Beware the trap of history when using referendums

Opinion: Vladimir Putin made headline news last week when he gave an exclusive interview to Tucker Carlson. The interview did not provide any new information as to why Putin found it necessary to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but it did reiterate one of the main drivers of this action: history.

The prominent Cold War historian Sergey Radchenko argues that Putin’s version of history is “clinically insane” but given that “Putin clings to this version of history – again, and again, and again – means that we have to take it seriously (…) It’s not just propaganda”.

The insidious nature of reaching back to an imagined history (to be frank, all history is imagined to some extent) to help justify actions or policies was something that the British documentarian Adam Curtis noticed as far back as 1995. Using the case of the UK, Curtis made the assessment that:

“When politicians summon up that romantic vision [memory of a golden age], for a moment it gives them immense power, but then they discover they have invoked forces they cannot control. The price they pay is to become imprisoned by their dream. They and the British people find themselves trapped by their history.”

Maximilian Mayer and I took this observation and coined the term “the trap of history”, something we identified as being a global phenomenon.

Putin has long used history to justify his decisions. This includes evoking the glory of the Soviet Union (especially its ‘victory’ in WWII), attempting to rehabilitate Stalin, and using the post-Crimean war (1853–56) rebound of the Russian Empire – under the stewardship of Prince Gorchakov – as an allegory for Russia’s search for international relevance and respect under the leadership of Putin.

In the context of Ukraine, what started out as Russian action framed on the pretence that it wanted to “help the Ukrainian brothers to agree on how they should build and develop their country” has morphed into questioning the very future of Ukraine as an independent nation.

As Putin explicitly stated in the lead up to the onset of the “special operation” in Ukraine:

“Ukraine is not just a neighbouring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space (…) modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. This process started practically right after the 1917 revolution, and Lenin and his associates did it in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia – by separating, severing what is historically Russian land.”

In Russia’s case, the use of history in this way has become particularly problematic as it is inextricably linked to its ontological security. The term ontological security was coined by the psychiatrist RD Laing in his work with schizophrenic patients and used to denote patients whose “identity and autonomy are never in question”. An ontologically insecure patient, therefore, would typically “feel more unreal than real; in a literal sense, more dead than alive; precariously differentiated from the rest of the world so that his identity and autonomy are always in question”.

Countries too have a basic need for this kind of security. For most countries, this is not a problem because there is typically a strong sense internally (and usually externally) of where a country cosmologically fits. But this is not always the case, and countries such as Russia that have suffered significant trauma and change can often enter into a situation of acute ontological insecurity: a state where a country has no sense of its reality.

The troubling aspect is that when this takes hold, finding security tends to overtake material security as the most pressing national interest of the afflicted country. This perhaps helps explain why Russia has taken such drastic actions in Ukraine – actions that clearly run against their material security interests.

New Zealand has no acute ontological insecurity at the moment. In fact, quite the opposite. But history has also become an important aspect of New Zealand’s politics in recent years, most notably the discourse about the history of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Act leader David Seymour has emerged as the major player in this discourse. He has been pushing alternative historical narratives concerning the Treaty ad nauseam, especially in recent weeks.

As Laura Tupou wrote in her Newshub column last week, Seymour’s February 7 “Road to Real Change” speech was essentially a “history lesson”. The central claim of this speech was that, for Seymour, the Treaty was:

” … written in the shadow of the enlightenment. It said that the Government had Kawanatanga … The right to Govern. The people had tino rangatiratanga, or self-determination, over their lives and property. They also had ngā tikanga katoa rite tahi. The same rights and duties as each other. Limited Government, self-determination, property rights and equality. I reckon the chiefs who signed the Treaty would sign up to Act today.”

Many commentators, including esteemed scholars of the Treaty of Waitangi, strongly pushed back on these claims. But in an age where public trust in the establishment is unprecedentedly low, Seymour’s interpretation of history will likely find significant fertile ground among some sections of society.

To this end, Seymour seems to be experiencing a small increase in support and relevance. In a recent 2024 Curia poll commissioned by New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union, Act polled at 13.7 percent, up more than 5 percentage points from the previous one in late 2023. Seymour also rose in the preferred Prime Minister poll to 10 percent, making him the most preferred person behind Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins.

Debating what the Treaty of Waitangi should mean to New Zealand is not necessarily a bad thing, particularly as New Zealand’s societal makeup continues to evolve. But, using history for politics can be incredibly divisive and lead to unintended consequences.

Of course, New Zealand is nothing like Russia so we should not fear anything like what has occurred there in recent years. But another parliamentary democracy, the UK, offers some food for thought as to how the trap of history can negatively affect political outcomes.

In 2015, David Cameron, with his position as Prime Minister under immense internal pressure, decided to play to his party constituents’ nostalgia for the glorious pre-EU days of the UK by implementing a referendum on whether the UK should remain in the EU. This “golden age” nostalgia had been brewing for some time and though it was not cultivated by Cameron per se – Nigel Farage, for example, was more prominent – it became a useful resource for his immediate needs.

The caveat was, however, that Cameron did not want the UK to leave the EU, but he also wanted to remain Prime Minister. So it was a calculated gamble that enough people would vote in favour of staying in the EU – as happened with the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 when Scotland voted to remain a part of the UK.

In the short term, it worked. Cameron was able to keep his position as Prime Minister. But, Cameron, as Curtis says, “invoked forces that he cannot control”. The debate about whether to leave the EU or stay conjured up incredible waves of nostalgia and romanticism about what the UK was before it joined the EU: a globally important and autonomous power (AKA Global Britain).

It does not matter that this historical memory of the greatness of the UK before its EU accession in 1973 is completely detached from historical reality. The reality that the UK tried to go alone after WWII but failed leading to it petitioning the European Economic Community – the precursor to the EU – for membership is largely forgotten. Rather, a romanticised version of history became popular, one that placed the EU as a hinderer (not an auger) of the UK’s autonomy and power.

The rest is history. The UK, arguably against its own interests, voted to leave the EU in 2016 and Brexit was born. Such an outcome would not have occurred without certain politicians evoking historical reinterpretations.

In the case of New Zealand, Seymour’s dabbling with historical reinterpretation could also cause significant seismic shifts to New Zealand’s politics and governance, especially if his proposed referendum sees the light of day.

As Brexit showed, referendums only need a slight majority to be successful. Some topics are too complex to be settled this way, and one should fear the implications for New Zealand if this is the route taken.