Friends:
The Māori, who comprise about 20% of New Zealand’s population, recently staged a powerful protest in Parliament using the haka—a sacred traditional dance—to oppose a bill that seeks to reinterpret the Treaty of Waitangi. Signed in 1840 between Māori leaders and the British Crown, the Treaty is widely regarded as New Zealand’s founding document and a cornerstone of Māori rights. Supporters of the bill claim it grants Indigenous people unfair advantages—echoing familiar rhetoric in the United States, where DEI efforts are often miscast as "divisive" or as “reverse discrimination" against white people—who also happen to be settlers.
This protest exemplifies what scholars describe as a politics of refusal—a culturally grounded act of resistance to state-sanctioned erasure.
Yet it is a painful reminder that the Māori should never have been placed in the position of their defending hard-won rights in the first place. That such an expressive act was necessary signals just how much is at stake: land, language, identity, and the very foundation of coexistence.
The haka is not a performance to be summoned in crisis, but a sacred expression of sovereignty and dignity.
That Māori leaders were compelled to use it in Parliament reveals the depth of the injustice they confront.
In a truly democratic society, Indigenous peoples should not have to repeatedly defend foundational agreements. The same holds true in the U.S., where communities of color are continually forced to reassert their worth and belonging as members of racial or cultural groups in the face of legislative erasure.
We must imagine—and fight for—a democracy where the rights, histories, and futures of all communities are upheld, not endangered. One where refusal is not our only option, but where justice is built into the very structure of public life.
-Angela Valenzuela
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