Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti: Walking into the future

There’s a disconnect between the racism and exclusion that migrants to this country face personally, and their understanding of the ongoing colonial violence faced by Māori, writes Ara Alam-Simmons.

 

The rain held off as a few of us travelled together to Onepoto domain on the North Shore to join the hīkoi across the Harbour Bridge in Tāmaki Makaurau.

We were there to protest the racist Treaty principles bill that seeks to rewrite history. It erases tangata whenua rights, relegating Māori to just another ethnic group under the disingenuous banner of “equal rights for all”.

It is a bill that aims to strip Māori of their treaty rights.

Unsurprisingly, not everyone understands this. After the hīkoi, we caught an Uber back to our mahi. The Uber driver was a migrant like me. He shared his confusion about why the protest was happening.

He told us that he’d lived in Aotearoa for 35 years and that Māori were indeed treated well and had their rights met. In fact, he felt they were given more rights than others.

His comments drew silence from us. Having just left thousands of people walking over the bridge — people who understood what’s at stake, who understood that the protest was not just about this bill but the countless other manoeuvres that the government is pulling against Māori — we were thrown off guard.

When we tried to explain, we could see that our counter-arguments weren’t landing — so we stopped.

His thinking is not uncommon. It’s perfectly possible to spend decades living on Māori land and never think of Te Tiriti or falsely believe that tangata whenua rights are being honoured.

As we drove on, we learned more about our driver. He arrived here in 1989, and despite his professional background, qualifications and work experience in overseas universities, he couldn’t get work here as a lecturer. He cited racism based on his ethnicity, the region of Asia that he was from, and his accent, as the core reasons he wasn’t able to secure suitable work. He eventually set up his own business.

We guessed that he didn’t want to be an Uber driver. His story is a well-worn, familiar experience for many migrants of colour who come to Aotearoa to live.

This disconnect — between the racism and exclusion migrants face personally and their understanding of the ongoing colonial violence faced by Māori — is common.

We understand our own marginalisation but remain disconnected from the deeper, longer histories of oppression that shape Aotearoa.

We asked the Uber driver a question: “If you’ve been treated this badly, why would you expect the same country to treat Māori well?” At that moment, the penny seemed to drop for him.

Such disconnection opens up spaces for hate to thrive.

The colonial fiction spun by Act’s spokesperson for ethnic communities, Dr Parmjeet Parmar, is one example. She is challenging Brian Tamaki about his “Make NZ Kiwi Again” campaign which targets immigrants, after concerns were raised by Indian and other unnamed ethnic communities.

This is the same Parmjeet who, over the last number of months, has targeted Māori initiatives, and engaged in rhetoric that relegates tangata whenua to just another ethnic group under the banner of “equal rights for all”. Such a story fails to recognise that Māori were promised tino rangatiratanga — control of themselves and their taonga in their own land.

When we attack tangata whenua, when we attack Te Tiriti, and when we attempt to erase the history of the people of this land, we lay ourselves open to attack. In her own words, Parmjeet says: “The migrant community shouldn’t be feared — they should be embraced for all they bring to New Zealand.” Yet she fails to recognise that her framing of Māori is to fear Māori.

Dr Parmeet arrived as a migrant in 1995 and, just like the rest of us, can only make her home here because of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Migrants are often fed stories from the dominant group in Aotearoa that colour their understanding of society here. Fed stories which result in them replicating colonial hierarchies and dismissing Indigenous struggles.

We saw this in the British colonial rule of India, where Indians were used to both subjugate and kill other Indians on behalf of the colonisers.

That history is a stark reminder to all of us that fictional stories are so easily absorbed, particularly when they are aligned with power structures that we’ve come to accept.

Our conversation with the Uber driver prompted me to reflect on how we can support our growing migrant communities to care about Te Tiriti, and also critique what we’re being fed from the media and servants of the Crown.

When I think about these questions, I reflect on the concept of generational care. I turn to the values of my own Bangladeshi upbringing such as পরিবারিক দায়িত্ব (poribarik daitto), which highlights one’s family responsibility to one another. And সংসার (shongshar), which calls on our responsibilities of care and wellbeing for extended family. Extended family also encompasses community.

We also have the practice of পুর্ব পুরুষের কথা মনে রাখা (purbo purusher kotha mone rakha), which means remember the words and sacrifices of your ancestors.

These align closely with Māori values on generational care, and planning for future generations. Let us remember and honour the many struggles that our own ancestors made through our actions when we are caught in the crosswinds of colonial myth-making.

It goes without saying that migrant parents are highly motivated to secure a better future for their children. When I walked over the Auckland Harbour Bridge last week with friends, my feet walked into a future where we care for each other.

My children, your children, our children moving toward a future foundation where Māori values and Te Tiriti are central. Central to us all living better lives here in Aotearoa.

I felt the hope in every step I took with thousands of others.

Toitūi Te Tiriti. Ãke, Ake, Ake!

 

Ara Alam-Simmons is a mother, sister, aunty and the daughter of Bangladeshi migrants, who was born and raised in the UK. She hopes for an Aotearoa where we can all thrive as people without trampling on the rights and mana of tangata whenua.

E-Tangata, 2024