Māori Queen Meets King Charles at Buckingham Palace

Establishment-critical narrative

As the Māori Queen visits Buckingham Palace for an audience with the very Crown that stripped her people of over 90% of their lands, one cannot help but grieve — for it echoes, painfully, the colonial supplication of King Tawhiao before Queen Victoria in the 1880s. A population robbed must not be compelled, still, to petition their robbers for dignity.