Dr Melani Anae

It’s tough being a revolutionary when you need parental permission to leave the house. That’s how it was for many of those who, 45 years ago in Ponsonby, Auckland, formed the Polynesian Panthers. Fashioned after the militant Black Panther Party in the US, the Kiwi Panthers were mostly New Zealand-born Pacific Islanders. And young. A mix of former gang members, university students, and high school students. Their chief aim was to fight the racism and discrimination that pervaded every level of New Zealand society in the 1970s. But while their activism was praised in many quarters, it was often kept secret from their parents, as Melani Anae writes.

I was 18, and in my first year at university when I joined the Panthers. I snuck out of home to attend their very first meeting, which was at Fred Schmidt and his sister Etta’s place. Etta and I were friends. I lived a few houses away in Home Street, Grey Lynn.

We often joke about it. There we were, a group of girls with what we thought were gang guys, thinking we were pretty staunch — and then being really inspired by Will ‘Ilolahia and the talk that was going on about revolution. Next minute, Etta lets out a yell: “Quick, everybody! Get out of here. Mum and Dad are on their way home!” We skidaddled out of there.

That was June 16, 1971.

My parents had no idea I was a Panther. I couldn’t tell them — they wouldn’t have understood. I had to sneak out to attend Panther meetings and events. When asked where I was going, I said I was going to youth meetings. That was the case for most of us.

My father had come to New Zealand from Samoa in 1951, and worked at a paper bag factory on Richmond Road in Grey Lynn. My mother and older siblings followed shortly after. My dad purchased a villa in Grey Lynn. His boss loaned him the deposit and Dad paid him back through his wages.

Out of a family of eight kids, my youngest brother and I were the only New Zealand-born kids. My mum did sewing outworker jobs for Sleepyhead Bedding originally, and then for various fashion houses after that.

At the time, inner-city Auckland — Ponsonby, Grey Lynn, Herne Bay — were slum areas and home to the first Polynesian settlers who had migrated to New Zealand in large numbers in the 1950s.

As a New Zealand-born Pacific Island kid growing up in Auckland, the malaise that a lot of us felt was fuelled by the overt racism we experienced and saw around us — in our neighbourhood, at school, at work, in the streets, and in the media. That culminated in the Dawn Raids of 1974 and 1976.

Most of us experienced personal racism. For me, it was being first to the shop counter but always the last to be served by Pālagi shopkeepers. And, at secondary school, never being picked for answers by the teachers, even though I had my hand up the longest.

When Alec Toleafoa, another Panther, was 15, his teacher threw a sixpence on his desk and told him to buy a Herald and look for a job, because he’d never make it at school. The principal at the same school (Mt Albert Grammar) told Tigilau Ness to cut his afro, even though there were Pālagi surfer boys there with long hair. When he said no, he was expelled despite being a top student. That’s when he joined the Panthers.

Racism was all around us. Walking down K’Rd, we’d see cops harassing Pacific Island youth with afros. Alec’s brother, Wayne (who, like Alec, is now a minister) was stopped on the street by a group of cops and asked to produce his passport. He was born in New Zealand; of course, he didn’t carry his passport around in his back pocket.

The boys were called “black bastards”, “dumb coconuts”, or “bungas” on the rugby fields. We had racist landlords refusing to rent houses to Pacific people. We used to ring them up and secure accommodation for people because we didn’t have fobby accents.

It wasn’t easy becoming a Polynesian Panther. Not everyone was accepted. There was a trial period when you became an “investigator”. You had to prove yourself. You were judged on how committed you were, and your ethics and approach.

As Polynesian women — girls really (we were only 17, 18 at the time) — to attend that first meeting, let alone join the Polynesian Panthers, was already revolutionary given our cultural roles and responsibilities. Unlike our Palagi peers, our world wasn’t one of independence, choice, boys, fashion, holidays, and the like. It was dedication and commitment to ‘aiga. It was family, church and school — and in that order.

If our parents had known about our covert operations, we would have been disciplined severely. But, to be honest, we didn’t stop and think about what we were doing. We just knew that something had to change in our hood. Our parents’ generation didn’t have the skills and nous to deal with the Palagi administration. And the respect they had for the administration was misplaced.

So it was up to us — the youth. Most of us were 17, 19. Many were still at high school. We had to become mediators between our parents, families, communities and the state. And we had to protect them.

We worked with, and supported, others who mirrored our ideals, to get things done. Like-minded groups such as Ngā Tamatoa, the People’s Union, HART (Halt All Racist Tours), ACORD (Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination) and CARE (Citizens Association for Racial Equality).

We got petitions circulated and signed, like the one that established Māori as an official language of New Zealand. We delivered community newspapers in Ponsonby to raise funds for our work. Held fundraisers. Visited old folks’ homes. Set up the Paremoremo Prison visits, and provided transport so families could visit their kids. We set up New Zealand’s very first homework centres for Pacific learners.

Our PIG (Police Investigation Group) kept a watch on police harassing Polynesians. We formed the TAB (Tenants’ Aid Brigade), before there was any official tenancy protection in the country. We published New Zealand’s first legal aid booklet, with the help of our lawyer, (future Labour prime minister) David Lange.

And we successfully campaigned to get traffic lights installed in Franklin Road and Ponsonby Road, because Pacific kids were being killed while crossing the road.

We worked hard to put an end to police brutality leading up to and including the Dawn Raids — and to overcome the racist policies which we saw as hindering fair access to quality education, health, and housing.

Our main enemy was (and perhaps, still is?) the media, and racist attitudes about who we were as Pacific peoples. So we had a minister of information (Wayne Toleafoa) whose job was to challenge the negative stereotypes in the white press, which portrayed us all as rapists and violent criminals. (There were Pālagi rapists and criminals, too — why focus on us?)

My claim to Panther fame was connecting our group to the Black Panther Party in the US. That happened after my first year at varsity. Because I’d passed all my papers, my father and oldest brother, who worked for Air New Zealand, shouted me a trip to the US to visit my aunt and uncle in Compton, Los Angeles. When Will ‘Ilolahia heard I was going, he gave me an assignment — to make contact with the Black Panthers.

I was scared stiff. I waited till my very last day in the States before I gathered up enough courage to make the dreaded phone call. I got through to a Black Panther’s sister, I think, and she was very gracious. I told her about how our group supported them and that they had a Polynesian chapter in Auckland, New Zealand. When I got back to New Zealand, a parcel of material and resources arrived.

I was one of the few women in the Polynesian Panther Party. Another was the inspirational Miriama (Ama) Rauhihi, who became the first paid Polynesian Panther community worker. She married another Panther, Tigilau Ness. Their son is the musician Che Fu.

The women in the Panthers provided the balance for the male leadership. Often we were successful in persuading the male leadership to choose more conventional strategies — petitions, say, rather than their more aggressive approaches. The boys back then were moving out of an environment of violence against everyone, including women.

But I always felt that I had been treated like a sister. What outsiders may have perceived as male chauvinism back then was actually the intense protection our male counterparts showed towards the women, which is a dominant theme in our Pacific cultures. The feagaiga in Samoan culture, for example, which speaks to the special convenant between brother and sister. Our roles tended to reflect that. We girls always cooked the pots of chop suey, taro, and corned beef for the community activities, and the boys always ensured our protection in the rough times during demonstrations and protest marches.

The Polynesian Panther Party disbanded formally after the Springbok Tour in 1981. But, as we say, once a Panther always a Panther. We still adhere to the fundamental Polynesian Panther Party platform. To annihilate all forms of racism. To celebrate mana Pasifika identities. To teach the youth that the strongest form of protest is success — and that education is the key to unlock that success. Educate to liberate was our motto.

What I’m most proud of is what we achieved at so young an age. We let wider New Zealand know that we weren’t going to tolerate being pushed around any longer. And we set the platform for what most Pacific youth now take for granted. Without a doubt, the Polynesian Panthers started the revolution for the recognition of the burgeoning Pacific presence in New Zealand.

Today, the Panthers are inspiring a new Pacific generation. A group of us (Will ‘Ilolahia, Tigilau Ness, Alec Toleafoa and me) have been giving seminars to South Auckland secondary schools about the Panther experience for several years now. The feedback from students and teachers has been overwhelmingly positive. We’re seeing the birth of a new generation piecing together our history as Pacific people in this country.

As Panthers, we continue to work within our own fields — education, arts, religion, sport, music, police and other professional occupations — to improve the negative position of our Pacific people in Aotearoa.

One of the questions we always get asked is: “Should the Polynesian Panthers be reactivated?” I say: “No need.”

Pacific youth are already making changes in their own way, based on our Panther platform. A vivid example of this is I, Too, Am Auckland, a video project in which Māori and Pasifika students at Auckland University discuss their experiences with everyday colonialism and racism.

The Polynesian Panther story is the story of Pacific in New Zealand, and also the story of New Zealand becoming more aware of its real self.

Undoubtedly, the Polynesian Panthers will go down in history as consolidating Pacific peoples’ identities in Aotearoa, validating our place in this country, and providing the inspiration for social justice outcomes for new and successive generations of Pacific youth.

Lupematasila Misatauveve Dr Melani Anae is a senior lecturer and director of research of Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland. She edited Polynesian Panthers: Pacific Protest and Affirmative Action in Aotearoa New Zealand 1971-1981, with Lautofa (Ta) Iuli and Leilani Tamu.
© E-Tangata, 2016