The ceremonial aspects have been spectacular and eulogies appropriately eloquent.
Yet at the same time, I can’t help asking myself why is it that we, as Māori, do death so well and don’t appear able or willing to consistently do the same for the living? It’s an inconvenient truth that doesn’t sit comfortably with me and many others.
Rightly or wrongly, I feel it’s an appropriate time to put a couple of future-oriented questions to anyone purporting to be a Māori leader because if not now, when? For too long we have avoided asking hard questions of ourselves and each other. It’s past time that came to an end.
The exercise courtyard at Kohuora Auckland South Corrections Facility, a Serco-run high-security men’s prison. Photo / Sam Olley / RNZ
Before we dig into the nitty gritty, let’s also be willing to have the courage to acknowledge a few simple truths without beating around the bush. We/Māori are worse represented in all the social statistics for all the wrong reasons.
We fill the psychiatric care facilities and are defendants, inmates and social welfare beneficiaries in numbers disproportionate to our percentage of the population. That’s another inconvenient truth.
Society keeps asking why and continuing to pour good money after bad in the quest to answer that question. I would suggest asking why isn’t helpful and that it’s actually the wrong question simply because it’s backwards-looking, not future-focused.
Let’s just accept it as fact. Instead of asking why, how about we reframe the narrative by asking a few more appropriately future focused questions like: where are Māori now? Where do Māori want to be? How do Māori get there? And what obstacles need to be overcome in order to get there?
These are questions that deal with hopes, dreams and aspirations. The last thing you need to tell a naughty person is that they’re naughty. All that does is reinforce their view that they are social outcasts. Their attitude becomes one of two-finger rebellion. “Stuff you, I’ll prove you right and become all of those things you said I’d become.”
Rangatahi don’t need leaders telling them what to do or how to behave. What they crave and need is role models who through their actions are willing to share with them how we can reframe the dominant social narrative of us as a socioeconomic drain on taxpayers.
For positive attitudinal intergenerational societal change to happen, we/Māori need to raise our expectations of ourselves and each other. Until such time as we have the courage to do that, nothing will change. The harsh reality is if we don’t work backwards from outcomes that will raise the socioeconomic plight of Māori, then as a society we’d better hurry up and start building more prisons.
Defining where Māori are societally is relatively easy; however, asking where Māori want to be in the future and how they get there is complex.
Sadly, individual self-interest has and continues to usurp pan-tribal greater good and it always will until that pan-tribal Māori leader comes forward and is able to present a united vision for all Māori not just iwi, hapū and whānau.
Together as a nation, at the very least we all need to elevate productivity by becoming strategically better educated (not just higher academically educated), well paid, work-balanced middle class, otherwise all we do is risk becoming highly educated unemployed.
I was born in Aotearoa and am proud of my Tarara whakapapa and heritage.
Boris Sokratov. Photo / Supplied
I am convinced Māori will eventually be the saviour of our nation’s economy. Ngāi Tahu, Tainui, Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Whātua - to mention a few - have clearly demonstrated it is possible to do it at an iwi level. The obstacle is figuring out how to do it on a pan-Māori rather than tribal basis.
I remain forever hopeful that a pan-tribal Māori leader will eventually appear who can provide all Māori with the hope, dreams and aspiration to raise our expectations of ourselves and each other because until they do, nothing will change.
