OF TABLES AND TEMPLES

Watching our kaumatua end the so-called workshop in Kaitaia last Monday between some Iwi leaders and the multinational Statoil, my cousin saw the overturning of the tables in the Te Ahu Centre as an act of cleansing.  However one Te Rarawa leader saw it very differently, calling it an act of thuggery. 

I put these two contrasting viewpoints to the kaumatua himself and asked him which was closest to the truth.  He simply smiled and said, ‘Some talk.  Some do.’

 

While the feedback on the Ngati Kahu website unanimously supported what our kaumatua did, reaction on at least one of the mainstream media websites was at first strongly against his activism.

“North Auckland deserves to be left the Economic backwater that it has been for many years,” wrote Northern Advocate reader, ray21.

“I wonder how these ‘activists’ get around,” asked hrshrshrs.  “Do they walk or ride a horse everywhere?”  

A third Advocate reader, Ruru, wrote, “Idiots.  What do they hope to achieve by behaving like that?”

For his opponents, these three criticisms are representative of not only what our kaumatua did but what they believe he stands for; i.e. violence, hypocrisy, stupidity. 

Leaving aside the many assumptions, prejudices and preconceived notions involved (e.g. the assumption that he acted in anger, the prejudice against ‘activists’ in general, and the preconception that overturning tables equates to being an idiot), we his supporters praise his activism for an oil-free future in the long-term, and an end to oil exploration in the short term.  It makes sense to us.

We know the oil economy isn’t sustainable, but that this is still an oil dependent society we live in.  So even though some activists can’t live their lives and can’t get to hui without using any oil products, we don’t see them as hypocrites.  To us the real hypocrites are those who know that something is wrong but do nothing other than monitor and mirimiri the wrongdoers.

Our opponents see only the surface of our activism, but we know its beginning and its end, and our experience is that most of those who oppose us today will quietly slip into oblivion when the end is reached.  Only their leaders might be remembered, sadly.  Hei aha?  They too have the right to choose the tables at which they sit and the temples in which they worship.

At the other end of the motu stands one of those temples in the shape of Parliament.  If the dirty politics practiced there by the current government is genuinely a case of 'politics as usual', like mainstream media from TV1 to the Taranaki Daily claim, then my initial reaction is, “Yuck!  Why even bother voting to get someone I like into that paru place?

Then I remember our kaumatua saying, “Some talk.  Some do,” and I remember that dirty politicians are elected by those who don’t vote. 

So I will vote next month.  That is the least I can do to help our kaumatua turn over the tables in that temple.