Dialogue: Getting to the very heart of Maori angst

High on a mountain, Helen Clark had time and space and quietness to ponder her next move. Quite possibly it could be the most fateful of her term, the chance that comes to everyone who gets to her position, when you seize your moment in history or scuttle for political safety.

When she became Prime Minister she made it her mission to begin "closing the gaps" between Maori and the rest of the population. The task is immense, infinitely harder than any she has taken on before. It is not like the anti-nuclear or the anti-smoking legislation and, heaven knows, those were daring. "Extreme," many said at the time.

Bringing Maori in from the margins of New Zealand is not a matter of drafting a law and damn the torpedoes. It requires some sort of mass psychology to lift the spirits and confidence of people, Maori in particular but Pakeha, too.

Angry, desperate Pakeha insecurity fills the mailbags of politicians and newspapers whenever a Maori issues a challenge. So where do you start?

Tramping on the mountain, the Prime Minister would not have been greatly surprised to hear of an uproar over a speech by her Associate Minister of Maori Affairs, Tariana Turia, who attributed Maori child abuse and much else to "post-colonial traumatic stress."

Mrs Turia had been in the headlines the previous week for blaming Maori crime on "colonisation." She had been on television, face to face with the head of Women's Refuge, who refused to hear historical excuses for the beating of women and children.

Late in the programme Mrs Turia had mentioned that she found violent Maori responded well when the effects of colonisation were explained to them. Linda Clark missed the cue. Obviously, Mrs Turia had returned to the theme in the speech to a psychologists' conference.

Experience would have told the Prime Minister the speech was likely to be more thoughtful than the trigger words that were causing the frenzy. If she asked for the text to be read to her, she would have heard this:

"I really do believe that mature, intelligent New Zealanders of all races are capable of the analysis of the trauma of one group of people suffering from the behaviour of another.

"As psychologists, you frequently have as your clients Maori people. Do you seriously believe that you are able to nurture the Maori psyche, see into the soul of the people and attend to the wounded spirit?

"Do you consider, for example, the effects of the trauma of colonisation? I know that psychology has accepted the relevance of post-traumatic stress disorder. I understand much of the research has focussed on the trauma suffered by Jewish survivors of the Holocaust of World War Two. I understand the same has been done with the Vietnam veterans.

"What seems not to have received similar attention is the holocaust suffered by indigenous people including Maori as a result of colonial contact and behaviour. The Waitangi Tribunal made such a reference in its Taranaki report of 1996 and I recollect what appeared to be a 'our holocaust was worse than your holocaust debate' - a debate, I must add, I do not wish to enter."

Up on the mountain in the clear quiet air, the word holocaust jars. You know that if you want to disown the speech, shaft the minister and run for cover, she has given you the means right there. But if the speech is useful, you can defend it. After all, there has been more than one holocaust. Churchill coined the word for the treatment of Armenians in Turkey long before anyone had heard of Hitler.

You listen to more of the speech.

It mentions the decline of Maori health after they lost their land. It talks about the tendency of colonised people to absorb and believe the low image they have in the eyes of colonisers. When self-hatred is "internalised," the minister says, it leads to a sense of helplessness and despair, sometimes suicide.

"The externalisation of self-hatred, on the other hand, is seen with the number of Maori who are convicted of crimes of violence and the very high number of Maori women and children who are the victims of violence." Needless to say - and she doesn't - self-hatred does not do much for you in education and employment, either.

There are Pakeha who should not hear this, which is probably why so much public discussion of the ethnic disparities avoids the heart of the issue. In her own grating way, Mrs Turia was telling the country about the wounds of self-loathing in the Maori soul.

Up on the mountain the speech might have left the Prime Minister with the chill of opportunity. Here, if she wanted to take it, was the chance to try to lead the rest of the country to a new attitude. The chance would not come often, and to refuse it would make it harder to rise to the occasion if it presents itself again.

When she came down, she had a talk with Mrs Turia. Then she told the press that if the minister embarrassed the Government once more her job would be "reviewed."

In the meantime Mrs Turia would be closely supervised to ensure that she "does not jeopardise the Closing the Gaps programme." She would apologise in Parliament for using the word holocaust and must not use it in a Maori context again.

Helen Clark said leadership with the Maori community was crucial and Tariana Turia was someone who provided it. "We have to work to see that she can make the best contribution she can."

That's colonisation, I think.