A Tribute to Michael King - died 30 March 2004

By Anthony Haas and Richard Hill
31 March 2004

 

On 12 November 2003 Anthony Haas and Richard Hill presented a paper to the New Zealand Futures Trust on the theme of the challenging interface between biculturalism and multiculturalism. It was a paper informed not only by the direction of our own work, but also by the life and work, over three decades, of Michael King - who was referred to a number of times in the course of the presentation.

 

     

   Anthony Hass & Michael King                  Richard Hill

 

This morning, we learnt of the sad death of Michael King and Maria Jungowska. Within minutes, both of us independently, and then (within an hour) together, pledged to continue the journey which we and others shared with Michael; a journey seeking a socially cohesive, multiethnic New Zealand future; a future of harmonious interaction and cooperation between Maori, Pakeha and all other ethnicities/cultures within the nation.

Both of us began our journeys in different ways. Hill's began with political activism and scholarly study of the state and its relationship with the populace. Haas' has focussed on activist and intellectual engagement with the complexities of ethnic/cultural interaction in the South Pacific. Both journeys joined with, and were influenced by, Michael King's life and works.

In recent times, Hill has focussed on issues of rangatiratanga and biculturalism in New Zealand, via work undertaken at the Treaty of Waitangi Research Unit at the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies, Victoria University of Wellington; and Haas has developed the Centre for Citizenship Education, and in effect extended Michael King's Being Pakeha notions into his Being Pa'alagi research programme (which he worked on when an associate at the Stout Research Centre in 2003). When we came together to plan a presentation to the New Zealand Futures Trust in November 2003 the issues were discussed with Michael King. It was during these discussions with him that it became clear that the three of us - despite very different backgrounds - were in effect sharing the same journey towards similar goals. King's foreword to Haas' Being Pa'alagi programme had already been drafted, and it formed a backdrop to our preparations and presentation. In fact, we conceptualised our seminar in the context of this draft foreword.

It seems appropriate then, as our immediate contribution to commemorating the life and work of Michael King, to merge his Being Pa'alagi foreword with our presentations. This tribute, reflecting text written in 2002-2003, does not take into account the public responses to National Party Leader Don Brash's Orewa speech in January 2004. Nor, given the instantaneous nature of this publication, does it incorporate feedback received since our presentation or give Haas time to develop a text from his speech notes. However, with the assistance of Maureen West of the Treaty of Waitangi Research Unit, in the spirit of the urgentness of carrying Michael King's work forward we present a compilation publication in the following format:

# I BEING PA'ALAGI (constituting Michael King's draft foreword to the Being Pa'alagi programme, written in March 2002)

# II BICULTURALISM/TREATY OF WAITANGI (constituting Richard Hill's opening presentation to the Futures Trust seminar of November 2003)

# III MULTICULTURALISM (constituting speech notes for Anthony Haas' presentation to the Futures Trust seminar, and incorporating some information provided in a prior seminar to the Stout Research Centre in 2003)

# IV RECONCILIATION (constituting Richard Hill's closing contribution to the Futures Trust seminar)

# V CONCLUSION (presented by Richard Hill at the Futures Trust seminar)

The full compilation can be seen in PDF form, here