2020: The year we challenged systemic racism in Aotearoa and around the world

Tuesday, 22 December 2020

For 50 years Tūhoe kaumātua Tame Iti has hit our headlines, representing Māori rights in his own unique style.

ANALYSIS: From the global coronavirus pandemic to Black Lives Matter to racism claims in police, the tertiary and health sectors and Stuff’s own admission of racism. Pou Tiaki editor Carmen Parahi examines how we challenged systemic racism in 2020.

What is interesting about using the Gregorian calendar, as we do in Aotearoa, is we give the year a beginning and end. We mark time by seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and so on.

As if nature, with its ever moving natural cycles is in any way managed by our timekeeping. It is not.

Time, as we know it, is a Western European construct. In part, it helps us with productivity but at a heavy cost. Three centuries of industry-driven work hours has created marvellous innovation as well as large amounts of destructive carbon, warming our planet to create the global climate crisis.

**READ MORE:

Rangitāne iwi members at the Wairau Bar to see the Matariki constellation and start the traditional practices around the marking of it.

* Prejudice and misconceptions about Māori hurt all New Zealanders

* Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono: You can't change the past but you can fix the future

* Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono: Stuff's day of reckoning

* Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono: Tell us your own news story

A roadblock checkpoint on the southern end of the road into Kaikohe. Northern Māori iwi fearful of the impacts of Covid-19 on their elderly community, turned away visitors.

* The whakapapa of racism in NZ

* Concerns about Matariki's 'bastardisation' raised, as Labour pledges new public holiday from 2022

* Discovering the intricacies of Matariki, mātauranga later in life

Black Lives Matter solidarity march Auckland following George Floyd’s death in the USA.

Many of the Western systems we’ve been using for centuries aren’t working as well as they used to.

Political leaders, scientists and experts have been looking elsewhere for answers, turning their eyes towards indigenous knowledge systems.

Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono is a Stuff project investigating the history of racism and it started with a look at its own news history. The result was an historical apology to Māori.

It’s an acknowledgement the long-held superiority of western knowledge is no longer the only answer.

Mātauranga Māori or knowledge has always existed. But colonisation and racist societal attitudes has undermined and devalued its importance. Many Māori stopped believing in it too, forced to opt into colonial systems such as science, medicine, justice, and education to determine our lives.

Science has proven its worth during the global Covid-19 pandemic and in the development of a vaccine but there are many knowledge systems available to also benefit mankind.

In Aotearoa, Māori knowledge or mātauranga Māori, is coming into its own despite the critics.

Māori Party co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer promised to keep Māori issues at the forefront of political discussions.

Mātauranga Māori is applied knowledge, similar to science. A hypothesis is posed and it is tested to determine the results. It, too, has a part to play in our response to the pandemic.

Many Māori health experts, organisations and iwi authorities swung into action using mātauranga Māori to provide safeguards for their communities. They demanded a specific Māori and Pacific response from themselves and the government because of the different needs of those groups.

The government acknowledged, particularly in the Auckland lockdown, without the help of local leaders and church groups they would not have got the virus under control.

Fires burn in the Port Hills above Christchurch. Looking westward from Sign of the Takahē.

Racism reared its ugly head with citizens turning on people of Chinese descent, mocking iwi efforts to blockade rural areas from travellers who could spread Covid-19 and unfairly targetting infected Pacific families during the Auckland lockdown.

New Zealanders felt the fallout from police brutality against minority communities in the USA. It caused huge rifts in race relations across the globe and in Aotearoa, as opinions became more polarised, encouraged by populist leaders in large democratic countries.

Western power structures are being shaken by the pandemic, racism and the varying political and public responses to it. Many organisations including sports groups, celebrities and ordinary citizens are continuing to rail against all forms of discrimination.

There were calls across countries for colonial statutes to be removed or at least the full history of what they stood for discussed.

Western colonial constructs such as education, justice, and the media, have not served Māori and other minority cultures well.

Stuff launched its investigation, Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono, to go back through its history and see how it has represented Māori. We found racism and editorial actions contributing to negative stereotypes, marginalisation and social stigma against Māori. We rightly apologised and promised to better represent everyone, as is our role in a democratic society.

Cracks have also started appearing in the ivory towers of the tertiary sector, where accusations of racism have applied pressure to the Western system governing it, demanding more equality in thinking and practices.

The health system is being transformed, and it includes a new Māori health authority. How that will look will be determined by the Labour-led government. Māori health experts believe it should be independent but the government currently prefers the authority is part of the system.

Labour’s large group of Māori MPs will have to show how much influence they have in the party across all sectors during its term. They will be held to account by Māori for their decisions, particularly the Māori Party, which has already shown it has a strong focus on by Māori for Māori solutions.

A Stuff campaign supported turning Matariki into a new statutory holiday. The Labour government will implement it in 2022, although the details and costs are yet to be made public.

Mātauranga and te reo Māori has taken up more space in our news and will continue to do so as more people encourage its use in society.

When thinking about the year of news, it’s the maramataka I also turn to, not just the gregorian calendar.

Many New Zealanders are starting to order their time according to the maramataka, using its many phases and natural indicators, the moon, sun, stars and planets, traditional knowledge, personal observations and scientific data to synchronise their everyday life with nature.

We’re in the warm season, Raumati, and its many phases. We’re heading towards the time when the ground dries up, browns and cracks open. If te kaihautangata, the people-eating wind or nor’wester, prevails in Te Waipounamu (the South Island) it will create troublesome fires - destroying more homes and communities. .

The global climate crisis demands action and mātauranga Māori is a vital component of New Zealand’s response.

Of interest in the future will be how iwi Māori positions itself on freshwater, with Ngāi Tahu taking a case to the high court over shared authority of the precious resource.

Western systems and institutions are in a time of reckoning as more people demand inclusive, fair and equitable contributions from minority communities to how we are governed.