Vic Tamati tells of family violence
Vic Tamati grew up thinking violence was normal.
His Samoan parents, who emigrated to Auckland in the 1950s, told him they hit him because they loved him.
He literally believed that, he told a gathering of about 25 people at the Waitara Rugby League Club on Monday night.
‘‘So I got ‘Love’ tattooed on my hand.’’
New Zealand has a problem with family violence and he used to be one of those who had a problem, he said.
‘‘My family gave me permission to do this - to try to get through to other men. It’s us s***heads talking to other s***heads.
‘‘We’re the only ones know.’’
In 2008 he fronted the Family Violence It’s Not Ok TV ad and now tours the country trying to get men to ‘‘understand’’ and change that their behaviour.
Tamati, 62, told harrowing tales of the violence he saw and experienced at home, at school and at church.
‘‘I just thought it was normal. We all got a hiding didn’t we?’’
He didn’t need to exaggerate and he spoke in a very matter of fact way. This is how it was. Tamati told of brutal beatings not just at home, but from teachers at school. Even when he was little. Tamati held up his hands to the audience, explaining he always had clean fingernails.
When he was small he had to go into his sister’s class at their Auckland school and the teacher made him put his hands out, palms down, and whacked his fingers. He thought it was because his nails were dirty.
It turned out it was because he had asked his sister, in Samoan, where the toilets were.
The teacher told him he wasn’t allowed to speak that ‘‘jungle language’’ in her class, he said.
As a teenager he didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t take drugs. But he would fight. One fight, in a pub car park, resulted in his eye popping out of its socket, he said. When he got home, his father beat him again.
After he got married and had six kids the violence continued until one day he beat his 8 year-old daughter unconscious with a platform shoe. His wife took the kids and went to a women’s refuge.
They came home a week later to talk to him. His little girl was upset, blaming herself for what happened, he said.
That broke him. He went looking for help, and did a 20 week Stop the Violence programme, twice, in 1992.
Until then every man had lied to him about what it meant to be a man, he said.
‘‘Why had they lied? They didn’t know either. I’m still angry that no one told me.’’
He asked a series of questions inviting the audience to stand up if their answer to the question was yes.
Tamati got emotional as he stood up in answer to his own questions, which included: grow- ing up did you witness violence in your home? Did you get beaten up? Did you beat someone else up?
He said he was targeting men, but it was typical that more women came to hear him speak.
‘‘I feel humbled that people come out on a cold night, but I feel honoured that people want to hear me talk. Big ups to the club. This is a huge issue.’’