‘For many Ma¯ ori without their reo, shame can cloud everything’
quiet has been working well.
‘‘I think the Labour Party have handled Ma¯ ori politics the last three years pretty well,’’ he said.
‘‘They haven’t pissed people off – although there are some pissed off people.’’
It’s understood some of Labour’s Ma¯ ori MPs have used the revival of the Ma¯ ori Party to leverage greater gains off their Labour colleagues, who are sometimes accused of taking the seats for granted. No one wants a repeat of 2004, when Tariana Turia split from Labour to found the Ma¯ ori Party.
The real test will be to see whether Labour promotes MPs from the Ma¯ ori caucus to the Cabinet table should it win this year.
This will be lurking in the background at Waitangi, as every movement of the Government and attendees is scrutinised for political symbolism.
‘‘Ma¯ ori politics always starts the day after Waitangi: who is holding Titewhai Harawira’s hand? Who gets beaten up? It’s good theatre,’’ Henare said.
It may be good theatre, but Labour will be hoping there’s no twist ending to the tale of its revival in the Ma¯ ori seats, although it will have to wait eight months to find out.
Imoved home to Aotearoa when I was 14, having lived in Australia for the past 12 years. Mum wasted no time enrolling my older sister and I in high school – one that could accommodate our desire to keep learning Japanese.
But she pushed to enrol us in te reo classes and was told, definitively, that under no circumstances would we have the capacity to catch up. The class was halfway through the coursework for the year and we would struggle. A month later I was moved from fourth form into fifth form classes.
Perhaps this moment was pivotal. The first attempt to keep me and my reo apart. I had no mates or distractions at the time, except a PlayStation; I had the time and motivation to learn. If I dwell too much, get incensed, I imagine it’s somehow a breach of Te Tiriti. But it didn’t work because I wasn’t deterred. I enrolled again during my first attempt at uni. I was preoccupied, though, and failed.
By my third attempt at uni, enough time had passed for me to give it another crack. I was scared to fail again, irritated that I had to work so hard for something I felt should come naturally, learning only what I needed to pass each test. I passed well, but retained nothing.
The shame felt in these experiences is an immobiliser. It’s an ugly feeling that feeds into embarrassment, guilt and anger. For many Ma¯ ori without their reo, shame can cloud everything. It is moored in historical, generational and personal trauma that is constantly invoked most inconveniently – during waiata, karakia and sometimes just carrying your own name. The shame in the gap between knowing nothing and fluency is most pronounced however, when the power dynamics in Western language hierarchies are replicated in the process of learning the reo.
Coming up blank in response to a question and being laughed at. Unsolicited sermons from wellmeaning Pa¯ keha¯ women, all in reo. The assumption that you ‘‘surely must know’’ the kupu or English translation for a word you have not yet learned. Being expected to lead a room full of Pa¯ keha¯ in karakia or waiata; or your Pa¯ keha¯ workplace designating you the responsibility of leading a Treaty workshop for new migrants, despite having no prior experience in doing so.
In these experiences, reo is treated as a commodity to be negotiated and exchanged for power, often unconsciously so from Pa¯ keha¯ . The reo is reduced to an object, devoid of meaning, that signals the intention to do the right thing, rather than the practice. Still, the outcome – the perpetuation of shame already felt for Ma¯ ori – remains the same.
The interplay of these dynamics feeds into a wider arrangement of State power that, of course, has an historical genesis. Operationalising a settler State is contingent on the claim of ownership – of land, water, culture, language, intellectual property, children and so on; both a fundamental in neo-liberal thinking and non-existent for Indigenous peoples.
This ethos of colonisation is proving difficult to dislodge, as evident by the caucacity shown at O¯ wairaka. Proximity to the maunga, fuelled by a false claim of ownership, has promulgated those ‘‘Mt Albert’’ residents with a sense of misplaced entitlement. It allows those residents to disregard iwi authority and expert advice to desperately cling to the existing, disproportionate power relations which, until now, have served them so well.
But a removal, a distance, is also needed. The residents are disconnected from tikanga by necessity. Engaging with tikanga would prompt a confrontation with the histories of place and of peoples. The cries of ‘‘feeling like’’ mana whenua, ‘‘we’re all Indigenous’’ and ‘‘we’re all immigrants’’ belies the obvious – they are not, and can never be. The cultural ignorance, when juxtaposed against State, corporate and public responses to the protection of Ihuma¯ tao, is astounding.
In this context, shame works to perpetuate these colonial dynamics. Monopolising knowledge
– of language, histories of place and so on – to claim something that isn’t yours is straight from the coloniser playbook.
It is an act of dispossession that, internalised, cruelly and unfairly advantages groups like the Mt Albert residents, or Hobson’s Pledge. It works as a deterrent, crystallising in a shame that is, at times, unbearable.
But shame is also useless. It does not serve our interests as Indigenous peoples. Reo needs to be inclusive for the long-term health and survival of the language, yes. But it is also a taonga that was ripped from the tongues of our tu¯ puna that is now being appropriated to sustain the existing status quo; to keep Ma¯ ori from the goal of constitution reform in tino rangatiratanga. Nor should it amount to attitudes of hopelessness and inaction from potential allies. There is too much work to do to be hamstrung by shame; a structural, economic and cultural revolution to be had.
Learning te reo Ma¯ ori presents challenges both seen and unseen. The learning process demands a shifting balancing act of time, money, therapy, support, community and resilience. Something non-Ma¯ ori don’t have to prepare to apprehend with every Lisa Prager in the classroom. The will to persist and endure these interactions in the classroom – the will to knowledge – does not guarantee the immediate collapse and reconfiguration of power structures and relations. But every thread pulled through our teeth draws us nearer to that horizon.
I have enrolled, again, for reo classes this year. The shame I carry is deep-rooted and warranted. It is difficult to mitigate, and expensive to treat – it would cost the Crown every square inch of land stolen, billions of dollars and centuries of penance with interest.
But it has stifled my own learning, my relationships and my confidence in te ao Ma¯ ori. If I can make such concentrated efforts to attempt to understand French philosopher Deleuze, the word ‘‘praxis’’ and the Japanese language, then I owe myself, my whakapapa, my wha¯ nau and my communities much more than shame. I owe them my resistance. I want, and deserve, the joy of speaking, singing and screaming the reo against the imposition of colonial hierarchies. And one day I will have that.
The Prime Minister will spend most of the week in Waitangi, setting the agenda for the political year.
Monopolising knowledge – of language, histories of place and so on – to claim something that isn’t yours is straight from the coloniser playbook.
Miriama Aoake (Ngaati Maahuta, Nga¯ ti Hinerangi, Waikato-Tainui) is a writer, critic and postgraduate student in Ma¯ ori Studies.