CHRIS McVEIGH: What's in a name?

What's in a name? It is tempting to approach the current vogue aimed at replacing all the well established and familiar place names in New Zealand (including that name itself) with maori alternatives, as some kind of shallow exercise in preening vanity practised by a coterie of self righteous plonkers, but I don't propose doing that here.

So I'll do it here instead.

No, no but seriously and much and all as I'd gain a degree of personal satisfaction from a bit of undignified name calling, I must resist that temptation and accord those who indulge themselves in this way the respect their activities don't deserve and reluctantly resist any temptation to cater to my baser instincts.

Where to begin? Well I suppose I have to concede (reluctantly) that the practice of renaming New Zealand 'Aotearoa' will gain some traction during the lifetime of its supporters. But once they've moved on from the foothills of their present intellectual pursuits and the next faddish vogue occupies their ever increasing spare time, it will gradually wither away, eventually to be seen by history as yet another modish curiosity, to be studied by sociology undergraduates, in much the same way as flared trousers will be or the current vulgar practice of filling vast acres of bare flesh with inky graffiti.

There are a number of reasons for this, but chief among them is its lack of any immediate legitimacy. It has been seized on by platoons of enthusiastic amateurs, eager to clamber on board this particular bandwagon, rather like the deployment of the adjective 'awesome', now being used as a synonym for thank you. If a spiritual vacuum exists then plugging it with cultural play dough isn't going to help.

As far as I know, no-one has ever suggested that there's anything wrong with the current name: one which has been happily used by generations over many years. There was no previous name that has been banished from international usage. The native pre-european population didn't refer to the three islands of our country as Aotearoa. It was apparently the original maori name for the North Island. It's only in recent times that it's been adopted and expanded to refer to the whole country, with a bit of help along the way from William Pember Reeves.

Countries whose names have been successfully changed, generally after the collapse of empires following two world wars, are ones where self-rule has been adopted once the colonisers have departed. Consonant with the constirutional shift of power after the departure of european authority the countries concerned have jettisoned the name imposed on them and adopted another as part of the process of forging a new identity. Examples are legion: Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe, Burma/Myanmar, Bechuanaland/ Botswana and so on.

This hasn't always been the case of course. Two of the largest land masses which in the twentieth century broke free from foreign hegemony, apparently felt confident enough in their identities to retain their existing names: India and South Africa (both names, incidentally, imposed by british imperialists).

None of these conditions applies to New Zealand though. A country which, geographically and politically, continues to exist in the same way it always has done has no need to proclaim any new identity to the world, because it doesn't have one. Much and all as dinner party liberals would like to think otherwise, New Zealand will continue to be populated and governed by much the same people as always, the vast majority of whom, I venture to suggest, entertain no urgent desire for change.

Dropping New Zealand as our name in favour of some confected alternative looks suspiciously expedient: a convenient pretext for a different programme. Its current usage is redolent with the whiff of political opportunism rather than being carried out to rectify any past wrongdoing or to correct any current misapprehension.

There are also some pretty good practical reasons why re-naming our country Aotearoa should be a non-starter.

1. Lack of popular acceptance: the world and its institutions knows this country as New Zealand. Unless and until there is a formal rebranding by the powers that be (and there's no sign of that occurring) the status quo will continue. Those seeking to introduce change will seem like a faint chorus of disaffected malcontents.

2. We are unique. In an ocean of mushy vowels in the South Pacific we are a nation of gritty consonants. Otherwise we'll just join a long list of similar sounding archipelagos ending with yet another obsequious vowel.

3. Aotearoa has no easy demonym. New Zealand has New Zealanders, Aotearoa has....what? When was the last time you heard some whey faced newsreader refer to Aotearoans? Never, that's when. They're forced to fall back on that good old standby 'Kiwis'. Oh dear, is that what we want?

No give up while you can I say. Quit while you're behind. Operation Aotearoa is a lost cause, a fizzer, a deceased member of the mallard family. It's DOA.

None of this should be taken as an indication that I harbour any blimpish opposition to a name change, because I don't. It's simply that those who wish to do so are going about it in the wrong way. As with the use of Te Reo in everyday conversation, it can't or shouldn't be introduced by stealth. To attempt to do so demonstrates a lack of conviction by its supporters which will only serve to reinforce their opponents' resentment at seeming to be dragooned into change rather than persuaded. If you wish to change our country's name, present your case and be prepared to support it. To do otherwise will simply encourage opposition rather than reasoned debate. If you succeed in your argument the change will be legitimate and permanent. If you don't, then New Zealand it is. That's the way democracy works.

Chris McVeigh is a retired KC living in Christchurch. He was previously President of the Canterbury District Law Society and, in an earlier life, a scriptwriter and performer for the satirical TV programme ‘A week of It’