Opinion: The Māori proverb ‘ka mua, ka muri’ – walk backwards into the future – encourages looking to the past to move forward wisely. It came to my mind many times in 2025.

A profound example was when I recently visited a tribal nation on the East Coast of America who’d first made contact with the British in 1607– colonisation ground zero!

I saw up close what it looks like when resources, rights, culture, and language loss is unchecked and unreversed. The sadness was palpable and steeled my heart to the prospect of my tribe suffering the same fate.

A contrasting occasion came a month later when I faced leaders of 13 Pacific Island nations who’d come to our marae with supporters to express their appreciation and aroha.

Over the decades Ngāti Toa had supported Pacific people, but in recent years the scale and significance of that help had grown, culminating in the gifting of land to the Pacific community for housing. They came in droves to thank Ngāti Toa for gifting our lands to affordably house them and their descendants in perpetuity.

Thirteen times Ngāti Toa chiefs signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi, enabling immigrants to live in our tribal boundaries and find better lives with our people. Thirteen Pacific nations thanked us 185 years later for our ancestor’s vision that yet remains.

The joy was immense.

A third ‘ka mua, ka muri’ occasion was the return of our maunga tapu (sacred mountain) on land gifted to the Anglican Church in 1848 to build a school to educate local children. No school was built, instead the land was eventually sold. The matter went before the courts where our petition was declined, leading Chief Justice James Prendergast to infamously declare the Treaty of Waitangi a “simple nullity”.

Now, 177 years later, Ngāti Toa has reacquired a large portion of that land, purchased at market value from Radio New Zealand. With current Anglican and community leaders, and descendants of Justice Prendergast and Octavius Hadfield (colonial Anglican leader) our iwi and friends revelled in the historic return. It was a healing and unifying event and hopeful example for the future.

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A fourth, less parochial occasion, came in September when I joined a “non-classified briefing” on national security. The recently retired military intelligence officer advised with calm confidence that our nation will almost certainly have to defend itself within a few short years and we are not prepared.

I observed in the discussion that in all conflicts involving our country since the beginning of the 20th century, Māori men, including Ngāti Toa, had been disproportionately involved and impacted, and would likely be so again in any future conflict. The thought vexed me and still does.

Also vexing in 2025 was watching the norms that brought global peace and prosperity for 70 years disintegrate before our eyes. The speed of the breakdown and resultant political, economic, and security uncertainty has been sobering.

Those uncertainties came to mind last week as I watched the movie Nuremberg with its graphic depiction of events associated with the horrors of Nazi Germany. It showed that the transformation of civilised people into bloodthirsty villains did not occur overnight nor in a vacuum. When European empires and emperors disappeared after WW1, replaced eventually by totalitarian regimes and dictators, the associated social, economic, and political upheaval transformed everyone and everything in a few short years, culminating in the horrors of WW2.

Nuremberg was a reminder that in times of upheaval, bad ideas can lead ordinary people to do bad things, and evil only occurs if good people don’t speak up and stop it.

The current proliferation of bad ideas in response to current social, economic, and political upheaval is raising the risk of evil everywhere, including here.

Democracy spread globally after WW2 because of its promise of safer, more prosperous lives for all. That promise was kept for decades, however, recently not so much. Increasing social and economic inequality has polarised democracies across the world, leading to unrest, populist authoritarians, and worse.

Democracy is a fiction made real by the consent of the governed. When a few withdraw that consent they are arrested. When thousands withdraw, we get what we saw on Parliament’s grounds two years ago. If hundreds of thousands do, we have chaos. We know it’s happened before and we know why. Ka mua, ka muri!

So, with those 2025 reflections, my wishes for our people and nation in 2026 are:

First, the economy and election dominate our lives because world events don’t deteriorate catastrophically (gulp). For the election, an overwhelming majority of voters follow the recent example of schools across the country and show politicians that New Zealanders do not support demeaning or negating our nation’s founding document and basis for everyone belonging and living together in this land.

That the vision of respectful, beneficial co-existence of tangata whenua and tangata tiriti inspires us still. That New Zealanders today know the truth, believe in justice, and will not support politicians who say and act otherwise.

Second, New Zealanders recognise the parlous state of democracy worldwide, including here; that the root cause of our social, economic, and political problems is systemic and we can fix them; that we made up our political and economic systems and can improve them if we want, but need enough people to speak up, stand up, lead and contribute.

Third, New Zealanders give me my first two wishes and thereby give hope to the rest of the world by showing (again) that New Zealanders can heal historic harm and live in harmony; that being humble, wise and persistent in pursuit of improved ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’ can create a modern democracy that keeps its promise! Imagine that.

Ka mua, ka muri!