threat recognition

I have just posted this comment up on Maui Street in response to Muzza's latest post on corporate iwi elite - based on Annette Sykes Bruce Jesson lecture. Why would I bother arguing against such a thing as corporate iwi elite when I cannot stand injustice and inequality? Well for one thing the line is too pat, too easy to roll off the tongue - what does it actually mean?

The other main reason is I want to effect change and villifying people won't do that.

I’ve been considering this issue of corporate iwi elite for a while - I’d like to put a counter argument almost as a devils advocate.

Maori as people have all sorts of ideologies – they have evolved as we have and they are valid because at the core they incorporate Te Ao Maori. Do we really believe that Tuku Morgan or Mark Solomon have plans to make themselves billionaires whilst their people starve and suffer. Are the members of the ILG and all of the other ones scum who are betraying themselves and their people? Or is it that they are doing their best under an oppressive capitalist worldview, combined with the monumental effects of colonisation, to gather power and influence for maori. What influence do they actually have? What jet airplanes are they flying around in? Mark Solomon’s pay is in Ngai Tahu’s annual report along with all of the various ways the money is being spent to empower maori. So what is the story? They are victims like all maori because they are maori. They aren’t some powerful elite – they are ex truck drivers and school teachers who have been elevated to positions within their iwi. They didn’t ask the government to set up the corporate iwi structures – they were given them and we have seen the scrutiny they get and the ridicule when mistakes are made. By defining maori via class or some other western construct, we devalue our own heritage and kaupapa. We are maori that is the beginning and end of the story. We use whatever to further the empowerment of maori as we always have done. We use the throwaways they give us and we tunnel away and undermine their paltry agendas and when the dust is settled, maori are empowered.

So I let myself rant on a bit there - aroha mai. Just remember that IMO empowerment of maori, will empower us all and bring us all together - we are all connected on the same waka.

My point around the ranting is that the real enemies for all of us are capitalist, commodification, individualist, selfish and greedy ideologies - they are not maori constructs although some maori follow those false gods with vigour.

I oppose those false gods with vigour.