Editorial: Rallying around the flag

OPINION: In the movie Planet of the Apes, Charlton Heston's character George Taylor crash-lands on Earth hundreds of years into the future to find the natural order reversed and man living as a wild animal in a world run by apes.

Stranded astronaut Taylor struggles to comprehend this stunning turnaround in such a short time; it's a state of confusion we can understand as we stumble through our own bizarre parallel universe and ask the same questions: how can this be, how did it happen, is this real?

Just a few years ago the leader of the National Party ignited a racial furore and an electoral firestorm with incendiary comments about New Zealand's race relations. His comments drew an angry response from the Labour Government but wild praise from a large section of the country.

If he were to crash-land in New Zealand today, Taylor would discover another U-turn of monumental proportions: a leader of the National Party prepared to repeal the Seabed and Foreshore Act and even fly the controversial flag of Maori sovereignty, and a Labour Party forced to pick up the baton of anti-Maori frustration – and swimming against the tide of public opinion, to boot.

Could it be that New Zealand has taken great steps forward since Don Brash endeavoured to drive a wedge between Maori and Pakeha those few short years ago? Could it be that the current Prime Minister, portrayed by many as nerdy and naive, is actually attempting to create sophisticated and mature debate about a sensitive and controversial symbol?

Or maybe it's just a flag?

Whatever the answer, it is refreshing that John Key is not scared about moving beyond the one-dimensional and exploring the deeper, more complex issues behind it; not worried about raising the flag and the level of debate.

Our distrust and suspicion has helped keep the flag in the dark, to be used as a symbol of protest and separatism, a rallying point for those Maori who inhabit the political extreme we find so dangerous. By our own action in denying it prominence we have empowered those who would use it as talisman for violent upheaval.

Key has opened the wardrobe in an attempt to reveal there are no monsters; he is shining the torch under the bed to show us there are no ghosts or goblins.

If that creates the possibility of more dialogue and understanding then Key is to be congratulated.

And we can begin on a new script built around a story of compromise and conciliation, rather than distrust and confusion.

- © Fairfax NZ News