Are you, or are you willing to become, a Tribalist?

"A stoush between collectivist and individualist Māori is long overdue. ... Ultimately, inevitably, whether at the micro or macro level, the question must be answered. Is your allegiance to the tribe, or is it to yourself and your chosen group of family and friends.
    "If the two overlap, all well and good.
    "But in New Zealand (and Australia), for tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of Māori, they don't....  

    "Increasingly [however], through media and public services, through health, justice and education, the Māori culture is being prioritised. To the point of being romanticised and lionised. Long-standing rules about the state being secular are broken to accommodate Māori spiritualism. Te reo - or knowledge of te ao - is de facto compulsory inasmuch as, if you don't have it there are now careers that are barred to you. The Māori 'team' propelling this are on a roll... Prior to this compulsory cultural renaissance, people managed their own conflicts. Where they had a foot in both camps -- the tribe and the alternative -- they made their own decisions. ... What kind of society wants to remove that freedom? One in which the collective trumps the individual.... 

    "If we are going to be forced to take a side, and mounting evidence points to this eventuality, no matter your ethnicity, think of the conflict in these terms: Do you want to own your own life?"

~ Lindsay Mitchell, from her post 'Stoush between collectivist and individualist Māori'