Symbols of change

This is shaping up to be an interesting year. There are so many really big issues developing, it’s hard to know where to look.

The distractions

The National Party has hit the ground running. As its second term gets underway, it seems intent on showing what it thinks of tangata whenua, while at the same time, shrinking the only ministry that could give them good advice on these issues.

Key is big on dismissing anything that he doesn’t like the look of. Back in 2010, as soon as the Māori Party announced that New Zealand had signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Key dismissed it as symbolic. When he heard that Māori were upset at the proposed dropping of section 9 of the State Owned Enterprises Act, he pulled that word out again—according to him, section 9 is “largely symbolic”, showing either his ignorance or cynicism (great commentary at pundit: if it’s just a symbol, why do you care?). As the Herald points out, section 9 of the SOE Act was a turning point in New Zealand legislation. Many Māori will fight to hold the Crown to the promises of section 9, whether or not National successfully sell off a portion of the SOEs.

National’s attempts at getting rid of section 9 have both the Māori Party and the Māori Council on their feet preparing for that fight. John Key’s response to both is, well, dismissive. When Tariana Turia says the Māori Party will have to consider its position in government if an appropriate solution isn’t reached, Key responds "I'm extremely confident the Maori Party will remain part of the Government for the next three years." He reckons it isn’t a deal breaker, and a solution can be found, but his dismissal of Turia’s concerns oozes smugness (PM confident Maori Party will stay). In return, she posted a full page ad in the Herald schooling Key, and explaining why it is important that she stand her ground on section 9. Key’s mantra that the Māori Party will continue to support the National Party on confidence and supply must be frustrating the Māori Party. Every time Key says this, dismissing the Māori Party’s own assessments, he diminishes them. This looks more like a parent-child relationship by the day. They must realise they need as much distance from National as they can to have any hope of surviving. I’m looking forward to developments.

The Māori Council is asking the Waitangi Tribunal to stop the planned sales of SOEs until it has heard a claim that Crown management of freshwater and geothermal resources breached the treaty of Waitangi, and whether the Crown is acting in good faith (Waitangi Tribunal claim seeks to halt asset sales). The Council is asking for the return of water resources, or a large portion of the state owned energy companies as compensation. I don’t know what relationship National has with the Māori Council, but after the years Graham Lattimer put in for the Party, he must be disappointed at the way Nick Smith and Key are discrediting the Council and their claims. Smith is trying to make them look unreasonable with statements that they hadn’t come to see him in the three years he has been responsible for fresh water issues—he doesn’t mention whether he has made any contact with them. He calls the claims divisive, and says arguing about the ownership of water is neither practical nor useful. He is using the perennial favourite when Māori want ownership of a resource returned—you can’t own natural resources. Nevermind, that the Crown act as if they have ownership, or that they took it from Māori. The Crown will redefine the English language if need be to retain control over resources. And Key is being dismissive: “water ownership a no-brainer” and “anyone can go to court, but court over what?” (Tribunal action sought over asset sales). Key refuses to acknowledge that there are ways of looking at the world other than the western legal system. It’s good to see the very respectable Māori Council back in the fray.

(I also heard Key on the radio this morning saying he wasn’t concerned about the Waitangi Tribunal holding up sales of SOEs because their decisions aren’t binding—but I don’t know what station I was listening to, and I can’t find reference to him saying this. If I could find a reference, I would add this to the list of things Key says are symbolic.)

Meanwhile, Bill English used the raru at Te Tii to insult Māori on Waitangi Day: “If the northern tribes could run a marae properly, New Zealand might have a more positive view of the Treaty.” Which also implies that Māori aren’t part of New Zealand (all are insulted by Dipton dipstick). Nice one Bill. Personally, I think the reason most New Zealanders have little respect for the relationship between Crown and Māori is because we have such an appalling education system that most of us don’t know our history.

With enough National ministers talking enough crap, even the more conservative Māori organisations are calling them out. When we’re all back on the same page, things are going to get fun.

The bullshit

There will be plenty of court cases to enrage us this year, as there are every year. The first big one will be against the remaining Operation 8 defendants. This is the case stemming from the arrests of around 20 people in 2007. After a year of surveillance, houses were searched in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Ruātoki, Whakatane, Taupō, Palmerston North and Wellington, including 300 police shutting down an entire community. All up, the operation cost around $8 million, and they found a total of four firearms plus ammunition. Insufficient evidence has meant charges have been dropped against all but four defendants. The Crown will try to justify its violation of Ngāi Tūhoe and all those targeted by Operation 8 by going hard against the four remaining defendants. There are heaps of issues worth discussing in this; it is another case that looks like it’s about one thing, when actually, it’s all about colonisation and sovereignty. As Moana Jackson said: "the colonisation of Māori ... has always been about the dispossession and ... terrorising of innocent peoples. ... indigenous peoples being defined as a threat whenever they have questioned their dispossession... The real or perceived ‘threat’ has always then been met with violence." (Jackson, p2 in Terror in our midst? Searching for terrorism in Aotearoa New Zealand).

There will be the fights to defend our whanaunga, Papatūānuku, Hinemoana, Tangaroa, Ranginui. There will be the court cases that try to redefine our sovereignty. There will be all of the day to day ignorance.

The real mahi

While holding on to the little we’ve got in the face of this crap is distracting, Māori are quietly working on some really big issues. An independent constitutional working group – Aotearoa Matike Mai has been discussing constitutional models for the country. The group is convened by Margaret Mutu, chaired by Moana Jackson, and made up of members nominated by Iwi, co-opted for their expertise, and representing particular interests such as Urban Maori Authorities. They are working with whānau and hapū around the motu to develop a constitution based on Te Tiriti and reflecting tikanga Māori.

The WAI 262 report came out last year, and while the recommendations are conservative and disappointing, the claim and the report itself still provide a leaping off point for us. The Iwi Chairs Forum has agreed to support an Interim Taumata, to engage and work out how we can use the WAI 262. Remember this was the Waitangi Tribunal’s first whole of government inquiry, it shouldn’t just affect all branches of government, it will change the way government is imagined. This work should tie in with the independent constitutional working group’s, and I have no doubt that the results will be exciting.

There are also always tauiwi who are willing to engage genuinely. I’m looking forward to hearing back from the Decolonise you mind hui last weekend, which focused on “the connections between racism, sexism, colonisation, classism and other oppressions, and working in predominantly pakeha activist scenes... and how these things affect us and the feminist/ social justice/ peace/ revolutionary/creative work we do.” I look forward to hearing about other exciting projects this year.

So, a big year. There will be many projects and many fronts. For those of us who have been taking a break, it’s time to prioritise, think about what we can give, where we fit in, and to reconnect with the struggle.

Post election post

Okay, so the election happened, and it’s both not as bad as it could have been and worse than I had hoped.

I had hoped that at least Annette Sykes would have joined Hone Harawira in Parliament, and I think that would have been fun to watch. They are both smart, ethical and really frickin vocal. I believe that having a debater like Annette in the house would have made a difference to how the public think about some issues. She gets shit for being as smart and unrelenting as she is, which is bad enough in a woman. But Annette’s worst crime is that she is not just smart and unrelenting, but that she is always demonstrably right. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard in the last few weeks “I agree with what Annette and Hone are saying, but they’re just so bitter/ angry/ racist.” Bearer of discomfort has a great post on this. Mana have to work out how to best use Annette outside parliament, because I still think she and Hone can change political conversations, asking good questions, showing alternative strategies, and being honest.

I suspect a lot of voters who completely agree with Mana, instead voted Green. There’s no doubt that Metiria Turei is a great politician, she works hard, she is smart, ethical and vocal. Put her next to Annette and Hone, and she has a couple of other things in her favour—the public only know her as smiling and friendly (even when she is tearing into policy that is anti-Māori, anti-poor, or anti-environment), and a middle-class accent goes a long way. I know lots of Māori who voted Green just because of her. The Greens do have good policies, and usually have some exciting MPs. Perhaps they have become more interesting than my experiences 5-10 years ago. Then, their membership seemed dominated by comfortable, liberal Pākehā—green capitalists who were conservative on everything except the environment (people who love Russel Norman), but who for some reason filled their list with much more radical and inspiring people (like Metiria, Jeanette Fitzsimons had a warm, friendly face to go with her principled staunchness. Sue Bradford was just straight-up staunch, which is why she isn’t a co-leader). I thought that Metiria was pretty quiet in this election campaign, I hope that her party allows her and the other radical MPs to speak out in this term on a wide range of issues. Metiria tore into the Māori Party over their support of the Marine and Coastal Areas Act, and humbled Destiny’s political front man and Māori MPs who spoke at a Destiny meeting. Attacking the Māori Party, Māori MPs and Destiny is pretty safe territory for the Greens. I hope that she is allowed to target non-Māori groups with the same awesomeness.

New Zealand First is another odd party that many Māori probably voted for, unable to bring themselves to vote Labour, but unsure of Mana and the Māori Party. New Zealand First attracts two types. Conservative Pākehā like what Winston has to say about old fashioned kiwi values–patriotism, hating on immigrants, protecting New Zealand ownership of land and businesses, and not pandering to Māori (which is particularly awesome, because you can’t be called racist if you vote for a Māori to hate on Māori). The one thing this group has in common with Māori voting for New Zealand First is that they distrust politicians—only Winston calls it the way he sees it, and has the guts to stick it to the man. Winston is smug, confident and represents a type of success that some Māori are inspired by—no hand outs, just hard work (imagine if he and Paula Bennett formed a party). I can’t stand him or his politics, but with all the shit representation of Māori that we live with every day, I can understand his appeal to some people.

The Māori Party didn’t do so well, because they confused Māori voters with their unwavering support of National, even when the policies were obviously crap. Pita Sharples made things worse by trying to spin shit—no-one expected the Māori Party to fight for a repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act and then support its replacement by an effectively identical act. Trying to sell that as anything other than a loss shows a complete lack of integrity, and is an insult to their supporters’ intelligence. I would love to see them use this term to re-invigorate themselves and build bridges with Mana and the Greens. Unfortunately, I expect we will see more embarrassing fawning over the National Party.

And what about us? We who don’t ever expect party politics to get us what we want? The next three years are going to be hard. National and ACT are going to take support away from poor people (making the poor poorer), education (keeping the poor poor), the environment (making future generations poorer). There is going to be a shit tonne of stuff to react to, which means less time for dreaming and making headway on our own agenda. All we can do is organise, find allies and work on those relationships.

There will be rhetoric about putting aside our differences—I think we need to embrace our differences. This is a time for Pākehā and male activists to embrace the different strategies and goals that Māori, tauiwi, women, queer, etc activists may bring. This is a time to talk about why we see things differently, whether and why my goals and dreams are as legitimate as yours, whether there is real conflict or just difference. We need to not attack each other just because we don’t completely agree, and we need to listen when people tell us that we are shitting on them. There will be talk about building a movement—equally there is nothing wrong with small groups, the main thing is to get involved, whatever that means to you. We need to get our shit together fast, because the National Party is going to move fast.

Election 2011: I don't get it

Okay, against my better judgment, I’m going to write a short post about the election.

The one thing I really don’t get about politics is the politics, or maybe it’s the voters—maybe I just don’t understand people. Two things about the current election exemplify this: I do not understand the cult of John Key’s personality, and I do not understand why the Māori Party pushed Hone Harawira to leave and build another party.

I am completely at a loss as to why National is doing so well in all polls so far. Their policies are spiteful (hating on those most in need) and incomprehensible (I know it’s just that the ideology doesn’t make sense to me, but I can’t get my head around the idea of choosing to sell even parts of your cash cows/life support systems). Either most New Zealanders agree with this shit (if the polls are representative), or they support National because of John Key. And this is even more bizarre to me. Here is an incredibly rich businessman playing the affable every-guy blokie-bloke, waving away the hideousness of their policies with a smile and a trust-me-I’m-a good-guy speel. And it seems to be working. I can only compare this to US voters electing George W Bush.

If anyone is in any doubt as to Key’s post-election desires, they only need to look to the support he is giving ACT (and I assume this support is the reason New Zealand First has rejoined the living). I remember John Banks as my local MP; he was hateful. He is consistently on the wrong side of any social justice issue. I don’t need a transcript of the cuppa kōrero—it was a conversation with John Banks, of course it was ugly. The fact that John Key wants to work with Banks and Brash tells me all I need to know about his politics. So yep, I don’t get why he’s so popular.

And then there’s my confusion about how it came to be that we have two Māori parties competing for the few Māori seats (I put the blame entirely on the Māori Party’s shoulders, as I explain in this post). The Māori Party have untethered themselves from National for the purpose of campaigning—and all of a sudden, they sound like they used to. In fact, their policies sound just like Mana’s policies. Effectively identical. So why did they make it so hard for Hone to push these policies when he was part of the Māori Party? The Māori Party is so focused on keeping their seat at the table, they fall silent as soon as they sit down. This campaign makes it clear (to me at least) just how badly the Māori Party needed people like Hone—instead of making it impossible for him to stay, they should have promoted him. He kept them true to their kaupapa. It’s ridiculous that they are now competing against each other with their identical policies.

Based on polling, I expect New Zealand will elect a government that I will hate even more than usual. I don't understand why people will do this. There are many other things that bewilder me about elections—like why we keep voting at all when every government is a disappointment, when it always seems to work out the same way (as many people have said: whichever way you vote, the white guy always wins). Which brings me back to my main point—I don't get it.

Mana Party, tino rangatiratanga and identity politics

I see two reasons for fighting New Zealand’s current political and economic system, and the makeup of the Mana Party means they’re great for arguing both. I touched on one reason in the previous post—because the current system doesn’t work for us. It oppresses, and then exploits the oppressed, and it can only do this by playing oppressed groups off against each other. This division is fuelled by propaganda from Brash mā, spokespeople for the rich and powerful (bullshit like this). Divided by competing needs and mistrust we fall; united by the bond of our oppressions we stand. Grounded in many oppressed communities, Mana can grow relationships across those communities, allowing us to talk about the ways that we are exploited—as unemployed, as under-paid workers, as colonised, etc. And as I tried to say in my previous post on Mana (this is kind of the second part to that post), this awareness should help Māori to avoid replicating similar structures of oppression ourselves. So that’s one reason to oppose the current system, and one reason to be excited about Mana.

The other reason, which is sometimes forgotten by tauiwi social justice activists (at least in the circles that I have worked in), is that however the current system is organised, it is founded on the injustice of colonisation. Whether we have dreams of reforming capitalism with a conscience, or a revolution to anarchism or other socialism, if tangata whenua do not consent then the result will be ongoing colonial injustice. For there to be any social justice, there must be tino rangatiratanga. We need more people who understand what we mean by tino rangatiratanga, and why it must be the starting point for a just society. Grounded as it is in several activist communities, Mana is in a great position to educate in those communities.

I could leave this post here, but I want to talk a bit about the way tino rangatiratanga is sometimes dismissed as identity politics.

Tino rangatiratanga and identity politics

A while back a piece at Maui Street argued I am surprised that the Mana Party is focusing on class politics. The movement that underpins the Mana Party is firmly rooted in identity politics.... I want to talk about why it is wrong to call tino rangatiratanga struggle “identity politics”.

First, and most obviously, tino rangatiratanga is not about ethnicity or any other identity, it is about justice. Yes, in New Zealand the tangata whenua happen to be Māori and the colonisers happened to originally be Pākehā, but that doesn’t make it a matter of ethnic identity. In Wales, both the tangata whenua and the colonisers were Pākehā, and theirs was no less a struggle for tino rangatiratanga.

Second (kind of a restatement of the first, but it’s important so it gets its own point), the struggle for tino rangatiratanga is no more about identity than class struggle is—both are based on shared experiences of oppression and intergenerational injustice. I cannot understand any assertion that there is a difference (which is certainly not limited to Maui Street, I have heard similar statements from many social justice activists), and it pisses me off when we minimise/ dismiss tino rangatiratanga in this way.

Third, what frustrates me most is that (ironically, but not surprisingly) the argument usually comes down to cultural imperialism, or the perceived need for Māori to justify our reality against Western reality. It comes from an inability to recognise Western culture as cultural. I can only dismiss tino rangatiratanga as racial/ cultural, if I think Western knowledge systems and the values and ethics that stem from them aren’t racial/ cultural. Ie: Class-based struggle stems from Western philosophy, so it is not cultural/ ethnic, whereas tino rangatiratanga stems from mātauranga Māori, so it is cultural/ ethnic. And therefore it is identity based politics.

Fourth, calling it identity politics shuts tauiwi out of the tino rangatiratanga conversation. It makes it about us and them, when actually there are plenty of tauiwi who know what colonisation is, and who want justice for tangata whenua.

To review, tino rangatiratanga, is not identity politics, or at least, no more than other Western political movements. Even if we call it the struggle for recognition of Māori cultural identity, it is not identity politics. It is survival in the face of cultural genocide. It is based on a simple truth, which is not about race, ethnicity or essentialism of any kind (as I understand the term)—that tangata whenua have their own mātauranga, it is the first mātauranga of these lands, it is legitimate, it requires rangatiratanga to survive and develop. And it is about justice—through the processes of colonisation, Pākehā have tried to wipe these mātauranga from the land, along with the reo and tikanga that express them. Colonisation is illegitimate, unjust, violent, oppressive, genocidal. Tino rangatiratanga seeks to restore the balance.

I’m stoked that Te Mana provides a platform where these issues might get some deserved attention.

Oppression and the Mana party

This was originally inspired by a great post on the potential created when English youth begin to side with the Third World liberation struggle, rather than with their own government’s colonial aggression, and the political uses of 'whiteness'. The Rebel Griot has provided a jumping off point for me to think about the need for Mana as a voice in politics. This first part focuses on the need for a strong Māori voice to fight a system that concentrates power in the hands of a few.

Those who set up Te Mana Party recognised the potential in building alliances between tino rangatiratanga activists, and social justice/working class activists in New Zealand. Mana provides another opportunity for Māori to talk about class, at a time when some of our leaders are flirting with an economic model that amplifies class injustices. They also provide an opportunity for Māori to talk with working class tau iwi about colonisation (more about that in another post). Pākehā who are poor are also oppressed by our present economic system, and are natural allies in fighting it, as long as we can break the bonds of white privilege (the Rebel Griot provides a great summary of this). These conversations will benefit all of us, because they broaden our understanding of our oppressions, and remind us who is benefiting from them.

Social justice and the danger of elites

The current system thrives on hierarchies of power: for example, race, class, gender—women, poor and Māori work in under paid (or unpaid) jobs for the benefit of the more powerful, rich, mostly male, mostly Pākehā. Social justice means breaking down these hierarchies to create a more just system—this is also important within Māori organising. Countless tangata whenua have spoken of the danger of creating indigenous elites who then have a stake in maintaining something like the status quo—they end up working against real tino rangatiratanga. As the Crown would prefer, tino rangatiratanga comes to mean little more than Māori economic success in the present system. Ranginui Walker writes of Māori leaders who:

"through training, or association with the power elite have been infected with an appetite for bourgeois success. They seize an opportunity to achieve economic power by championing Maori rights under the Treaty of Waitangi in the alien fora of courts and the Beehive. In pursuit of this agenda they unwittingly maintain the hegemony of the ruling class by responding to the latter’s definition of how Maori cultural and economic aspirations should be achieved." (Ranginui Walker 1992, Changes to the Traditional Model of Maori Leadership)

Ani Mikaere argues that this is part of the Crown’s strategy in the way it sets up Treaty settlements:

"[The] recreation of Māori society in the image of the coloniser’s class system will create differing political agendas for Māori, depending upon where they find themselves on the class ladder... any settlement which results in the class stratification of Māori will mean that future generations of Māori who seek justice under the Treaty will face the most trenchant opposition from those Māori for whom the settlements have brought power and prestige. It will be the Māori powerbrokers who will act as buffers between Māori claims for tino rangatiratanga and the Crown. More than simply resorting to a cheap pay-out to silence Māori protest in the short term, the current Treaty settlement policy actually sets in place powerful structural barriers to prevent Māori from pursuing their Treaty claims in the future." (Ani Mikaere 2001, Racism in Contemporary Aotearoa)

Annette Sykes agrees:

"in lieu of direct military-political control, neo-colonialist powers co-opt indigenous elites through privileged relationships with their government and opportunities to profit from their economic, financial and trade policies, at the expense of their people" (Annette Sykes 2010, Bruse Jesson Lecture)

And Ani Mikaere reminds us that this division isn’t just about class, it is also gendered:

"This pattern of bolstering the authority of Māori men at the expense of Māori women has permeated the Crown-Māori relationship... It should come as no surprise that the “subalterns” about whom Ranginui Walker was speaking ... were all Māori men... We have indeed, as Kathie Irwin noted in 1992, seen ‘the evolution of strange new cultural practices in which men are bonding to each other, through patriarchy, to give each other participatory rights across Maori and Pakeha culture, in ways which exclude Maori women’" (Māori Critic and Conscience in a Colonising Context—Law and Leadership as a Case Study)

We need to be vigilant of these hierarchies so they do not corrupt our understandings of tino rangatiratanga, and limit us to fighting to do better in the current system. We cannot have tino rangatiratanga in the present system, and it is my hope that Mana will offer a way through these obstacles. By focusing on social justice along with tino rangatiratanga, they are able to critique the present system on two fronts, and help us to see the dangers of replicating it within our own structures. We need leadership focused on eliminating the hierarchies that are dividing us by economic class, gender and other power differentials, as well as fighting the myriad injustices of colonisation.

My hope is that Mana will bring the diverse voices of working class, women and Māori into the political debate. A political system should be just, it should work against injustice, it should aim to eliminate oppression, and the only way to do that is to bring the oppressed to the centre. I hope that Mana will expose and attack policies that hurt Māori, women and the poor, and I hope they will critique those of us, Māori or Pākehā, whose actions support policies and structures that oppress. It may not win them many seats in the election, but it may remind some politicians why they are there and who they are supposed to represent. It may keep some people more honest than they would otherwise be. While the Māori Party is embracing the National/Act abomination, we certainly need something like Mana.

Not my destiny

About ten years ago, the leader of a church I hadn’t heard of was spouting something along the lines of it was the work of the devil that New Zealand had a female Prime Minister and a female Leader of the Opposition. Don't get me wrong, said Tamaki. I have nothing against women. It is just that this is a reflection of what is happening in society - a lack of men in leadership and sky-high divorce rates. (Tamaki, 2000) This is a situation that had never happened before and hasn’t happened since, women leading the two most popular political parties. Neither of these parties at the time, before or since, have come close to a majority of women MPs (see here for historical parliamentary stats and here for 2008 party stats).

However, according to Tamaki, God is very specific about the role and function of men (2006, More than meets the eye: Bishop Brian Tamaki), so maybe any women in parliament is too many. God must be stoked then that of the four political parties invited to speak at the Destiny Church political forum last night, not one sent a woman. Hone Harawira spoke for the Mana Party, Pita Sharples for the Maori Party, Shane Jones for the Labour Party, and Tau Henare for National ( RNZ) (Georgina Te Heuheu was scheduled to speak for National. I don’t know why she was replaced by Henare).

There are two possible reasons for the lack of women: either each political party chose their best Māori representative, and coincidentally they are all male; or, each party chose to send their best male, Māori representative, because it would play better. Either way, it says something really sad about party politics. In the first case, it suggests that Māori women are not getting the same opportunities as Māori men. In the second case, it says that parties are willing to support misogyny if it will buy them votes.

The Destiny vision of a uniformly heterosexual, masculine leadership was previewed for them at their forum last night. I haven’t heard if anyone spoke for those of us who are excluded from that vision (but please, if someone did, I want to hear about it). I know not to expect anything better from the other parties, but it disappointed me to see Mana playing to Destiny.

Seven years ago, parliament removed some legal discrimination against same-sex relationships. Thousands of Destinites marched to parliament in protest. I will not forget the righteous arrogance of those Destinites who threatened, pushed, hit, spat at, and generally abused those few who dared to stand for queer solidarity that day. Naively, I had hoped Mana would take the opportunity to stand with us last night. It would have shown more mana than a self-congratulatory, macho sound-bite about being no-one’s lapdog (RNZ: No lap dog status for Harawira).