The Ultimate Iwi News NZ

It’s easy to write off iwi news as copy-and-paste PR noise. Every so often, some government minister or politician releases a press release announcing something new they’re doing to help Māori. The standard response is to mock the announcement as a campaign promise that will never be implemented. This is understandable: most government policies aimed at helping Māori are, in this sense, worthless promises. But there’s more to it than that. A lot more. Why? Because on another level, these announcements symbolize a major shift in how we approach Māori issues and what our collective vision for the future should look like. The first reason this is good news is that it means we’re finally starting to move away from thinking about Māori only in isolation and toward thinking of them holistically and collectively.

Separation is not the answer

If you want to fix a problem with another person, you need to work with that person. You don’t want to disrupt their lives or force them to change because that doesn’t work any more than it does for you. If you want to change the way things are, then you need to address the reasons why things are the way that they are. If you want to fix the Māori social breakdown problem, you need to address Māori isolation. You can’t try to fix the problem by trying to fix the symptoms. One of the reasons many of these announcements are met with cynicism and cynicism is because they arise from the belief that it’s all we’re doing. We should acknowledge that in many ways, many of these policies and announcements do address isolated aspects of the problem. But acknowledging this doesn’t mean we should stop trying to solve the problem.

Māori are not just tangata Whenua

Not too long ago, it would have been very difficult to imagine pronouncing Māori as a subject of study of its own. We’re no longer in a world where courses on Māori Studies can be seen as an affront to the intelligence of the average student. But there was a time when the idea of doing a course on Māori Studies could be considered radical, challenging, and even offensive. The idea that Māori is a separate cultural subject that deserves its course was a controversial subject in education. This is still the case; some people still believe this is an affront to the authority of the mainstream curriculum. Yet these policies and announcements are an important step toward normalizing and recognizing the unique culture and history of Māori. They are a step towards accepting that while Māori, on the whole, traditionally live in New Zealand, they are not just New Zealand citizens. They’re New Zealanders with a unique history and culture.

Dealing with our past to build a better future

A lot of the discussions around these policies have been about how they address the past and how they prevent things like the recent review of the redress process from exploding into a racial conflict. This is a good thing, and it’s an important step. But it’s also important, from a Māori perspective, to remember that these policies and announcements are not just a gesture of goodwill. They are steps toward tackling the systemic issues that have led to our current social breakdown. The reason we have these policies and announcements is that these issues are not just about the past but the future. The prime minister, in his announcement of the policy, referenced how “New Zealanders want to know that their government is taking strong action to prevent the next generation from suffering the same fate as those who came before them.” You can’t fix a problem if you don’t know it exists. Like many other issues, these policies are a step toward acknowledging that we need to look at how we can prevent these issues from occurring in the future.

The Iwi and Hapū Share the Same Role Model

There is a lot of discussion in New Zealand around the role of iwi. Less often discussed is the role that hapū plays in Māori society. The role of iwi is more clear-cut than the hapū model. An iwi is a group of people who share the same historical heritage; it is a cultural group. A hapū is a group of people who share a common ancestor; it is a cultural group. These two models are distinguished by their relationship to the people who are members of them: an iwi is a group of people linked by ancestry, while a hapū is a group of people linked by a familial connection. This distinction is important. It is common for Māori leaders and experts to confuse the two models, and this leads to a lot of confusion. Sometimes, the discussion of iwi is used to mean interchangeably hapū and iwi, but this is a mistake.

Conclusion

A lot of these policies arise from a sense of responsibility that many Māori feels for the lack of success in our Māori population and the high rates of poverty and social exclusion. They arise from a desire to tackle these issues head-on and find solutions. This is a good thing. We need to remember that Māori issues are issues, just like any other, and they can be solved with good policies, good leadership, and good engagement. It’s just that they need to be addressed in a way that recognizes their significance and significance to Māori. This is a good step toward doing that.

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