The battle for Ihumātao shouldn't be reduced to a generational divide

Saturday, 27 July 2019

Pania Newton is the face of Save Our Unique Landscape (SOUL), the movement determined to stop Ihumātao's legal owner - Fletcher Building - constructing 480 new houses on the land.

OPINION: I met Pania Newton three years ago. We both happened to enrol in the same Māori Studies class together in 2016. Pania was always straight up, unrelenting in her commitment to Te Ihu o Mataoho, or Ihumātao – the ancestral home that was, and remains, the manawa of her being.

Towards the end of semester, Pania issued a wero to us all: collectivise, resist, and fight like hell for our Ihumātao, whatever or wherever that may be. For Pania and her cousins Qiane Matata-Sipu, Bobbi-Jo Pihema, Waimarie McFarland, Moana Waa, and Haki Wilson (Ngaati Mahuta, Te Ahiwaru, Waikato-Tainui, Te Akitai, Te Waiohua), the ahi kā burns in their blood.

There's been a strong police presence at Ihumātao since Tuesday and 10 people have been arrested for their risky conduct.

Each successive generation of Māori since 1840 have engaged in a war of manoeuvre; a necessary response to a multi-faceted colonial offensive that clings to the desecration of our social structure, whenua, language, culture, histories, shared memories and tino rangatiratanga.

At each critical juncture, generational cleavages manifest between kaumātua and kuia and rangatahi, both trying to reach a consensus on a strategy. It is a conflicting space for whānau, hapū and iwi to be thrust into, attempting to negotiate a pathway forward.

Protesters have been singing, sharing kai, blocking roads and camping at Ihumātao.

**READ MORE:

* History and housing clash at Ihumātao

Hundreds of protesters gathered over the week to show their support of SOUL's occupation of Ihumātao.

* Ihumātao eviction: Dogs pepper sprayed, people arrested

* Seven more arrested at contested Ihumātao

* Power cut to protesters in bitter fight over land at Auckland's Ihumātao continues

* Stan Walker performs at Ihumātao: 'If my people ain't winning, I ain't winning'**

When Eruini 'Eddie' Hawke (Ngāti Whātua) planted kūmara at Takaparawhā Bastion Point in 1977, more than a few feathers were ruffled. It was a deliberate action, signalling the sustenance of the whenua to authorities. Ngā Tamatoa were branded outright as radicals. Founding member Toro Waaka (Ngāti Kahungunu) once recalled that the most vocal, prominent opposition was voiced by Māori. Hell, even Te Whaea o te Motu, Whina Cooper (Te Rarawa), shook the waka a bit too much for some.

Conservative attitudes are a consistent feature of any Indigenous political action, rightfully suspicious of further retaliation. The sometimes-dichotomous relationship between 'radical' rangatahi and 'conservative' kaumātua and kuia inevitably provokes tension, but it can also prove immensely productive.

It is, however, a reductive disservice to the mana whenua as kaitiaki, the protectors and those who tautoko whānau at Ihumātao to conflate the issue as some kind of irreconcilable generational divide or 'Māori in-fighting'. There are kaumātua, kuia, rangatahi and mana whenua who sit across every plane of this issue.

The fundamental concern speaks to a broader discussion Pākehā New Zealand is never ready to have. Ihumātao was illegitimately confiscated and sold by the Crown in 1863 with the invasion of the Waikato. The Crown negligently indulged the narrative that it was imbued with the authority to do so.

Crown processes have created a legacy of impossible situations that reproduce colonial hierarchies, which can never reflect Indigenous realities. The inability of successive governments to meaningfully reconcile with historical injustices – Ihumātao, Waitara, Mauna Kea, Djap Wurrung – only promulgates the transferral of intergenerational, historical trauma.

As Nakuya Gorrie (Kurnai/Gunai, Gunditjmara, Wiradjuri, Yorta Yorta) writes, 'they can't understand what it means to be able to connect the blood coursing through your body to your ancestors' blood soaked in ancient soil and ancient trees'.

Protectors at Ihumātao are not wilfully disobedient rangatahi. Nor are they, or those who stand with them, violent in their approach. Their kaupapa is informed by tikanga and the Parihaka blueprint of peaceful resistance.

Ihumātao is intrinsic and essential to our shared histories and the fabric of the Tāmaki region. Protecting Ihumātao for the benefit of the greater Tāmaki region and generations of mokopuna to follow is not, and never will be a choice.

Considered within the whakapapa of Māori resistance, the occupation at Ihumātao will doggedly trudge on until justice – for all who call Ihumātao home – is realised.

* Miriama Aoake (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Mahuta, Tainui) is a full-time student at the University of Auckland.