Complete Story
 

11/18/2024

New Zealand’s Founding Treaty is at a Flashpoint

Why thousands are protesting for Māori rights

A proposed law that would redefine New Zealand's founding treaty between the British Crown and Māori chiefs has triggered political turmoil and a march by thousands of people the length of the country to Parliament to protest it.

The bill is never expected to become law. But it has become a flashpoint on race relations and a critical moment in the fraught 180-year-old conversation about how New Zealand should honor its promises to Indigenous people when the country was colonized -– and what those promises are.

Tens of thousands are expected to throng the capital, Wellington, for the final stretch of the weeklong protest march on Tuesday. It follows a Māori tradition of hīkoi, or walking, to bring attention to breaches of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Associated Press.

Printer-Friendly Version