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Maranga Mai!
Further, the exercise of power must be on Māori
terms, outside of the strictures of colonial institutions.
As such, this “won’t be done through prisons or state
welfare homes, because in the end, you only address
those things by addressing the power that sustains
them” (Jackson, 2021a).
At its essence, this is an articulation of selfdetermination that must be championed,
and accompanied by histories as told from
Māori perspectives:
We have our self-determination from our tīpuna
as seen in spaces such as Kura Kaupapa and
Kōhanga Reo. We need to exercise that selfdetermination, to speak our truth. You need truth
forums! And if the coloniser isn’t going to provide
it, then we must create our own truth forums.
We can create them at our kura, on our marae,
and we have our own radio and media. Using
what we have and what our tīpuna have fought
for, we must use it to maintain our truth forums
in our history, while we work towards full selfdetermination in that space (Ngata, 2021).
Speaking truth to power in this manner, however,
does not invalidate the right of Pākehā to be and
exist in Aotearoa. The vision encapsulated by Te
Tiriti involves Pākehā by its very nature. Yet Pākehā
anxiety around talk of constitutional transformation
is inevitable, because of the existential implications
this entails. There is also a “very palpable fear” from
Māori that conversations around this “might provoke
a Pākehā backlash” (Independent Working Group on
Constitutional Transformation, 2018, p. 28):
To reclaim power for Māori does not mean dising
Pākehā as Pākehā. I think one of the unspoken
fears of a lot of Pākehā, is that we will do to them
what they have done to us. But the Treaty does
not allow us to do that. For me, the Māori way of
constitutional order is based on whakapapa. And
so, it does not expect or demand the mistreatment
of others, because others have whakapapa as
well. Part of the change is for Pākehā to learn
to accept that. The possibility that there can
be a Treaty-based society in which the Crown
can exercise authority in its sphere of influence,
[and] that we can exercise authority in ours, but
acknowledge there are relational spheres where
we have to come together to make a decision, is
what I think the Treaty envisioned (Jackson, 2021a).
The tricameral model espoused in Matike Mai
Aotearoa and adopted by He Puapua is grounded
upon this. Further, while Pākehā are not tangata
whenua nor indigenous to Aotearoa, their
whakapapa, within the context of Te Tiriti, “does give a
special meaning to being tangata tiriti and therefore
belonging to this land” (Independent Working Group
on Constitutional Transformation, 2018, p. 83). Indeed:
Te Tiriti never intended us to be ‘one people’
as Governor Hobson proclaimed in 1840 but
it did envisage a constitutional relationship
where everyone could have a place in this land
(Independent Working Group on Constitutional
Transformation, 2018, p. 112).
Obstacles to constitutional
transformation
Several barriers stand in the way of fully realising
constitutional transformation. The first of these is
the inevitable safeguarding of the settler-colonial
status quo and the economic privilege that has
flowed from that for generations at the expense of
Māori. The economic implications of constitutional
transformation and addressing racism are significant,
because “Many Pākehā won’t oppose racism if it
means giving land back and supporting constitutional
reform” (Ngata, 2021).
Related to this is our collective inability in Aotearoa
to talk openly, frankly and critically about the role of
colonisation, race and racism, white supremacy, and
white privilege in society today. There is a general
lack of acceptance “that race exists”. Nevertheless, to
progress as a country “we need to name it and stop
excusing it” (Smith, 2021; Snelgar, 2021).
This has flow-on effects for what is taught at schools
in Aotearoa, and what narratives and ‘taken-forgranted’ assumptions are socialised therein.
In a similar vein, the state’s promotion of the
‘performative’ and ‘decorative’ aspects of Māori
culture (Husband, 2020), for example, using
Māori greetings and adopting Māori names for
organisations, is itself an obstacle to constitutional
transformation. This is not to discount the positive