This past week has included the anniversaries of two very important
events in our history; the beginning of the pacifist ploughmen protest at
Parihaka on 26th May 1879, and the eviction of 222 Māori from
Takapauwhara (Bastion Point) on 25th May 1978.
The ploughmen protect was one of the most
courageous and creative forms of political protest ever conceived and enacted in
this country when Māori men from the community of Parihaka began to plough up
the land of Pākehā settlers.
This action,
taken under the leadership of the Parihaka prophets Te Whiti o Rongomai and
Tohu Kākahi, was the community’s response to the government’s repeated failure
to deal honourably with Taranaki Māori over land.
The
ploughmen knew what they were letting themselves in for. They would face Pākehā
wrath. They would face almost certain arrest and incarceration. But they
rallied to the words of Te Whiti: “Go put your hands to the plough. Look not
back. If any come with guns and swords, be not afraid. If they smite you, smite
not in return. If they rend you, be not discouraged. Another will take up the
good work.”
In short
order, more than 400 Parihaka ploughmen were deported and imprisoned for up to
two years — sometimes as far away as Hokitika and Dunedin. Not one was ever
tried in a court of law. The government found it convenient to suspend the
right to a trial and passed a series of draconian laws under the guise of
“national emergency” that became progressively more desperate and unjust as
time went by.
There were
also atrocities. When arrested, some ploughmen were tied to a horse and dragged
around a paddock. That brutality is remembered in the name Totoia, which means
dragging, given to some Parihaka children to preserve the memory of those
times. Another name bestowed on children was Ngarukeruke, the discarded body.
When some of
the ploughmen asked Tohu Kākahi what should be done if they were met with
violence, Tohu answered: “Gather up the earth on which the blood is spilt and
bring it to Parihaka.”
The same
pacifist approach was enacted in 1978 by Ngāti Whātua protesting the Crown sale
of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei land.
The famous
catch-cry of 'not one more acre' from Dame Whina Cooper that came to voice in
the 1970s, had brought the fight of Māori to regain their stolen lands surging
into the mainstream spotlight, and the most defining image of that fight was
the 506 day occupation of Takapauwhara (Bastion Point).
On Day 506, on
the orders of then Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, more than 800 police officers
marched up to Bastion Point on that day to forcibly remove protestors and
destroy their buildings.
The protest and
eviction became one of the defining moments in the battle for Māori land rights
and led to the extension of the Waitangi Tribunal’s ability to inquire into
claims against the Crown for breaches of Te Tiriti dating back to 1840;
originally it had only been able to consider claims from 1975 onwards.
We remember.
