Professor Tom Roa and Dr Rodrigo Hill
We have farewelled 2024, its ups and its downs. We bid a warm welcome to 2025 and its potentials.
Tom Roa
Many, if not most, of us assert a faith and a positivity in our being a democracy here in Aotearoa New Zealand. I suggest there will be many of us who know that the idea comes from the Greek demos – the people – and kratia – power/rule – that is, a way of governing which depends on the rule of the people.
The will of the people is tested regularly with eligible members of the democracy asserting their democratic right to vote for individuals and/or groups of individuals to take the lead in governing them.Many of us will not know that the celebrated Greek philosopher Aristotle considered democracy a corrupt form of government in which the majority is able to use its power to abuse minorities.
In Aotearoa New Zealand we, as do a number of other democracies, have a system of Mixed Member Proportional representation which is an attempt to ensure that the minority voice can be heard. It pays to remind ourselves also that in the governing of us here in Aotearoa New Zealand we have a legal system which provides checks and balances in ensuring that our elected representatives do indeed govern according to our will as the people.
This is of course an over-simplification of our democratic way of life. Albeit a cliche, it pays to remind ourselves that we are far from enjoying a perfect system, of government. But as we move into 2025 and past the very recent inauguration of President Donald Trump in the United States, comparisons between our form of democracy, theirs in the States, and other democracies around the world, are posed.
I suggest another cliche… good people can make a bad system work; and bad people can wreck a good system. This begs the question of course – what do we mean by ‘good’?
Aristotle asserted that a good person is a person of virtuous character, courageous, temperate, liberal, magnanimous, honourable, patient, amicable, and sincere, who behaves accordingly.
‘Rangatira’ is a Māori language term often translated as ‘chief’. Implicit in the term is an understanding that the ‘rangatira’ is a good person, a ‘noble leader’. The term is often described as being an amalgam of the terms ‘raranga’ – to weave; and ‘tira’ – a group of people moving together toward a common goal.
The ‘rangatira’ therefore weaves people together as they move together to common purpose. Rau rangatira mā tēnā huihui tātou.
