How can you get excited about invisible things like constitutional rights, customary laws and the challenges of making competing rights work in every day life? It can all seem too difficult and far away at times.
The reality is, we have a responsibility to care. It's what determines how you live on the Islands.
Our lives on the islands, are shaped by laws and regulations that govern the whole country, even though it maybe 800 km away. We elect people to make laws, implement policies that regulate and and manage our nation. They do so that we may have the privilege of life with a right to aspire to the highest levels as a human beings. The extent that we have our aspirations fulfilled depends upon the mix of decisions made by our elected representatives and the effort by ourselves, as we make our decisions each day, when we get up and put the kettle on.
Sometimes our efforts can seem as if we are pushing the proverbial load up hill.
The right can become overwhelmed by the sheer volume and complexity of things that you have to make decisions about. At some point we simply ' tip over' as the job of trying to satisfy the demands of everyday, outstrips our ability to meet those never ending demands.
At this point , we begin to make decisions about how to survive. It is a normal human reaction to stress as we seek to meet the basic human needs of ourselves, our families and our homes.
The right to develop seems to have an insignificant place in the thinking of those who have the responsibility to manage our resources and us as humans on the island. Sometimes you get the feeling that life would be easier for others if we were not on the islands. As one who was responsible for writing a paper for Cabinet in the 1990's on options to relocate people from the Chatham Islands as a solution for replacing the transport subsidy, I am all too familiar with the unbridled power of those we elect. They play team well when they have to. It is a skill we have yet to learn.
There is no doubt that Chatham Island Maori have had fundamental rights denied over the past 2 decades as intellectuals, legal experts and political environments set different agenda, goals and proclaimed myths, legends and injustices as the legitimising and moral codes for their conduct.
Events of the 19 century were revisited, pummelled by the intellectual minds of the 20 century, judgment's were made and then brought down on people who had long gone, and the punishment delivered to descendants of those judged to be in the wrong. 160 years later, in the 21st century.
For me, that translates to mean, customary events that are now considered in the 21st century, as 'sins'. These 'sins' of my great, great grandfather, of the great, great, great, grandfather of my children and the great, great, great, great grandfather of my mokopuna, , are being judged and punishment is being brought down upon us in 2009.
There is something blatantly unjust in this whole phenomena.
I remember Justice Cooke saying at our Court of Appeal hearing in 1992, that the courts cannot bind future generations or its successors and that there is a fiduciary duty owed by Crown in regard to matters of the Treaty. A Tribunal report delivered 8 years after the event, was bound to be a political document, yet it delivered messages and energies from other places, not connected with the local lore and life.
As Rodney Harrison QC warned Justice Cooke in 1992 when he stated that the Sealords deal was a tide that had to be taken at the flood',
The problem is ..the tide comes back in ...
In my opinion the current situation has triggered the prophetic words of Rodney Harrison and set dangerous foundations as seeds of unrest and disquiet lie germinating on the surface of an economic recession.
But were the events of war occurring only on the Chatham Islands in the 1830-1840's?
The implications and answers to these questions are determining what happens to you today.
Go find out what happened yourself. You have a great Island - it deserves your support and care!
Cheers Evelyn
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