A good death
“Those who cannot truly and freely choose should be protected by the state, not exposed to greater risk of death.”
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Author: Māmari Stephens
Standing still in the whirlwind
“We haven’t ‘lost our innocence’, as so many have said. We never had any.”
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The Empathy Gap and Me
“The Māori experience of colonisation, disease, war, urbanisation and deprivation within this country is unique to Māori.”
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Papatūānuku, Pan, and a lonely kid in Christchurch
Papatūānuku has been an emblem of political identity and cultural survival for Māori.
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Why is God and sexuality so bloody difficult?
“Christianity is a religion of failures and dropkicks, hypocrites and losers, because most of us are goodish, but not one of us is good enough. We all know this regardless of belief, right?”
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Māmari Stephens: I never saw any narrative of Māori life until I was an adult
“It took years of very conscious effort for me not to be afraid to walk into a room full of people darker than I was.”
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Māmari Stephens: The long shadow over our marae
Our marae need attention, protection, words and warmth, writes Māmari Stephens in this essay...
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Māmari Stephens: Just what are we really commemorating with Rā Maumahara?
I remember a few more over the last couple of decades in Wellington as attendance at such...
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The Crown isn’t just Pākehā. It is also Māori.
Symbols come in many forms, tangible and the intangible. They tell us stories we may not even be...
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Turning the tap off? Righting water wrongs
One of the things I’m really enjoying about this election season is how many cats are being...
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Bad laws sometimes deserve breaking
In the opening moments of the 1970s, my father left my mother and followed his elusive business...
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And there he lies, ever, ever, the manuhiri
Our father died in 2012. He’d been living in Australia for about 42 years and had only rarely...
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Māmari Stephens: What some bloody awful cartoons can tell us about ourselves
I don’t get personally offended easily. I learned a while ago not to buy too much into the...
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Max Harris – a visionary worth following
Max Harris is a good bloke who has written a book. He doesn’t need me to repeat all his...
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Māmari Stephens: What about a welfare system that doesn’t judge need?
A couple of weeks ago, on a Lower Hutt street, a woman and her children decided to do something...
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Māmari Stephens: Kaupapa Māori and the war on words
I am no political pundit. I have no great insight into Māori politics on the national or local...
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Māmari Stephens: Can we learn from what’s happened in Trump-land?
I remember waking up one morning last year, lying awake for a moment, feeling warm, contented and...
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An attack of the guilts? Yeah, nah
There has been a lot said lately about people of privilege behaving badly. You remember. There...
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The only Māori in the room
I had one of those “only Māori in the room” moments recently. I have a lot of those....
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Will Tūhoe provide the welfare model?
There’s all this doom and gloom in world news these days. Fear and fearmongering too. From the...
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The Kermadecs – what does the government not understand about ‘consult with iwi’?
I imagine John Key must have had a lovely warm feeling as he announced before the world (well, the...
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If we ban the Bible from schools, will karakia be next?
Karakia are cultural practices, but are they religious as well? Or just spiritual? And how exactly...
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Mike Hosking’s Tribunal Tribulations
My brief this week was to write a column on the Waitangi Tribunal. Now, I often need to feel a bit...
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We need to hear Māori and Pacific voices on the euthanasia debate
There is a tin. It looks like Nana’s biscuit tin, but is actually the tin from which private...
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Waitangi and the virtue of uncertainty
It’s never very far from my memory. The time, in 1988, I took a taxi to Jupiter’s Casino on...
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How can the Mormons justify this?
When I converted to Christianity about 15 years ago, my dear, late mother was not impressed. She...
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A Taniwha by the Tail
I heard the news yesterday and my heart gave a leap. In fact, I think it must have levitated a...
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Dawn raids, detention and deportation
It’s hard to soften and cool the little hot knot of rage that has been living in my...
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