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Are we ready to call New Zealand “Aotearoa”, the original Maori name? Artist Hohepa Thompson, aka Hori, traveled to Zeeland two weeks ago to ask us this question. A question that probably surprises most Dutch people.
Hori arrived in Zeeland before dawn on Saturday July 30. A day and a half earlier, he had flown to London from Auckland. Once there, he rents a car and takes the ferry to Calais with his cameraman. Vlissingen beach was his destination. He put a plaque on one of the many stilts on the beach: “To the people of Zealand, I return to you the name of New Zealand, the name of our land is Aotearoa.” A television crew captured his action for New Zealand television.
What was that? How is it possible that Maori land is called Zeeland, wasn’t it the English who colonized the land? The Maori are the original inhabitants of New Zealand and form a minority in their own country. The descendants of European settlers are still the most dominant group present. Like Australia and the United States, New Zealand is a colonial occupation. However, it was the Dutch captain of the VOC Abel Tasman who was the first European to arrive in Aotearoa in 1642, after which the VOC council decided to name the area after the province of Zeeland. This name was retained by the last British settlers.
Due to the British appropriating other people’s land, Māori language and culture has long been suppressed and dismissed as inferior. In recent decades, that has changed. The Maori culture is again experienced as something positive. While once being punished, now it’s almost hip to say a few words of Maori. By the national rugby union team, the All Blacksthe traditional Maori dance, the haka, has become known worldwide as an expression of a proud culture.
Petitions for and against
This renewed attention does not mean that the problems of racism and exclusion are solved. New Zealand is and will remain a colony. This is evidenced by the existence of the Hobson’s Commitment, a pro-colonial lobby group founded in 2016 that is concerned about the various initiatives and regulations that combat discrimination against Maori. They started last year the petition’New Zealand, NOT Aotearoa‘ which has now been signed by nearly 59,000 people.
Last June, another petition made headlines asking for the name to be changed to Aotearoa. The petition was organized by Te Pāti Maori, the political party that defends Maori interests. This one was as much as signed by 70,000 people and the result is now being scrutinized by a parliamentary committee.
The artist Hori decided to set up a campaign in this context. He had large banners printed with the text: „Are we Abel calling Aotearoa now?– the word Abel refers to the VOC captain. He placed the banners on a trailer and traveled around 3,000 kilometers from the northern tip of New Zealand to the far south last month. Through social networks he brings back.
Hori traveled to Vlissingen but also stopped in the Zeeland village of Krabbendijke, then traveled to Rotterdam, Leiden and Amsterdam. Everywhere he hangs posters with a picture of Tasman and the question whether we are ready to use the name “Aotearoa”. A QR code leads to the website’Hori’s commitment‘ where he speaks directly to the Dutch.
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Also read this column: Maori culture connects in times of crisis
Abel Tasman praises
With his project, Hori criticizes the arrogance of European colonizing nations who renamed entire areas as if people did not already live there. To render a colonial name as it does today shows us the absurdity of this tradition. Colonial doctrines, now secular, have made normal what is not.
Here, it is a genocidaire like Jan Pieterszoon Coen who stands on a plinth and whose streets and bridges bear his name. In New Zealand, it is Abel Tasman who is celebrated and acclaimed as “the discoverer” of the country. Both were employed by the murderous VOC, het biggest company that ever existed. With his action, Hori is in a way sawing off the chair legs of our democratic and civilized societies, based on myths of brave naval heroes.
That these naval heroes weren’t really heroes is slowly starting to make itself felt. But we clearly find it harder to recognize colonialism in the present. There is also something easy about condemning past actions. We can walk away from it, like we had nothing to do with it and it’s all over. But colonialism is not history, Aotearoa is a currently occupied country and New Zealand is a colonial name like the Dutch East Indies was a colonial name.
A version of this article also appeared in the August 11, 2022 newspaper.
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