I've been looking for the opportunity to write something like this for a long time... Today, happily for me, the perfect opportunity landed in my lap.
I was recently have a look, though gritted teeth, at Facebook, a place I go to occasionally dip back into my past, and make contact with folks in my homeland or from past parts of my life in Aotearoa (New Zealand). I came across a Spinoff post in my feed (even the FB algorithm gets it right sometimes) entitled "The bleakest findings from a new survey about gender attitudes in Aotearoa". I cannot comment on the article, as, to be honest, I haven't read it yet. Fortunately, its content isn't relevant to this post.
Prior to reading the article, as you do, I dipped down into the Facebook comments to gauge the tenor of response to it... I assumed the racist 'old guard' would be there, and yes, Facebook's 'engagement maximisation' algorithm didn't disappoint: the first thing I saw was a post from a woman (presumably) called Suzie. She said, simply, "Could you please call our country New Zealand[sic]" (she didn't use punctuation).
Hmm. This is an attitude I see as a bell weather for the 'culture wars' now raging in Aotearoa New Zealand. I'm not a fan of it.
As someone who grew up in the US in, so far as we know, the tribal lands of the Leni Lenape tribe of native Americans, I'm already very poorly disposed to colonialism. I feel like we all - regardless of our heritage, need to recognise that grave, huge injustices have been perpetrated throughout human history - often repeated by the descendents of the very people most recently at the sharp (unjust) end of it a generation or three down the track. We're seeing something very similar in Gaza at the moment.
I took the opportunity to respond to Suzie:
"I can imagine, Suzie, that it's quite disconcerting to feel like the place you grew up is no longer the way you remember it. That the values you thought everyone shared... aren't the same as your values any more. It's uncomfortable. But it's progress, in this case. (you only have to look across the Pacific to see the catastrophic regression happening there, in my homeland) You might want to spare a thought for tangata whenua who, during the 1800s, 1900s, and even into the 2000s, felt it very keenly.
Even today, it's clear that they're under pressure from certain political quarters - the racist and bigoted ones. But, unlike you, their land was taken away from them, often by force... as were some of their children, as was their spirituality, as was their language, as was their entire way of life. What replaced it wasn't as good, from their perspective... but I suppose (I wasn't there at the time), it might've had some advantages.
Consider yourself incredibly fortunate that you merely have to adapt and move with the times. This current transition is vastly more benign than what those dear souls in the past had to weather. So, best you stiffen that upper lip and box on, eh! 🙂"
And I think that's something that all of us should be able to relate to. Suzie's feeling precisely the same discomfort & disconnect that, several generations back, the (original) people of Aotearoa, 'tangata whenua' (the 'people of the land' - until the arrival of the colonists, they thought themselves more or less the only people around, so they didn't need a name to differentiate themselves from their neighbours) or the Māori, felt when they, too, suddenly had to adapt to a rapidly changing society and culture.
A bit later, Suzie responded: "Dave Lane thank you for your polite response but I say rubbish !! New Zealand has been New Zealand since its inception Aotearoa is a made up name ( by a colonist for want of a better word ) in the early 1900’s[sic]" (again, no punctuation)
I couldn't help but follow up: "Suzie [surname redacted] really? Are you sure? Did you ask tangata whenua? In the past, I suppose they didn't have to differentiate their land from other lands, but when they found out about the far-away place all those pasty light skinned folks came from, they might've had to come up with something to help make the distinction. And also, I'm pretty sure that, strictly speaking, according to you logic, you should be calling it Nieuw Zeeland, because that's what Abel Tasman called it."
Dealing with bigots is like shooting fish in a barrel - their wilful ignorance makes them blind in many ways, and they're easily outwitted... But this isn't about scoring points... I would hope that even the most bigoted in modern day Aotearoa would recognise and accept that what they're feeling, in the face of a resurgent Māori language (te reo Māori) and substantial non-European immigration, is not at all unlike what the original people of this place, Aotearao (the 'land of the long white cloud') would have felt as the Europeans - primarily British and Irish - poured from the boats and into their land, often like they owned the place. I'm hoping that some of those people might see that there's a lesson in there, some where. And an opportunity for a display of grace and acceptance.