fossgoss

I live in New Zealand, a multi-cultural society; the indigenous people being Maori. Most non - Maori New Zealanders descend from the English, who started colonising NZ from around 1860. Like most countries there have been some issues between the two groups, although I sincerely belive that we are, on a world scale, pretty good at respecting the indigenous culture; many of the wrongs of the past (eg. land confiscation) are being put right. And the Treaty of Waitangi, signed in the 1860's, is today being treated as 'current'. We have a way to go, but we are getting there. When the subject comes up, this is a story I like to tell:



A couple of thousand years ago, a group of Polynesians jumped in their waka and paddled South-East for a couple of thousand miles across the ocean to a land they had no idea existed.

Chance (or was it?) took them to 2 islands nestled under a long white cloud. Aotearoa. New Zealand.

Think about that for a moment.

What sort of courage and spirit did that adventure take?

To take to the Pacific for many months’ paddling without ever knowing if there was a land to be found. Never knowing what they would encounter. And knowing that when they stepped into that Waka, saying goodbye to loved ones – family and friends, those farewells would be final. They would never see those people again. Either they would find a new land or they would perish at the hands of the sea. There was no possibility of a return trip.

That is formidable spirit.

Now timeshift to about 165 years ago when a group of English people boarded a sailboat at Portsmouth’s harbour.

Their destination was a new land. Aotearoa, inhabited only by tribes of ‘natives’ or, ‘savages’ as was the disparaging term of the day.

This was another one way trip.

When these people said goodbye to their loved ones, family and friends, this too would be a final farewell. They would never see them again. There was scant, if any, chance of a return voyage.

To board that ship took a formidable spirit.

Perhaps we, the offspring of these two disparate groups of voyagers share more than we may suspect: our spirit. For since then, we have shared our blood and many of our people share the spirit and the makeup of these two groups. It is in our genes.

There was another aspect that was shared. Both groups were bred in a hierarchal society. Maori were warriors. Toa. The strong led. The weak were slaves. You accepted your position on the hierarchal scale without question.
This was Tikanga.

The English too, were hierarchal. Working class. Middle Class. Upper Class. You knew your place and stayed there. You moved only with your own. Tradesmen’s entrance.

This was the way of things.

Boarding the boat there were no upper classes, this was a strictly working class adventure with the allure of, perhaps, a better life.


The obvious happened when the two ‘tribes’ met. They both understood hierarchy.

But the English saw an immediate opportunity. For these natives were, in their opinion, stuck in the Stone Age. The English were from the Industrial Age – leagues ahead in ‘development’ as they saw it. That made them ‘better’.
It did not take the working class English long to establish a new hierarchy; one that they saw with themselves at the top of the order. Top dogs for the first time in their lives.

The respectful Maori were of course wooed somewhat by the English, by the ‘white man’s magic’. For these pale newcomers had a written language. Books – one called the Bible with a God that seemed to be The God. They wore fabrics, materials never seen before. They had eyeglasses. And, they had guns; unbelievably efficient weapons. It all seemed like magic. The deals were struck and Maori, very quickly, accepted their position in the new hierarchy. And that was squarely below the English.

And they did accept it. On the new criteria how could they possibly compete?


This was just five or six generations ago.

Following hierarchal rules, the Pakeha, the top o’ the heap, quickly and consistently cast Maori as second class to themselves. And because Maori were already subscribers to hierarchal structures, many of them believed they were second-class. Mostly, they accepted the status. No argument.

As did their children who were taught to accept the fact that they were second-class.

As did their children. And their children. And their children.

It is only with the most recent generations that this status has been, rightfully, challenged.

But, the price of this breeding, this belief, has been heavy.

First, understand this: It’s not that Maori did not want to compete with and equal Pakeha, it’s just that they did not believe they could.


This belief was then passed on through the generations.

And this is why Maori head the stats in the likes of failing at Education (a system that once outlawed their own language!). The stats in unemployment, crime and violence are, also, not good. Maori feature heavily.

But dammit, that was always going to happen in the system that started in around 1860. In any hierarchal culture, the stats will always be weighted heavily towards the lower classes. Always. Is that so hard to understand?

And ‘lower’ is exactly where those English - who disembarked the boat from Portsmouth – put the Maori.


It is time to rectify.

Where (some) Maori have been left behind, we need to open the path to a step up. At the same time we have to inspire any Maori that believes him or herself to be ‘lower class’, that this is not so. Ki te taumata.


* * * *

I am walking through a mall.

It is 1.37 am on a wet Tuesday morning and I am staggering a little. Drunk. Looking for a cab. My suit is crumpled.

I look up to see someone else, drunk, walking towards me. We are the only two people in the mall.

He is a big man.

He wears a leather jacket with a large logo on the back; wears it all the time.

He wears something else that he will never take off: a full face Moko.

I suddenly sober.

I have nothing in common with this man.

I feel intimidated, scared.

As we pass, I keep eyes down, praying that nothing happens.

But it does.

“Got a spare smoke bro?” he asks.

I give him a Dunhill Red, pass the lighter.

“Thanks man.”

“That’s cool.”

And on we walk. Phew!

Suddenly, I find that I am walking on the Moon. Totally alone. Strangely, there is air to breathe.

After days of walking, aimlessly, alone, I see him in the distance, walking towards me.

He is a big man.

He wears a leather jacket with a large logo on the back; wears it all the time.

He wears something else that he will never take off: a full face Moko.

I feel incredible joy.

I have everything in common with this man.

We are from the same place, yeah, that blue planet over yonder.

We run towards each other, laughing.

We hug.

We look back at Earth.

Yes, it is where we are from.

We share the same home.

We share the same spirit as our one-way-voyaging forbears, a spirit we have bred through generations.

Our planet is small, distant. Still blue.

Yet when we view it from the Moon, we instantly realise that the world is one small place. And that its people are one.

No matter how different, we are the same.

All it takes is a little perspective to realise it.