So here we are, in the thick of it – 2019. The Cook
celebrations are set in train in multiple townships across our country and many
Māori have decided to participate. One of the most common tactics of the
colonizer is to place Natives in front of other Natives to hold the debate
about colonial abuse – so that the colonizer can continue on their business.
When I first started opposing these events, I was
approached with various versions of “please be quiet and/or get on the waka”.
When the attempts to recruit failed – the tactics
shifted to publicly discrediting me as a liar, a purist, and a bitter hater who
“needs to keep her mouth shut”.
The conversation themes generally went along the
lines of:
“This
is your chance to tell your side of the story”
“There’s a lot of money involved, you can make this work for you and your
people”
“You can get some conservation wins out of this”
“We need to start focussing on how to chart a path forward together”
“Look for better or worse, it happened, and we need to acknowledge that”
“Well the events are going ahead anyway, with or without you, so you just
need to decide if you want your voice in there or not.”
It is ethically important to tell “both sides of
the story”. But we are actually being used by the colonizer to centre
their own story. Indeed, indigenous participation on the margin is vital to the
centreing of the colonizer. Therein is
my first reason why I will not lend them my brown-ness: I will not play
any role in the colonizer centreing themselves in the story of my land.
Brown endorsement of these events sends a signal to
ourselves, and the world, that our interests are being represented and
supported. It doesn’t really matter what is said in our participation – what
counts is that we participated. That is what the world will see, and when
TUIA250 is critiqued, that is the first defence they have. Therein lies the second reason I will not
lend them my brown-ness: I will not be a
tool of defence for our colonial government.
This is a form of exploitation that functions to
cloak the white supremacy which sits at the heart of these events. The very
articulate Moana
Jackson has reflected that:
“When many Europeans were still nervously venturing
into what Socrates called the ‘little pond’ of the Mediterranean, the peoples
of the Pacific were charting the greatest ocean in the world. They mapped its
currents, reached for stories in its depths, and established a whakapapa that
joined all of its islands together. That is a story worthy of being honoured —
but in the Crown commemorations, it is only being told in the shadowed
narrative of someone else.”
There is what you say in an event, and there is what an event says –
just as monuments are a signal of what society deems important enough to embed
as a marker of our identity on the landscape – so too are publicly funded
nationwide events a statement in and of themselves.
They are a monument in time that says THIS date matters, that THIS
person matters, and that they matter enough to centre our identity on it. In
placing our stories within the wake of the colonizer, we give them power to
once again be our great benefactor, the centre of our success.
This is why groups like Robyn Kahukiwa’s “Kia Mau” page, and the accompanying declaration, is so important. It is not just opposing
the celebrations – it is DENYING them our participation, as Tangata Whenua.
Like I stated above – the colonial story does not hold centre stage in
my story of Aotearoa. It does not even share centre stage. Māori are the centre
of this nation’s identity, and the colonial story (even that which sits in my
own whakapapa) is a much more recent addition to the story of Aotearoa.
We are very selective in what counts as history in this country –
certainly, the “Māori Land Wars” (probably more aptly called the Colonial Theft
Wars) are not deemed important enough to be embedded in the national
curriculum.
In Aotearoa our history is consistently misrepresented, and indeed even
the historians at the very centre of the Cook campaign continue to misrepresent
the facts of what happened, positioning Cook as benevolent, framing his killing
of Native people as a mere character flaw of an otherwise noble renaissance
man, and deliberately minimising the murders of brown people that he carried
out everywhere he went.
Our participation alongside these people implies endorsement of their
fictions, and therein lies my third reason I will not participate in these
events: I refuse to allow my brown-ness
to endorse the continuation of colonial fictions about the killing of my
ancestors, and the theft of our lands and waters.
There is also a larger story and issue at play here and that is the
global struggle of opposing the impacts of The Doctrine of Discovery. It has played out all
around the world and has been highlighted by the United Nations as the driver
of all Indigenous dispossession.
As a mindset, the Doctrine of Discovery reiterates an entitlement to
conquer for the sake of imperial expansion.
That mindset sits at the heart of corporate empires to this very day
and fuels the processes of climate change and ocean pollution which place our
very existence at threat.
I cannot maintain a position of solidarity with my Indigenous brothers
and sisters, or one of care for our Earth Mother, while reinforcing the very
mindset which threatens them all. I will
not allow my Indigeneity to be used in a process that places the roots of my
Indigeneity, and my Indigenous brothers and sisters, at threat.
The Doctrine of Discovery is the bedrock of
the colonial structure that sits around us. Like all structures – if left
alone, the colonial power structure will soon crumble in on itself. It requires
acts of restoration and reinforcement in order to sustain itself. Disguising
Indigenous truth with colonial fiction is one such act of reinforcement. These
colonial fictions look like:
“We were
discovered”
“Our colonial
experience is historical”
“Our colonial
experience was benevolent and non-violent”
“Our colonial
experience was invited”
“Our colonial
experience has been overall beneficial”
Capitalising on the ‘benefits’ of a platform for us to tell our side of
the story belies two facts, one: that we have already been telling this story
without them for 250 years, and have generally been vilified by our colonizers,
for doing so. And two: that if the
colonizer was genuinely interested in our side of the story, then they could
have joined us in this practice at any point over the past 250 years rather
than vilifying or arguing with us.
The entire Waitangi Tribunal process is a harrowing experience of us
telling our truths about the colonial experience while the Crown continues to
deny or minimize it – and that is going on still, today.
Of course, it is hoped that the pockets of Indigenous truth that are
allowed through these events will result in some social shift towards justice.
This does not, however, allow for the bulk of colonial fiction that is being
funded through this same event.
Those colonial fictions will continue to frustrate the struggle of my
children and mokopuna for sovereignty in their own land – because the first
step to justice is TRUTH.
TUIA250 may not be willing to take responsibility for the colonial
mistruths they are facilitating around the country, but I can certainly make them accountable through refusing to lend them my
brown-ness.
Most especially – you will not find me anywhere near a welcoming
ceremony for the replica of the death ship, Endeavour. To provide welcoming ceremonies
for the replica of a ship which killed our people and stole our lands is
exactly the kind of endorsement our colonizer requires of us to maintain their
false premise of being invited, and welcome, in our role.
These kinds of optics are vital for the colonizer – which is why I use
the term “brown-ness” because to them it is very much a performative, optical
endorsement of their presence and behaviour that they seek – even though within
Te Ao Māori these ceremonies, our whakapapa and mana, should mean so much more.
This is why it becomes difficult and confusing for whānau and
communities who don’t want to welcome the colonizer, but do want to welcome
each other, our waka hourua, and our performers, who are walking alongside the
colonizer, ushering the colonizer into these opportunities. You see – it is US
providing the coloniser with opportunities to tell their story and indeed centre
it, not the other way around.
Tōku mana Māori, he mana Māori motuhake – a line from the anthem of our
tuakana, Te Whānau a Apanui. My mana is a gift of my ancestors, inherited to me by way of
whakapapa, genealogy. They have survived 250 years of colonial fictions and
oppression. Their marks upon my skin, their name that I carry, their values in
my heart, their matauranga in my mind.
Regardless of my actual skin colour – everything that the colonizer
perceives as my “brown-ness” actually comes from them, it is a sacred part of
who I am, my connection to this land and these waters – and that is the most important reason I cannot,
and will not, allow it to be used within a systemic legitimisation of colonial
crimes.
Nōku tēnei whenua, kei a au te kōrero. Nōku tēnei whenua, ko au te
rangatira – Apirana Mahuika
(This is my land, this is my story to tell. This is my land, and I am
the authority)
TUIA250
is the government-funded programme marking 250 years since Captain
James Cook of
the British navy first visited Aotearoa.
