Robin Bargh
Publisher, Huia Publications

Mãori in NZ today and in the future

I am going to speak this morning about my view of Mãori in New Zealand today and in the future. I'd like to start by asking you all to close your eyes and imagine a Mãori girl, aged 20 - 22.

Slide of Mãori physicist

So much of the world today is about perception. We have a lucrative and competitive advertising industry based on this very fact.

I worked for seven years in the New Zealand Public Service. Much of this time was spent looking for ways to address the Mãori 'problem'. And we spent much of our time searching for answers to this problem. We read, we talked, we went on marae and Treaty courses. We tried to identify the barriers to Mãori. I finally left the Public Service, sure of only one thing: not much of this was helping many Mãori I knew. The number of Mãori public servants hadn't even increased significantly, despite my having been on hundreds of interview panels.

There had to be another way, I didn't know exactly what it was but I was fairly sure that it fell within the concept of 'tino rangatiratanga'. Since then I have come to understand two important themes that have influenced my thinking, and more recently the work I do.

Slide 2 - KKM children

1. Mãori have made progress when we have taken the initiative and done it ourselves. The best examples of this are the Mãori language initiatives: Kohanga reo, kura kaupapa Mãori, and whare wãnanga but there are also many successful Mãori health and other initiatives. For some of these, the Government has come in later with funding support. There are sometimes a few problems on the way, but the overall impact on Mãori education or health is much more positive than what has been done previously by the mainstream system.

   Slide 3 - Mãori Factory Manager

2. Secondly, so much of our world is about perception, as the first slide showed. Images of Mãori have been created by historical images, tourism, the media, and statistics - endless negative statistics of Mãori in health, education, employment, justice. While you may argue that these reflect the facts; I think the relationship between so called 'facts' and people's perceptions are not as clear cut as they may seem.

   So we have set out to change perceptions, not just of the general population but also the Mãori view of ourselves. The way we are doing that is through the arts, through language and literature - through stories in books and educational resources, through theatre and through broadcasting. If all of these images are conveyed in English and in Mãori we are also creating a bilingual world, a world in which bilingualism can come to be valued. In doing all this, I believe that we are enabling Mãori to better contribute to society and the economy, both national and global.

I am going to give some specific examples from my work which exemplify what I mean.

Slide 4 - Huia Short Story Awards

Huia Short Story Awards

Huia Publishers began in 1991 with the intention of publishing Mãori writers to fill the gap we had identified in New Zealand literature. It quickly became clear that Mãori writers were not easy to find. That is, we could not find them in the same way that, say, Victoria University Press does, by aligning ourselves with Bill Manhire's university Creative Writing course. The same course that has produced Elizabeth Knox, Catherine Chidgey or Emily Perkins. We had to think of some other way. So we created the Huia Short Story Awards and this year, the third year of the Awards, we had 435 entries from Mãori writers in both English and Mãori languages.

Last Saturday night we had the Awards presentation evening. It is a fairly modest affair and does not compare with the Oscars or even the MDC Mãori Sports Awards. But for the writers who received awards it is one of the most inspiring things that has happened in their lives.

Slide 5 - KKM kids

Educational Resources in Mãori language

We are developing educational resources for use in Mãori medium schools. These resources have been developed for the Ministry of Education, and in association with a growing network of Mãori medium teachers. The resources pick up on some of our key themes:

• They are all written in Maori language.
  • We believe that New Zealanders need to value bilingualism and appreciate the broadening of understanding which that brings. It does not matter whether the second language is French or Japanese, but in New Zealand it may as well be Mãori. Huia resources are written in Mãori. As a result, we are developing the language skills of teachers, students and resource developers as well as developing the language itself, in this process.

    Slide 6 - Mãori Marine Biologist

    In Huia resources we deliberately use images of Mãori as physicists, chemists, biologists, computer systems managers as well as pilots and business managers so Mãori students, and their teachers and families, can imagine a future of active participation.

    Slide 7 of Bilingual computer scientist and commerce student

• We work to expand the range of Mãori role models. How many Mãori children have seen images of Mãori as scientists, pilots, business people?

  Slide 8 of Mãori pilot - role model

  A few years ago I was asked by Te Puni Kokiri to record and publish the proceedings of a hui of Mãori mathematicians, scientists and technologists. I am ashamed to say that I smiled to myself and went off to the hui thinking how many could there be? There were over 100 there and, as a result we persuaded TPK to publish a book containing profiles of ten of these scientists, selected at random. We needed to know how they came to be scientists. The stories make for grim reading. Few went directly from school into a career in science. And worst still, few were encouraged to do science by their teachers.

  Slide 9 of traditional knowledge

• That is not to say that we don't value traditional Mãori knowledge. Mãori students need to understand the importance and validity of Mãori traditional knowledge. For example, Jamie Belich's interpretation of sophisticated Mãori warfare technology is now well documented in his television series. All this knowledge has its part to play in global knowledge systems.

  Slide10 - KKM kids

• And our resources must reflect Mãori people in our diversity: all shapes and sizes, shades of colour, shades of wealth.

Taki Rua Productions

Slide 11 - Taku Waimarie

When I first began my search for Mãori writers I noticed that many Mãori writers came to writing through theatre. They may have become interested in theatre by seeing a play that someone they knew was involved in, they may have started helping backstage, then a small part on stage, tried a bit of producing, then tried a bit of writing. Thus involvement with theatre has been an important and natural part of our development of Mãori literature.

Slide 12 - Mãori television

Mãori Language Television

I am a member of the Te Reo Mãori Television Trust. Our main task is to set up a Mãori Language Television Channel. And although it is a different medium the general principles are much the same as those I have outlined. They are also the same as those suggested by Michael Higgins, Ireland's past Minister of Arts and Culture. Mr Higgins was visiting New Zealand recently to talk about broadcasting, and he is quoted as saying:

The more optimistic approach is to invent and create alternative programmes, films, plays, music and books which can appeal ... to the youth of America, many of whom are as likely as their European counterparts to tire of the prevailing blandness. The more unified and homogenous our political structures become, the more people will turn to indigenous cultures for an expression of themselves.

Mãori language broadcasting, instead of being perceived by Government as a Treaty issue, could be seen as a way of developing and promoting our indigenous culture as an expression of what it is to be a New Zealander.

Implications for economy

I believe that all this has some exciting implications for our country. From Aotearoa we can radiate a unique image. There is enough evidence to suggest that it is the culturally enriched work that travels best.

Implications for Public Service and national economy

So, what are the implications for the Public Service.

As a result of our work, we have ample evidence that guiding people to take control of their own future is positive. We feel so confident of this evidence, that we invest our own resources in many of our initiatives.

We see our task as inspiring people, Mãori people. We can use inspiration to encourage Mãori to take control of situations. As Mãori, we are working to develop our language, to raise our expectations of ourselves, and to show that a huge range of things are possible. We must not limit our vision to that which others have of us.

Government money is too often going into negative things, or into things that Pakeha people think are important for Mãori. Too much is being spent on false jobs, false training courses or patronising Mãori. I am not suggesting taking money away from health or education, for example, but I believe that investment in the arts may mean that less money may be needed for achieving better health outcomes for Mãori.

Conclusions

In conclusion, I am proposing three things:

1. That Mãori language is promoted as an important part of the knowledge economy.

2. That Government consider increasing investment in the Arts, particularly arts which give Mãori opportunities to explore who we are, our relationships with the past, and our dreams for the future;

3. That Government develop more effective funding mechanisms which ensure that Mãori are able to develop programmes, which inspire Mãori to contribute to the development of the knowledge economy.