Sovereignty vs Rangatiratanga: Wars, Laws and Policies addresses the theme of Tino Rangatiratanga me Te KÄwanatanga/Government and Organisation in the new curriculum for Aotearoa/NZ histories.
People in canoes voyage south down the Pacific to begin a human history in a resource-rich land. These people form a relationship with the land and create a type of government, authority, laws, policies, organisation. Several centuries later, ships sail down and bring a new people to this land. They say they are the land’s discoverers, decide to make it a colony in their empire and negotiate a treaty with the first people to do this. They introduce their type of government, their authority, their laws, their policies, their organisation. The power struggle that follows involves wars through words and laws, and wars through guns. The first people watch their land and authority get tattered and torn and begin to disappear. The new people think the first people are dying out but the first people rally and try to renegotiate the relationship with the new people to make things more balanced. And they are still doing this. Today, all New Zealanders have the right to stand on this land, to know that they belong to it, and the responsibility to say they understand its history.
