By Ian Harris*
08 February 2005
THE campaign to replace New Zealand’s flag seems to be gaining some momentum. Whatever its outcome, the focus on the flag will probably do more to stir people’s thinking about our distinctive national identity than the annual observance of our national day, at least at Waitangi itself.
Indeed, the contentiousness surrounding Waitangi Day in recent years has probably pushed Maori and Pakeha apart more than it has brought them together. Nations do not rally around internal grievance and complaint, especially when mechanisms are in place to address them.
Discussion about a new flag must not fall into the same quicksand. A flag is symbolic of the whole nation. Everyone should be able to identify with it. In particular, Maori and Pakeha alike should feel it reflects their heritage and projects their aspirations as people of a shared destiny. So any design that is purely Maori or purely Pakeha is not a starter.
Similarly, a flag that stylises our geography (mountains and sea) or flora and fauna (silver fern and kiwi) would fall short. That is because a nation is more than a country; it is, first and foremost, its people.
One aspect that has not received much attention is whether any new design should reflect or reject the Christian element in New Zealanders’ heritage and psyche. The present flag certainly does. It bears four crosses: those of St George of England, St Andrew of Scotland and St Patrick of Ireland, with the Southern Cross in pride of place beside them, though most people barely register them as crosses when they see the flag unfurled. They see rather the flag of Britain alongside a constellation of the southern skies.
The associations are there nonetheless. A hundred years ago, that would have been thought right and proper. Most people living in New Zealand then would have readily acknowledged the place of Christianity in the nation’s life and, if someone had suggested they were not themselves Christian, they would have felt affronted. Most Maori embraced the faith, too.
Of course, there were always those who turned their backs on the churches. But a broad identification as Christians, with all that implies about shared assumptions and values, helped hold the communities of the fledgling nation together.
That no longer holds. The Maori cultural renaissance, the steady inflow of a wider mix of races and religions, the appearance of mosques and temples of other faiths in our suburbs combine to make New Zealand society more diverse than ever.
The new mix is also making necessary a new kind of nationhood, based less on common heritage and more on geographic circumstance: we live in the same country and we have to make diversity work.
On top of all that, the predominant outlook and values driving Kiwis are now secular. In contrast to a century ago, many would feel affronted if someone suggested they were Christian. Some among them will see the presence of Christian motifs in the present flag as a reason to scrap it.
“Christian” is definitely not the in thing to be. This attitude is reinforced by disquiet over the growing influence of fundamentalist and dogmatic churches in the United States and among imitators here. Their vociferous anti-homosexual campaigns, opposition to the full participation of women in church and society, biblical literalism and black-and-white moralism present as the public face of Christianity, while the more liberal end of the Christian spectrum rarely makes the headlines.
So pervasive is this negative impression that United Future leader Peter Dunne felt it necessary last month to squelch the perception that United Future is a Christian party.
It seems that, despite the massive contribution that Christians of all hues have made to the kind of society New Zealanders want to preserve, the label “Christian” is, politically, the kiss of death.
Yet, the Christian current in the nation’s story is worth reflecting on. Many good things in education, law, medicine, social policy and the arts have flowed from it. The secular society itself is the offspring of the western Christian tradition and cannot be understood without it. Churches that resist fundamentalist dogmatism and adapt to the times could still make a major contribution to our national character, goals, values and the life of the spirit — those intangible qualities that underlie nationhood.
On that basis, as well as history and heritage, I hope that any new flag, if there is to be one, will continue to carry the Southern Cross as a symbol of that faith. *Ian Harris is a journalist and commentator.
Otago Daily Times
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