Orewa and the Rhetoric of Illusion

Abstract

A commitment to teaching reality, to educating the public about what one believes to be moral truths, is an adaptive leadership strategy to better inform the citizenry about the nature of its choices, both past and future. A leader teaching illusion, however, appeals to darker instincts that cannot improve the overall quality of political discourse. These concepts are examined from a normative perspective. Don Brash's Orewa speech is then analyzed against evaluative criteria developed by presidential scholar Erwin Hargrove. Despite facilitating a liberation of language around Treaty and broader race discourse in New Zealand, the Orewa speech contains distortions, attempts at manipulation, and stereotyping of Maori. Brash's language is both rigid and dogmatic; he makes appeals to abstract creeds rathe R than offering carefully explained policies. His cultural interpretation is shallow. What emerges from the Orewa speech is a deliberate attempt at agenda control by manipulating race discourse to realign party support. The Orewa speech is revealed more as an example of teaching illusion than reality and a contrast with more adaptive ideas about race relations in New Zealand is made.