It has been more than a little bit heartbreaking seeing the fear and frustration from students post-NZ election. Many of my students are fierce climate activists, proud tangata whenua, queer, trans and/or advocates against social injustice. One came up to me after class recently and said in a panic, will National really get rid of the Treaty of Waitangi? I tried to reassure her that it was 1. actually an Act policy and 2. extremely unlikely to happen.
We recently held a mock election at kura, and if my school’s Y7-13s dictated NZ’s parliament make up, we’d have 58 Green seats, 22 Labour seats, 14 TOP seats, and a spirited opposition from the Legalise Cannabis party, with 26 seats.
In light of Aotearoa’s recent election results, I wanted to share some thoughts from watching Whina (2022) earlier this year.
The Importance of Whina
I cannot believe I waited almost a year to watch this movie. Some overwhelming feelings came out of this… firstly, I feel so ignorant. I’m a Pākehā teacher of te reo Māori, and often (usually to other white people) this means I’m viewed as culturally knowledgeable, automatically anti-racist, and Doing It Right. I aspire to these things for sure, but I am buy no means a māngai and I have bucketloads to learn about where I sit, and how to hold myself in this world.
I got a keen sense of the deep injustice underpinning our nation’s history. Theoretically I am aware of it, to a degree, all the time, but it’s always art that jolts me back to feeling it viscerally, under the skin. This nauseous feeling that wrongdoing has been done by Pākehā for so long that we just barely keep it in our consciousness most of the time. It’s ignorance at best, often it’s also wilfully looking away, sweeping it under the rug – relegating it to the past. It takes a lot of emotional energy to stay angry enough to fight, and the question then becomes what do we do? Who are we fighting? What would be fruitful? Where, if anywhere, are Pākehā wanted by Māori in the fight to restoration and reconciliation?
When I was a teacher in training, I came across a Model of Healing in Kia Hiwa Rā by Angus Macfarlane. It’s as pertinent as ever, and it speaks to the different pathways to reconciliation and restoration that Māori and Pākehā take due to their differing experiences, feelings and relationship to colonisation.
People lift Aotearoa up as a front runner for indigenous rights globally – “we’re strides ahead of Australia”, but since when did our measure of success come from how our older sibling is doing? That’s like saying, I’m the best at reading because my brother can’t read for shit.
If you haven’t already seen We Are Still Here (2022), I highly recommend you watch. It’s currently streaming on Netflix, as well as five other platforms. It’s a clever, poignant, and at times, harrowing collection of short films spotlighting stories of indigenous people from Aotearoa, Australia and the South Pacific stretching across time and place. You can read more about it on NZ Film.
Climate Confessions
In a not wholly unrelated realm, I return to Recently, a student at school sent a survey around about attitudes towards Greta Thunberg. When asked to describe my perspective, I wrote:
“[Greta Thunberg] is trail blazer and a change-maker. Throughout history, the people we celebrate as most influential are almost always seen to be “going too far”, pushing boundaries, challenging pre-established norms, and even breaking the law [at the height of their activism]. (Think apartheid, NZ’s Homosexual Law Reform, the ongoing fight for transgender rights, Māori Land March, Ihumātao, etc etc) I wish I had her guts and her stamina to fight for the climate the way she does.”
I noticed Greta’s twitter bio today said “I was born at 375 ppm”. Not to make a distasteful pun or anything, but that’s chilling. The idea that one day we might refer to our own lives in relation to a steadily climbing measure of atmospheric carbon. (If you’re not sure what the heck she’s on about, that’s a reference to the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere at the time of her birth in January 2003.)
Out of curiosity, I learned I was born at 363.48 ppm. [source] Today, there are 416.43 ppm of carbon in the atmosphere. This fundamentally does not slay, in the words of the rangatahi.
There are so many things I love about Greta’s activism. For starters, she is unashamedly out about being autistic – something I am open about online, but keep relatively private in my day to day life. Unfortunately, there is a lot of ignorance out there, assumptions made, and discrimination from even the most well-meaning people.
Secondly, she is blunt, to the point and her words follow her actions whole-heartedly. There’s always a certain amount of guilt and cognitive dissonance I employ when I book a flight up to see my whānau, plan an overseas holiday, or fill my old boi Swift up with 91 yet again. Greta is undeterred by accruing a criminal record for her protests, has garnered the attention of world leaders nationwide, and she doesn’t mince words when asked for her perspective on Jacinda Ardern, for example. She commented:
“It’s funny that people believe Jacinda Ardern and people like that are climate leaders. That just tells you how little people know about the climate crisis.” Thunberg says that she ignores words and sentiments: “Obviously the emissions haven’t fallen. It goes without saying that these people are not doing anything.” In fact, New Zealand’s greenhouse-gas emissions had increased by 2% in 2019.
Bloody gutsy, that is. But is she wrong?
It honestly fucks me off how much she has had to and continues to put up with when it comes to online (and in person) hate and trolls intentionally seeking to get a reaction for their own sick enjoyment. That’s true of pretty much anyone who stands for anything and gets enough publicity about it, but it resonates with me personally when it’s a cause as crucial as this and a neurodivergent person taking a stand.
Concluding Thoughts
Wrapping this one up is proving to be a difficult beast, but I will say that, as if it weren’t already obvious – I don’t have the answers, and I don’t have a lot of optimism to share, but I hope my words can make my fellow climate anxious rangatahi, haumi and nature admirers feel seen and heard. We’re in it together xo
The Black Eyed Peas 2009 hit “Where is the Love?” has never felt so relevant:
I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder
As I’m gettin’ older, y’all people gets colder
Most of us only care about money-makin’
Selfishness got us followin’ the wrong direction
Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria
Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema
Whatever happened to the values of humanity?
Whatever happened to the fairness and equality?
Instead of spreading love, we spreading animosity
Lack of understanding leading us away from unity
That’s the reason why sometimes I’m feelin’ under
That’s the reason why sometimes I’m feelin’ down
It’s no wonder why sometimes I’m feelin’ under
Gotta keep my faith alive ’til love is found
bohemianhumanist.com 