Grievances Should Not Be Finite

Te Tiriti O Waitangi is a document heralded by the crown as a legislative act allowing the crown to manufacture a seemingly equitable governmental landscape between tangata whenua and the British. The reality for Māori, however, has been a consistent and systematic institutionalised denigration of te ao Māori, as well as a generational subjugation under British rule (Stephenson, 2001). Wally Penetito gives an in depth and critical account of the effect this has had on Māori since the arrival of the English in his publication, What’s Māori About Māori Education? (2010). The current educational landscape, he argues, is designed to provide an environment where Māori are unable to achieve through a forced engagement with a Pākeha framework which works to suppress Māori identity (and thus cultural equanimity) through subsequent breaches of the Treaty agreement of tino rangtiratanga (2010). If we are to examine the validity of adherence to the Treaty through the lens of education, it is exceedingly obvious that not only are the rights of Māori to learn as Māori significantly impeded through eurocentricity, but also stymied through an institutional racism which is pervasive throughout New Zealand society. The current social zeitgeist reinforces deficit views of Māori, and places the onus back on tangata whenua to be responsible not only for the socio-economic impact on standardised educational ‘performance’, but the apparent lack of achievement by Māori learners. Walker concludes that education in Aotearoa is a tool used by the state to dilute Māori cultural practice (and identification) through the application of a Eurocentric ‘norm’, and to socialise Māori as a sub-equal labour force (1999). Despite several decades of well meaning task forces and ministry reports, it remains clear that Māori education is a Pākeha invention; a motion of paternalistic hegemony that attempts to placate through passive and subliminal denigration of the Māori identify (Penetito, 2010).

Schools assert what assimilation practices will be used to socialise indigenous children into a colonised society (Stephenson, 2001). Through education, the Pākeha government has ensured a systematic dismantling of the Māori identity through a re-socialisation into a Eurocentric world. With a dilution of ‘Māori-ness’, where the more Pākeha you become, the higher your likelihood of success is, the duality of Māori existence emerged. Through Te Tiriti, iwi’s autonomous governance was removed, and a colonising force began to attempt to extinguish the threat to the crown (i.e. Māori identity and tino rangatiratanga/mana ariki) (Penetito, 2010). The process of engagement with the Treaty was primitive, hasty, and ill designed (on behalf of the crown) post-Declaration of Independence, and the crown failed to have both documents aligned to ensure all signing parties were not only aware, but in full understanding of the immediate and future impacts of the apparent cessation of sovereignty (versus governance) on Māori and British alike. Durie asserts that the ‘two-tiered’ society that emerged from the misaligned translations of the Treaty created a privileged versus non-privileged class system, whereby Māori became the denounced and condemned (2013). Not only did Māori have to navigate a startlingly asymmetrical (and now legal) document, the British also introduced constitutional barriers to Māori self-actualisation and self-sufficiency under crown rule. The 1852 Constitution Act created barriers for Māori to have the right to vote (and thus have a voice) under the newly formed government, and provided the basis for the current racist views that Māori were complicit in their own cultural genocide (Durie, 2013). The incongruence of the various legislative changes made by the crown identify how the impetus of Te Tiriti was never to create an equitable foundation for co-growth of Māori and Pākeha together in a new nation; it was instead to have a thinly veiled legal green light to effect colonial change whilst being applauded for the apparently liberal approach to indigenous rights. The British were aware that Māori would not cede sovereignty to the crown as it appears in the English version, and the translational discrepancies between the two versions readily exemplify this (Penetito, 2010). This reflects current educational legislation, whereby tokenistic implementation of tikanga into classrooms is sporadic at best, and otherwise largely non-existent. By continuing to fail to value the Māori identity as valid and equal to Pākeha, the government reinforces the less-than effect of the Eurocentric majority (Durie, 2013).

Profit driven colonialism has worked as a benchmark for the neoliberal framework of modern mainstream education, moving further and further away from te ao Māori. The burden on Māori of the contradiction of Treaty agreements is pivotal to the institutionalisation of a capitalist economic system, and to the imposition of a centralised Pākeha state (Stephenson, 2001). Stephenson goes on to note that the Native Schools Act of 1867 was a way of quelling generational resistance to the sovereign right of the Pākeha government as sole governing power, which later builds into the role-assignment through deficit thinking of Māori as labourers, shearers, and, at best, secretaries (2001). Cultural transformation was used as a polite way of affirming cultural genocide in the reimagining of Māori as loyal British subjects within a European norm. Education was used as a form of social control in remote and impoverished settler schools, with the state using active intervention of education by making education both free and compulsory nationwide (making colonisation compulsory for Māori) (Stephenson, 2001 & Penetito, 2010). School thus became a vehicle through which the state was able to create “the New Zealand nation” and the duties and obligations of citizenship which held steadfast to a Eurocentric base of centrality, from which Māori were ultimately excluded whilst remaining ‘Māori’ (Stephenson, 2001). Through a form of social segregation through institutional education, the eugenically focused ‘racial fitness’ of hierarchal labour roles was imposed upon Māori, sentencing the indigenous to the third class. The Pākeha world is individualistic and monotheistic in sharp contrast to te ao Māori (Walker, 1999). With the state as the centralised production of knowledge, the transmission of a sanitised version of Pākeha cultural history through state sanctioned curriculum ensures the gaslighting of a painful Māori history, which seeks to erase and ignore the current racist social climate in Aotearoa (Walker, 1999). A first-hand account of the Māori experience is widely challenged by Pākeha unwilling to examine the unsavoury actions of their ancestors in relation to their point of privilege – a foundation built on the shoulders of Māori.

Māori self-determination is a driving force behind initiatives such as kohanga reo and kura Kaupapa (Durie, 1995). Despite existing within a Pākeha educational framework, the barriers Māori have had to face to implement these have been immense. Bureaucratic and policy hurdles means that the neo-liberal approach (and thus business model) of Māori-centric schooling remains entrenched in a non-Māori stronghold (Durie, 1995 & Penetito, 2010). If we first turn to the Ministry of Education as a governing body in Aotearoa, its focus on biculturalism and multiculturalism reality identifies a ‘post-biculturalism’ as markedly lacking in Māori actualisation as either a parallel or an independent and ‘zeitgeistic-ally’ valid concept (Durie, 1995). Within the Ministry of Education (and other government sectors), Pākeha commodification of Māori intellectual labour through state-hiring of vast numbers of Māori staff is a coopting of personnel who were subsequently unable to fully participate in iwi initiatives (furthering the assimilation into the colonising majority). The emotional labour of Māori thus doubled by the duality of existing in a Pākeha framework whilst having to be performatively, yet unobservedly, Māori. Hidden behind a shroud of altruism and a misguidedly liberal attempt to provide Māori with an equitable foundation to exist successfully within a Eurocentric framework disallows an effective dialogue on this commodification. The trickle down effect of this, naturally, occurs within schools, where brief tokenistic acquisitions of tikanga and Māori concepts fall woefully short of a valid and holistic implementation within and around curriculum and daily school life. Penetito identifies the various (and lengthy) policies, practices, and strategies that have been implemented to improve and encourage participation in mainstream education, however the prioritising of Pākeha education over Māori, as well as the enforcement of institutionalisation over Māori-centric schooling centres ensures that degree of control and educational amalgamation (2010). Durie notes that these legislative barriers show an effort is being made to “deprive Māori learners of the opportunity to study through the medium of te reo Māori” (2010). This denial of a taonga is a direct misadherence to te Tiriti, and identifies how the crown remains focused on erroneous issues of social policy, rather than the advancement of tikanga and te ao Māori through an equitable implementation into educational policy . Through this concerted effort, the crown has been able to begin a cultural dissimilation of Māori through a Eurocentric forced assimilation of European norms, and a vicious denigration of tikanga and te ao Māori. True acculturation has been the only way forward in a non-subordinate role for Māori into mainstream society, furthering the initial goals of those who created Te Tiriti. 

Pākeha well meaning, yet misguided initiatives such as the implementation of institutional marae as an effective halfway point for Māori existing within a Pākeha centric elitist institution (such as a university) show that the belief of how Māori exist as Māori is perceived as performative and ritualistic – shallow in its endeavour. Institutional marae belong to the institution they are situated upon – usually a Pākeha, elitist body that is using tikanga in a tokenistic application of an apparent movement into an equitable future, or as a ‘halfway house’ for Māori and Pākeha alike to engage in a watered down and out of context Māoridom (Penetito, 2010). Penetito continues to identify how tauiwi are often compulsorily engaged in enforced weekends away on these marae, which are an exercise in endurance and seek only to highlight the discomfort of tauiwi in te ao Māori, furthering the mission of eurocentricity to magnify its lack of usefulness in current society (within multiculturalism) (2010). We need to ensure that Māori culture remains intact through strengthening and preservation, rather than coopting and assimilation/integration. Assimilationist policies make it easier to transition from the Māori to the Pākeha world with a shedding of an indigenous identity, but make it increasingly difficult to live as Māori within a Pākeha societal framework, or for tauiwi to conceptualise the importance of Māori to exist as Māori (Penetito, 2010). There is an evident lack of a mirror in Pākeha education that reflects te ao Māori in anything relatable aside from tokenistic displays of “kotahitanga” as a school value, an award winning kapa haka group, or an institutional marae. This means that Māori struggles will consistently be seen as performative as the perceived benefit of its cultural assimilation and implementation.

Pākeha education is designed and administered through the Eurocentric norm, with Māori expected to either keep up or step off, with any perceived failure deemed to be the fault of the individual and/or the whānau, not the context in which they are placed. Māori students are transformed from ‘learners’ into subjects, items to be studied and counted towards a badge of either woe (and more funding) or cultural ‘celebration’ (and praise from the liberal white majority). How does the identification of the Māori self-as-an-other influence the acquisition of Pākeha concepts through a Eurocentric education system? The overwhelming evidence shows that this duality, alongside the endurance of living under a racist government, has a markedly negative effect on rangatahi and tamariki in mainstream schooling (Penetito, 2010 & Stephens, 2001). The imposed versus chosen identity of Other or Assimilated mean that rangatahi are having to adopt a contorted identity that traverses their varied environments, social expectations, and responsibilities; all whilst having to learn and develop as teens. Most of us are awkward and difficult during these years without the added pressures of invisible, yet enormous social navigation. We as a society need to move away from the reductionist views of tokenistic cultural value for Pākeha and their comfort with te ao Māori, instead moving into a Māori driven, Māori influenced mode of education as a norm, not a ‘character’ or ‘charter’ environment. Pākeha arranged Māori education is a system designed for failure. Students are disenfranchised and disempowered, yet held to squeaky clean standards of character, whilst at the same time having the expectational bar set so low that to exceed this is surprising to the euro-norm at every turn. This systemic failure is comprehensive, and biased failures in the system evidence that these systemic failures serve an interest for someone/something (Penetito, 2010). Penetito notes that the Waitangi Tribunal found that “judged by the system’s own standards, Māori children are not being successfully taught, and for this reason alone, quite apart from the duty to protect the Māori language, the education system is being operated in breach of the Treaty” (2010). He also believes that “the existing system is based around a regulatory framework that at best maintains Māori communities at the margins of society, and at worst converts Māori individuals into brown-skinned Pākeha (2010). If we apply the ‘logic of sameness’ to Aotearoa, the existence of Māori as Māori cannot be conceptualised outside of a Pākeha framework (Penetito, 2010). Thus, for Māori to be currently viewed as a self-actualising entity, the Eurocentric norm needs to be dismantled and reimagined as cooperative rather than authoritive, with the removal of the coercive and exclusive ideal as Pākeha education being both essential and valuable to Māori above a Māori centred education for success in future endeavours.

Penetito’s work collates the Pākeha centric reports on Māori education which are driven by global change, rather than the identification of a need for an equitable indigenous educational framework in New Zealand (2010). He identified that, whilst there was an acknowledgement of the need for tikanga in relation to Māori in education, that the success of Māori and the responsibility for academic achievement remained with Māori (without the need for a critical examination into the factors that inhibit this). There were few Māori involved in the application of these early reports. The move towards a neo-liberal framework and business model of education becomes apparent in the reports in the 1980’s, such as the Picot Report in 1988, which had a majority of businessmen on the taskforce, as opposed to Māori educators/iwi (2010). Whilst the Picot Report accurately identified the need for the imminent inclusion of te reo in schools for Māori to build on as learners, it did so through a business model that identified simple and (seemingly) obvious suggestions for educational utopia without having the knowledge or the understanding of how this translates in front-line teaching within the current social context. This is critically consistent in education ‘reform’ (for lack of a better word) and feeds into the view of policy makers being overtly optimistic at best, and woefully out of touch at worst. Highly revolutionary at the time, due to its blatant identification of the need for a change in establishment, its application has unfortunately not been reflected in current practice. Penetito builds on this by stating the partnerships suggested in the report ended between bureaucratic institutions. He also notes that Te Tiriti remains as a component of rhetoric, rather than reality in adherence to Māori education (2010). A continued lack of goal oriented approaches to educational equity are apparent in further reports (Māori Education Commission Report, 1998-1999) where the nuances of the inequality and its impact on educational achievement in Māori are further identified, however despite critical acknowledgement there has been no real change incited from Ministry-driven reports. Kaupapa Māori schools have circumnavigated a Pākeha framework with which to input Māori concepts, as opposed to constructing Māori-based schools with foundations in tikanga and iwi involvement (Penetito, 2010). These reports identify the power indifference of the overarching structure, and how Māori are often requested and required to be teachers to Pākeha of te ao Māori so it can be firmly ignored in its application to educational equity and progress. Penetito relates this back to Hobson’s encapsulation of Māori as “New Zealanders” in signing te Tiriti, and ceding apparent sovereignty (versus rangatiratanga and mana ariki) to the crown. He iwi tahi tātou is espoused by racist Pākeha nationwide when discussing Māori centric issues that require even a shred of empathetic reasoning.

Disestablishment of the current monocultural educational (and governmental) framework is essential to rebuilding a foundation where Māori can learn and succeed as Māori alongside Pākeha in education and society. The immediate need is for a transformation of a mass consciousness – the social zeitgeist of Aotearoa into equity, instead of the ill-informed and misguided attempts at perceived equality√. Dismantling the status quo, the cultural binary, where one must exist exclusive at one end of a continuum that is heavily weighted towards the Pākeha side (where the more ‘Māori’ you go, the more the odds are stacked against you) is essential for its success. This binary will remain diametrically opposed in its application, hence the viability of any hope of equity in comparison to this cultural duality being mutually exclusive in its wish/need for survival. The dichotomy of Pākeha education will continue to fail, marginalise, and denigrate Māori until the hegemonic approach to education is reimagined to provide for all, not just Pākeha in its constitution.

References:

Durie, M.H. (1995). Beyond 1852: Māori, the state and a New Zealand constitution. Sites no. 30. Autumn.

Flears, A. & Spoonley, P., (1999). Maori policy: reconstructing a relationship. In Fleras, A., & Spoonley, P. (1999). Recalling Aotearoa : indigenous politics and ethnic relations in New Zealand, pp 185-227. Melbourne ; Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1999.

McFarlane, A.H., (2015). Restlessness, Resoluteness and Reason: Looking Back at 50 Years of Maori Education. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 50 (pp.177-193).

Penetito, W. (2010). Whats Māori about Māori education? the struggle for a meaningful context. Wellington, N.Z: Victoria University Press.

Shield, C.M.,R. & Mazawi, A.E. (2005) Pathologizing practices: The impact of deficit thinking on education (Chapter 1 pp. 1-22). New York: Peter Lang.

Stephenson, M. (2001). Education and creating New Zealanders. Paper presented at NZARE conference, Christchurch, New Zealand. Retrieved from http://www.nzabe.ac.nz/conferences/2001/a_main_frameset.htm 

Walker, R.J. (1999). Māori sovereignty, colonial and post colonial discourses in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In P. Havemann (Ed) Indigenous peoples rights (pp 108-122).Auckland: Oxford University Press.