[pf] Fw. Maori: colonised or colonist? (Keith Rankin's Thursday column)

· A social and economic historian's view of Maori history, and how it has
been re-interpreted.   D.

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On Thu, 9 Nov 2000 11:50:42 +1300, Christiaan Briggs sent to:
GreenViews-NZ: [GV]Keith Rankin: Maori: colonised or colonist?

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0011/S00060.htm
  is:

Maori: colonised or colonist?
  Keith Rankin
  9 November 2000

The "colonisation debate" in New Zealand suffers because too few non-Maori
New Zealanders know our country's history, and too many Maori know how to
exploit that historical illiteracy. The irony is that a film released this
year, Feathers of Peace (by Maori director, Barry Barclay), has
disseminated historical truths that are discomforting to Maori. The pity is
 that so few saw the movie.

The story of the Chatham Islands from the 1830s to the 1880s is one of
conquest, holocaust, colonisation, legally sanctioned imperialism, and
genocide. The Taranaki victims of Parihaka were, in the 1880s, landlords of
 the Chatham Islands; their descendants still are. The white feather emblem
of  Te Whiti was acquired from the victims of genocide.

I was likewise struck by the Ngati Whatua perspective on None Tree Hill
(Maungakiekie). For the tangata whenua of Auckland, Maungakiekie is sacred
to them because it was the site of a great battle 300 years ago; a victory
that established the Tamaki isthmus as Ngati Whatua property. As One Tree
Hill, Maungakiekie became sacred to Auckland pakeha for essentially similar
reasons.

Maori, unlike pakeha, are not squeamish about the rights of conquest.
Likewise, pakeha New Zealanders have not always been guilt-ridden. A late-
19th century pakeha court granted Taranaki Maori title to the lands
expropriated from the Moriori of the Chatham Islands, on the basis of the
'winner takes all' law of conquest.

Iwi took pride in lands gained by conquest. And they still cherish the
acquisition of those lands. I don't agree that appropriation of land
through  battle is matter of pride; I am from a relatively pacifist
late-20th century generation. Nevertheless pakeha should try to understand
the Maori perspective of conquest and it's corollary, colonisation.

Maori failed to protect their lands in the 19th century mainly because of
disunity, both between and within iwi. James Belich's interpretation
(Making Peoples 1996) of 19th century New Zealand history is  instructive.
At least until the end of the 1860s, Maori generally thought that the
settler militias were allies in their tribal wars.

The depopulation of Maori was well underway by 1840, in contrast to the
impression given by Sandra Lee. The main culprit was the Maori arms race.
Maori quickly learned the culture of free trade capitalism. And, like the
Americans and the Soviets in a more recent era, they expended much
intelligence in pursuing their rivalries towards mutually destructive
outcomes. Pakeha "won" on account of their opportunism rather than their
malice.

Maori respect conquest and the colonisation (ie settlement) that follows
from  conquest. These are not the issues that affect Maori today, although
some Maori would like to perpetuate the myth that there are many
outstanding  grievances arising from British settlement. The issue that
really matters today is the colonisation of Maori by a culture that
individualises accountability and blame. This cultural invasion is ongoing
rather than historical.

In a sense, the clash of cultures is being played out between two Maori
women: Tariana Turia and Merepeka Raukawa-Tait. Turia represents Maori,
whose  traditionally more collective forms of accountability clash with an
increasingly dominant individualism that arises from European culture.
Turia  links high rates of Maori crime, child abuse and economic
disadvantage to this process of colonisation. Many pakeha, not tuned into
her cultural  wavelength, find her message discomforting. Cultural
colonisation has cost huge numbers of Maori their voice, casting them into
a Kafkaesque poverty trap, forcing them to incur debt and rely on social
welfare benefits that abate almost dollar-for-dollar as their meagre
earnings rise.

Raukawa-Tait, on the other hand, seems to have been well colonised. She
adopts the extreme individualist perspective of western feminism. Child
abuse is seen as a by-product of partner abuse, and is assumed to be always
caused  by the bad behaviour of individual men. This, despite that fact
that almost  all of the high profile cases of child abuse to surface this
year have been  perpetrated by Maori women. In emphasising the individual
accountability of Maori men, Raukawa-Tait has become the voice of Maori
that politically correct pakeha feel comfortable with.

Of all the gaps to emerge in Aotearoa in the 20th century, one of the
biggest is between Maori and Maori, between poor Maori and rich Maori,
between the incompletely colonised Maori underclass and the well-colonised
Maori middle-class. Like born-again Christians and ex-smokers, middle-class
Maori proselytise the values they have acquired, putting an expedient spin
on their history in the process.

Prominent Maori of the 19th century were warriors, and colonisers of Maori
and Moriori. Those Maori who, in the 20th century have absorbed the mores
of  pakeha law and pakeha individualism, are as much a part of the
contemporary  colonisation problem (of the 'gaps') as are pakeha. The gaps
will not close  until the problems of exclusion that define the underclass
are addressed. The abuse of Maori children is systemic, and cannot be
resolved by rooting out a few individual perpetrators.

Maori are not the victims of New Zealand's distant past. Those Maori who
are  victims are victims of the present and the near-past. They are as much
 victims of inequality within Maori as of inequality between Maori and
pakeha.  Disingenuous historical grievances distract us from addressing the
real sources of disadvantage among Maori.

 © 2000 Keith Rankin <keithr@ak.planet.gen.nz>

 Thursday Column Archive (2000): http://pl.net/~keithr/thursday2000.html

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