It’s about serving our communities
“Our women look at people as if everyone is important and everyone belongs to one of the communities they serve.”
Media
Kōrero
Moana Tuwhare: Respecting the mana of Ngāpuhi hapū
“Our future wellbeing relies on addressing issues far deeper than how much money will become ours in a settlement deal.“
Owen Sinclair: Fighting the racism in our health system
“The only way Māori and Pacific outcomes are going to improve is if European New Zealand actually confronts its racist heritage and acknowledges that that racism is alive and well."
Whiti Hereaka: My advice? Let yourself write terribly
“It's okay to be a bad writer in your first draft because a lot of the craft of writing is in the rewriting.”
Robyn Bargh: Building the wall of tino rangatiratanga
“I always used to think that the work we were doing was adding another brick to the wall — the wall of rangatiratanga.”—Robyn Bargh, founder of Huia Publishers.
Karanina Sumeo: Speaking for ourselves
“It’s not being Māori, Pacific, disabled, or rainbow that’s the disadvantage. It’s the discrimination in the system that disadvantages us and treads on our dignity.” —EEO Commissioner, Dr Karanina Sumeo.
Comment & Analysis
Don’t get me started on compulsion
Maybe it's too late for some of us to learn our history, but why subject our children and mokopuna to the same fate?
For the sake of the whānau
“Every single approach to ‘fixing’ our people has been designed and decided by Pākehā — and it has made things worse.”
The Empathy Gap and Me
"The Māori experience of colonisation, disease, war, urbanisation and deprivation within this country is unique to Māori."
The shameful treatment of gout in New Zealand
“I don’t just see numbers when I’m reporting research. I see people’s faces and hear their kōrero, and the impact inadequate gout management has on them — all from a condition that is entirely manageable.” Leanne Te Karu, prescribing pharmacist.
Reflections
The Boss Is Dead: A tribute to Hiwi Tauroa
“Hiwi was perfect to be a Conciliator. He was not an angry man. He was a naturally diplomatic kind of guy, yet had the capacity to set his jaw, dig his heels in, and rark his voice up a bit.”
I help Māori students grow their dreams
"For some of our students, getting to uni is ridiculously difficult, and so I try to make my classes worth the long commutes, and the sizeable weekly dent in their student allowance."—Dr Jani Wilson
‘You better send your uncle home’
They didn't know how he'd died, where he had fallen — nor where he lay. There was no gravestone for Sonny. No place to visit. No place to mourn.
Restorative justice in a Māori community
Māori communities had their own ways of resolving conflict and anti-social behaviour, writes Kim Workman, in this extract from his memoir “Journey Towards Justice”.
Identity
I’ve tried to learn Tongan, and I’ve tried to be Tongan
"Being an outsider because of my personality quirks was an identity I could embrace. Better than being defined purely by my lack of culture and language. Give me Crazy Pālangi over plain Pālangi any day."
My mother is Pākehā — and I love her
When I hear a child saying she hates Pākehā, it doesn’t sit right with me. It’s the same when I hear people referring to the “bloody Pākehās”.
Old certainties, old prejudices, old fears are losing their grip
The good news is that the country seems to be in a process of recovery — and for Pākehā, discovery — of the Māori conceptual world.
Why I didn’t sit with the other Māori girls at school
I grew up in a predominantly Pākehā town in the South Island. My mother is Pākehā. My father, who...
Reo
Māori media revamp: Where’s the focus on quality journalism?
Being a good reo speaker doesn’t necessarily qualify you as a good reporter.
Cathy Dewes: We have a right to be Māori in our own land
"Our goal is that all Māori children should have access to their language and be able to live as Māori in Aotearoa."
Māori media: Broadcasting can’t save te reo
"The sad truth is our kids don’t really watch te reo Māori television. Or listen to te reo Māori radio. If they do, it’s not improving their ability to kōrero."
Media
Our future is in collaboration
“Let’s put aside those old battle tactics of divide and conquer, a tool that has pitted us against each other."
Brown were in town. We were on a high. Hope was in the air.
At the heart of the problem is the hare-brained notion that the primary goal for the Māori media is preserving and promoting the Māori language.
Māori media: Is an axe about to drop on iwi radio?
“God help the bureaucrat that decides to cut an iwi station. You’d not only have 21 station managers to deal with. You’d have their iwi as well.”
Māori media: Inconvenient truths
Te reo Māori isn’t just the Māori language. It’s also the voice of Māori, and that voice comes in English as well as Māori.
Arts
Madeleine Sami: No holding her back
"I was so lucky to grow up with my 23 cousins. We all liked to joke around. I was used to banter and coming back with one-liners. And being a smartarse."
Rose Matafeo, Edinburgh, and the Pacific arts pantheon
Comedian James Nokise, an Edinburgh Fringe festival veteran of seven years, on why Rose Matafeo winning the Edinburgh Comedy Award last week is a very big deal.
Tihi Puanaki: Kapa haka has been my life
“People have come in for the haka boogie, and when they stay for a while, we can see them becoming empowered to take on fulfilling roles.”
Rediscovering our mother tongues
Four plays in four languages staged over four weeks — a theatre experiment which aims to challenge the idea of English as the “mainstream” language and all other languages as exotic.
History
Humanity and honour at Gate Pā
“The humanity of the Māori defenders at Gate Pā is what makes that battle stand out from every other colonial conflict in this country. It was something that truly captured the Victorian sentiment of the day.”
Pukehinahina–Gate Pā: A personal Māori perspective
“Four generations from Pukehinahina–Gate Pā, my generation of our family is still looking at the future through yesterday’s lens and we will continue to do so.”—Buddy Mikaere
A dark tale of dispossession and greed
The New Zealand Settlements Act of 1863 “was part of a package of measures passed by the all-Pākehā parliament to crush Māori independence.”
With heads hung low
“We come with solemn sadness that the events of the past have cast such a long shadow on the generations that have followed, and left a legacy of injustice and controversy."
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