of international relationship, the art of symbolic postures is a well-known diplomatic tool. Last week, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh was given a military welcome in front of the New Zealand Parliament. It provided a great picture of our Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, embracing the one-party state’s communist leader.
Lest we forget, between 1963 and 1975, New Zealand, sucked in by the need to be seen to co-operate with its major ally, fought alongside the United States against an anti-colonial Vietnamese liberation army led by Ho Chi Minh and supported by China.
Prime Minister Pham’s small country, having earlier in history defeated its French colonial occupiers, also forced the humiliating departure of the mighty United States and its allies.
Its interesting to note no specific record of Vietcong killed by New Zealand forces was kept but we know, and commemorate every Anzac Day, the 37 New Zealand soldiers killed and the 187 wounded.
Today, the changing reality of international politics sees China assert its claims over the resource-rich and strategic South China Sea, thus threatening the legitimate interests of a number of SouthEast Asian countries including Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Thus, we have last Monday’s political embrace of the respective prime ministers, Luxon and Pham, with promises of closer relationship towards a mutual $3.2 billion trade deal, with both seeking to diversify trade to reduce reliance on the Chinese market. Greater defence and security ties were also highlighted.
There is a second diplomatic posture captured by another great picture. This time it was a face-to-face close up of Prime Minister Pham engaged in a hongi with a Māori official whose lower face is embroidered with a moko. Anyone familiar with this Māori custom will know the significance of acknowledging the symbolic sharing of the breath of life.
Kiwis are familiar with the use of Māori culture in our tourism and trading relationships with good effect, to give New Zealand a point of difference in the competitive marketing world. We also know that in our diplomatic interface with the world at large, te ao Māori protocols have culturally enriched our identity and our ability to navigate a postcolonial world that is less Western and Anglosphere.
But what has been a standard use of Māori protocols, adopted by the Department of Internal Affairs’ Visits and Ceremonial Office, underwent a major shift when Nanaia Mahuta became Aotearoa New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Her inaugural speech, significantly delivered at Waitangi, reflected a commitment to push tikanga Māori to the fore of the country’s foreign policy making. Academics have quoted this reference in her 2021 speech: “… the principles of partnership and mutual respect embedded in the Treaty provided the foundation of how New Zealand conducts foreign policy today”.
Given the nature of NZ First’s support base, the current Foreign Affairs Minister, Winston Peters, had repeatedly signalled a return to the Anglosphere of New Zealand’s traditional allies. Viewed by most Māori as being against Māori selfdetermination, the coalition Government is happy to abandon the values of tikanga Māori in foreign policy-making as advocated by Mahuta, and happy to just use Māori protocols for ceremonial embellishment.
There is a third perspective to Prime Minister Pham’s visit worth mentioning. This important event was held in Wellington and not in Auckland or Christchurch. Because Wellington city is the capital, where Parliament, our highest democratic decision-making legislative body and its executive arm in the Beehive functions from. It is where the highest judicial office, the Supreme Court, deliberates. This is where the cultural memories of the nation are preserved at Te Papa Museum, the National Archives, and National Library. This is where most of the nation’s seven crown research institutes are sited, and where the huge bureaucracy supporting the government is based.
These political, economic, social and cultural infrastructures sit and depend on the 1150 square kilometre block of local government territory and the municipal services which the Wellington City Council is responsible for.
As the nation’s capital, Wellington city should be our showcase to the world. The city is the base of foreign embassies and high commissions. This is where the failure and inefficiencies of municipal services impact the efficiencies of the nation’s government machinery.
This is where the water pipes should not be falling apart and the city running out of water. This is where the waste from failing sewage systems should not be flowing down the capital’s streets and into waterways and its harbour.
The government must accept this as a national shame and fix it.