Embracing te ao Māori: Breaking down bias and building unity in Aotearoa

Tuesday, 17 September 2024

Andrew Docking is an electrician, a small business owner and a student of te reo Māori

OPINION: To challenge the views of the status quo is to be rogue.

My father was a tea plantation manager in India. He had been in India during World War II and continued living in India for many years, managing a tea estate in Assam. He left in 1964 and migrated to New Zealand as a 10 Pound Pom. He wasn’t a social person and carried his views and opinions from the 1930s until he died recently at 95. My father was a piece of history with untarnished opinions, opinions that stemmed from the days of the British Empire. He was a very kind man who had a very small carbon footprint. He believed in the Empire and he believed in the monarchy. However he had a deep-seated belief that some races were inferior, including Māori.

I spent my life arguing this point with him and found myself empathising more and more with Māori to the point where I began learning te reo Māori about six years ago. I have been a full-time student for the past three years. I feel I now have the authority to speak freely and honestly about both worlds and share some of my learnings. This is important to me for many reasons with the primary reason being my desire to see Aotearoa become a place that other countries aspire to be like. We have everything going for us as a nation, however, the issue around bias is holding us back and will keep us in the doldrums for many more decades unless we can address these biases.

My father feared indoctrination. He used this term many times when discussing various religious or cultural beliefs. His mind was clear and just, and other races and identities really weren’t worthy. However, all people who entered our family home were treated with the utmost respect. We would stand when people entered, shake hands when meeting, as well as when they leave. Shoes were removed, hugging was uncomfortable. We ate at the dinner table and didn’t start until Mum sat down. There were no prayers, or singing even though Dad had been to church twice every Sunday as a child. There were many other rules in the family home, many were unspoken but survived by implication. This was our Pākehā world.

Learning te reo Māori with my whānau has allowed us to have a look into the Māori world, te ao Māori. We have learned a lot more than just the language. Te reo Māori is very closely linked to te ao Māori, which is very closely linked to the environment. This is a world with its own set of manners and customs that are of equal importance to Māori as the manners and customs of Pākehā are to us. One world is no better than the other and to accept this is the first big step, and it took me a quite a while for my Pākehā brain to switch and have enough knowledge to understand that this is true.

Once you are able to accept the two worlds are of equal value, and the people are of equal value, you are able to look at the Treaty and accept the truth about our tūpuna, our ancestors.

I have been in an electrical contracting business since 1998 and understand very well what some people are like with regard to making contracts and deals. Many of our people are simply dodgy. That’s the reality of it and it applies to all people. All cultures and religions have an element of dodginess. That’s life. The reality is there are far more of us who aren’t dodgy and we can see that we have simply lost our way.

If you can imagine a culture that survived on a list of different values, values that centred around relationships and mana and not ownership and capitalism, it is easy to understand that one group was very trusting and believed in the ensuing relationship whilst the other group was from a capitalist base and winning deals was very much a norm. Chuck in a pile of other stuff like the Doctrine of Discovery, guns, and a pile of settlers who have just sold their life’s belongings to make a fresh start in this great land of opportunity, and you have a perfect recipe for discontent and poor outcomes for Māori.

Remember, prior to settlement here there was no police force and no army and yet most people lived in relative peace. Of course there were skirmishes but consider Britain - the burning and torture of witches, the invasions they had to contend with, and their continuous war with, well, everyone. Aotearoa was a thriving civilisation prior to colonisation. It was flourishing on the rules and the stories brought here on the first waka. This place wasn’t a primitive place and the people weren’t savage. They were simply tangata whenua and they had an awesome life with an amazing social structure. This social structure is so amazing that in spite of having their land dispossessed and their language beaten from them, their social structures, their stories and, most importantly, their mana has remained intact for thousands of years. Their culture is flourishing and will flourish because it makes sense. In this time where the environment is reeling from the destructive forces of continual growth, the tīkanga around the environment is very simple and, if applied, we could live in the most advanced nation in the world. If we considered the environment as being human, and that was our starting point or target for every piece of legislation then we would turn around the destruction of our place. Imagine being able to sell our country as Pure New Zealand. Oops, we already do.

I understand the challenges of getting on this waka for many people. It was challenging for me and for many it will seem impossible, however, have a look at the prison population and ask yourself why are these people so poorly represented in prison, about 50% are Māori. What is the underlying issue?

Maybe, we need to learn some manners and learn to embrace te ao Māori and understand their tīkanga. Maybe we have te reo Māori as a compulsory subject in school. Maybe we all learn the history of this country. Maybe we all just stop being so bloody biased and jump on the great waka that has KIWI in big black letters on its side.

If it is too difficult to learn to pronounce the Māori words correctly, maybe just try and control the sniggers when others try. Maybe allow your tamariki, your children to think for themselves by not using derogatory language in front of them. Allow the kids to see things with an open mind. Maybe pressure the Government to be less divisive to encourage both cultures to flourish.

However you choose to fulfil your place as manuhiri (guest) on this great motu is up to you, but you can be sure the future will be far brighter if we drop the bias, sing a waiata and open our eyes to an amazing future.

Ko wai au?

Ko Ruahine tōku waka

I tae mai tōku whānau i te tau 1966

Nō Ingarangi ōku tūpuna katoa

Ko Ngāti Pākehā Ingarangi tōku iwi

I tae mai tōku whānau ki Aotearoa I te tau kotahi mano, iwa rau ono tekau mā ono i Ingarangi

He tangata tiriti ahau

Kei te taha nota o ngā puke ātaahua ko ngā Kohatu Whakarekareka o Tamatea Pōkai Whenua tō mātou kāinga, hei whakaruruhau, hei tūrangawaewae hoki

Ko Ānaru tōku ingoa

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.