WAATEA NEWS COLUMN: Denial of the Maori Experience
On top of the many problems plaguing Maori and Pakeha interactions, one of the most oppressive is the total denial of the Maori experience.
It’s not just the negative experience that is denied and never given platform, it’s the positive experiences of being Maori that are also being denied.
Beyond the Haka and a powhiri to welcome visitors, the positive aspects of the Maori experience are somehow seen as a threat to the existing orthodoxy as opposed to a legitimate way of seeing the world.
One of the most glaring recent examples was the Justice Minister’s decision to suspend Ngapari Nui’s voluntary work in Whanganui Prison because he had gang associations.
The decision reeked of politics as Judith Collins strives to look tough on crime even if that means cutting off volunteers who are doing good, but it goes deeper than that. Collins position is anyone connected to a gang can not be part of any solution when the reality is that gangs are complex counter products of poverty and colonialism.
Denial of that experience removes the ability of learning anything.
Ngapari Nui was selected to represent Maori values inside the prison by South Taranaki Iwi and he’d been in that role for 5 years. To remove him from that position based on the Minister deciding his experience is irrelevant because he has gang connections is worse than ignorance, it’s bigotry.
Another example of the denial of positive Maori experience is the shocking decision by the Ministry of Health to secretly cut funding to a Maori solution for Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy.
A unique home grown suggestion created for Maori by Maori sees flax woven wahakura or recycled plastic pepi-pods given out to Maori parents so that they would not accidentally asphyxiate their new borns in communal sleeping arrangements.
Where there have been trials using this initiative, we’ve seen the first reduction of Maori rates of infant mortality in 16 years.
A Maori solution to a needless loss of life that impacts and hurts Maori,
So what’s the problem?
The problem is that the Ministry of Health has secretly met to kill off any funding for these programs because of a total lack of respect for the Maori experience. Despite all the experts and academics recommending this approach to lowering our SUDI rates, the Ministry seems to have a narrow cultural view on communal sleeping.
In both these examples we are seeing Maori solutions to Maori problems, what is holding them back are Pakeha structures that simply don’t recognise the Maori experience.
This needs to change. Urgently.
Yes and as a paean I feel your pain!
Because I to was chemically poisoned at work and now disabled are treated indifferently in every way now, though I am living with a permanent disability that the health services don’t understand or eve recognise.
If Maori medicine was supported properly I would be recognised as a human not as a freak now~
Because the establishment medical community is afraid of blaming chemicals for any illness because the chemical industry would threaten deregistration OF A PHYSICIAN THAT BLAMES ANY ILLNESS ON THEIR PRODUCTS.
The Block vs DIY Marae.
One is focused on celebrating and promoting competition, greed, and self interest.
The other is focused on celebrating and promoting community, shared wealth, and inclusiveness.
Ownership vs guardianship.
Just one example off the top of my head where dominant Pakeha culture can assimilate positive values from Tangata Whenua, there are many many more.
Here here. NZ is marching far, far backwards with respect to Maori and our pacific heritage. As neo-“liberal” control of the social order crushes our sense of community, New Zealand, following the examples of basically everywhere else in the western hemisphere, is headed for a crash. The burden placed on Maori and the poor in general, is not just unfair and unjust, for many it’s a crisis that is beyond words, occurring right before our very eyes. But middle NZ are clueless, too obsessed with themselves to see it, marching along to the dictates of a sociopathic far right, that’s hell-bent on conquest, control, and placing themselves in positions of power.