Thursday, April 05, 2007

OPINION: Try Kiwi values, mate!


New Zealand has a crucial advantage over Australia when it comes to trying to define its values for newcomers, writes IRFAN YUSUF.

Both Australia and New Zealand are young nations built by indigenous people and migrants. Both are former British colonies. Both are English-speaking liberal democracies with legal systems based on the English common law.

But unlike Australia, New Zealand's early European settlers entered into some kind of treaty recognising the special association of indigenous people to the land. The cultural tang of Waitangi is absent from Australia, where indigenous peoples, by and large, live in a state of institutionalised disadvantage.

For an outsider like myself, it seems the influence of Maori culture on all New Zealanders is far more apparent than the influence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders on mainstream Australian culture. Further, Maori culture is shown a greater degree of both official and unofficial respect than Australia's indigenous cultures.

Hence, it doesn't come as a surprise that recent moves to educate migrants on New Zealand values include a strong emphasis on Maori culture. What will make New Zealand values more meaningful is that New Zealand doesn't pretend it is a Western cultural monolith sitting awkwardly in the Asia- Pacific region.

If multiculturalism in Australia had one big failing it was its emphasis on migrant cultures and its lack of emphasis on indigenous cultures. The Howard Government has now abandoned multiculturalism as an official Government policy, replacing it with policies based on "integration" and "Australian values" which have largely emphasised Australia's alleged "Judeo-Christian" heritage.

I say "alleged" because the whole notion of Judaism playing a key role in the development of Western European culture seems strange when one considers that it is only in the last 60 years, following the horrors of the Holocaust, that Western Christendom has finally faced up to the reality of anti-Semitism.

Australia's own values debate was also hampered by the Howard Government's inability to articulate distinctly Australian values.

Instead, when pressed on the issue, proponents of Australian values (such as Howard) have provided motherhood statements about "a fair go" and "mateship". It's as if only "Judeo-Christian" Australians understand fairness and friendship. The Australian push toward integration and adoption of "Aussie" values has also come as a result of an abandonment of multiculturalism. Unfortunately, this abandonment has been couched using divisive monoculturalist rhetoric, and has been especially targeted at Australia's nominally Muslim communities.

As if to add credence to this rhetoric, Australian Muslim religious leaders have also behaved irresponsibly. Recent sexist and racist comments by Sheik Tajeddine Hilaly, who continues to claim the mantle of Mufti of Australia and New Zealand (despite New Zealand's peak Muslim body rejecting his claim), haven't done Muslims any favours.

Australia's Muslims largely find themselves in this predicament because they have placed more emphasis on culture and language and less on adopting Islam's universal values which encourage cultural and linguistic integration.

New Zealand Muslims would do well to heed the warnings of the Mufti of Bosnia Herzegovina, Dr Mustafa Ceric, who warned that Muslim communities who insisted on behaving like tribal or ethnic communes within Western countries will only bring harm and resentment upon themselves.

As one young Australian Muslim told me:


These uncles think they can say whatever they like and get away with it. If things go bad, they can always go back to Suva or Karachi. But where will I go?
New Zealanders of all faiths can be grateful for the sensible approach taken thus far by their Government. Unlike the Howard Government, whose rhetoric has been divisive, New Zealand's Social Development Minister David Benson-Pope has used the language of inclusion when he reiterated that a


... sense of inclusiveness and an acceptance of difference has always been a part of New Zealand's national identity.
That sense of inclusiveness will be on display in May when Waitangi hosts the Third Asia-Pacific Inter-faith Dialogue, in the place where Maori and European entered into a treaty of peace and security based on mutual respect.

Australians love to take the best of New Zealand and pretend it's their own. I hope Australian political leaders can see if there is something they can adopt from what appears to be a more inclusive Kiwi values debate.

*Irfan Yusuf is a Canberra lawyer and associate editor of AltMuslim.com. This article was first published in The Press of Christchurch on Monday 2 April 2007.

Words © 2007 Irfan Yusuf

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Irfan:

Maori culture might be more celebrated in NZ than indigenous cultures in Australia - but couldn't that be a result of the proportion of the populations these groups make up in each country?

The Maori population of NZ was estimated at 15% in the 2001 NZ Census and expected to rise in the 20 years to 2021.

http://www.stats.govt.nz/products-and-services/Articles/pop-proj-Jun04.htm

In contrast, the indigenous population of Australia is only 2.4% (2004 figures) of the total population.

http://www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/html/html_overviews/overviews_our_context.htm

Surely this helps to account for why Maori culture in NZ is more influential and mainstream than indigenous culture in Australia?

backin15 said...

Numbers is definitely an aspect of the difference; you can't ignore a people when there faces are part of your daily life but another significant aspect is the existence of the Treaty of Waitangi.

The Treaty presents Maori the legal basis for land, culture, language and political representation - the reinvigoration of Te Reo in the '70s gave rise to Maori schooling (Kohanga Reo, Kura Kaupapa and Wananga being early-, compulsory- and post-compulsory education) and now radio, television, music and so on. Land (and sea) means Maori have retained control over their economic future.

I'd not thought to look at the experiences of Muslim Australians in comparison with indigenous NZers - interesting analysis, thanks Irf.

Anonymous said...

The Treaty of Waitangi came about because the Maori resisted colonialism more effectively than any other people of the British Empire. The infiltration and invasion by pakeha was known as the Maori wars. We have already fought the muslims at ANZAC. The day will come when maori and pakeha will fight again together against the muslim aggressors and invaders. Muslims are not safe and are not welcome in New Zealand. Our motto is the one that has served us well. God Defend New Zealand. New Zealand is a Christian country and muslim satanists are not welcome.

Anonymous said...

Irfan,

What do you think of Yvonne Ridley?

backin15 said...

Irf, you attract some real characters here...

Anon, I'd rather you either spoke for yourself, that is instead of being anonymous, or didn't purport to speak for NZers - Maori or non-Maori, you sure as hell don't represent me.

Ali Dark said...

Hi Irfan

This is my first comment on your blog though I've been following it for some time.

I appreciate you not deleting any comments no matter what mentality they represent. It's good to demonstrate to your readers exactly what we are sometimes dealing with when it comes to public opinion. Lunch with my grandfather has enlightened me on this somewhat.

I'd like to comment on your paragraph which states

"Australia's Muslims largely find themselves in this predicament because they have placed more emphasis on culture and language and less on adopting Islam's universal values..."

I think this is an excellent point which exposes tribalism for what it is- something entirely other than 'religion'.

You might like to take a look at my site http://spiritandpolitik.info. It's still very much in the making but I have written on this topic, the basis of my idea being that religion devoid of spirituality is just a social phenomenon, and that we would all do well to discard it and attend to our own spiritualities without social prejudice.

Alistair.
http://alistairdark.blogspot.com