Labour Party - Speeches

Speech for the Nga Maata Waka 21st Century Education Wananga

31.07.2008

In their dreams, in their passion, in the way they shape the futures they desire.

In the face of the wretchedness of colonisation Maori have dared to dream, dared to create hope, dared to require education to create authentic pathways to new futures.

Not pathways which take us away from our ancestral past, in the misguided belief that the past is a romantic construct of little relevance to the contemporary condition.

But pathways which enable the past to build the present and illuminate the future.

On that journey Maori have asserted the right to name the world and experience it on our own terms: this niche is of increasing interest to the world.

That may be a surprise to some new Zealanders who seem unwilling, perhaps unable, to give credence to the contribution Maori people, Maori development, Maori leadership, Maori language, Maori knowledge and Maori aspirations have made to this country.

Central to this has been the Maori Renaissance and the programmes of Maori Development which emanated from it.

It is the year that the hikoi, the land march, was lead by the late Dame Whina Cooper, from Te Hapua in the north, to the steps of Parliament.

It was the year that Whakatupuranga Rua Mano: Generation 2000, an experiment in tribal development, for the confederation of tribes, that includes Ngati Raukawa, Ngati Toarangatira and Te Ati Awa, was launched.

E Whata, tenei te mihi ki a koe koutou ki nga iwi kua moemoea te kuapapa o Whakatupuranga Rua Mano.

As a response to the conference theme of `21^st Century' education I have entitled this address: `Whaia te whanuitanga me te hohonutanga o te matauranga', seek the breadth and depths of knowledge.

As we analyse the 21^st Century, my whakapapa calls me to be mindful of the 19^th and the 20^th centuries also.

History has shown us that there are lessons to be learned from the agenda's of the wider NZ society towards Maori in the 19^th and 20^th Century and from the response of our tipuna to them.

In the course of this address I aim to touch on those lessons in the light of the main themes I wish to explore.

We are not alone, as a nation, in facing the opportunities and challenges of bilingualism and biculturalism. The maintenance and revitalisation of ancestral languages is a critical issue for social and economic development in a global context.

In the 1970's and 80's biculturalism and bilingualism used to be argued for in the name of indigenous rights, natural justice, human and social rights, and education. In recent years there has been a changing discourse appearing around the concepts of biculturalism and bilingualism from economists and economic analyses.

Bilingualism and biculturalism are now being described as two of the major issues that we will grapple with into the next century because of changes to the world economy.

Over the last twenty years we have heard a range of reasons offered about why bilingualism and biculturalism were not real `economic' issues. They were not about jobs, employment, the labour market, the economy, the wider world. Economists, however, now argue that biculturalism and bilingualism are vital issues because of the role bilingual and bicultural people will play in the next cycle of world economic growth.

They argue that we are seeing the end of a growth cycle of about 200 years duration which was characterised by two significant features. First, it was dominated by English speaking countries. Second, it was an industrial revolution which began in the United Kingdom.

Economic leadership is no longer the prerogative of those for whom English is a first language. Major players in this new economic scenario are to be found in South East Asia. Those who are bilingual now have an edge, an economic edge. Bilingual people possess attitudes, values and predispositions towards other languages and cultures which form a particular kind of social capital.

The inclusive society of the future will be characterised by economic inclusiveness which builds on this social capital: where bilingualism and biculturalism will be critical indicators of wealth and and health.

Analyses of Maori Development usually take as the comparative frame of reference Western culture, including the English language.

What happens when we compare Maori language and culture, with the languages and cultures of those within our geographical region: South East Asia and the Pacific.

In this context Maori language and culture become more of a more valued asset. Linguistic and cultural similarities give Maori an edge in the South East Asian and Pacific marketplace. They create a niche which is now being explored in increasingly sophisticated ways.

Maori / Pacific comparative analyses and relationships are not new. They are part of the traditions of this region based in whakapapa and Maori epistemology. In social, cultural, economic and political affairs relationships between Maori and the Pacific Nations know many levels of connection and engagement.

The Takitimu Festival was launched in Parliament on June 24^th, with representatives of Ariki lines from the Cook Islands in attendance to give expression to the Takitimu links across Te Moana Nui A Kiwa. Due to be held in November of this year, the Takitimu Festival aims to bring together major tribal lines the have connections with Takitimu. Ngai Tahu, Ngapuhi, Ngati Kahungunu will join with the Cook Islands in these celebrations.

As we meet here in Christchurch representatives of the South Pacific are assembled in American Samoa to participate in the International South Pacific Arts Festival. As well as a major cultural forum, the Pacific Leaders Forum is being held concurrently. The occasion of that particular forum heightened in significance with the visit of the American Secretary of State Dr Condaleza Rice.

The Prime Minister leaves today for Tonga, to take part in the Coronation Celebrations of the King of Tonga. King Tuheitia is also part of the visiting party from this country maintaining through that visit the strong links that have been forged between the Tongan Royal Family and the late Te Arikinui Te Atairangikaahu.

Interesting opportunities for analysis are also to be found when Maori / Asian cultural frameworks are explored. Relationships, language and cultural values are critical features life and business in Asia.

On a recent trip to Japan I had the opportunity to observe these ideas in context: particularly the consideration of `mana' in the context of building and maintaining relationships.

The values, attitudes and behaviours which underpin Maori cultural views of mana, mana enhancing behaviour and the related phenomenon of whakama, find resonance in Asian cultures.

A focus on relationships, and the issue of respect, and respectful behaviour, can be considered alongside the issues of saving, and or losing face.

The cultural parameters of this analysis in Maori and Japanese contexts are arguably more similar than those between Maori and Western views. The `stiff upper lip' is not a very effective tool in situations requiring cross cultural communication or enhanced cultural literacy in all cultures!

As Associate Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage, I had the honour of launching the Splendours of Japan exhibition at Te Papa Museum recently. The exhibition was part of a cultural exchange between Te Papa and the Tokyo National Museum.

Splendours of Japan illuminated 5000 years of Japanese history. The exhibition showcased items seldom seen outside Japan, including three "national treasures" and seven items designated as "important cultural properties".

Alongside these treasures were numerous other fascinating objects. They ranged from stone-age tools to one of Japan's finest samurai swords and exquisite woodblock prints from the 1800s.

The following year a return exhibition of Maori artefacts was taken to Japan. For those who remember the Te Maori phenomenon, this was a visit of similar intent and impact.

Art, culture and taonga were vehicles through which ` te hohonutanga me te whanauitanga o te matauranga' were explored and appreciated by peoples of quite different cultures.

I travelled with King Tuheitia to Japan to launch that exhibition, on behalf of the Prime Minister, and to engage in high level Ministerial talks on behalf of the Government, with Japanese Ministers.

It was during one such set of talks that I had occasion to draw on the very depths of my upbringing at Parihaka to inform my conduct in some of the most high level discussions I have ever had occasion to be engaged in.

The NZ Government had sought the approval of the Japanese Government on a matter of national significance to NZ. The Minister I was meeting with gave that approval, on behalf of his Government, during our meeting.

At the conclusion of the meeting I presented him with taonga from this country, on behalf of the Government. Taonga which had been chosen because of their significance to us as Maori.

As I made the presentation to him I detected a major change in his persona. His eyes lowered and he was overcome with an emotion I recognised in an instant.

I could actually feel his physical state change in the engagement of that moment.

He indicated to me that he felt shame because he had no gift to give to me in return.

Those eyes lit up, he regained his sense of mana, of place, or presence and of face, and he greeted me anew in a way that signified that our relationship had been deepened by the successful negotiation of a potential cross cultural disaster.

His very personal comments were clearly directed at the cultural context in which I had been raised.

That context enabled me to respond to that moment as a Maori politician, drawing on the fullness that is matauranga Maori, rather than as a politician who happens to be Maori.

That moment was saved by the kuia and kaumatua at Parihaka who ensured that as children we were versed in the language and culture of our tipuna. That moment was theirs.

In the paper `The Future of Australasia', the Australian economist Ruthven identified that the end of the 200 year old cycle of world economic growth that has occurred in recent times was characterised by two features. It is to the second of those two features that I now wish to turn.

The second feature was that it was an industrial revolution which began in the United Kingdom.

A pivotal concept describing the new order of economic development was coined by futurist Alvin Toffler some years ago.

Simply put, he described the capitalist economic order of the past as having been based on the relationship between the bourgeoisie (the business owners) and the proletariat (the workers). He argued that this had changed dramatically in the new economic order.

The introduction of technology into the labour market has changed the value of `the physical muscle power' provided by the old proletariat. Much of that work, and its value, has gone forever from the labour market. Machines now lift and carry and dig in ways that previously required many hands.

What has emerged in its place is the need for new muscle power: this time of the intellectual kind ... the kind that enables effective minds to create original, innovative ideas and to contribute to market leadership through this innovation and change.

The old proletariat had `the option' to use education to upskill and reposition themselves in the new labour market to become this new group of workers whose power lies in their intellectual abilities.

Maori need to join the `cognatariat': skilled in how to be guided by our past and to create new futures from this.

The basic message is that in order to get on in life you need education you need to get a good job...

And, generations of Maori saw that it was not actually true: their uncles and fathers and brothers and sons, in the main, could and did get very high paying jobs in unskilled and semi skilled sectors of the labour market.

But those days are gone forever and the new messages must be taken into the heart of whanau / hapu / iwi / Maori quickly if we are not to see unemployment and being unemployable emerge as new ontological `characteristics' of `being Maori'.

No one knows where the next innovation, the next great idea, the next Albert Einstein, Mother Theresa or Te Whiti o Rongomai is going to come from.

In the quest for sustainable new futures there cannot be major resources left un -developed or under developed.

That is why the fragility of te reo rangatira and matauranga Maori renders unstable a whole way of looking at the world.

A unique, indigenous worldview, which may well contain the leading edge thinking that we seek as a nation.

Investment in te reo rangatira is investment in the social and economic future of this country as a potential global leader.

Investment in te reo rangatira is an investment in human capital, in whanau / hapu / iwi, for ideas are not borne in vacuums. They are nurtured, incubated, cogitated over in the original computer itself: the human brain.

They are not, these ideas the country so badly needs, born of machines. They are born of men and women and children, the human capital and resources of any society.

So it is to education that we turn for the systemic means to realise the full potential of our human capital, as Maori, and as New Zealanders.

In the interrelationships between language, culture and education are found the means to transmit bodies of knowledge from one generation, to the next.

Language and culture are the vehicles through which the future of a people, their unique and original view of the world, are articulated.

Globalisation challenges us to celebrate the truths that lie deep within our own culture.

Perhaps it is deep within Maori culture that the next great ideas will be sourced from.

As we move through the 21^st Century we have surely shed the colonial view that suggested that Maori futures lay in not being Maori.

To hold fast to who we are, in the face of globalisation, is to offer the world a unique, Maori view.

Our tipuna faced what was a strange new world with courage, entrepreneurship and creativity.

Speeches

Speech for the Nga Maata Waka 21st Century Education Wananga

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