we all have our role to play
Since we’re talking responsibility in this cycle and with it being uncle Bob’s birthday and also Waitangi Day… I thought what a timely occasion to discuss our collective responsibility for righting wrongs, knowing our history and understanding how events of 180 years ago have affected our taiao (natural environment) and her descendants. Or better yet, we could wānanga (deliberate) about how misinformation, ignorance and an unwillingness to take responsibility for broken agreements made 180 years ago have played out…
Before we get too far ahead, I say all of this from a privileged position: being raised in te reo Māori, te ao Māori me ōnā tikanga, aware of (some of) the fight so that I might be so lucky to attend Kohanga Reo and Kura Kaupapa Māori (full immersion Māori schooling) and have
a strong, positive sense of identity — as Māori.
I’ve grown older and I’ve ventured out beyond the wonderfully pro-Māori world of Kohanga and Kura (that I didn’t even realise was pro-Māori because I just assumed everyone believed in Māori potential and success as Māori… ohhh one must never assume…) anyway, over the years I’ve witnessed some of the unwillingness to take responsibility.
I can understand it…. in away……. kind of…..… because if you’re going to be responsible, that means being honest with yourself (and others) about what’s happened and what continues to happen here in Aotearoa.. being responsible means admitting a problem, a fault, an injustice… it means acknowledging your role in how things have played out — as an antagonist, as someone who has benefited from the injustice and/or as someone who will help make it right.
Being responsible means acknowledging we got it wrong and we must make it right.
“179 years ago, a contract was signed. It was broken and continues to be broken. Mokopuna Māori have been deprived of the richness of their own land, culture and potential ever since.”
— NZ Children’s Commissioner, Andrew Becroft, 2019
I’ll revert back to one of the faves, ‘you don’t empower people directly, you create an environment by which they empower themselves’ and oh my.. what about an environment that encourages learning about our history and how events of the past affect us all today, dismantling a defunct system, healing relationships (with nature and with her people), that encourages us to reflect on our privilege, whatever it might be, and use it to affect some kind of positive change.
What will that look like? What does it currently look like, you could already be working away it? What challenges will we encounter?
And so many more questions…… I don’t know, but I know it’s together. WE are our collective responsibility.
Tēnā tātou,
Hana.