Thread on why the Māori Party Policy of returning ancestral place-names is so important as a justice, health and environmental policy.

The Doctrine of Discovery is the international legal construct that seeks to legitimise the invasion and theft of lands, and subjugation and killing of people, IF it is done by white, European centered, Christian nations.

Its based upon a form of white supremacy that deems European Imperial expansion as a duty to humanity, and colonization therefore a necessary tool. It is, as Steve Newcomb points out about the globalisation of a system of domination and subjugation.

As multiple DoD scholars note: The Doctrine of Discovery was applied through invasion and claiming of names, but if you look closely at how that was carried out, there were ceremonial aspects to the claims.

Explorers read out bible passages & called upon their Godly right & duty to their monarch, to claim that land & a consistent part of that ceremony was to NAME the land as well. Ceremonially, it was a baptismal rite, where the land was claimed, named & committed to their God.

As Moana Jackson says, "the namer of things is the father of things & can be said to be the owner of things". The natives were seen at the time to be a part of the land being claimed (and named), they too were seen as being brought under "the yoke of the cross and the crown"

Natives were subjugated to "father" Europe who "owned" them. The colonial names that were applied over the top of our ancestral place names are therefore an enduring legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery on our land.

Removing them is a very practical act of dismantling and repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery, which all countries have been asked to do by the UN, and which the NZ govt have agreed to do by signing up to the United Nations Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The system of domination/subjugation that was globalised by the Doctrine of Discovery is one that underpins the colonial attitude towards the environment: one of resource extraction & exploitation, based on hierarchical supremacy to the environment & supreme European entitlement

The land is subjugated to humans, and natives are a part of the land, so they, too, are subjugated to humans. In this model, natives are sub-human, with lesser rights to the "more civilized and advanced" Europeans - who are seen as the model of humanity.

To go back to Steve Newcomb again, until this basic concept of domination over the land, and humans, is understood and challenged, we will never overturn the Doctrine of Discovery, and we will continue to exploit each other, and the land around us, until we wipe ourselves out.

It is impossible to acknowledge the injustice of the application of the Doctrine, whilst still refusing to do what CAN be done to dismantle it. Refusing to return the ancestral names therefore makes any 2019 pretence of acknowledging the harm of the Doctrine patently false.

Whakahokia mai ngā ingoa tūturu - return the ancestral placenames. It is a healing of a 250 year wound upon our nation that is necessary for us to move another step . closer to justice, wellbeing and environmental wellbeing