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Here’s an archived link to an ad for a consultant oral maxillofacial surgeon at Dunedin Hospital. The curious thing—well, not so curious given that it’s New Zealand,—is the list of required qualifications. Click to read (a New Zealand dollar is worth about 57¢ in U.S. currency):
Some of the details:
About the role
In this newly created role that will be hospital based, we are seeking an Oral Maxillofacial Surgeon for a fulltime, permanent position at Dunedin Public Hospital. We would also welcome candidates with sub-specialty interests.
The successful applicant will be expected to provide the full scope of general Oral and Maxillofacial surgery including but not limited to the management of facial trauma, pathology, infections and orthognathic surgery. Duties includes active participation in inpatient and outpatient clinics, clinical audit, quality, clinical guidelines/pathways, professional development, appraisal and risk management.
Given the catchment area Te Whatu Ora Southern services, you will be able to take on cases that are diverse and complex; providing you with a rewarding role. There will be an on-call roster in place, this is set at 1:3. Our links with the University of Otago and affiliation with the Faculty of Dentistry means that you may be involved in the teaching of Dental and Medical Students.
Mōu ake | About you
Eligibility for vocational registration with the Dental Council of New Zealand
We would also welcome applications from advanced trainees.
FRACDS (OMS) or equivalent board certification
Excellent communication and time management skills
Here’s the part that stamps it as “from New Zealand”. I’ve added links and the translation from Māori, the latter in brackets:
You will also need:
Competency with te ao Māori [the Māori worldview], tikanga [the “right way to doing things” according to the Māori], and te reo Māori [the Māori language] or a commitment to starting your journey and taking ownership of your learning and growth
Experience in projects / initiatives which give effect to Te Tiriti [the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi] principals [sic] and frameworks, and the application of Mātauranga Māori [Māori “ways of knowing”] and Kaupapa Māori [“Māori customary practices”] approaches, particularly as they apply in healthcare settings.
In other words, you need to know a great deal about Māori culture and also speak or be learning the language (however, out of 978,000 Māori in NZ, only 55% say they have “some knowledge” of the language and only about 5% say they can speak the language well. This doesn’t say how many Māori understand English, but it’s surely close to 100%. The requirement that you either know the language or are learning it is, then, largely superfluous; in this way the ad is looking for people who can signal their virtue.
Finally, we have the ubiquitous but ambiguous requirement that the applicant have engaged in “projects/initiatives” that “give effect to the Treaty of Waitangi,” another completely superfluous requirement. “Te Tiriti,” as it’s called, has nothing to do with surgery; it simply specified in 1840 that the Māori would surrender sovereignty to England, but would keep and rule over their lands and villages, and would also acquire all the rights of a British citizen. If you can tell me which “Te Tiriti-themed” projects are essential to have engaged in for this surgeon’s job, and why those projects are necessarily, I’d be glad to hear it.
The is once again an example of how indigenous people leverage their supposed modern oppression to get more “stuff,” how New Zealand has surrendered to that “victimhood” approach, and, above all, how merit is given at least equal priority to indigeneity. (If you’re a great surgeon but know squat about Te Tiriti and can’t speak Māori, I doubt you’d even be considered for the job.)
Over at Point of Order, which is consistently critical of this kind of stuff, Yvonne van Dongen takes the ad apart. Click below to read her snarky but accurate critique:
An excerpt:
If you had impacted wisdom teeth requiring surgery, would it comfort you to know the consultant surgeon was competent in te ao Māori?
Or, say, if you needed oral cancer surgery, is it a bonus if the person operating on your mouth has had experience in projects and initiatives which give effect to Te Tiriti principles?
How about if you had to go under the knife for facial trauma – does it ease your anxiety knowing that the consultant surgeon is steeped in the application of Mātauranga Māori and Kaupapa Māori approaches, particularly as they apply in healthcare settings?
Southern Health thinks the answer is yes to all the above.
This week an advertisement on their careers website for a consultant oral maxillofacial surgeon at Dunedin Hospital stated that competency in te ao Māori, tikanga, and te reo Māori was a requirement. Or at the very least “a commitment to starting your journey and taking ownership of your learning and growth.”
As well, they asked for
“Experience in projects / initiatives which give effect to Te Tiriti principals (sic) and frameworks, and the application of Mātauranga Māori and Kaupapa Māori approaches, particularly as they apply in healthcare settings.”
Apart from spelling principles incorrectly, Southern Health clearly thinks they know what the principles of the Treaty are, even though this is a topic hotly debated thanks to Act’s Treaty Principles Bill.
Apparently, after inquiries from the press, New Zealand Health is reassessing these requirements, and pondering that wondering whether, after all, just merit and experience should be the qualifications. The answer, of course, is “yes.”
It’s not so surprising that Auckland University harbors a Māori activist like Eru Kapa-Kingi; what is surprising is that Auckland University has publicized his words and activities, amd they seem proud of them! For Kapa-Kingi’s goal is apparently to decolonize not just Auckland University (once the best university in New Zealand, now a hotpot of identity politics), but all universities in the country. And he sees academia more as a place to enact activism than to seek the truth.
For Kapa-Kingi already knows the truth, and it’s that universities must be decolonized (I take that to mean that all “Western” influences must be expunged), and they should be run on the principles of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, a pact that has nothing to do with academia. If you read its three provisions, you’ll see this, but the Treaty (“Te Tiriti”) is now being interpreted by the indigenous people as meaning “Māori should get at least half of everything.” (They constitute 17.8% of New Zealanders.) This drive for inequity is eventually going to wreck New Zealand academics, driving away those who want to study something other than the Treaty of Waitangi—and to keep away academics who ponder studying in New Zealand.
I used to think there was hope for academics (and politics) in this beautiful country, but the fact that the University of Auckland is publicizing Kapa-Kingi in a long puff piece made me realize that universities are committing academic suicide through identity politics. Yes, the whole country has been ideologically captured by the activist tendency to play on the guilt complexes of those descended from Asians and Europeans.
Click below to read the article from the Auckland Uni news site, and if the article disappears you can find it archived here.
Note that the university doesn’t bother to translate most of the Māori language into English. This is its way of virtue signaling, though most Māori (about 79%) do not have a conversational knowledge of their own language. It’s okay to use the language in articles, but the University of Auckland really should translate the Māori terms.
The article’s introduction to Kapa-Kingi:
As the early morning sun cast long shadows over the Far North town of Te Kao, hundreds prepared to embark on a hīkoi that would stretch over nine days, culminating at the steps of Parliament.
Their mission was clear: to challenge the Treaty Principles Bill and uphold the mana of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Leading them was Eru Kapa-Kingi, an emerging leader in te ao Māori. At age 28, the law academic and activist ultimately mobilised one of the largest public demonstrations in New Zealand’s recent history. But for Eru, of Ngāpuhi and Te Aupōuri descent, this was more than political activism – it was an act of whakapapa, a reclamation of identity and duty.
“Protecting the tapu, the mana, the integrity of Te Tiriti o Waitangi is something that’s closely aligned with my purpose and my identity,” he says.
“It’s tied to my journey of reclaiming my reo, my connections to who I am, to my iwi, Te Aupōuri and Ngāpuhi. I’ve come to see just where I fit in that puzzle in the matrix of te ao Māori.
“Te Tiriti and He Whakaputanga [the 1835 declaration of independence], and the kōrero that surrounds them, I’m drawn to it on more than an academic level.”
That journey began in the lecture halls of Victoria University where Eru graduated with a conjoint law and arts (te reo Māori) degree with honours, and later continued at Waipapa Taumata Rau. In 2023 he joined Auckland Law School as a professional teaching fellow, where he designs and teaches compulsory courses on te ao Māori me ōna tikanga (the Māori world and its cultural practices).
Yes, the law school at Auckland has compulsory courses on the Māori world and its culture. Compulsory! Do their laws differ from those of New Zealand? I doubt it. There may be cultural adjudications within the various tribes, but if you want a law degree from Auckland, do you really need to learn about Māori culture? Maybe optional courses, but perhaps in sociology or anthropology rather than the law school. But as we’ve seen, throughout New Zealand each major is developing compulsory courses in indigenous culture. It doesn’t matter if you’re a physics or math major, you’ve going to have to take one of these.
At any rate, I’ll give some quotes from the article uttered by Kapa-Kingi, a well-known activist. The quotes are in italics. I’ll also link to the Māori Dictionary since no translations are given:
“Protecting the tapu, the mana, the integrity of Te Tiriti o Waitangi is something that’s closely aligned with my purpose and my identity. . . . “
“It’s tied to my journey of reclaiming my reo, my connections to who I am, to my iwi, Te Aupōuri and Ngāpuhi. [JAC: Tribes from the North Island] I’ve come to see just where I fit in that puzzle in the matrix of te ao Māori.” [JAC: “The Māori world”
During a meeting in Parliament, Kapa-Kingi showed people opposed to a pure Treaty-led government that they were not welcome. (He did an intimidating haka performance):
During the Waitangi Day pōwhiri for Parliamentarians, Eru took a stand. As politicians made their entrance, he led a separate haka. He says it was a direct challenge, that sent an unambiguous message: ‘You are not welcome here’. The act was not symbolic; it was a deliberate response to the voices of the hapū within his iwi, Ngāpuhi, who he says made it clear that certain politicians should not attend, following a year of what they felt were attacks on Māori rights and sovereignty.
The “attack on Māori rights and sovereignty” appears to involve favoring the Treaty Principles Bill, a doomed bill that intended to codify what the Treaty of Waitangi really means today. People don’t want the bill because the “progressives” want to interpret the Treaty in ways that consistently favor the indigenous people. (New Zealand has no constitution.) Even the Prime Minister, who at one point pushed the bill, has realized its antiwoke implications and now says it has no chance of passing.
Finally, the dangers to New Zealand academia, my primary concern:
For Eru, academia is not just a career path but an opportunity for transformation. He sees universities as central to the colonial project in Aotearoa and believes they have a responsibility to undo its damage.
“We need to start realising that universities were one of the primary tools of colonisation in Aotearoa, replacing Māori philosophy, Māori ways of thinking, speaking and acting.”
“That places an obligation on academics today to really contribute to the deeper, longer-term decolonisation project,” he says.
“And it’s not just an academic topic but a lived reality. It should be a daily practice that all people in Aotearoa contribute to.”
And there you have it. Everybody must decolonize!
As the anonymous correspondent who sent me this article said, “This is not what we thought we were agreeing to when we supported affirmative action to increase the proportion of Māori academics, but it’s what we got. This guy is basically using his university position to further the political interests of Te Pāti Māori.” [JAC: the Māori Party]. “It’s not hard to see why people like this oppose institutional neutrality.”
Institutional neutrality, of course, would prevent universities from making pronouncements favoring indigenous people over everyone else, and also confecting mandatory courses that have the same effect. The progressives don’t want that!
ADDENDUM: See added comments and clarifications under “addendum” at bottom.
********************
I’ve written many times about the battle of the indigenous people in New Zealand (the Māori) to get their “way of knowing”—which includes a lot of superstition and unreliable word-of-mouth “knowledge,” as well as legends and morality—adopted as official policy or as a “way of knowing” that is equivalent to science. This push demands an extreme and unjustifiable form of affirmative action, supported, say the activists, by the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi made between the locals and European “colonists.” (In the Māori language it’s called “Te Tiriti”.)
The culture war—and there really is one—is fomented not by the “colonists” (descendants of Europeans) as the WaPo implies, but by the Māori themselves, who argue that the Treaty essentially entitles them to half of everything in the country. This is not even equity, for Māori comprise about 18% of the population. But the issue is with the Treaty, which, say indigenous people, is in effect the official Constitution of New Zealand. It isn’t, because it really specifies only three things (from Wikipedia):
Article one of the Māori text grants governance rights to the Crown while the English text cedes “all rights and powers of sovereignty” to the Crown.
Article two of the Māori text establishes that Māori will retain full chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures while the English text establishes the continued ownership of the Māori over their lands and establishes the exclusive right of pre-emption of the Crown.
Article three gives Māori people full rights and protections as British subjects.
Note that this says nothing about more modern problems, like who gets hired for jobs or accepted in college, what projects get funded, or what gets taught in classes. Yet that’s the way the Māori have interpreted it.
To create a more modern law, a libertarian “colonist” in parliament, David Seymour, introduced a “Treaty Principles Bill” that, he says, will remedy the Māori interpretation of Te Tiriti by banning discrimination but also providing equal opportunities for everyone. Seymour is the leader of the ACT New Zealand party, which Wikipedia describes, confusingly, as “a right-wing, classical liberal, right-libertarian, and conservative political party in New Zealand”. (I believe it would be seen as “centrist” in the U.S.)
My non-Māori friends in NZ, while opposing the extreme privileges given to indigenous people, nevertheless say that the Treaty Principles Bill is confusing, but still think that the 1840 Treaty is outdated and needs some legislative tweaking, especially to eliminate the whole passel of special privileges the courts and government have conferred on the Māori. And even the Prime Minister of the country, Christopher Luxon, elected partly to eliminate wokeness, has says the bill is dead. The Luxon government has failed to stop the Woke Train set in motion by the Ardern government.
Needless to say, the Māori hate the new bill and want to keep adhering to the Treaty of Waitangi.
Here’s the reaction (described in the WaPo article below), of the youngest member of New Zealand’s Parliament, Hana-Rawhitie Maipiu-Ckarke, only 22. Below you can see her tearing up the new bill and performing a haka (a traditional war dance to intimidate the enemy) in Parliament. She is joined by other like-minded lawmakers, but the video went viral and inspired thousands of people to write in or give oral testimony opposing the Treaty Principles Bill. Note, however, that given the atmosphere of intimidation in NZ, public support of the bill would seriously endanger people’s jobs or well being.
Read the WaPo article by clicking below (it’s also archived here):
The article is sympathetic to the Māori, who were indeed once treated very badly by Europeans. But it distorts not only the advantages that the law has now given them over Europeans, and the dangers of opposing their increasing drive for not only equity, but more than equity. This demand for Even More Than Equity is what has ignited the culture war, most prominently in the schools, and, on this site, in the science classroom. (Remember the money allocated to rub whale oil on kauri trees and play whale songs to them, all catering to a Māori legend that the whale and trees were brothers, creating the notion that whale oil and songs could kill the microorganism blight that’s killing the trees? (It won’t, and the money came from taxpayers.)
The WaPo distorts the treaty grossly, saying stuff like this:
The Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi, an 1840 agreement between the British crown and more than 500 Maori chiefs, resulted in New Zealand’s Indigenous population being violently dispossessed of their lands, leading to disadvantage and disempowerment that continue today.
As you can see from Article 2 of Te Tiriti above, this is either a lie or a distortion that could have been easily corrected had the author looked at the treaty. The Māori retained their lands.
In the end, this is a fight about extreme affirmative action, and I can’t help but sympathize a bit with Seymour, who, noting the great legal advantages Māori have over all other New Zealanders (there are also about 18% Asians in the country),
. . . has insisted his Treaty Principles Bill merely “gives every New Zealander the same rights and dignity” and would ensure “the Treaty can no longer be used to justify separate public services, race-based health waitlists, and creeping co-governance.”
This equal rights and opportunities notion is anathema to indigenous people. And so the Treaty Principles Bill is, in effect, dead, an ex-bill, singing with the Choir Invisible. Even Luxon admits this. There is no sign that equal opportunities rather than group preferences will come to pass in New Zealand.
The article goes on to valorize the indigenous people, implying that even now they are experiencing a form of Jim-Crow-like segregation and bias similar to that of the American South in the late 18th and early 19th century. That is simply not true.
But I’ll hand my commentary over to a Kiwi friend who know about America, and tried to explain everything to me when I asked the anonymous friend “what the hell is going on over there?”
His/her answer is below the line, with the words indented, and quotes doubly indented. The last full paragraph sums up the situation, but if you read what’s below, you’ll get a good understanding of what is going on in New Zealand. As I said, WaPo and Wikipedia quotes are doubly indented, but I’ve also put them in quotes.
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Here are a few comments that may be helpful – I find that Americans can be flummoxed by NZ treaty discussions. *Every* *single* *element* of the discussion seems be in active dispute, with high emotions and no obvious way of resolving the issue.
Here are a few tips for American brains trying to understand the NZ Treaty debates: NZ’s political system is UK-derived, so there is no single written constitution. There are a variety of documents and laws that make up “the constitution”. Wikipedia seems to have it:
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“The constitution of New Zealand is the sum of laws and principles that determine the political governance of New Zealand. Unlike many other nations, New Zealand has no single constitutional document.[1][2] It is an uncodified constitution, sometimes referred to as an “unwritten constitution”, although the New Zealand constitution is in fact an amalgamation of written and unwritten sources.[3][4] The Constitution Act 1986 has a central role,[5] alongside a collection of other statutes, orders in Council, letters patent, decisions of the courts, principles of the Treaty of Waitangi,[1][6] and unwritten traditions and conventions. There is no technical difference between ordinary statutes and law considered “constitutional law”; no law is accorded higher status.[7][8] In most cases the New Zealand Parliament can perform “constitutional reform” simply by passing acts of Parliament, and thus has the power to change or abolish elements of the constitution. There are some exceptions to this though – the Electoral Act 1993 requires certain provisions can only be amended following a referendum.[9]”
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So, this passage in the WashPo article is confused in several ways:
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“The Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi, an 1840 agreement between the British crown and more than 500 Maori chiefs, resulted in New Zealand’s Indigenous population being violently dispossessed of their lands, leading to disadvantage and disempowerment that continue today. Maori experience worse health, greater poverty and higher incarceration rates than the non-Maori population.
But the treaty has become New Zealand’s de facto constitution. In recent decades, Parliament and the courts have come to see it as promising Maori, who make up almost 20 percent of the population, significant decision-making powers and special protections.”
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It would be accurate to say this: “But the treaty has become *part of* New Zealand’s de facto constitution”, but no one would say it’s the whole constitution. Very obviously, it says nothing about elections, parliaments, etc etc. But it’s not “the constitution”. The actual Constitution Acts started some years after the Treaty:
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“The New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 (15 & 16 Vict. c. 72) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that granted self-government to the Colony of New Zealand. It was the second such Act, the previous 1846 Act not having been fully implemented.[1] The purpose of the Act was to have constitutional independence from Britain.[2] The definition of franchise or the ability to vote excluded all women, most Māori, all non-British people and those with convictions for serious offences.[3]
The Act remained in force as part of New Zealand’s constitution until it was rendered redundant by the Constitution Act 1986.”
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It’s also weird to say, “The Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi, an 1840 agreement between the British crown and more than 500 Maori chiefs, resulted in New Zealand’s Indigenous population being violently dispossessed of their lands, leading to disadvantage and disempowerment that continue today.” The 1840 Treaty explicitly said that (a) Maori should have the rights and privileges of British subjects, and (b) only the Crown could buy land from them. These were some of the provisions to protect Maori. So, the sentence should have said “(some) of NZ’s indigenous population were violently dispossessed of their lands, despite the Treaty”. Without the Treaty, the previous situation would have applied, which was random whalers and pirates and settlers making and breaking land deals outside of any governmental regulation.
Regarding the modern debate & the WashPo article:
– I think it would be true to say that David Seymour & supporters are motivated by (a) the idea that the meaning of the Treaty/”treaty priniciples” have become pretty much an exercise in free association, used to justify whatever the left wants at the moment; (b) in particular, two that were highly controversial were the last government’s attempt to split up important things by race — e.g., the national health service, the attempted “Three Waters” reform of water districts etc.; (c) Seymour’s also got an eye for building his own brand/notoriety and that of his ACT Party. ACT is often called “far right” but as far as I can tell they are socially liberal libertarians.
ACT is also starting to pay attention to the education and university mess. The dominant National Party seems to mostly avoid these topics, although there have been some improvements, and the National-ACT-NZFirst coalition plans to introduce academic freedom legislation sometime soon.
– As for the response, the National Party views ACT’s treaty principles bill as a headache; but they were forced into it to put the coalition together. They presumably will vote it down. However, it’s created a massive opportunity for both ACT and Te Pati Maori (the Maori Party – by no means do all Maori vote for this party) to rile up their base and get attention. Te Pati Maori is beset by other scandals, though, and even the haka-in-parliament stunt had mixed reactions locally and abroad (I recall seeing it mocked on the Jimmy Kimmel show) – if I had to bet, I’d say the coalition will win the next election, but who knows?
– While politically, ACT’s treaty principles bill might work for them, I don’t see it as the best approach myself. I think what we desperately need in New Zealand is some textual originalism, interpreting the treaty on its own terms in the context of its time, and not trying to turn it into either:
(a) a mandate for anti-democratic moves like making every institution, governmental or not, having a 50-50 power share between Maori and non-Maori representatives (the New Zealand Tertiary Education Union (TEU) rammed this through in early 2023 in the waning months of the Labour government. Very few people spoke out about it (many left long before this, the majority of faculty are not in the TEU), some left the TEU afterwards, for spending $850/year to make a mockery of democratic values is not everyone’s cup of tea.) or
(b) trying to turn the Treaty into a full mandate for the modern system, which is what Seymour is trying to do, also seems non-textual. One thing the National Party gets right is their basic claim that democracy is self-justifying, and that sovereignty resides with the people in a democratic system; and it’s been that way for 100+ years. The Treaty wasn’t a full constitution, and we shouldn’t try to pretend it was; and we don’t need it to be.
I think everyone on both sides should study the example of the Australian referendum on an “Indigenous Voice” for the Australian Parliament in late 2023. This initially had some support of both left and right, but when the actual proposal came out, everything fell apart, and it was voted down strongly—and probably fatally wounded the current Labour government. Part of the problem was that the proposal was supposed to be a major Constitutional change, but no exact statutory language was being voted on, and what was proposed was quite vague, with uncertain implications on how it would function and how much power it would have.
It is possible that New Zealand’s recent experience with “mission creep” and “language creep” was influential for some — e.g., many have the perception that in NZ, the modern Treaty discussion started with recognising its historical importance and creating the Waitangi Tribunal to address specific historical grievances between an iwi (tribe) and the Crown (the government), but in recent years many have tried to take it all the way to the requirement of mandatory co-governance of all government and nongovernment institutions and activities, including secondary schools, universities and including all subjects — with any opposition to any of this declared to be far-rightist racism. What activists mean by co-governance varies, but it’s pretty clear that what the activists really want is institutional power assigned by race, often 50/50 Maori vs. non-Maori, and they don’t merely mean “everyone gets to participate in governance, because this is a democracy and we can all vote and run for office, regardless of race”, which of course New Zealand has had for a long time.)
[News story from Australia: Why the Voice failed, October 16, Australian Broadcasting Corporation]
ADDENDUM FROM CORRESPONDENT:
If I could make a few clarifications on the material before the anonymous post:
1. I would be careful about referring to “the Māori”, especially about “their” political views. Like everyone else, there is considerable political (and religious etc) diversity among Māori. While you can say they are broadly supportive of the Treaty of Waitangi (there is a annual national holiday about it, after all), for any specific debate about what it means for particular questions like co-governance, science education, etc, there would be lots of diversity. Te Pati Māori (the Māori Party) currently represents the Maori activist position, but it doesn’t get a majority of even Maori votes, and there are ongoing scandals about misuse of census data to bring TPM voters to the polls during the last election, so it may be yet another episode where TPM gets a few seats one election, and loses them the next.
(Notably there is diversity between iwi/tribes as well as between individuals. After awhile in NZ you detect that some iwi had good relationships with the Crown at various historical points, others had wars with each other and with the Crown, some have longstanding grievances, others don’t, or did but have had their grievances resolved with Treaty Resolution agreements put together by the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal, endorsed by an iwi, and approved by Parliament.)
2. One way of showing the political diversity among Maori is to note that the current Centre-Right government is made of 3 parties: the National Party (headed by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon), the ACT Party (headed by David Seymour), and New Zealand First Party (headed by Winston Peters). Both David Seymour and Winston Peters are…Maori! Winston Peters, I believe, even once headed Te Pati Maori back in the 1970s and won a number of seats that way for some years.
3. The phrases about “changing the Treaty” are incorrect. There is no attempt to literally re-write the Treaty, and no mechanism for doing so. The Treaty is a historical document. It is rather like the US Declaration of Independence, or the Magna Carta. These documents provide inspiration and context, but they are not themselves law, except insofar as codified by laws passed by the legislature.
This is confusing because Americans think of “treaties” as detailed legal agreements with other countries, which are passed by 2/3 of the Senate and then become binding statutory domestic law. This sort of framework did not exist in New Zealand in 1840. It is nevertheless important of course, and the things specifically agreed in 1840 would probably be considered binding by modern courts, e.g. if, in modern times, the government tried to confiscate Maori land, a court would presumably rule it illegal and cite the Treaty (that this was often not the case for much of New Zealand’s history is a legitimate grievance, which the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal is supposed to help eventually resolve). However, detailed modern policy proposals, like splitting the National Health Service along racial lines (or even trying to effect some similar carving-up of intellectual space, e.g. in science education) goes far beyond anything one could call a legal mandate of the Treaty.
So the debate is really about the interpretation of the Treaty, in which language (English or te rep Maori) and what that says about what government laws and policies should be. The 2017-2023 Labour government accepted and pushed hard a postmodern, activist interpretation of all of these questions. Despite this, in 2023, Labour lost a number of crucial seats to Te Pati Maori anyway, and are in the minority. The new government is doing some retrenchment.
If you think you’re beleaguered by political correctness in America, just thank your lucky stars that you’re not living in New Zealand. There you are increasingly surrounded by demands that you abide by the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, but, worse, you can be demonized or fired simply because you think it’s outdated and there needs to be court-mandated interpretation of what it means, or, worse, adopt a New Zealand Constitution.
For in that country, which I love, virtually area of endeavor is subject to Equity Demands and Diktats that you respect indigenous “ways of knowing.” Today the subject of discussion is pharmacy, which is being rapidly colonized by this ideology. But note the bit about real estate at the bottom.
An anonymous New Zealander sent me this article from The Breaking News site in that lovely but increasingly benighted land.
You can verify Kennedy’s claims by going to the official pharmacy standards site (click on link to get pdf).
As you can see from the top headline, it’s a bit of a rant, but everything that Mr. Kennedy says about the pharmacy standards is true.
First, the aim of the Pharmacy Council is a general one: to help all New Zealanders. From pp. 3-4 of the second document:
Through skilled and safe practice, pharmacists contribute to better health outcomes for New Zealanders. We aspire to have pharmacists operate at the top of their scope of practice and to not only be competent and professional in their roles but to continually work towards being the best pharmacist they can be.
. . . . The purpose of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act (HPCAA) 2003 is to protect the health and safety of the public by providing mechanisms to ensure that health practitioners are competent and fit to practise their profession.
So consideration #1 should be merit: the quality of service provided by pharmacists. However, if you look at the first three “domains” of competence (there are seven), you see this:
Yep, the very first thing in which you must be competent as a pharmacist is understanding the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi (“Te Tiriti o Waitangi”), which of course says nothing about pharmacy. The treaty simply guaranteed the indigenous Māori their lands, gives them all the rights of British citizens, and places governance of the indigenous people to England. There are several versions of the treaty, not all Māori tribes signed onto it, and it’s used to justify all kinds of stuff which are not in any of the texts but fall under a recent interpretation “Māori are to get at least half of everything.” That includes having their ways of knowing taught in science classes. And remember, just 17.8% of New Zealanders are Māori, while 17.3% are Asians (67.8% are of European descent. Somehow the Asians got left out of the pharmacy standards.
So once again the most important aspect of “competence” you need as a New Zealand pharmacist is respect and understanding of the Treaty, along with deference to the indigenous people. Extreme deference. The first four paragraphs below are Kennedy’s take (and his bolding), while the rest are word-for-word from the second source above.
Unfortunately the Pharmacy Council NZ has gone all woke and racist and apparently now thinks that practicing safe, competent dispensing of medicine and advice depends on a deep knowledge of 27 different aspects of Maori customs, beliefs, traditions, practices, superstitions, intergenerational historical trauma, familiarity with mana whenua and kaumatua, the Treaty of Waitangi, structural racism and colonisation and many other alleged Maori-related issues – such is the depth of knowledge required by pharmacists of Maori culture, beliefs and Te Reo etc. etc., that it would seem that every pharmacist who achieves all these competencies that are totally, completely, categorically, undeniably and irrefutably unrelated to safe dispensing of medicines will have earned a Bachelor’s degree in Maori Studies!
This is racism on steroids, the woke, totally unnecessary, unwarranted imposition of irrelevant culture and beliefs on a professional group whose sole focus should be on the safe practice of pharmaceutical medicine!
The Minister of Health needs to stamp down immediately on this repugnant, racist, woke over-reach by the Pharmacy Council and weed out any of the incompetent and/or radical members of the Pharmacy Council!
Following is the list (from page 31) of the essential competency standards for all pharmacists, according to the Pharmacy Council: [JAC: as I say below, I’ve put in italics everything that seems to me completely irrelevant to competence as a pharmacist]
● being familiar with mana whenua (local hapū/iwi), mātāwaka (kinship group not mana whenua), hapū and iwi in your rohe (district) and their history,
● understanding the importance of kaumātua,
● being familiar with te Tiriti o Waitangi and He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nū Tīreni,
● advocating for giving effect to te Tiriti at all levels,
● understanding the intergenerational impact of historical trauma,
● understanding of the role of structural racism and colonisation and ongoing impacts on Māori, socioeconomic deprivation, restricted access to the determinants of health,
● being familiar with Māori health – leaders, history, and contemporary literature,
● being familiar with Māori aspirations in relation to health,
● developing authentic relationships with Māori organisations and health providers,
● having a positive collegial relationship with Māori colleagues in your profession/workplace,
● being proficient in building and maintaining mutually beneficial power-sharing relationships,
● tautoko (support) Māori leadership,
● prioritising Māori voices,
● trusting Māori intelligence,
● be clinically and culturally confident to work with Māori whānau, [JAC: family groups]
● understand one’s own whakapapa (genealogy and connections),
● have a basic/intermediate understanding of te reo Māori, [the language; and most Māori themselves don’t understand it]
● have a basic/intermediate understanding of the tikanga and the application of tapu (sacred) and noa (made ordinary),
● be familiar with Māori health models and concepts such as Te Pae Mahutonga9 and Te Ara Tika10,
● have a basic/intermediate understanding of marae (community meeting house) protocol,
● be confident to perform waiata tautoko (support song),
● be proficient in whakawhānaungatanga (active relationship building),
● integrate tika (correct), pono (truth), aroha and manaakitanga into practice,
● be open-hearted,
● be proficient in strengths-based practice,
● be proficient with equity analysis,
● practice cultural humility,
● critically monitor the effectiveness of own practice with Māori.
Only 1 out of 4 standards (7/28) seem to me at all relevant to competence in pharmacy, and I’m being generous.
Now I can understand that there should be a section in pharmacy school about “indigenous medicine” so that pharmacists can understand where a local is coming from if they want an herb rather than an antibiotic. But most of this statement It is simply irrelevant fealty to the indigenous people; a form of virtue signaling or “the sacralization of the oppressed.”
I needn’t go on, as you can see that most of the requirements for competence in this section are irrelevant to the aims of the Pharmacy Council. Poor New Zealand!
But wait! There’s more!
Lagniappe: New Zealander loses realtor’s license for refusing to take Māori-centered DEI training. Click on the link to go to the New Zealand Herald article:
An excerpt:
Janet Dickson, the real estate agent facing a five-year ban for refusing to do a Māori tikanga course, has lost a court bid to block the threatened cancellation of her licence.
Today, the High Court turned down her request for a judicial review of decisions about agents’ professional development requirements, which required her to take a 90-minute course called Te Kākano (The Seed).
The module focused on Māori culture, language and the Treaty of Waitangi and was made compulsory for all real estate agents, branch managers and salespeople in 2023.
Agents who do not complete professional development requirements risk having their licences cancelled. People whose licences are cancelled cannot reapply for one for five years.
. . .She has called real estate work a vocation and a calling, citing her Presbyterian values. In her court case, she said the course’s references to Māori gods sat uncomfortably with her own monotheistic Christian belief.
She labelled the course “woke madness” in a Facebook post and vowed to fight “to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else”.
She told the court she considered the course would not add any value to the performance of her real estate agency work.
New Zealand is the first country in the world to give natural geographic features the status of personhood, with all the rights of a human being. It was first done to Te Urewera, a remote area of the North Island, then to the North Island’s Whanganui River. Now CNN and Breaking Views (headlines below) report that personhood has been tranted to a third feature, the volcano Mount Taranaki, also on the North Island, and located here:
Taranaki Maunga, also known as Mount Egmont) is a dormant stratovolcano and legal person in the Taranaki region on the west coast of New Zealand’s North Island. At 2,518 metres (8,261 ft), it is the second highest mountain in the North Island, after Mount Ruapehu. It has a secondary cone, Fanthams Peak (Māori: Panitahi), 1,966 metres (6,450 ft), on its south side.
It’s a lovely mountain, and yet I didn’t see it when I visited the country a few years ago. Here are two photos from Wikipedia:
The caption for this one is: “Mount Taranaki (Mt Egmont), from Inglewood, New Zealand, 1896”
State Library of New South Wales, DL PX 150, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Click on the headlines below to read. The first article is from CNN, the second from Breaking Views. Quotes will be from CNN unless indicated otherwise.
Although the mountain was apparently sacred to the indigenous Māori people (it was considered an “ancestor”), it was renamed and claimed by Europeans who colonized the country. When the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, ceding all Māori lands to their respective tribes (the treaty wasn’t signed by all indigenous tribes and has been subject to conflicting interpretations for nearly two centuries), the Māori could reasonably claim that the mountain had been stolen from them. On January 30, the New Zealand government redressed this appropriation by giving the mountain the same status as a human being. From CNN:
A mountain in New Zealand considered an ancestor by Indigenous people was recognized as a legal person on Thursday after a new law granted it all the rights and responsibilities of a human being.
Mount Taranaki — now known as Taranaki Maunga, its Māori name — is the latest natural feature to be granted personhood in New Zealand, which has ruled that a river and a stretch of sacred land are people before. The pristine, snow-capped dormant volcano is the second highest on New Zealand’s North Island at 2,518 meters (8,261 feet) and a popular spot for tourism, hiking and snow sports.
The legal recognition acknowledges the mountain’s theft from the Māori of the Taranaki region after New Zealand was colonized. It fulfills an agreement of redress from the country’s government to Indigenous people for harms perpetrated against the land since.
How can a mountain be a person?
The law passed Thursday gives Taranaki Maunga all the rights, powers, duties, responsibilities and liabilities of a person. Its legal personality has a name: Te Kāhui Tupua, which the law views as “a living and indivisible whole.” It includes Taranaki and its surrounding peaks and land, “incorporating all their physical and metaphysical elements.”
A newly created entity will be “the face and voice” of the mountain, the law says, with four members from local Māori iwi, or tribes, and four members appointed by the country’s Conservation Minister.
The vote on giving the mountain personhood was unanimous in Parliament: 123 to 0. It’s not completely clear to me what “personhood” means, except that the Māori get to be guardians of the mountain. Here’s a bit from CNN:
The mountain’s legal rights are intended to uphold its health and wellbeing. They will be employed to stop forced sales, restore its traditional uses and allow conservation work to protect the native wildlife that flourishes there. Public access will remain.
And from Breaking Views:
The legislation, passed by Labour in 2023, recognises Mount Taranaki, alongside its companion peaks, as a living ancestor with its own identity and rights.
. . . . The park surrounding Mount Taranaki will be renamed Te Papa-Kura o Taranaki, with management plans requiring dual approval from the conservation minister and iwi leaders.
Under the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill, an oversight committee (Te Tōpuni Kōkōrangi) of four iwi and four Crown representatives will govern and set cultural and spiritual values.
A conservation board, including three iwi representatives, will work with the Department of Conservation on daily management. All governance costs will be funded by the Crown. [The New Zealand government.]
There are a couple of issues here. As I said, I have no objection to giving the mountain special conservation status and letting the Māori have most of the governance, though this could create a slippery-slope situation in which every geographic feature could be considered special to the Māori before colonization.
But what is added by giving the mountain “personhood”? As far as I can see, nothing substantive save the recognition that the mountain is an “ancestor”. Yet that formalizes a supernatural belief, which should not be the case. Everything else, like damaging the mountain, building forbidden structures on it and the like, can come under the rubric of conservation.
But, as you can see by the unanimous vote, Kiwis of European-ancestry are in no mood to buck the tide of the sacralization of indigenous claims. Would we name the Grand Canyon as a “person” (“Mr. Canyon”?) if a Native America group regarded it as sacred? Mt. McKinley was renamed, Mt. Denali as that was the traditional name of the local indigenous people. I have no issue with that (Trump, of course, wants to remove the indigenous name), but if the mountain was seen to have spiritual or sacred properties (I doubt that it did, but can find no information), should we deem the mountain a person?
As far as I can see, considering geographic features “people” because they had supernatural and spiritual aspects is a violation of the First Amendment. Now New Zealand has no such provision (it doesn’t even have a constitution), so the government can do what it wants. And what it wants is to give the Māori exactly what they demand.
And all of this is happening at a fraught time in New Zealand’s politics. What is happening is that there is a government bill to codify the provisions of the Treaty of Waitangi so they can become clear law, instead of the nebulous provisions (there are different translations and different interpretations) that people cite to justify what they want. (A common theme you’ll see here is the Māori reliance on the treaty to demand equal rights to teach their “ways of knowing” in schools, a demand that cannot possibly be derived from the three provisions of the Treaty.) In other words, the bill would create a sort of New Zealand constitution based on the Treaty.
But the bill is not going to pass. As CNN says:
The unity provided brief respite in a tense period for race relations in New Zealand. In November, tens of thousands of people marched to Parliament to protest a law that would reshape the Treaty of Waitangi by setting rigid legal definitions for each clause. Detractors say the law — which is not expected to pass — would strip Māori of legal rights and dramatically reverse progress from the past five decades.
The “progress” to which they refer is largely the increasing hegemony of Māori rights and privileges over the past five decades, to the point that, though they constitute only 18% of the inhabitants, they claim at least half of the rights: a huge form of affirmative action. Now it’s clear that Māori were mistreated and subject to bigotry in the past, but what we see happening in New Zealand now is not just an attempt to create equal opportunities for all, or even equity for all groups (to me the former is okay while the latter is not). The goal is larger than equity: to try to create a Super Equity in which indigenous people get at least half of everything, including half the time in science class.
That would be a debacle, but it’s happening, and it will happen far beyond the schools. The result will be the erosion of merit in favor of identity—exactly what has happened in the U.S.
New Zealand really does need a bill like this, but it needs a Constitution even more. Neither will come to pass.
Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t add that in the U.S., corporations have been granted certain privileges and responsibilities of “personhood”, including the right to be sued and to be subject to civil or criminal charges. I have no dog in that fight, but there’s nothing spiritual or sacred about it.
The bit in quotes in the title may be a bit mean, but it’s the title an anonymous reader gave in an email linking to several articles from a New Zealand site (here, here, and here). The articles describe a new set of standards for registered nurses in the country, standards that I read in the official government document (see below).
Why this seems “asylum-ish” is because the standards are almost entirely directed to prioritizing and catering to the indigenous Māori population of the country, even though they are in a minority of the population (16.5%) compared to Europeans (70%) but also very close in numbers to Asians (15.3%, with most of the remainder being Pacific Islanders). The standards direct New Zealand nurses to become “culturally competent”, which is okay if it means being sensitive to differences in psychology of different groups, but is not okay if it means medically treating those groups in different ways, or having to become politicized by absorbing the Treaty of Waitangi or learning about intersectionality. And that is in fact the case with the new standards, which also prompt NZ nurses to engage in untested herbal and spiritual healing, including prayers. The whole thing is bonkers, but it takes effect in January.
As one of the articles says, “critics argue that these changes prioritise ideology over practical skills.” And I suspect you’ll agree after you read the relatively short set of official standards given below. Here’s an excerpt from one of the articles in the news:
The updated Standards of Competence require nurses to demonstrate kawa whakaruruhau (Māori cultural safety) by addressing power imbalances in healthcare settings and working collaboratively with Māori to support equitable health outcomes.
The standards place a strong emphasis on cultural competency, including the need for nurses to establish therapeutic relationships with individuals, whānau [Māori extended families], and communities. They must also recognise the importance of whanaungatanga (building relationships) and manaakitanga (hospitality and respect) in fostering collective wellbeing.
One of the more significant additions involves requiring nurses to “describe the impact of colonisation and social determinants on health and wellbeing.” Additionally, nurses must advocate for individuals and whānau by incorporating cultural, spiritual, physical, and mental health into whakapapa-centred care (care focused on family and ancestral connections).
The new Standards of Competence have faced sharp criticism from some nurses, who argue the requirements impose ideological perspectives and unnecessarily complicate training processes.
However, none were willing to speak on the record for fear that voicing their concerns could jeopardise their employment.
The standards are unbelievable, so extreme in their catering to indigenous peoples that they seem racist against everyone else. But don’t take my word for it: simply click on the document below and look it over. It’s no wonder that many nurses are flummoxed by the new directive, which, as usual, is heavily larded with indigenous jargon that many (including Māori) don’t understand. The language is simple virtue flaunting.
The very start of the standards promotes the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi (“Te Tiriti o Waitangi”)—an agreement between some (not all) Māori tribes and the British governance that established three principles. First, Māori would become British citizens with all the rights attending thereto. Second, the governance of New Zealand would remain in the hands of Britain and British settlers (“the Crown’). Finally, the Māori would be able to keep their lands and possessions and retain “chieftainship” of their lands.
Even though this agreement was never signed by all indigenous tribes on the island, it has assumed almost a sacred status in New Zealand, with a newer interpretation that goes something like this: “The Māori get at least half of everything afforded by the government, and their ‘ways of knowing’ would be considered coequal to modern knowledge (including in science and medicine). Further, Māori, as ‘sacred victims’, would get priority in educational opportunities and, in this case, medical treatment.”
If you read The treaty of Waitangi, you’ll see it says nothing of the sort. It simply establishes rights of governance and possession in a deal between Europeans and Māori. But the Māori have used it to inflict considerable guilt on the non-Māori population, to the extent that you simply cannot question the interpretation of the treaty above, or of the increasing forms of “affirmative action” for Māori, because people who raise those questions, like the baffled nurses above, risk losing their jobs. This is the reason that virtually every academic and citizen who writes to me from New Zealand about the fulminating and debilitating wokeness of the country asks me to keep their names confidential. The fear of questioning what’s happening in that country is almost worse than the burgeoning affirmative action towards a small moiety of the population. Granted, the Māori have been discriminated against and had it bad for a while, but those days are really over now, and it’s time to treat everyone according to the same rules. And of course nurses know that they have to have different bedside manners towards different patients. But that doesn’t mean that they must treat some of them with chants and prayers.
Well, on to the rules. And they begin, in the very first directive, by emphasizing the importance of the Treaty of Waitangi!. I’ll post screenshots as well as text, and will highlight some bits in red. Here’s the first page of “standards of competence”. Te Tiriti doesn’t take long to appear!
“Pou” are “standards”. Here are the first two. Note that the introduction to the document doesn’t say explicitly that these standards are culture-directed and a subset of other standards of nursing skill. No, these are just “the standards.”
Pou one: Māori health. Reflecting a commitment to Māori health, registered nurses must support, respect and protect Māori rights while advocating for equitable and positive health outcomes. Nurses are also required to demonstrate kawa whakaruruhau by addressing power imbalances and working collaboratively with Māori.
Pou two: Cultural safety Cultural safety in nursing practice ensures registered nurses provide culturally safe care to all people. This requires nurses to understand their own cultural identity and its impact on professional practice, including the potential for a power imbalance between the nurse and the recipient of care.
The two pou expanded, which are directives about how registered nurses are supposed to behave.
Under standard (pou) #4, called “Pūkengatanga [expertise] and evidence-informed nursing practice”, we see this.
In traditional Māori medicine, ailments are treated in a holistic manner with:
spiritual healing
the power of karakia [prayers of incantations]
the mana [supernatural essence] of the tohunga (expert)
by the use of herbs.
In other words, nurses are supposed to allow patients to choose their own therapy, even if it includes untested herbal remedies, spiritual healing, supernatural power, and prayers. Is it any wonder that nurses are both confused and opposed to this?
It goes on and on in this vein, consistently outlining standards of care that favor Māori, and then ending with a glossary heavily laden with woke and postmodern terms, Again, these are being given to registered nurses (no, not shamans) to tell them how they must behave. A few items from the glossary, which have no clear connection with nursing:
Again, as far as I can determine, these are not just standards for nurses to become culturally sensitive, but appear to be general standards for nurses that want to be qualified as nurses. And the standards have become so ideological and political that—and I don’t say this lightly—they seem pretty racist, favoring one group over another and telling nurses to afford indigenous people care and treatment that others don’t get. Is there to be no cultural sensitivity towards Asians, who have their own form of indigenous herbal medicine?
Here are some sentiments expressed by Jenny Marcroft, the Health Spokesperson for the New Zealand First political party.
It goes without saying that it nurses must do all this stuff to practice their skills, many might be compelled to leave New Zealand and practice overseas, something that the country can’t afford to happen. And so, because opponents of this stuff are silenced, the country, immersed in wokeness, continues to go downhill.
The Conversation, which seems a reputable and often interesting site, now has some dire results of a survey of non-Māori New Zealand scientists. The new survey shows that many (but thank goodness not all) of these have been captured by the drive to sacralize the indigenous Māori “ways of knowing, or Mātauranga Māori (MM).
MM does contain some empirical knowledge, mostly of the practical sort like how to catch fish or when to harvest berries, but also includes religion, morality, the supernatural (the ubiquitous vitalism called mauri), guides to behavior, legends and word of mouth, and other non-scientific concepts that many see as “ways of knowing.”
Have a gander at this article (click to read). Note the “gender divide” mentioned in the headline, and guess how it shakes out:
Some indented excerpts (the article summarizes a research paper you can read or download here; I have not read it but assume the authors’ summary is correct. I could find no indication that the paper has been published or even accepted (I may have overlooked that), but if it is only submitted for publication and not peer-reviewed and accepted, it’s not really kosher to discuss preliminary results in a place like The Conversation.
While the New Zealand government plans to review 28 pieces of legislation with a view to changing or repealing references to the Treaty of Waitangi, the science sector is embracing engagement with Māori and leading the way in linking science and Indigenous knowledge at a national scale.
We surveyed 316 researchers from research organisations across New Zealand on their engagement with Māori and their attitudes towards mātauranga Māori (Indigenous knowledge system). We found the majority agree engagement is important and mātauranga Māori is relevant to their research.
Our preliminary findings show most of the surveyed researchers engaged with Māori to some degree in the past and expect to keep doing so in the future. A majority agreed mātauranga Māori should be valued on par with Western science.
. . . We examined the responses of the 295 non-Māori scientists in our survey and found 56% agreed mātauranga Māori should be valued on par with Western science. Only 25% disagreed. Moreover, 83% agreed scientists had a duty to consult with Māori if the research had impacts on them.
What? Valued on par with Western science? That is the result of the researchers having been ideologically captured by the widespread drive to make MM coequal with modern science. (An alternative hypothesis, which should not be ignored, is that many of these non-Māori scientists are hiding their real feelings, knowing that they could get fired or exorcised if they don’t go along with the ideological program.)
That said, of course if a project has impacts on Māori, they should certainly be consulted. That is only fair. But consultation does not mean that researchers must do what the Māori say, especially if it involves nonscientific things like incorporating the supernatural, as with the story of the kauri trees and the whales (see below)
If you study MM and know anything about modern science— mistakenly called “Western science” by MM advocates—you’ll know that this belief in coequality is simply fatuous.
More:
. . .New Zealand has been at the forefront of developing a nationwide approach through the 2007 Vision Mātauranga policy. This science-mātauranga connection has given New Zealand a global lead in how to meaningfully and practically mobilise science and Indigenous knowledge at a national scale.
The merging of Indigenous and Western knowledge is particularly important in the high-tech innovation field. Here, New Zealand’s approach is starting to have real impacts, including supporting innovations and capabilities that would not have happened otherwise.
Through years of engagement with the research and innovation sector, Māori are increasingly expecting the sector to work differently. This means both engaging beyond the laboratory and being open to the possibility that science and mātauranga Māori together can create bold innovation. Examples include supporting Māori businesses to create research and development opportunities in high-value nutrition, or using mātauranga to halt the decline of green-lipped mussels in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.
If you look at the “bold innovation” link, you will find a dearth of examples in which MM has actually enhanced the acquisition of scientific knowledge; rather, it’s largely a program for incorporating Māori researchers into projects actually driven by modern science. But would you expect anything else given that the empirical aspects of MM are all practical, aimed at helping people survive off the land? Given that, the “merging” of the two “ways of knowing”, much less promulgating the idea they are coequal, is a foolish endeavor.
The green-lipped mussel project, involving an important source of food, comes up again and again in these studies, and involves the use of traditional fiber materials to facilitate the settling of mussel spats. And it did indeed increase the number of spats.
But I see this project mentioned over and over again as an example of the fruitful combining of MM and modern science. If their merging is so successful, why do we find the same example used repeatedly?
And why is there no mention of ludicrous examples of merging, such as the useless attempt to revive the dieback of kauri trees by smearing their trunks with whale oil and whale bones, and playing whale songs to the trees (see here and here). The MM basis for this “science” is a Māori legend that the kauri trees and whales were created as brothers, but the whale-trees went roaming into the ocean, and the kauri dieback, really caused by soil-borne oomycetes (thanks modern science for that), is said by MM to reflect the trees’ longing to be with their whale brothers. Such is the kind of research that is also taken seriously by advocates of merging MM and modern science.
One more thing: the gender difference. I guessed, based on the greater empathy of women as well as their greater religiosity, would involve female researchers being be more sympathetic to incorporating indigenous ways of knowing into science. I was right:
However, there was a significant gender difference: 75% of women compared to 44% of men agreed mātauranga Māori should be valued on par with science. Only 8% of women disagreed with that statement compared to 34% of men.
That is a substantial difference!
The study reached two conclusions. The second was the observed difference between male and female non-Māori researchers in their desire to value MM as coequal with science. The authors say this needs more work, but I think it can already be explained by the difference between the sexes in empathy, “people” orientation, and religiosity.
The first conclusion was this:
First, it seems that exposing researchers to engagement with Māori communities may create a more open attitude to mātauranga Māori. A key aspect of the past few years has been to broaden the science sector’s engagement with various communities, including Māori.
The Vision Mātauranga policy has been explicit about this in the innovation sector and research and development areas. It appears likely this approach has, at least for some non-Māori researchers, created an openness to consider mātauranga Māori as an equivalent, although different, knowledge framework.
Again, I am not dismissing MM as without any value. What I am seriously questioning is the idea that MM is “an equivalent, although different, knowledge framework.” I don’t even know what that means, since I don’t see MM as even coming close to the methods of modern science in acquiring knowledge, or “justified true belief.” MM lacks nearly all the tools of modern science, like hypothesis testing, pervasive doubt and questioning, replication, peer review, the use of statistics, and so on. How can it possibly be coequal with modern science?
But the burgeoning drive to sacralize indigenous “knowledge” shows that wokeness, of which this drive is one example, is not on the way out. By all means incorporate indigenous knowledge into science if it is shown to be empircally true. But to do that the indigenous knowledge has to be verified using modern science. Otherwise it remains in the hinterlands of Aunt Jobiska’s Theorem: “a fact that the whole world knows.”
