Thursday 27 March 2014

More Than A Maori Problem

Fronting For Dysfunction: The finger of blame has been pointed at Hekia Parata for her mishandling of the investigation into the Te Kohanga Reo National Trust Board. But is the blame hers alone? According to the young Maori blogger, Morgan Godfery: "The behaviour of the board and its subsidiary has been dreadful. Perhaps it’s the predictable effect of lifetime appointments. But I think it goes deeper. There’s a rot in Maori governance. From poor governance at Maori TV to the Kohanga Reo board, Maori aren’t being served."
 
THERE IS A STRONG TEMPTATION to dismiss the Te Kohanga Reo Trust scandal as something for Maori to sort out. Strong because there is currently a real reluctance on the part of Pakeha journalists to intrude upon Maori disputes. Charges of colonialist insensitivity, even outright racism, are easily levelled, and not so easily refuted.
 
The person who has paid the highest price for this reticence, over the past week, is the Minister of Education, Hekia Parata. Digging deeper into the Kohanga story; attempting to tease-out its broader political ramifications, entails cross-cultural risk. A Cabinet Minister’s political fumblings, on the other hand, is a much more familiar and, therefore, safer story.
 
What is it that underlies both the scandal itself and the news media’s less-than-thorough presentation of it?
 
The answer, I believe, lies in the series of critical changes in the generational, cultural, economic and political propellants of Maori development.
 
Forty years ago the future of the Maori language was in doubt. A generation of Maori had thought it wiser for their offspring to immerse themselves in and acquire the skills of the dominant Pakeha culture. Mastering English and learning how to operate and succeed in Pakeha institutions (especially its education system) was central to the survival strategy of those Maori who migrated from rural Aotearoa to urban New Zealand in the two decades following World War II.
 
It was this, the “Assimilation Generation”, that laid the foundations for what was to become the Maori middle-class. And it was their offspring – the first generation of Maori to enter tertiary education in any numbers – who constituted the political core of the “Maori Renaissance” – a movement of uncompromising cultural assertion which would, between 1975 and 2005, radically alter the expectations and aspirations of tangata whenua.
 
Te Kohanga Reo, the pre-school Maori language “nests”, and Kura Kaupapa, the Maori immersion schools, are both products of those three decades of Maori revitalisation and rebirth. And those who were instrumental in their creation have grown old alongside the institutions they brought into existence.
 
Pressure from this new, young, well-educated and politically assertive generation of Maori activists was also responsible for transforming the Waitangi Tribunal into an historically responsive instrument for the redress of Maori grievances. Between 1990 and the present, the Tribunal was to supply not only the moral and legal rationale for the establishment of Maori broadcasting, but would also set in motion the Crown’s ambitious Treaty-settlement process. These settlements, in their turn, provided the financial base for the rise of neo-tribal capitalist corporations.
 
The Maori cultural renaissance was thus transformed into a political and economic revolution. Institutional opportunities have been created which offer Maori (or, at least their middle-class leaders) a secure position in the future governance and development of New Zealand society and economy.
 
Like all revolutions, however, its consolidation phase has required a series of compromises and accommodations to be made between the old and the new way of doing things. The hierarchical, deferential and familial aspects of traditional Maori governance structures have, therefore, been grandfathered into the new. The results have become a source of both anger and embarrassment to the sons and daughters of both the renaissance and the revolution.
 
In the words of the young Maori blogger, Morgan Godfery:
 
“The behaviour of the [Te Kohanga Reo Trust] board and its subsidiary has been dreadful. Perhaps it’s the predictable effect of lifetime appointments. But I think it goes deeper. There’s a rot in Maori governance. From poor governance at Maori TV to the Kohanga Reo board, Maori aren’t being served.
 
“Would a rational and skilled [Maori Television] board re-attempt to appoint Paora Maxwell after the staff revolt? Clearly the board didn’t consider rudimentary factors like workplace culture and staff satisfaction. Would a rational and skilled board sanction a $50,000 koha to a board member? That’s more than triple the median income for Maori. I’ll tell you what kind of board would – one that isn’t fit for the job.”
 
Godfery’s harsh judgement of the governance compromises agreed to by his parents’ generation in order to consolidate the gains made in the 1980s and 90s identifies the nature of the next big challenge facing Maori. Either the gains of renaissance and revolution will be captured by an increasingly authoritarian and self-protective Maori middle-class, or they will be extended to all Maori people – especially those young Maori trapped in the poverty-racked and crime-ridden ghettoes of New Zealand’s major cities.
 
The Kohanga Reo scandal (itself the result of young Maori journalists from Maori Television’s Native Affairs refusing to be intimidated by the trust board’s networks of patronage and protection) is, therefore, much more than an issue for Maori to sort out on their own.
 
The fruits of renaissance and revolution in Aotearoa-New Zealand cannot be secured for Maori in the face of Pakeha indifference.
 
This essay was originally published by The Press of Tuesday, 25 March 2014.

6 comments:

Guerilla Surgeon said...

Without making any judgements on the correctness of your article, I must say I can't wait to see the comments that pop up.:-).

Barry said...

Chris - I agree there is reluctance to look at some maori management affairs but its about time the media showed some guts and reported in an honest way.

For some reason there exists in maori culture a belief that those in charge 'can do what they like and that no one is allowed to question them' - and that 'no one' includes maori as well as everyone else.

It seems that its a carry over from stoneage times when those in charge did exactly what they liked without fear of being held liable for that action - except by a bigger stronger tribe who wont so much as question them - but execute them - and then they will take what they like. And so on..

Fortunately societies rules have somewhat made life a little less volatile and even the famous treaty insists that these rules should be followed and thus these arrogant thieves need to be held to account by all branches of the media.

And what the traditional media need to remember is that if they dont do so - their position of be 'reliable news' will be replaced by the bloggs.

markus said...

"A generation of Maori had thought it wiser for their offspring to immerse themselves in and acquire the skills of the dominant Pakeha culture. Mastering English and learning how to operate and succeed in Pakeha institutions.......was central to the survival strategy of those Maori who migrated from rural Aotearoa to urban New Zealand......."


Glad someone's finally pointed this out. Getting a little sick of the mythology whereby unwilling Maori were brutally forced to write/speak English by a wicked Pakeha state. The fact is: more than one generation of Maori parents did, indeed, embrace the idea of assimilation.

Yes, perhaps Gramscian notions of cultural hegemony are pertinent here too, but let's establish once and for all that Maori parents were not unwilling participants in assimilation.

It's interesting how history gets re-written to legitimise present-day policies and interests and how (speaking as a paid-up member of the Liberal-Left) a certain section of the middle-class (let's, for convenience sake, call them 'Affluent Pakeha Liberal Luvvies') uncritically embrace this revisionism - given that it's apparently 'all in a good cause'.

And when one reads Michael King deriding post-war attempts by various New Zealand governments to "destroy" all vestiges of Maori culture - let's remember the Fraser Government's nurturing of:
- Maori cultural groups in the main cities
-The Maori Women's Welfare League
and even
- Maori language courses

(My (Pakeha) mother, for instance, learnt Te Reo at a night-course in Wellington in 1948. Not something you'll learn in recent Boomer-penned history books).

Jan said...

Chris, you have, as I'm sure you are aware, marched in where angels fear to tread.
Would you mind expanding a little on your last sentence - I, anyway, would find a little clarification helpful. If you describe pakeha as indifferent, what do you see as a preferable mode of action. keeping in mind the substantial degree of pakeha ignorance of te ao Maori?

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"For some reason there exists in maori culture a belief that those in charge 'can do what they like and that no one is allowed to question them' - and that 'no one' includes maori as well as everyone else."

Complete and utter simplification if not outright fabrication. In general, Maori leaders have to front up to the people every so often and be questioned – by anyone and everyone. THIS is the inheritance from the "Stone Age". The idea that leaders are not accountable I fear is probably inherited from Pakeha. Our leaders seem remarkably UN-accountable, except for the press and the blogs.

You see what I mean Chris? Am I taking too much pleasure in picking the ignorant apart?

Guerilla Surgeon said...

"A generation of Maori had thought it wiser for their offspring to immerse themselves in and acquire the skills of the dominant Pakeha culture."

Again, an oversimplification. Which assumes that all Maori thought alike, which is one of the typical tropes trotted out on occasions like this. SOME Maori leaders supported assimilation, some didn't. Tuhoi for instance. You can't necessarily blame them either in that it's typical late 19th and early 20th century thinking. Whereas of course now we know that people who are fluent in their own language and comfortable in their own culture can learn English and Pakeha culture much better.
Got I'm enjoying this!