Dynamic Legacy: Creating the Future Through Tradition and Innovation #65 #cong24 #legacy

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I watched transfixed as a 22-year-old Māori politician tore up a document and strode into the centre of the New Zealand parliamentary chamber and did the Haka. She did it in protest at an attempt by a small right-wing party to rewrite the founding treaty between the British and the Māori. It is the Haka that has resounded around the world. Over the last few weeks I’ve also been watching ‘The Gone’ on TV. Its an Irish New Zealand co-production set in New Zealand with a mix of Irish and New Zealand cast. Māori and Māori rituals feature strongly.

The role of tradition, culture and legacy intrigued me. Ireland was the petri dish within which the English field tested colonialisation before deploying it globally. A key legacy of 800 years of colonisation was the erasing of much Irish tradition. Ireland was so thoroughly colonised by the legacy of imperial rule that generations later we still haven’t fully recovered. Israel managed to revive Hebrew in a generation, 100 years after independence the Irish language continues a marginal existence. Legacy and tradition are deeply intertwined. Tradition preserves and propagates legacy. Legacy, personal or collective gives tradition its depth and significance.

For much of my life I’ve kicked back against a lot of Irish traditions. Hell is growing up in 80’s rural Ireland with zero interest in football, hurling, religion or alcohol. Not entirely hell but you get the gist. A friend once commented that tradition is peer pressure from dead people. Running away from those traditions I ran towards the future. Science and technology. Into Computer Science and industry, eyes firmly fixed forward.

Over time I’ve wondered about my relationship with tradition and legacy. Witnessing the Māori people’s embrace of their heritage made wonder about my own cultural legacy. The Māori have managed to keep their language and customs alive despite the pressures of globalisation and historical oppression. Their traditions aren’t relics; they’re living, breathing parts of their identity. Many Irish traditions have travelled through a glass darkly. St. Patrick’s Day, once a religious feast day, is a global festival of green beer and leprechauns. The Irish language, despite revival efforts, struggles to find a place in Ireland. It’s taught in schools but seldom heard on the streets, a ghost of what it could be. And at the same time remnants of older traditions persist.

So how do we look forward, reforging our identity while respecting legacy. Some of the answer comes from an amazing farsighted piece on digital colonialism that Joan Mulvihill wrote 11 years ago. Two points from it include the impacts of colonialism and of technology.

“Colonialism was motivated by a need for control of trade routes and economic gain. The colonising powers arrived bearing gifts of modernity and development for the poor natives and when the natives didn’t buy into it, they took what they wanted anyway and left the indigenous populations disenfranchised and isolated, living in cordoned off reservations without a voice much less a vote.”

“Technology has the ability to disrupt the very essence of how we define ourselves as people, our identity and sense of ‘place’ in the world”

These points seem even more important now than they were a decade ago. The legacy and promise of technology has gotten wrapped up in and warped by Digital colonialism. And we need to ask what legacy are we leaving behind? In our rush towards forward, have we discarded parts of ourselves that are worth preserving? Tradition doesn’t have to be a chain that binds us to the past; it can be a foundation upon which we build the future.

Perhaps legacy is about balance. It’s about honoring where we come from while not being chained by it. It’s about taking the strengths of our traditions and adapting them to the present day and building new traditions and rituals. The Māori politician in New Zealand wasn’t just performing the Haka; she was invoking the spirit of her ancestors to address a contemporary issue. She connected the past and the present in a way that was both profound and effective.

In an key note of optimism in Joan’s piece she wrote “I would like to find a way that works for everyone – that delivers the immeasurable benefits without fear of the costs so that we can continue to innovate for the good – because I do believe that it is for good.” And

“A determination for co-creation based on trust between all stakeholders will allow us to innovate in such a way that great ideas will actually become great innovations.”

I think these are truly vital ideas now more than ever. Legacy isn’t just what we inherit; it’s what we choose to carry forward. It’s the stories we tell, the languages we speak, and the customs we practice. And it also needs to include a reckoning with the past. Theres a lot of post-colonial legacy to deal with. And now more than ever we need to innovations to create and to establish new traditions. For new things to emerge we have to let go of some things from the past and give space for creation. By acknowledging and embracing our legacy, we can enrich our lives and contribute to a more diverse and vibrant society.

This is part of why I come back to Cong. Everyone who comes here brings some part of themselves and leaves enriched by those they meet here. Eoin Kennedy has built an important special Legacy in the traditional trip to CongRegation in November.

In the end, perhaps tradition isn’t just peer pressure from dead people. Maybe it’s a conversation—a dialogue between the past and the present, informing our journey into the future. And maybe, just maybe, by embracing both our heritage and our aspirations, we can create a legacy worth leaving behind.