Transcriber: Ah Shin Park Reviewer: Amanda Zhu
This is my mountain,
Maungapōhatu.
This is my river, awa Ōhinemataroa.
This is my marae,
Te Rewa Rewa.
This is Ruatoki, where I was raised.
This is Ruatoki,
set in the valley at the mouth of Te Urewera,
our native forest
in the middle of North Island of New Zealand,
twice the size of Auckland,
25 times bigger than New York.
It is the ancestral home of my people,
Ngāi Tūhoe.
It is also known as Ngā Tamariki o te Kohu,
or 'the Children of the Mist'.
As a boy, I was raised by my grandparents
and spoke only Māori, like almost everyone in Ruatoki.
In our language,
we have this word that is very important.
You might have heard it before.
This word is 'mana'.
Everyone in this room,
everyone in this room has some form of mana.
Your mana,
your mana comes from knowing who you are,
where you come from
and your connection to your land,
whenua.
Mana grounds you.
Mana makes you solid.
Mana bridges you to your past, present and future.
We don't always have to agree.
Mana can be tested, even challenged,
but with respect and an understanding of one another's mana.
We are all equal.
We are all the same, on the same level.
Kanohi ki te kanohi tāngata ki te tāngata.
Eye to eye.
So school was a confusing time for me.
The rules and the regulations
didn't make sense at all, you know.
When I was eight,
the whole school was called to assembly.
And the headmaster got up and said,
'I will not allow you to speak Māori on my school grounds.
So if you continue to speak Māori,
you will remain after school and be punished.'
So I turn to my mates:
(Māori) 'I'll boil your head!'
'The hell is he on about?'
(Chuckles)
So we thought that was dumb, stupid.
So we wanted to test his mana,
so we disobeyed him
and spoke Māori to see what would happen.
We were given the choice of picking up horse manure
or ...
write 'I will not speak Māori'
a hundred times on the blackboard.
I must have written it a thousand times,
a thousand times,
and started to smell like a horse.
I did learn English.
But you know when you learn a new language
and pick up the swear words first?
(Laughter)
(Chuckles) That was us.
'Dickhead',
'bugger',
'shit stirrer'.
(Laughter)
At home, I learnt about my tīpuna -
ancestor, mountain, the river -
why these things are important to the mana of Tūhoe.
But at school,
I learnt 'Hey, Diddle, Diddle! The cat and the fiddle.
The cow jumped over the moon.'
(Laughter)
So Te Reo Māori comes from the sound of the birds.
I speak the same language as the tui,
as the kiwi bird.
Could the headmaster stop the bird from speaking the language too?
Don't be afraid to challenge someone trying to assert authority over you.
Just because someone has authority
does not mean that they have more mana.
If someone is asserting their authority,
they have to let go of respect and understanding to get their way,
and you are no longer equal.
Sixteen, going to Christchurch,
it was another kind of learning, education
to discover what's going on around the world:
people questioning authority about all kinds of things -
woman's liberation,
anti-apartheid,
the Vietnam War,
socialism and the rights of the working class.
I started to hear the story from other culture
that sound like old Tūhoe stories,
stories about stolen land, community displaced,
story about police brutality,
story about military rule.
I started to meet new people -
Māori, Pacific people, Pākehā -
standing against these things,
and they inspired me.
These were not just Māori issues;
they were global issues with global movements.
And in this time, I learnt the art of protest and political activism:
occupy their space so they can't avoid you,
draw attention to the issue, and then make them uncomfortable,
make them face you, and make your voice be heard.
If mana can be tested,
then you may have to prepare to defend it.
No one can tell you that you are not important
and that your experience does not matter.
And if they do,
I challenge them to say it to your face,
where they can see your eyes and feel your breath.
(Exhales)
Kanohi ki te kanohi tāngata ki te tāngata.
Eye to eye.
You have to keep the pressure on,
keep reminding people of the things that they would rather forget.
We had to constantly remind the Crown
that we were here and we're not going away,
that we needed to have a proper, you know, kōrero,
a conversation,
about the stuff that had gone down with our tīpuna, our ancestors.
I remember when the Crown went around the country,
they talk about the fiscal envelope.
This was the government offering amendment on the settlement on historical grievances
before they had even heard any claims.
I decided to make a counter offer for the return of our land -
my nephew's horse blanket.
But, when I arrived, this is what I saw:
The Crown sitting on the stage looking down at us.
We were not eye to eye;
we were not on the same level.
So, what this short-arse Tūhoe do when we're being talked down to?
(Chuckles)
(Laughter) (Applause)
He borrow a ladder.
Hey bro, can I borrow your ladder?
(Laughter)
This is the Honourable Doug Graham listening to my submission.
(Laughter)
This is Doug Graham taking my blanket.
Four years later,
here is the horse blanket,
hanging in the office of the Treaty Settlement in Wellington.
They had taken my blanket, frame it
and hung it on the wall as a piece of artwork.
(Laughter)
They had my blanket, but they still had the land.
So four years later,
what does a Tūhoe do when someone steals his horse blanket?
(Laughter)
He sent an invoice.
(Cheers) (Applause)
An expensive one too.
So it wasn't really because I wanted the money,
not at all.
I wanted to remind the Crown that until this was resolved,
they still had a debt to Tūhoe
and we are not going away,
just like this,
or this.
This is the Māori language petition, Hana Jackson, 1972.
The Māori Land March, Dame Whina Cooper, 1975.
Bastion Point, Takaparawhā, Ngāti Whātua,
1978.
The Springbok Tour, 1981.
The anti-nuclear campaign, 1985.
These are some of the political social movements
that have shaped the identity of this country,
not just because they had political opposition at that time,
but because other than eye to eye,
contrary to the realisation,
that the mana of the people
is equal to that of any authority.
So after 170 years of struggle -
(Applause)
So after 170 years of struggle,
of fighting for the mana of Tūhoe,
we finally got respect and understanding from the Crown.
We got this.
(Video) Mr. Finlayson: The Crown unreservedly apologises
for not having honoured its obligations to Tūhoe
under Te Tiriti o Waitangi
and profoundly regrets its failure
to appropriately acknowledge and respect te mana Motuhake o Tūhoe
for many generations.
(Applause)
Tame Iti: History has woven us together.
We are the basket, te kete, that holds the future.
We must acknowledge each other in this space,
right here in this space,
Kanohi ki te kanohi tāngata ki te tāngata.
Eye to eye.
(Māori) Rock on the mountain,
the Mataura River harbor,
the courtyard of the Rewa Rewa is white,
people are Tūhoe.
Thank you.
(Applause) (Cheers)