As we all know Waitangi day is coming up and we have a public holiday on Monday. In social studies, due to the pandemic, we decided to retrace back to before quarantine and ended up digging a bit into this public holiday. I have mixed thoughts, why do we celebrate waitangi day? why is it significant? how does it benefit us?
when we learn true Maori histories of waitangi, its important to remember the place of Maori and Pakeha. To acknowledge the bi-cultural partnership as being important to all aspects of New Zealand.
Waitangi is the celebration of the mistranslated treaty of the English men to have power over New Zealand. Waitangi day is where the people of New Zealand have a public holiday to acknowledge a treaty with the British crown and 540 different chiefs. Back in 1840 people didn't have technology so it was quite difficult trying to understand one another if from a different race. The British tried translating as best as they could and 40 out of 540 chiefs signed that treaty. This treaty was created with different objectives.
There is 3 types of ways to see this holiday. A day to forget, A day to celebrate or a holiday. Personally to me this is a holiday but we will be mainly looking into the other two options.
A day to forget. Looking at these peoples perspectives you realise that they have a good reason to wish to forget it. We celebrate the wrongly written treaty of the British to the Maori. They possibly feel like is a day of grief and not something that should be supported. A day that shouldn't bring ease to the people when it brought struggle to our ancestors, or a day that people believe doesn't have such an important reason to be a public holiday. Then there's people who think its a day to remember. The day where people could share the same land, where we as New Zealanders could be one and support each other. A day where we can all come together and look back to realise how far we've come as friends, family, or people we haven't met yet.
These two different types are guided by one thing, their values. If you value the people around you, besides your friends and family but strangers as well or if you value the past, their feelings, how they were treated. There's so many things you could value that could change the way you think about Waitangi day. I personally think its a treaty to celebrate. I like the fact that I bond with family and talk about how we migrated, talk about how New Zealand came as a group, talk about the treaty. I like hearing the different theories and things that could possibly go a different way. What better time to learn about it then on Waitangi day?
I also think its a good part of history to look into. Knowing your roots could help you grow more connected both emotionally and physically to your land and its people. It could help you understand why things are the way they are and to always look back on the past to realise we still have a bright future. If now is what was a bright future back then, then we still have our future that we can make brighter!
So try acknowledging your neighbour's and ya know connect with one another. Waitangi day, other then a holiday, is a day of gathering around as New Zealand and taking time to acknowledge how far our ancestors carried us. What do you think is the meaning of Waitangi day?
