Meanwhile, the fun continues in New Zealand, as this article from Te Ao, which conveys Māori news, attests. In fact, there’s a video, so you can see the whole episode, as well as a transcript of the video.
Here’s what happened: A local district council met and one of the participants wanted to recite a Māori prayer—a karakia— to open the meeting. Here’s how Wikipedia characterizes the term:
Karakia are Māori incantations and prayer used to invoke spiritual guidance and protection. They are generally used to increase the spiritual goodwill of a gathering, so as to increase the likelihood of a favourable outcome, such as at a court hearing. They are also considered a formal greeting when beginning a ceremony.
The new mayor said “no”, saying was running a “secular council” that “respects everyone”. The Māori prayer woman kept insisting on reciting the prayer and the mayor kept saying “no”. As you’ll see in the video below, some minutes later she finally flouted the mayor and burst out reciting her prayer in Māori, while other council members chimed in or gave an “amen”. Here’s the text:
Conflict has erupted at a council meeting over a mayor’s decision to shutdown a wahine Māori councillor wishing to recite karakia, before the opening of business.
Kaipara District Council met for the first time Wednesday, under new Mayor Craig Jepson, elected at October’s local elections.
As is customary in councils and at the opening of parliament, Māori Ward councillor Pera Paniora, of Te Moanaui o Kaipara, wanted to begin the meeting with a karakia.
“Excuse me, just before we start, through the chair may I say the karakia?” Paniora said.
Jepson charged on saying ‘you cannot interrupt, sorry’.
Paniora stated her case explaining the tikanga of karakia, which appeared to trigger Jepson.
“This is a council that’s full of people who are non-religious, religious, of different ethnicities and I intend to run a secular council here which respects everybody and I will not be veering from that. Thank you.” he rebuked.
“I don’t agree with that.” Paniora said.
“You cannot interject,” Jepson struck back.
Paniora tried a final time by saying ‘Excuse me for those who do practice…’ but was ultimately shut down.
“Councillor Paniora, you are not allowed to speak in this manner and we will continue with our meeting.” Jepson said.
“It doesn’t really feel like a meeting,” a third councillor interjected.
Paniora appeared to give up, however in a throw back 20 minutes later she said the karakia and members of her supporters sang Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi as part of her maiden speech.
“Seen as I wasn’t able to do the karakia this morning, it’s better late than never.” she said.
Fellow councillors and attendees in the public gallery could be heard closing the prayer in unison, with a collective ‘āmene’.
It’s clear that the article is written to show the hornéd secular mayor as the demon, even though New Zealand is a secular country. But of course the Māori must have special exemptions because they are indigenous. Note the repeated references that a karakia, which is in effect a verbal superstition (analogous to knocking on wood when you say something wishful) is customary. The mayor, whom I consider enlightened, wanted to change that. But he didn’t get away with it, and I’m betting he won’t be reelected! If this were in the U.S., also formally a secular country, the Freedom from Religion Foundation would be all over these councils, forcing them to stop saying their prayers.
The lesson: in New Zealand, when it comes to foisting superstition and religion on the public, the Māori always get their way. I hope to Ceiling Cat that they don’t suceeed in imbuing science education in schools with their superstitions, which they keep trying to do.
You can see the video and article by clicking below:
h/t: Luana
There was a video I saw a while back, and wasn’t sure what to make of it – so I thought to put it here, perhaps to compare with the prayer : New Zealand MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke performing haka in her opening speech at the podium. I guess an eXtwitter link is necessary :
https://x.com/basitch943/status/1751607112671662154?s=46
… I guess I don’t see any issue there – it’s pretty intense, and I kind of like it (though I have no idea what it means). Parliament was singing along.
I was not sure if that constitutes a secular/non-secular line-blurring. I do not think so.
I love seeing a woman leading a good haka. Haka is not religious and she had the floor and was giving a speech and the haka had context. Haka is part of the NZ culture and there are different ones. They are meant to get ready for battle which I think fitted the context of her speech.
Thanks – and, presumably, reciting the haka was voluntary on the part of the other … MPs (or other positions).
I suppose when some sort of group chant or attempt at a deep mystical contact with places numinous is going on – s.g. The Lord’s Prayer, or the prayer which is the subject of this post – that’d be when a right to privacy was violated.
Though, how that right is defined is unclear, generally.
It’s not really reciting more than performing. Check the All Blacks haka who perform it at the beginning of every rugby match.
AH – this becomes clear now.
Yes! I like it! 🙂
Although some of us feel that it’s over-used, and that we passed the point of Peak Haka some time ago.
https://youtu.be/GpdNkcSzHrk?feature=shared
If the Maori officials are struggling to see why their demands are inappropriate, simply substitute any other religious incantation instead of their own. Would they be ok with coercing the group with “Allah Akbar” or “In Jesus’ Name” prior to conducting public business?
As PCC(E) (or the report he’s citing) put it,
That last word is telling. Some people there – not just the Maori – had divided loyalties. Possibly worse – they may not even realise that what they did is profoundly offensive.
It would be an interesting case if something like that were attempted here in the US. By Supreme Court ruling, city council meetings may begin with a Christian prayer ceremony, seeing how it has been a long established practice. But it would be interesting to see what would happen if such a meeting were opened with a tribal ceremony, along with some coercion to get people to participate or at least sit still for it.
The Supreme Court lost my respect when it said prayers led by public agents do not violate the First Amendment. They obviously do. Michael Newdow is right.
Haven’t the Church of Satan Incarnate (National Secular Society Chapter) been trying this particular tactic for several decades now?
I can’t recall any Pastafarians succeeding in getting to wear their “Hol(e)y Colendar” while affirming to a court or opening a council meeting. But I’m sure some of them (us!) are trying to get into a position to cast light into those particular areas of procedural darkness.
You might think the FFRF would be all over this prayer stuff if it happened in the U.S. I hope so but I’ll bet otherwise. An indigenous incantation will be given a free pass in the name of inclusion and reconciliation. They’ll claim it’s not really “religious” in some narrow, special-pleading, post-hoc sense of the word and so not a 1A breach. You just wait. You just don’t have the numbers in the U.S. to see this coming.
I wondered this, too. It would be interesting to have an official statement on this from FFRF — or a discussion. As you say, two values are colliding.
I’ve asked this of my regular contact in FFRF. Apparently the issue hasn’t yet been formally addressed. I’m keeping an eye out for any references.
I’m a monthly donor, and lately FFRF’s newspaper — Freethought Today — has been publishing some of my light-hearted contributions fairly regularly. (Current issue included.)
Some years before Covid I generated an FFRF “billboard” for myself on their website, a copy of which I occasionally drop into an X-Twitter posting:
https://x.com/Jon_Alexandr/status/1749153657910939861
(The photo is of me before my official Roman Catholic “communion” ceremony.)
Gods are everywhere but nowhere… well no one died so there is that.
Leave it at home or on the Marae but it has no business in council meetings… gods don’t pay rates!
Is that – the tax-free status of “churches” – the case in NZ as it is in America?
Yes that is the case. In NZ,
“…charitable status means that churches – even the big rich ones – don’t have to pay any tax.”
In jest, further proof of NO gods, I guess if you don’t exist why would you be expected to pay taxes.
This is actually fairly old, from late 2022. Of course there were accusations of racism from the usual quarters, and the mayor was forced to back down to an extent: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/480344/kaipara-mayor-unbans-karakia-from-council-meetings
Some people tout the idea of the “secular karakia”, and claim that reciting a karakia is not necessarily a religious practice, more a cultural one. Either way, they can still be pretty tedious to sit through, especially when most people don’t understand the language.
It’s a power thing. It’s even better if it’s in a different language.
Which is exactly why the Romans required subject nations to conduct business with the “state” in Latin. (And an absolute myriad of copycats since ; I can’t think of any earlier examples, but I would not be surprised to see it pre-dating the Romans by a millennium or several.)
See also : the Roman Church’s vehement opposition to the translation of the Bible into national languages. Oh, and to spray the condemnation around the monotheistic co-religionists, the insistence of (some, many? , not all!) Islamic scholars on not translating the Koran from Arabic. The Mormons are sufficiently rare round here that I don’t recall their precepts in detail, but aren’t their “golden tablets” carefully written in some invented language, to discourage scrutiny. The Church of Scientology (do they qualify as monotheists?) were very protective of their copyrights until someone end-ran them via a court record.
Not having any examples from polytheists is my ignorance, not the absence of such examples, I’m sure.
Good points. I’m not that familiar with the Mormons but Wikipedia says: “ A problem with linguistic reviews of the Book of Mormon is that the claimed original text is either unavailable for study or never existed. Smith said that he returned the golden plates to an angel after he finished the translation.”
Errr, “Don’t look behind the curtain!” ?
(One of these days I’m going to have to watch Wizard of Oz. But then again, having managed over half a century without it, why bother?)
I think the current situation is that Kaipara Council members take turns to open the meetings as each person sees fit, but the openings are not part of official business.
Here’s a karakia from a November 2023 meeting of the Raupo (part of the Kaipara Council’s area) drainage committee.
Kia hora te marino,
Kia whakapapa pounamu te moana
Hei huarahi mā tātou i te rangi nei
Aroha atu, aroha mai
Tātou i a tātou katoa
May peace be widespread,
May the sea be like greenstone
A pathway for all of us this day.
Let us show respect for each other, for one another,
Bind us all together
Nothing religiously objectionable in this case.
My beef with karakia and formal Maori welcomes when my woke teachers’ union used them, was that some were quite long-winded and they contributed nothing (as far as I could tell) to the issues we were there to discuss, yet discussions of important motions were often rushed because of insufficient time.
There’s a discussion of the issue from a secular Maori perspective here:
https://twitter.com/TeHenare/status/1549919513033854980
I still find even the so-called secular ones vaguely annoying myself.
That was a great twitter thread. Worth reading
Maori society, like many traditional, including Muslim, societies, does not have a concept of secularity, or even of individuality. Often the tribe or the clan is the unit of society, not the individual, and there is no “religion” distinct from social order, family responsibilities or the way things are done. To use H. L. A. Hart, the Maori Rule of Recognition is not the NZ constitution or body of laws, but their own religion and cultural practices of the ancestors. Ironically, this situation reveals that secularity and even formal Science, are Western and ultimately Christian constructs. Thus, it is really a form of colonization, a powerful eradicating form of colonialism, to insist on secularism or Science as the arbiters of what is legal or true.
Somehow Muslims that come to America manage to get it into their heads that they can’t impose their religious beliefs on America. And now you’re telling me that the Maori, who are, after all, citizens of New Zealand, a secular country, are simply unable to comprehend that most of the rest of the country doesn’t share their religious beliefs? And that they don’t have the ability to withhold imposing their prayers and religions on others? After all, these are not only adults but councilpersons, and you’re telling me they don’t know this. And that they can”t refrain when the Mayor tells them that it’s not appropriate? That is behaving more like children than adults. It’s just arrant nonsense to say that it is “a form of colonization” to say that science tells us what is true. As for what’s “legal,” I don’t see how religion adds anything to secularism, and nobody pretends that science tells us what is legal.
Sorry, but your argument is obtuse and you’re treating the Maori as if they were ignorant children, in so doing evincing the soft bigotry of low expectations.
As for the rest of your comments, secularity is not a Western concept, any more than religion is a Western concept. Formal science originated in the West but is now worldwide, and what does that have to do with this discussion, unless you’re telling me that the Maori don’t know what “science” is, which is clearly false?Finally, it’s ridiculous to claim that science is an “ultimately Christian concept.” Plenty of Greeks and Egyptians were doing a form of science before there was Christianity, and I’d love to hear your argument (not really) that science itself is a Christian concept.
But you really hit rock bottom when you claim that science (which is by nature secular) is not an arbiter of what is true, but that religion is. Give me a break, please. Does Matauranga Maori tell us what is true? I’d love to hear those truths.
Am in agreement with everything you’ve said in reply to Mr Baird, Prof, but there’s an important typo in your third line of the third paragraph – I think you meant science is “now worldwide”.
Yes, will fix, thanks.
Not all Muslims! Though this is in the UK:
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/28/how-muslim-identity-politics-colonised-education/
Good article.
Blair and his “multiculturalism “ Blair and his Islamic fifth column “ more accurate , not only that but they knighted the man!
“Somehow Muslims that come to America manage to get it into their heads that they can’t impose their religious beliefs on America.”
Yes, boss, true. It is why, HUGE Zionist that I am, am not much bothered by Muslim immigration to our country. US produced Jihadis exist, but are rare. Vs in Europe where they provided the bulk of ISIS’s foreign recruits.
Something about assimilation I think. Australian born jihadis also very rare despite a very large Arab immigrant population (many of whom I went to school with) since the 1970s.
DEI “anti-colonialism” is way more dangerous for Jews and western civilization.
Maori culture in NZ is much trendier, has a friendlier face, works against greater white guilt there and is more insidious. NZ is kinda eff’d, I regret to conclude as I have many happy memories of my youth there and in Oz.
D.A.
NYC/Florida
I’m no expert, but I would think it’s a mistake to talk as if all Maori thought in the same way – much as it would seem odd to me if I were told that all English people were ardent royalists and went in for Morris dancing. Certainly Te Henare, whose Twitter thread I linked to above, is an ardent secularist. My son’s future father-in-law, who with 1/16th Maori ancestry counts as Maori here, takes a robust approach, merely stating that he “can’t be bothered with all that Maori s**t”.
Aristotle and Pythagoras want a word with you.
Oh, coming in, stage right, is Imhoteph with a FOURTH set of plans for the Bent Pyramid as a worked example of the experimental cycle. Is that the thundering of Chinese examples booming on the horizon?
Mayor Jepson capitulated within the week it seems:
Jepson backed down on his controversial decision to ban karakia at council meetings following an “open and frank” meeting yesterday that resulted in a compromise where each councillor will take turns in opening and closing meetings with a karakia, affirmation, prayer or reflection of the day.
The initially rebuked Maori councillor said on social media, “Tikanga can adapt and evolve. I am content with this compromise on the basis that our wider tikanga also includes manaakitanga and aroha,” a sentiment I’m sure we can all share (if we knew what it meant.)
https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/300760449/kaipara-mayor-to-allow-karakia-a-week-after-banning-the-practice-from-council-meetings?videoId=6323777671112
7 Dec 2022
So much for: How to turn secular council meetings into spiritual powwows. 🙁
The intimidation factor of all this as well as its contagion is really wearing me out. I just see single-minded brute force everywhere.
I’m very interested to read that twitter thread (Andrew’s reply in #7 thread) but cannot use twitter through that type of link… I, ironically, have been banned from Twitter for “abusing the platform” even though I’ve never posted anything on it. I only had an account so that I could access other people’s links. I appealed my case but never heard back. How stupid everything is now.
Great talk by Sam Harris today:
5 Myths about Israel and the War in Gaza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foy8VP0XtIk&t=1438s
42 min.
For the record, in the NYT reporting on the Iran-Iraq war: the “keys to paradise” carried over the minefields by little boys were actually plastic keys.
D.A.
NYC
Mostly I agree with what you say about MM and science in NZ, Jerry, but on this issue I don’t think you have a complete picture. Maori have signed a treaty with Pakeha New Zealanders that grants them special status not accorded other ethnic groups. No one has to like that agreement, but it’s an agreement nonetheless. The status is by virtue of their being indigenous and having granted the Crown partnership status in 1840 (an agreement that the Crown has breached repeatedly ever since). For many NZers, myself (a declared atheist) included, it’s entirely appropriate that Council meetings are opened with a karakia. This is not purely a religious gesture, but a cultural one (in fact, probably more cultural than religious). If Maori customs aren’t practiced in official public events, where will they be? On the marae only? That would relegate Maori to secondary status within NZ, with only Pakeha customs being practiced in Council meetings and other official events.
Sorry, the treaty granted them equal rights as subjects of Queen Victoria. Maori do not have special, extra rights.