Tommy Wilson: Mana can't be cashed in

Benjamin Franklin said: 'Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. The more a man has, the more he wants.'

You can't always get what you want but if you try hard you will get what you need, and when it comes to money it seems the secret, according to "Juju Lips Jagger", is working out just how much you need to be happy.

I remember tramping the streets of New Delhi as a backpacking hippy in the 70s and a sadhu (holy man) telling me: "A man's true wealth is the good he does in this world" and I have held on to this like a comfort cloth when times are tough - as they are for farmers right now.

Sometimes I wish I had never met that sadhu and could have the things I feel my family deserves, but most of the time I try to surround myself with like-minded people who share the belief of hands that serve are holier than lips that pray, and in Maori circles this sacred philosophy of the sadhu civilisation dating back thousands of years, is similar in many ways to what we would call mana today.

I guess it was easy for Juju Jagger as he could spend in a week what an AC/DC drummer earns in a lifetime - and still come out with his health intact.

Sitting alongside the Stones are the rolling wise words of Benjamin Franklin that still echo in my mind today after reading it decades ago,

"Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one."

And therein sits the jewel of "money versus mana" - in the crown of our culture that we all share as a community and as a country.

Mana can be found in many corners of our marae as it can in our community and carries a currency of success that we should measure more, especially when times are tough as they have been for a local marae.

When a front page headline splashes a "Casinos and KFC" headline about a couple spending Treaty money that was not theirs but their iwi's and who have cared for their marae all of their lives, there is a certain sadness, not so much why it happened, but how, and the effect it will have on the mana of their marae.

For me, I have found that in many cases those who have the least give the most when it comes to making sure our marae are the cornerstones of our Maori communities here in Tauranga Moana, and for me these are the true leaders who carry the mana of our marae.

From all accounts, the couple involved had lived their lives as loyal supporters of their marae and this should be taken in to context before judging their actions as another "treaty in the trough" Maori headline for the media to feast on.

More and more I have heard the saying financial literacy being bandied around the conference tables at education hui and more and more when I see the fallout of not knowing how to handle money as in this sad case, I hope the lessons that can be learned are the focus, and not pointing the bone of blame at those who have fallen from the grace of their own whanau.

The process of Treaty settlement is a long and winding road that leaves casualties on every corner, I have seen the carnage first hand after three years of being on our hapu settlement team.

Settling the claim is one thing but holding on to the settlement is by far a bigger challenge and what has happened to this marae here in Tauranga-Moana is by no means an isolated case, when it comes to poor governance of Treaty trusts set up to hold on to the putea (funds) for future generations.

So what do we do with a couple who have given their lives to the wellbeing of their hapu and their marae and made a mistake.

Hang them out as headlines for the media and the nation's Ngati Naysayers to feast on?

Or hold them up in-house for their own to learn from in a process that the greatest man to walk the planet in my lifetime, Nelson Madiba Mandela, called Ubuntu - the reconciliation through forgiveness, that paves a pathway forward.

We can't always get what we want, especially when it comes to money, and what we want is sometimes far removed from what we need.

In this sad case what these two people need is a pathway forward - that can restore the mana of their hapu and their whanau, and let them get back to what they do best, looking after their marae.

-broblack@xtra.co.nz

Tommy Wilson is best selling author and local writer.