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Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia says New Zealand has got itself into a "moral panic" over gang culture and should start listening to the gangs' own ideas for change rather than focusing on social control of them.
The moral panic created a perception that the gangs were "completely out of control", said Mrs Turia, who is based in Wanganui where gang conflict has plagued the city and resulted in the fatal shooting of toddler Jhia Harmony Te Tua.
She said the gangs had been singled out for censure and the debate over them had been a key distraction from "rocketing interest rates, bureaucratic bumbling or insider trading".
"All that such tactics do is to [provoke] more resentment and rage from those who already feel positioned on the outskirts of society," she said in Parliament yesterday.
"Any suggestions that gangs may come up with themselves are rejected, tarred with a brush that comes from the tactics of suppression, suppressing their own initiative, creating new walls and refusing to talk about it.
"Rather than creating space for a discussion about how we care for our alienated and our ostracised", the nation had been embroiled in a fierce debate over how dangerously deviant, how socially threatening and intolerable the presence of gangs were in the community.
Mrs Turia this week met Professor Angela Davis, a former Black Panther member, who has been visiting New Zealand and who advocates "liberating the mind as well as liberating society".
"If we are truly seeking a revolution of the heart, a movement for change, the liberation of communities, we must respond to the call that is coming from gangs themselves to find their own solutions. "The key lies in getting the people engaged." She praised the work Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia did before he entered Parliament as an official with the Group Employment Liaison Scheme.
But she added: "Whereas now the consistent response to the challenge of the gangs is focused on the sharp end of social control".
She also referred to the work of former National prime minister Sir Robert Muldoon, who had supported initiatives "to give them alternatives to turn their lives around".
Mrs Turia said the "moral panic" over gangs was reinforced by the media, the police, the judiciary and politicians and government departments.
Last night Police Minister Annette King said: "A lot of effort has gone into strengthening the number of Maori liaison officers so they can liaise with gangs and give good intelligence on the gangs and try to deal with problems before they happen."
This month the Police Association called for a commission of inquiry into gangs and organised crime. Association president Greg O'Connor said police chiefs were not taking the gang problem seriously enough.
Gangs were now a national organisation and could not be left to the police districts individually.
"In the same way that the gang is bigger than any individual, so it is that the national association is bigger and more powerful than any local chapter."
- additional reporting NZPA
