Pa¯keha¯ – the thieving neighbours from hell

grandparents’ valuables and our partner’s shoes. Everything that was ours is theirs, and somehow it’s worse that they aren’t even taking care of it.

Our beautiful home, naked, battered, cold, looks like the operating table moments after medical malpractice. It all used to be ours, and now it’s theirs.

And what’s worse is that nobody hates having their own stuff stolen more than thieves. They glare over the fence and complain to neighbours about how shifty we look. They are paranoid.

The preservation of history, which is really the attempt to capture moments of time itself, is a profound study. Preserving someone else’s memories makes us human. We catch the information buzzing through their neurons and hold it in our hands.

But history only works if you are honest. Paranoia doesn’t breed honesty.

I cannot even begin to understand how such a crime – the theft and alienation of an entire people’s home – could happen in plain sight for so long in front of pa¯ keha¯ . I guess it creaked along, glacially, over decades of confiscations and battles. People were busy with other things. I guess too that, during that time, many pa¯ keha¯ looked the other way while their kin picked our pockets.

Man, I would love some of that indifference right now with things like these creepy referendums. I would love the sweet, bracing blast of ‘‘Meh’’; pa¯ keha¯ throwing up their hands in unison and saying, ‘‘We don’t care either way if

Ma¯ ori have a fraction of their mana returned through fairer treatment, so we won’t vote in your boring referendum’’.

The world won’t end if mana-enhancing changes happen. It will actually get better. But regardless, uninterested pa¯ keha¯ get to keep doing what they do best: being the pinky-white constant in the background of the Great Show that is our nation’s recent history.

Instead, it appears plenty of pa¯ keha¯ were invigorated by an opportunity to vote against the brown guy. He is, after all, just a despot in pauper’s clothing. Which, all said and done, makes the support, curiosity and love of other pa¯ keha¯ toward Ma¯ ori even more powerfully important. And frankly extraordinary. Strong character, decency, kindness shouldn’t be a surprise, but too often it is (especially in ourselves).

The lies of those who whine about special treatment would push Ma¯ ori to the background of our nation’s history, make them a footnote in their own story.

I don’t know much about history, and not enough yet about te ao Ma¯ ori, but I know in my gut that Ma¯ ori were in the centre of it all from the start, and we still are.

I promise pa¯ keha¯ who choose to take our hands that they are part of something bigger too.