Category Archives: New Zealand society, culture, politics

Waitangi & the Unsung Virtue of Uncertainty

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Sparrowhawk/Kārearea

It’s never very far from my memory; the time in 1988 I took a taxi to Jupiter’s Casino on the Gold Coast with a couple of army friends of mine. All I can really recall is shrinking down into the back seat, between my companions, in bemused horror as the taxi driver proceeded to tell us all about how the Tasmanian Aborigines were exterminated, and that, on the mainland “they should have finished the job”. I was 18 and working at Expo 88 in Brisbane at the time, in a year of bicentennial celebrations of the European settlement of Australia. I was doing my bit back then to contribute to Australian patriotism and until that moment I had never really given the other side of the story another thought.

If you are a social media type with a New Zealand Facebook account you will likely have had a few interesting or disturbing posts on your feed in the lead up to Australia Day on 26 January, marking the arrival of the First Fleet of 11 convict ships to Sydney Cove in 1788. This Day is intended to be a celebratory one:

On Australia Day we come together as a nation to celebrate what’s great about Australia and being Australian. It’s the day to reflect on what we have achieved and what we can be proud of in our great nation. It’s the day for us to re-commit to making Australia an even better place for the future.

In my case the social media posts I saw were less than celebratory (see here and here for examples), and largely consisted of withering criticism of Australia’s treatment of Aborigines. Invasion Day provided another view of a day intended to celebrate the formation of Australia as a nation. In truth, I shared the odd post myself.

At times like this New Zealand discussions about race relations between the majority populations of Australia and New Zealand and their respective indigenous communities takes on a competitive tinge. We New Zealanders are just SO much better than Australians at ‘dealing with’ indigenous peoples, and every year Australia Day gives us that lovely frisson that comes from revelling, for a moment, in the feeling of a job well done. There is, after all, some evidence to suggest that our race relations are better (such a quaint term that, ‘race relations’..at a time when we rarely talk of ‘race’ anymore). Smugness is sterile though; each country has quite a different political, cultural and social history, not to mention a vastly different linguistic and demographic landscape.

And any little sense of complacency we might have been lured into by way of Australia Day on Jan 26 is soon obliterated by our own tortured anxieties (for some, at least) about Waitangi Day on Feb 6. Usually there is some issue or take that demands protest and attention, for which Waitangi Day becomes a kind of cultural and political lightening rod. This year it is the approaching local signing of the TPPA (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement). Some Māori have promised protest at Waitangi, while the John Key proclaims his normal state of resolute relaxation about any such protests.

And, on cue, a few weeks out, Pākehā Media Personality Angst Against Waitangi (PMPAAW) kicks in. In 2012 it was Paul Holmes who delivered up an absolute doozy against which the Press Council upheld complaints. Paul spluttered:

I wouldn’t take my three great uncles who died at Gallipoli and in France – Reuben, Mathew and Leonard – to Waitangi Day and expect them to believe this was our national day. I wouldn’t take my father, veteran of El Alamein and Cassino, there. Nor would I take my Uncle Ken who died in a Wellington bomber, then try and tell him Waitangi Day was anything but filth.

No, if Maori want Waitangi Day for themselves, let them have it. Let them go and raid a bit more kai moana than they need for the big, and feed themselves silly, speak of the injustices heaped upon them by the greedy Pakeha and work out new ways of bamboozling the Pakeha to come up with a few more millions.

The same year Richard Long had a go. in 2014 Cameron Slater jumped on the train, Peter Dunn reiterated calls for a New Zealand Day to replace Waitangi Day in 2011. This year, it was Mike Hosking’s turn, although on TV rather than in print. ‘An annual ritual of abuse, anger and ignorance’, in Mike’s view. Well, I’m not sure which ritual he was referring to, the one at the lower marae, or that perpetrated by PMPAW.

Snarkiness aside, I have never had any problems with dissent about Waitangi Day, from any quarter. These protests, complaints and flagellation are absolutely necessary. New Zealand must never, in my view succumb again to a comfortable view of itself. This uncertainty about our national identity and our connections between our communities is absolutely essential if we are to function well as a nation in the future.

The seeds of this uncertainty were sown in the years between 1835-1840 with the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Treaty of Waitangi, and only in the past 40 or so years have those seeds begun to bear fruit more obviously in the public consciousness. But make no mistake, in regards to Crown-Māori relations uncertainty has been our national lifeblood. The Treaty of Waitangi is but only one agreement between the Crown and Māori among hundreds in our multi-textual legal history. These agreements included deeds of cession, confiscation agreements, and regional pre-emptive agreements each agreement opening up new relationships, new portals for negotiation, new sites of political uncertainty.

In fact, the single most enduring and salient feature of political constitutionalism in colonial NZ has been Maori insistence on treating any agreement with the Crown as never final, but, in the words of Mark Hickford, only as:

‘punctuated moments in conversations without end’.

Time and again, year after year, decade after decade Māori have insisted on negotiation, compromise, recognition and political space. Sometimes they have got it, oftentimes not.

So, from the perspective of what we could call political identity formation, or constitutionalism, the Treaty of Waitangi generates a kind of positive uncertainty. We don’t actually know what the future will bring in the relationship between Māori, the Crown, and the peoples of New Zealand. We cannot take solace in the presumption that what has been always will be. There are new settlements, new agreements, new cultural landscapes and new relationships forming and dissolving every year. None of this is comfortable.

I like comfort and moderation. So I have some sympathy with the call for the simplicity of a New Zealand Day, such as that called for many times by MP Peter Dunne:

“We have so many wonderful things about this country that we should be celebrating; we have achieved great things as a nation and continue to do so. We need to be proud of all of that and celebrate what it is to be a Kiwi.

“Waitangi Day is not doing that and has not for a long time.

Mr Dunne said Waitangi Day rarely leaves Kiwis feeling more “united, positive or upbeat”, and non-Maori avoid the day.

Dunne and those like him seem to wish for a simpler, more certain idea of what being a New Zealander is; something more like an Australian Day celebration (without the messy complications of stolen generations and drunk NRL players).

I think we can celebrate and be pissed off at each other. Why are these things mutually exclusive? They can’t be for me, my Pākehā and Māori ancestors collectively got me into my current situation as an urban born Māori who has had to learn what being Māori even means.

So, arguably, Waitangi Day has a far different function than a mere “National Day”, it is a reminder of uncertainty, and to be frank; a safety valve. As Tim Watkin observed in 2012:

I want to hear the anger, not least because silence leads to disenfranchisement and ultimately to violence. It’s when the shouting stops that the bomb-making begins, so let’s celebrate that our national day encourages citizens to speak their truths rather than kill for them.

So wherever I go and whatever I do this Waitangi Day (more likely to be blobbing rather than protesting) I will at some point take a moment to be grateful for our national uncertainty. The alternative is more frightening.

[Please note this post is available at E-Tangata in a slightly edited form.]

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Mā te Whakamā: culture shaming & the China syndrome

Posted on December 20, 2015 by Sparrowhawk/Kārearea

It was the feeling of dread that first alerted me. A post had slipped by on my feed, a beautiful young woman with a moko kauai, on one knee, glaring at me through my screen. “Miss New Zealand performs haka in China.” Hmm, beauty pageants and haka. ‘This might not end well’, I thought to myself. After some initial reluctance I gave in, and watched it. I actually hid behind my hands and peeked, so convinced was I that the performance would make me cringe; that I would feel embarrassed by it. Watch it here; you can judge for yourself, it is not up to me to tell you how you ought to think or feel about Dr Deborah Lambie’s performance. That is not the point of this post. What interests me instead is the response she has garnered from many Māori, and what that response may or may not say about our differing levels of cultural security.

Science can explain some of my initial reaction; a phenomenon sometimes called vicarious embarrassment, whereby the observer can put themselves in the shoes of the person embarrassing himself and imagine some of his forthcoming mortification. The Germans even have a handy word for it: fremdschämen, or ‘external shame’.

Cringe factor aside though, my own ideas of “proper”,”correct”, “authentic” or “tika” culture certainly played its part in my response. I was deeply afraid that one Pākehā woman on her own performing a haka, or even just part of a haka, for a panel of beauty contest judges in a faraway land would be very risky for that woman at least on social media. Haka are usually (but not always) performed in a kind of group context, so those weak in performance derive a level of protection from those around them, even if only a share of the blame if it all goes wrong. Haka are usually performed for some kind of defined reason: challenge, political expression, part of a ritual of encounter; acknowledgment, or for competitive performance. Many haka are considered preserved for male-only performance. I worried that a young woman performing alone & unsupported would thus become a target of cultural shaming.

How right I was, even as I am aware that commenting here is quite possibly adding to the problem that now exists. But I think looking at the responses to Dr Lambie’s performance (rather than at the performance itself) might be useful to gauge our own responses to such events.

So follow me, if you will, into the murky world of FB comments and cultural shaming. It was an uncomfortable read for me, so likely to have been a very painful one for Dr Lambie. Here there be [a selection of] taniwha. You can read them yourself, all 650-odd comments here.

‘Waiho mā te whakamā e patu – ‘Let Shame Be Your Punishment’

What is going on in the posts is obviously a form of public shaming; whereby the observers unleash disapproval on the person or persons who have overstepped the socio-cultural line. The effect of the shaming is expected to be that the person or persons don’t do the sanctioned behaviour again, and her punishment constitutes warning to all others to not do the same lest they also be shamed.

In recent months and years there has been considerable focus on what has been termed ‘slut-shaming’. One simple definition of this kind of shaming is: ‘making a female feel guilty and inferior for behaving in a way others deem to be sexually inappropriate.’ More than this notion of making females ‘feel guilt’ for perceived behaviour, slut-shaming is a method of social control; indeed, a mode of displacing blame for the actions of others on to women who may are perceived to dress provocatively, or engage in extra-marital sex. Don’t blame the rapist for raping, blame the victim for her social boundary crossing. In the process the woman as she really is effectively eradicated from consideration; and reduced to a collection of bad behaviours and body parts.

Now the shaming in regards to Dr Lambie’s performance is different, and, because most of the comments have come from Māori, offers something of an insight into a more collectivist notion of using shame as a method of social or cultural control. (Recent study has confirmed Māori exhibit higher degrees of collectivist thinking than do Pākehā, although the differences are not perhaps as stark as some might like to think). Social media now offers an immediate way of shaming, one as divorced from its cultural context as Dr Lambie’s performance was alleged to be by some of her most ardent critics.

As Joeliee Seed-Pihema identifies, when discussing the whakatauakī, Waiho mā te whakamā e patu – ‘Let Shame Be Your Punishment:

Shame was often used as a form of retribution or utu and social control. Māori prided themselves on their image and the opinion of others greatly affected their behaviour and mana. This shaming process was very effective due to its public nature; the offender was put on trial in front of the whole hapū and/or iwi [.]

There is a lot of social retribution going on in the FB critique of Dr Lambie that marks out a particular kind of cultural shaming. Going by these comments as a reasonable example of the type, cultural shaming requires:

a firm belief that there is a ‘right’ way to present and portray Māori culture;
there is collective responsibility for any given portrayal of Māori culture;
the largest share of shame ought to be directed at those with knowledge rather than those without; and
that women and men have defined roles that ought to be upheld, for women to step outside of those roles can be dangerous.

A right way of doing things

Many posts made clear that the writers considered that a cultural standard had been breached, and that they knew the standard, and the gravity of the breach. There was a ‘tika’ or ‘authentic’ or ‘correct’ way to perform a haka, and by presumption, an accompanying duty to uphold that standard. Even supportive voices acknowledged the existence of such a standard, but did not see her breach as problematic.

Maybe whoever taught you, should teach you about the maori culture. As for the “elders” who agreed for you to do this, is appalling. You haven’t and are not appreciating the Maori culture, you’re embarrassing it and just plainly rubbing it in the dirt.

…if you want to represent Maori culture you might want to try respecting tikanga.

Check out all these Maori experts.. Good on you for giving it a go Lady.. Maori Culture will get nowhere If one of our own wants to learn her culture and is ridiculed for not being up to standard..??Who are you to judge?? she just learnt it, She didn’t claim to be an expert.

Collective responsibility for performance, and the greater responsibility of those with the requisite knowledge

While almost all comments were directed at Dr Lambie (this being her Facebook page, and all) the harshest critique was often reserved for those who advised her, rather than Dr Lambie herself. These tutors have also had to defend themselves in the media against questions of their own cultural integrity. Several of the posts also focus on Dr Lambie’s apparent isolation; while haka is a collective enterprise, she performed on her own, without visible assistance.

Nga mihi girl.At the end of the day some Maori would have taught you .It’s a shame they didn’t teach you something more appropriate. All credit to you for giving it your best shot .Come on people give the girl a break !!! A bit of encouragement or constructive criticism would have been more advantages to the young lady.For those who have just outright critisised her,I think you are all just as bad.

I’ve never seen a haka solo before? From what I’ve learnt you embrace the power of a haka from the surroundings of those around you do yes I think a poi or song may have been the better option but hey good on you for putting yourself out there snd giving it a go.

Is anyone going to call out those who taught her??? Man!! Nā rāua te he!! They should have known better… Oh well MA TE WHAKAMA E PATU! Aua atu mo te kuware o te kotiro nei…

Can’t really blame the girl.
Her kapahaka tutors taught her & her haka is the result of their work with her.

Roles of men and women ought to be upheld

One of the strongest themes in the comments was significant unease that the haka chosen was one composed to be performed by men, or at least that the style of performance was ‘unfeminine’, and somehow dangerous. You can see an example of a ‘feminine’ haka here. That’s an interesting notion; that being feminine represented safety, being perceived as masculine however, was dangerous, even justifiably so:

Should’ve done a poi song or tititorea to be on the safe side..
We mana wahine have grace and do not need to put ourselves in a position such as she has done.

I’m all for wahine doing haka but why was this girl taught to do this paticular haka? There are “haka wahine” made specifically for wahine…

I grew up living and breathing haka, it would have been much more pleasurable had you done a soft sweet waiata instead of trying to express it in such a manly way. We women never stand as a man in the haka but we do show as much mana as our men. I believe you misinterpreted the role of our wahine in the haka and displayed only what you expect the world to see from our haka.

Well I’m a traditionalist and our women like bak in the old days should not be preforming the haka it is the last resort befor going to war for us men she should have done the poi more women like

[reply] But traditionally the poi was a mans weapon??

Yea but the hakas not for the women isn’t it jus like everything in the world wanna be equal to men that’s y they get the jake the muss treatment.

I don’t want to over-egg any puddings, and it may be that what one commenter described as the “horizontal violence” directed at Dr Lambie is just evidence of bad internet behaviour, or the usual shaming without a special ‘cultural lens’ at all.

Nevertheless I thought there was something distinctive at work, perhaps if only because I have felt the sting of cultural shaming myself, on a smaller scale, so it feels familiar to me. I know what it feels like to be blasted by a Tūhoe male for leading a whakaeke in the wrong gender. I know what it feels like to get our own karanga tikanga wrong. I know the shame of providing insufficient kai for visitors and bearing collective responsibility for that. I know Mortification well, and she me.

Those of us who have had to learn to be Māori, and those of us to-the-marae-born have all experienced degrees of such shaming; it’s what moulds us into some kind of cultural shape. Some of us, after a shaming experience, never return to the culture or the language. And that is a great shame and loss in itself. But then without cultural shaming how are we to know what is tika? How are we to know what the boundaries of Māori culture are? If all is acceptable, then nothing is.

And for completeness, the entire whakatauakī, nō Ngāti Awa, is:

‘Waiho mā te whakamā e patu; waiho hai kōrero i a tātau kia atawhai ki te iwi’ ‘Let shame be their punishment; let us be renowned for our mercy toward the tribe.’

This is what the tohunga Te Tahi-o-te-rangi responded to a suggestion that the culprits who committed a hara ought to be turned out of their canoes. Nothing more than whakamā was necessary to return to equilibrium.

The real (perhaps answerless) question here is instead: just how ought we in Māori communities, virtual or otherwise, seek to police the edges of Māori culture? Surely the better path would be for us to grow and develop tikanga and culture to such an extent that such distinct act to create shame are simply un-necessary. The shame exists, and fulfils its function, but because of a shared understanding of what was breached, not because of any kind of public word-stoning.

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Posted in New Zealand society, culture, politics and tagged Cultural shaming, Deborah Lambie, Haka, Miss World competition, Māori culture, New Zealand society. Bookmark the permalink.

Mormonism & the Art of Exclusion

Posted on November 7, 2015 by Sparrowhawk/Kārearea

When I converted to Christianity about 15 years ago my dear, late Mother was not impressed. An avowed agnostic, (if perennial fence sitters can be said to be ‘avowed’ in anything) her very first words upon my telling her were: “Really? I thought you were more intelligent than that.” Can you hear the dismissive sniff at the beginning of that sentence? So did I.

That sentence stung me, and has stayed with me ever since; a reminder that doubt, uncertainty and questioning of faith are to be welcomed and not feared. I found myself a church that encouraged me to think rather than just emote, and I have stayed there ever since.

As an aside, I suspect it is easier to be secular, agnostic, atheist, and/ or anti-theist in a country that is now predominantly a combination of all of those things (if religious affiliation figures from the 2013 Census are anything to go by. Churchgoing hails, it seems, from the province of the quaint, the sphere of the irrelevant. In some ways I also think it is easier not to be Christian and Māori (outside of Māori faith communities), when many Māori now see rejection of the Christian message as concomitant with the revisioning and rediscovery of mātauranga Māori. Christianity has become symbolic of the oppression of Māori culture and ways of doing things. a 19% drop in Māori identifying as Christian since 2001 supports, if not proves this observation.

Nevertheless there is one religion where Māori figure very prominently; the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS, or “Mormons”). Although I can find no figures on the 2013 census, 50% of self-identified Mormons in the 2006 census were Māori. Indeed the Māori identity of the Church is sometimes seen as something of a hindrance to Church expansion:

The Church continues to experience challenges converting Anglo New Zealanders due to lower receptivity incurred by secularism, materialism, and disinterest in organized religion. Public perception that the Church is a predominately Maori and Pacific Islander institution has appeared to also reduce receptivity among white New Zealanders.

I had direct experience of the Church’s appeal in my own life. As an 8 year old growing up in an irreligious household, I looked for other people outside my own home who seemed to sense a God presence in the way I did. I built a relationship with a family whose house I used to pass every day on the way to school. I just started talking to their whāngai son, a boy of my own age, and then I started talking to the rest of the family, and then one day I ended up in their station-wagon on the way to their church, the Church of Latter-Day Saints. I kept going to church with them for the next 8 years. As a result the missionaries became a regular feature at our house. Mum would let them meet with me and teach me, and they would dub me on their 10-speeds up and down the drive and play basketball with me. They introduced me to Air Supply (the 80s, OK?). And they listened to me. And I loved them.

But I knew they had a mission to compete: to get me baptised. My mother was resolute: no baptism until I was 16. That was the age she believed I would know my own mind well enough to make that kind of decision. I knew better of course, and so did the Elders. You see, 8 has always been the age of accountability in Mormonism. That is when children are deemed to know right from wrong, and when they are able to choose the right or wrong path in life. I went to many baptisms, many Testimony Sundays, and while I was always accepted and tolerated I knew I was only ever what the Church calls ‘an investigator’; someone checking out the wares; not willing or not able to commit. Until I baptised I was only partly there, partly integrated. Eventually I drifted away, and by the time I attained the magical age of 16 I no longer cared for the Church, although the cadences of LDS prayer, the hymns, some of the theology, and my sense of deference to male authority figures stayed with me a long, long time. I remain comfortable in Mormon environments, and I married a returned Missionary (now excommunicated). Every so often we have knocks on the door and we invite the elders or sisters in for kai. It’s not hard.

So, Māori Mormonism is a force to be reckoned with, and thousands of Māori turned to LDS teachings in the 19th century, partly because of its focus on Old Testament teaching and a claim that Māori were descendants of the lost tribe of Israel, or as the descendants of the Mormon prophet Lehi, and partly because of the efforts of missionaries such as Matthew Crowley in the 1880s. Sometimes, Māori were just hacked off at how they had been treated by Anglicans and Catholics, and turned to Mormonism instead. See here for an explanation of those particular connections. Or if you would prefer something a little more scholarly, try here.

My residual fondness for Mormons and the LDS church has made all the more appalling the item I read in the newspaper today. The Church has issued new rules on how to deal with LGBT members, and their children. Given Māori membership of the church, these new rules are likely to affect Māori disproportionately. Here is a taste:

The new rules stipulate that children of parents in gay or lesbian relationships, be it marriage or just living together can no longer receive blessings as infants, be baptised when they are about 8 years old, or serve mission as young adults unless they:

Disavow the practice of same-sex relationships.

Turn 18 and no longer live with gay parents.

Get approval from their local leader and the highest leaders at church headquarters in Salt Lake City.

The church views these key milestones as acts that bind a person to the faith and as promises to follow its doctrine.

Just to be clear, now being LGTB is also grounds for excommunication.

Now, lest I be accused of being a pot calling a kettle inky, I belong to a church that does not (yet) endorse same-sex marriage throughout the Anglican Communion, and in view of the enormous schism such support would cause between the African Church and the rest of Anglicanism, that situation will likely remain for a while. I’m open to that charge of hypocrisy. But there has never been such an edict against children that I am aware of in my church, and I’m not sure there ever would be.

I cannot emphasise how much of a cultural death sentence this is for Mormon children of LGBT parents. They are being effectively excluded from the rituals of belonging that punctuate every young Mormon person’s life. Without baptism, Mormon children can’t take sacrament (communion). The young boys cannot receive the Aaronic priesthood at age 12 that allow them to be deacons in the Church. These kids cannot participate fully in the life of the Church and they cannot work towards the high goal of so many young Mormons: serving a mission. Well, they can, provided they disown their LGBT parents. Now, there’s a choice.

And what about the parents of LGTB kids and their communities of faith? Well, those kids are now apostates, if, of course, they admit their sexualities.

One of the most successful aspects of the Church is its ability to create a culture that is attractive and that its people, particularly Māori in this country, seem to want to be part of. Like Catholics, Mormons understand the importance and unificatory power of being culturally, as well as religiously, Mormon.

So this edict is no mere technicality; it is cultural and spiritual exclusion of the highest order for people that are the least equipped to fight or mitigate it: children. I well remember singing this song at church…

I am a Child of God

and He has sent me here

has given me an Earthly home with parents kind and dear.

When I was kid in the Church I always knew I was a Child of God. Because I could get baptised some day. Maybe even soon. Even me, an investigator with an recalcitrant mother. I was worth baptising. Now some kids, likely Māori, will know they are not.

Auē.

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Posted in New Zealand society, culture, politics and tagged Christianity in New Zealand, LDS, Mormonism, Māori culture. Bookmark the permalink.

The Legal Māori Resource Hub on a national stage…The Video…

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Sparrowhawk/Kārearea

So here’s what I was doing last Wednesday, giving an address at the National Digital Forum about the Legal Māori Resource Hub. Watch it (and other marvellous presentations) here.

Words matter, and the history of how words are used also matters. In New Zealand English has been the presumed normal language of law, but there is another story; that of te reo Māori and how Māori has been a language of Western and Māori law since the early decades of the 19th century. The new Legal Māori Resource Hub (www.legalmaori.net.nz) provides an extraordinary interactive resource that enables modern users to explore the Māori language and its vocabulary in a way that has not been easily possible before. Bring your own devices to this presentation, and be prepared to have a tutu (play)!

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Ruatara’s Mission: 200 years since the first Christian service in Aotearoa through Māori eyes

Posted on December 16, 2014 by Sparrowhawk/Kārearea

A thoughtful and nuanced account of the two of the pre-eminent figures who, between them, introduced Christianity to Aotearoa. Kia ora.

First We Take Manhattan

Article originally written for the Salvation Army’s War CryIssue 6606 Christmas 2014.

On 12 April 1799, the Society for Missions to Africa and the East (later renamed the Church Missionary Society) was founded at a meeting of the Eclectic Society, supported by members of the Clapham Sect, including Henry Thornton, Thomas Babington and William Wilberforce.

Samuel Marsden was a member of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and chaplain in New South Wales, Australia. In that position, he frequently encountered Māori from New Zealand. Marsden lobbied for a Christian mission to New Zealand, and in 1809, missionaries William Hall, John King and Thomas Kendall were appointed to establish this mission.

On Marsden’s return from a visit to England in 1809 on the convict transport Ann, he met Ruatara, who was ill and neglected, vomiting blood because of the severity of his beatings on previous ships. Marsden cared for Ruatara…

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The Deadlands and a vampire flick…just what the heck is ‘a Maori film’ these day anyway?

Posted on November 1, 2014 by Sparrowhawk/Kārearea

Many years ago now I was deeply absorbed in the question: ‘what is a Māori film?’ I was working in Māori radio and making a documentary series about that very question. Or at least, that was how it turned out, because that was very much the question at the forefront of my interviewees’ minds. I interviewed (namedrop alert…) Merata Mita, Tama Poata, Rāmai Hayward, Barry Barclay, John O’Shea and a whole bunch of other luminaries of the New Zealand film industry about what they thought of the state of Māori film-making at the time (1992-1993). The reel to reel tapes are mouldering in our basement somewhere but snatches of those long ago conversations have always remained with me. I recall Barry Barclay pointing out that so much Western culture movie-based story telling was simply continuous retelling of King Lear; the single hero or anti-hero, the focal point of all action and dialogue, with the accompanying story arc. Māori film-making, Barry reckoned, was less about King Lear, or John Wayne and more about the interconnected web of people that comprise a community, a mode of storytelling employed in the 1987 feature film Ngāti (which he directed), whereby no one person is ever really The Point. (You can see an interview with Barry about Ngāti and the extraordinary impact of Pacific Films on NZ film-making here.) And one thing Merata Mita (director of Mauri) said that has always stayed with me over all the intervening years was this:

“The person behind the camera changes the person front of the camera.”

In her view, the Maoriness of a Māori film was defined not only by the nature of the story that it tells, nor by the ethnicity or culture of the actors on screen but by an accounting of power. Who had the power to define the nature of the images that went up on the screen? Only if Māori controlled that image and that story, could such a film be called a truly ‘Māori film’. In the last couple of days the same argument has been raised by Leonie Pihama about the Toa Fraser-directed mau rākau bloody revenge flick The Deadlands which is currently on release, garnering rave reviews and, it seems, many a bottom on a seat (Number 1 at the NZ box office as I write).

The Deadlands is compromised according to the power argument because most of those who wield the power over the nature of the images being portrayed on the screen are not Māori. The director is not Māori, neither is the primary producer. Interestingly, Leonie refers to Glenn Standring, the writer, and a producer, of the film, as ‘being raised as a Pākehā’, referring to Glen’s own account that he did not discover his own Māori ancestry until until his 20s. There are, of course other Māori also involved in the production of the film, (nepotism alert), one of my brothers, Tainui Stephens is one of the co-producers. I wonder if the fact that Tainui, like me, did not truly discover his own Māoriness until his young adult years also disqualifies him, in the eyes of some, from being Māori enough to be considered a wielder of power for the purpose of defining a Māori film. That’s the slippery slope we get on when we start defining others by their purported cultural quantum (as opposed to the good ol’ blood quantum).

I get the power argument, I really do. It is a vitally important lens with which to critique and evaluate Māori development, and most certainly, Māori film is a marker of Māori development. Others more articulate than me will have to articulate the precise manner in which The Deadlands is truly different to 19th century image based Pākehā portrayals of the Māori as the Noble Savage. Maybe the Deadlands does perpetrate stereotypes about Māori that Māori have been trying to break away from in film for so long. I’ve seen rushes of the film, but not the whole product as yet, I’m gearing up for it..so I’m not yet qualified to say.

But I wonder if one less desirable consequence of the power analysis of Barclay, Mita, Pihama et al is the denial of agency it affords to two very important sets of people intimately involved in any given film. For one thing, all those other presumably powerless Māori who are also as much part of the storytelling as those behind the camera. Even though they may not have the say on what goes in the recycling bin. It is, after all, those artists, the actors, who bring their own mana and their own histories to that story. The other set is the audience. Seriously, I have never seen such enthusiastic acclamation by Māori for any feature film. It’s not universal of course, `cause not everyone is up for blood-drenched, cannibalistic, gut-spilling mayhem with their popcorn. And the critique by Māori language experts of the Māori language script has already started. But Māori are voting with their feet and their pingas, and their praise. For a taste, check out the Facebook Page. The over-riding theme of the comments (with the occasional detractor) is ‘mean Māori mean!’

In view of this acclamation, I wonder if one criterion of a Maori film is also simply whether Māori claim it as such. I often think of that kind of argument when I have those sad, sad conversations with Māori raised Pākehā or with little connection to their whakapapa. I think to myself ‘would their tupuna claim them?’ I have never come across a situation where I have thought the answer would be no. So…if Māori claim The Deadlands as a Māori film, maybe that ought to be listened to.

Harking back, just for a final moment, to my misty water-coloured memories of those long ago interviews. I remember Tama Poata (writer of Ngāti) saying he was looking forward to the time when Māori could just get on with making movies, about any topic whatsoever – even, he giggled, “Maoris in space!” I thought of his comment earlier this year when I went to see Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s other gorefest movie What We Do in the Shadows. Now there’s a bloody good film that fits the power requirement. Both directors are Māori, it features two Māori leads, Both writers are Māori, three of the four producers are Māori and there are no demeaning images of Māori or problematic stereotypes to contend with or brush over. Not exactly a Māori story (and Taika knows how to write those, of course) and maybe not ‘Maoris in space’ exactly, but pretty damn close. I don’t suspect most Māori will automatically consider Shadows a Māori film as they appear to consider The Deadlands to be, but I for one am happy to claim it e hoa mā!

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Posted in New Zealand society, culture, politics and tagged Maori film, Māori society, Te reo Maori, The Deadlands, What We Do in the Shadows. Bookmark the permalink.

The unfortunate necessity of the ‘Ordinary Voter’

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Sparrowhawk/Kārearea

10 days ago I nearly voted Labour. David Cunliffe’s automated phone call the night before the election nearly got me. Nearly. In the end I gave my two ticks to the Māori Party. I figured it would need them to stay alive, and to have any kind of role in continuing the development of Whānau Ora. In a way I was disappointed in the Māori Party campaign as I did not get a sense of how they would seek to influence economic direction; they almost never talked about the economy, the single most important thing voters can make a choice on. But I voted for them anyway, not so much on policy but on strategy. So, the thing is, I did not vote to change the government, and I knew it. Even as my blimmin’ kids started chasing each other between and around the voting booths, with the four-year old doing a pretty good impression of someone in the grip of a psychoactive substance, I knew it. And when we scuttled out of the Newlands school hall before anyone could throw us out, I knew it. It came down to a matter of trust for me. While I prefer Labour’s economic policies, I couldn’t trust that the Labour hierarchy I would give my party vote to would be the same Labour hierarchy in following months or years. Nor could I trust their ability to hold together a coalition of the Left.Easy enough to say that now, in hindsight, with yet another Labour primary looming. But lack of trust is what drove my decision not to vote Labour, and therefore the Left as a whole.

So, in outing my voting behaviour, I can now admit it’s been a little depressing in the days since the election. Not so much because of the election result, which was predictable (and I was relieved the Māori Party survived, albeit in depleted form), but because of my Twitter feed and FB status updates that have been spitting rage on upon both non-voters and centre right/right voters. [And impliedly, voters like me, who passed up the opportunity to vote Left]. A few of these give the general impression I have been getting..

I am gutted at the lack of compassion and understanding from all those National and right wing voters. You’ve just given John Key and his mates a mandate to continue with corruption, gutting what’s left of a safety net, signing away New Zealand sovereignty, raising debt… […] Soooo gutted FUCKING FUCKTARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Should have given the right to vote to your 12 million sheep, they have more intelligence and compassion

…

Many of the people I know that voted National …have a great lack of understanding on how they will affect the future of this country. It makes me wonder how they made their voting decision. As much as I believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion, and that all opinions are valid, I sometimes wish there was a law that prevents stupid people from voting!

…

I have no love for my country anymore, I despise the All Blacks for helping Key get re-elected, and I don’t respect the 48% who voted for National because they are heartless and brain-dead. I hope they will feel the pain and suffering already experienced by the disadvantaged, it’s the only way to make them regret their decision.

…

It’s not so much that electoral democracy is not fit for purpose but rather that a large portion of the voting electorate are no longer fit for purpose.

…

Wag friend on election results: “Evil will always triumph because Good is dumb.”

Many, but not all of the comments I saw came from predominantly Pākehā well-educated, employed and middle-class commenters. The anger and the disbelief was confronting and disturbing. It was also immediate, and visceral and, for the most part, emotionally honest. What worries me is not the emotionalism per se. What interests me is the contempt expressed for The Ordinary Voters. He and She are stupid, gullible, uneducated, corruptible, greedy, and more.

Perhaps these kinds of comments (and the above examples provide just a tiny smattering) is the product of what often been called political ‘tribalism”. After all, there is nothing so powerful and unifying between individuals joined by a common political ideology as the sense of being part of a chosen people that have the best answers. That is an ancient narrative as old as social humanity, is it not? Such thinking is, after all, at the heart of our party-based system of political representation. But that belief creates the inevitable corollary that those who don’t share any given belief are at worst dumb, gullible, and corruptible, and at worst, corrupt, craven to ‘interests’ and, well, just plain evil.

On the other hand, there is another strong theme that has been emerging; the Ordinary Voter as Sensible and Discerning paragon. John Key even told us so, on his Campbell Live interview two nights after the election. ‘The Public’ he reckoned are ‘much smarter than maybe all of us the media and politicians give them credit..[…] They are much smarter than we think. Much smarter.’ [That repetition didn’t make it onto the web edit, but I repeat it here because the emphasis is..well, emphatic.]

I don’t take issue with Key paying tribute, as he saw it, to the electoral intelligence of voters (from his point of view, natch) . It would be extraordinarily ungracious for a prime minister who had just led a third term election victory with increased support to neglect to pay tribute, in some way, to the voting public. A couple of things interest me about this quote, though. One is that Key clearly identifies the ‘elite’ (‘us the media and politicians’) as not quite connecting with, or understanding ‘the Public’. The second point is the necessary implication from this quote is that this identifiable elite (albeit wrongly) considers The Public to be stupid in the first place.

I’m sure his observation reflects a truth. After the leaders’ debate on 10 September the TV3 expert panel (including Bryce Edwards and Josie Pagani and Duncan Garner) was convened to discuss the debate. The panellists were convinced The People watching would have drowned in the policy detail (despite the many thousands of text voters who were highly engaged with the issues being debated). They then enlisted a quaintly-named People’s Panel (comprising amusing Ordinary Voters Who Are Clearly Not Experts) and asked them if they found there was too much policy detail for their little heads. ‘Um…no.’ was the general response, to the surprise of all. I found this aspect of the piece patronising.

The theme of an elite out of touch with Ordinary Voters has also been picked up consistently by those commentating on the demise of the Left vote, and the internal chaos of the Labour party, as shown here, and here. Morgan Godfrey identified that political elitism of the Left was to blame for electoral defeat, not policies:

Yet the problem wasn’t that the policies were poorly pitched. The problem seems to be that politics – the process, the institutions and then the policies – isn’t reaching voters at the hard edge. Our New Zealand not only talks past the New Zealand that won last night, our New Zealand also seems to talk past the people we claim to represent. Everyone is entitled to a better life, yet our leaders seem incapable of giving convincing expression to that very simple idea.

I don’t know how the Left can rebuild a relationship with Ordinary Voters, or how deep the disconnect really is between “the elite” and those voters. Nor is the “elite”, including mainstream media and others in ‘the beltway’ are entirely to blame for the routing on Election night. I sure as heck don’t think the blogosphere of Right or Left are to blame any more than any other factor; they are merely part of the mix. Focusing blame and attention on that elite or a combination of its parts, I suspect, is only going to reveal some of the problems.

My gut instinct tells me, however, that contempt for ordinary voters is never a good strategy for any political movement, within its elite, or within its broader membership. Rarely have I seen more unattractive advertisements for the Left than those disseminated on social media in the past couple of weeks.Cameron Slater may be a card-carrying attack dog for the Right, but I wonder if the largely middle-class and educated Twitterati and FB Status Update Commentariat don’t themselves comprise a fairly vigorous battalion of attack piranha. Except they attack their friends and family and acquaintances directly and indirectly. For every person who posted “I can’t believe the New Zealand public voted in Donkey and his lackeys again’ there was an auntie or an uncle or a cousin, or old school friend who either voted for the centre-Right, and just held their counsel, or who didn’t vote Left, or who simply didn’t vote, and who also will have held their counsel, because non-voters were just as big a target as voters for the wrong parties. And the divide between potential voters for the Left and actual voters grows just a little bit wider.

So maybe, just maybe, for the Left to regenerate some relevance and numerical support, obviously some serious thinking needs to go not into sorting out machinery of politics and the right platform. But perhaps the angrier politically active voters of the Left might also seek to understand (instead of presume) why other ordinary people actually voted as they did. And a hint: it will not generally be because they are venal, corrupt and stupid. Maybe some honest and open conversations could do at least as much for the rehabilitation of the Left than another Labour leadership primary. Maybe political tribalism is less an answer to political apathy or conservatism than a trap.

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Posted in New Zealand society, culture, politics and tagged 2014 election, Labour Party, Māori Party, New Zealand politics. Bookmark the permalink.

Internet Mana: the enemy of my enemy is my friend (atm, lol)

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Sparrowhawk/Kārearea

I wrote this post back in May about formation of Internet Mana, interesting to look back…I don’t mention the personalities involved, but I think I wasn’t that far off…for what that’s worth. Not a tin of fish, praps!

Sparrowhawk/Kārearea

There is a leap of faith that the membership of both the MANA Movement and the Internet Party have taken. That leap is the presumption that voterswill be aspragmatic as these parties have been. As one thoughtful commenter on social media observed (commenting on Sue Bradford’s decision to leave the party):

I also was worried about this when it was first mooted. However it is a very pragmatic arrangment with the Internet Party (not Kim Dotcom the individual) and the way it is set up totally leaves Mana intact as well as it has many rigorous safeguards…What it does do is offer the possibility of maximising the party vote in a way that may make some dent in ousting the Nats (without which the reality of a “farleft movement for change” is a fantasy) Realistically Mana had neither the people or resources to promote the party vote alone. The Mana…

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The children of the Takamore case: scaling the unscaleable?

Posted on August 9, 2014 by Sparrowhawk/Kārearea

When the news started filtering through from late 2007 about the dispute over James Takamore’s tūpāpaku I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Being a Christchurch-raised urban Māori with a Pākehā mum, with almost no contact with my hapū or iwi until my 20s I suspected that, however the dispute ended up, the adult children of James Takamore would suffer disenfranchisement, loss and estrangement from their whakapapa, and that this suffering would last generations. 7 years later, and the niceties of the legal issues and disputes aside, I still have the same feeling.

A small digression to put my sinking feeling into context. I remember the one and only time I visited my father’s marae and kāinga in Ahipara as a 7 year old skinny white Māori girl with patent leather shoes (really, and in a navy-blue sailor suit, no less) how terrifying and strange it all was. And that was with people who cared about me, and wanted me to be there. It wash’t until my nephew died some 8 years later that I returned, and then again, another several years after that until a third visit. And then another, and then another. I’d love to say that me and my hapū are tight now, but it wouldn’t be strictly true. I have some pretty good relationships now, but the real-life ties (as opposed to the metaphysical ones) are still pretty fragile. That’s often the way for us urban-borns. Of course I can’t presume to speak for all of us, but some of us will never truly make those ties that enable us to really be part of the functional group. We will remain liminal creatures, some talking up the mysterious nature of the connection we feel with the ancestral land of our tupuna in an attempt to feel the connection. In most cases those feelings will be absolutely heartfelt, but for some, grounded in little reality. Take us to that place, let us out of the car outside the homestead, with that pathway leading up to the front door, and that journey of a few steps becomes very long indeed. A few months ago, I attended a wānanga at one of my marae, did the karanga on behalf of those coming on, only to learn I had completely botched one of our Northen tikanga. I was told gently by my aunty a couple of days later. After the feeling of mortification had passed, and the flaming in my cheeks had subsided, I was OK with it, failure at our tikanga is just something to be expected for those of us not raised in it. All I can do is try and be better. Some 12 years ago the late, and lovely Associate Professor Nin Tomas, a whanaunga of mine externally marked a law assignment of mine, where I mentioned in its pages my own default disenfranchisement from hapū and iwi dynamics. She wrote in the margins: “So come home.” Perhaps it could be just that easy for us, the children and grandchildren of the urban migrations. Except, for many, it’s not.

I can’t presume to know how the adult son and daughter of James Takamore feel or have felt over the past 7 years experiencing their own cultural estrangement in such an horrifically public and prolonged manner. From public documents it’s pretty plain that at the time Mr Takamore was taken north, the children, and their mum were at a significant cultural disadvantage in negotiations with the Kutarere-based whānau who came to Christchurch to ask for his tupapaku to be able to return to them. The following excerpt comes from the Supreme Court judgment available here:

Ms Clarke and Mr Takamore’s son resisted the request but Mr Takamore’s Kutarere family continued to press into the night the claim that he should return with them to the Bay of Plenty for burial. The discussion was heated and, for Ms Clarke and her son, distressing.

[19] After the son appeared to acquiesce reluctantly, Mr Takamore’s paternal uncle (who also lived in Christchurch) intervened to say that the son was being pressured and that the discussion should be continued the following day. At least one member of the Kutarere family stayed with Mr Takamore’s body while Ms Clarke and their son went home. The next day, after some delay and after it appeared that Ms Clarke was reluctant to return to resume the discussion, the Kutarere family, now with the support of the uncle who had intervened the night before, took Mr Takamore back to Kutarere. The Kutarere family believed their actions to be justified according to tikanga. They may have considered that the son (whose views were culturally of particular importance) had sufficiently acquiesced to give them the moral authority according to tikanga to take Mr Takamore home, at least when there was no resumption of discussion the next day and they were left with Mr Takamore’s body. If so, there was significant cross-cultural misunderstanding. For their part, Ms Clarke and her children were completely at a disadvantage, since they had no understanding of the process being followed and the risk they ran in appearing to withdraw from contending for their rights. [paras 18-19]

I read that passage and the clash of rights aside, I can at least imagine how traumatic this episode must have been, how unsure of the cultural landscape they must all have been, while fresh in their own grief for the sudden death of their Dad.

There is no doubt that tikanga, when allowed to operate as designed, can be a wonderful instrument to achieve equilibrium, but this case shows that it can create disequilibrium (albeit as a result of a clash with Pākehā law as well) in the pursuit of some larger goal of the larger collective entity. I can’t presume to make any judgment on the correctness or otherwise of the tikanga used in 2007 or in succeeding years up to and including yesterday’s attempted exhumation. I’m wondering instead how tikanga can henceforth be used to reconcile and repair. Counsel for the Kutarere whanau at least acknowledged this longterm view of the role of tikanga, before the Supreme Court in the transcript of argument:

I would say on the evidence [tikanga] imposes obligations that ensue beyond the decision and, with respect, the Court cannot compel those of any party in the sense of that restorative long-term process and, you know, I don’t know what will be the situation, but in a generation’s time when, as I say, Mr Takamore’s mother has passed, if Ms Clarke has passed, is it, would it be a different conversation that those future generations are having about all of this and where they all sit? Possibly, one can’t guarantee that.

So perhaps the Tūhoe based whanau are prepared to accept the cost in the short to medium term at least that their whanaunga in Christchurch must suffer in order that the interests of the collective are met, on the presumption that generations to come will heal the rift, that utu will be restored. I don’t know. But knowing how hard it is to make that cultural journey just when all that gets in the way is unfamiliarity and insecurity, how much harder will it be for the Christchurch whanau, left with the legacy of pain and perhaps even humiliation they now have, to take those steps? When tamariki and mokopuna come (if they have not already), what will being Māori mean to them? Regardless of the means, tikanga, Western law, whatever, used by both sides of the dispute, how will the children and grandchildren of each side of this dispute feel about each other in years to come? Maybe, and this is the heartbreaking risk, just maybe, they won’t think of each other at all. Maybe that is the ultimate price the children of this case will pay.

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Posted in New Zealand society, culture, politics and tagged James Takamore, Māori culture, Tikanga Māori, Urban Māori. Bookmark the permalink.

My day in LollyMunks-O-Rama; a parent’s waking nightmare

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Sparrowhawk/Kārearea

I’ve just taken the kids to one of those indoor playgrounds on a wet Sunday afternoon. You know the ones, interchangeable barns, largely windowless, with brightly coloured climbing frames, inflatable slides, pits of balls and the like, and that indefinable vomit smell that my oldest son sagely tells me is the ‘combination of boy sweat and smelly socks.’ What is it about this place (as a stand in for all such places) that makes a 9 year old shriek at the top of his voice and disappear into the crowd as quick as a German from a Brazilian World Cup celebration party for no apparent reason as soon as he is let inside the gate to the kingdom? Buggered if I know. Anyway. In my 11 years as a parent I’ve been to LollyMunks-O-Rama [insert name of your local fixture here] more times than I can recall for birthday parties, and sanity saving days like today when I know I have to get the kids away from the X-Box before their small bodies decay for want of use.

For all my squeamishness about the sights and smells and sheer bloody garishness of such places, I use them and I’m grateful for them, on occasion. I’m not fond of the the occasional refrain from other GenX parents (not to mention earlier generations) including choice pieces of revisionist social history such as: “We never had these to go to in the 80s, we used to go to parks, we used to ride our bikes everywhere, we had REAL childhoods. We didn’t need the mollycoddling and safety-at-all-cost risk averse ‘fun’ today’s youngsters are fed.” (I’m not sure why I am reciting that in a Coronation Street accent, but there you go.) There is (as always) an element of truth in all that. For one thing, I remember the change in our behaviours after Teresa Cormack’s awful 1987 death; when a child’s wander to school became a symbol of unjustifiable risk and utter horror.

But on the other hand, I’m not so sure that ‘blimmin’ kids today’ really are that different to us lil paragons growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. Yes, kids are more likely to be sheltered and more sedentary now. We certainly know they are more likely to be obese. I don’t think this translates to children being intrinsically different to what they were “in my day”. Surrounded by kids this afternoon by maniacal mini whirling dervishes and adventuring tots, squabbling siblings, harried parents and families just generally getting on with being families, I feel kind of optimistic actually, that kids really will be ..well, kids. Just don’t get me started on the over-priced food. Or the ridiculously profitable machines and rides that we managed to resist today. Or the smell. Especially not the smell.