This article demonstrates the use of the Eulibria lens to analyse a highly charged issue, which in the 2020s has been dominating New Zealand politics and dividing New Zealand’s community — the co-Governance movement.
Context
As a country with its constitutional roots in a 19th century Treaty between the indigenous Māori people and the colonising Europeans, ethnic/cultural relations have been a hugely problematic issue in New Zealand society. In the decades since the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, the UK monarchy-backed colonising government has committed numerous breaches of its obligations, which have been blamed for endemic suffering of the Māori people right to the present day.
Defining co-Governance
A left-wing government, incumbent from 2017 until probably October 2023, supported a more radical interpretation of the Treaty, to mean a partnership between just two legal entities — indigenous Māori, and colonially-descended and immigrant non-Māori. This interpretation implies that each entity, Māori and non-Māori, are the only relevant “legal persons“. Thus, they each should have equal decision-making power.
Applied in its ultimate form, this means that in all governance structures, including Parliament, publicly owned entities, even private corporations, 50% of all seats (in legislatures, boards, courts etc) should be occupied by Māori, with the other 50% divided up between all the other ethnic groups.
The Furious Debate
This interpretation — that the Treaty is a legal 50-50 partnership between only two legal entities — has provoked outrage, since it is the first time since universal suffrage, that the principle of “one (adult) person, one vote” has been seriously questioned at the most senior levels of government.
One main source of the outrage is a simple mathematical calculation, indicating that for the Māori people (17.4% of the population), the entitlement would be “one person, 2.87 votes”, and for the non-Māori, “one person, 0.6 votes”. This forms of the strongest arguments against the principle of co-Governance.
On the other side, the impassioned Māori arguments in favour of co-Governance have included (i) Without co-Governance, Māori will continue to suffer from the “tyranny of the majority”, which keeps them stuck in poverty, ill health, disproportionate imprisonment, and greatly reduced lifespans. Also, (ii) the identity of Māori people is based far less on the individual, and far more on the tribal origins, and even the geographical features of the areas the tribes have inhabited. Included in this collective identity framework is the ultimately collectivist (iii) “I am Māori”, as opposed to the colonising cultures’ more individually-leaning “I come from my family, but ultimately, I am me!”
Relevance to Eulibria
This is a valuable case for those evolving in the Eulibria Presence, since it goes to the Eulibria core principle — always questioning the Structure of Self. This means an endless, ongoing process of dismantling illusions that keep one stuck in power-limiting identities, to set oneself more free to continually audit, rework, reinvent one’s identity structures for powerful Initiatory effect.
The core of the co-Governance debate is not “Māori vs non-Māori”. That is a distracting surface detail. In truth, it is a battle of “individual versus collective”, and a vigorously fought cultural war, to establish legal, social and moral primacy of the collective as the only truly relevant entity, legally and otherwise.
Through the Eulibrian lens, an initiate will typically step back, and observe the combat occurring between these two rival identity structures. One will understanding both structures to be deeply flawed and limiting to all individuals involved. Regardless of whether New Zealand embraces co-Governance (and if so, to whatever extent), the Eulibrian can use the dynamics of this war to clarify and enhance their own Initiatory process.