Waiora Te Moni, Student & Church Leader 27.06.24

Sitting at the dawn service this year at Waitangi I was surprised to be struck so wholly by hope. 

A feeling I think had been building for weeks, beginning with the gathering at Tuurangawaewae.

Te Kiingi Māori called for unity and kotahitanga and Māori gathered in their thousands to remember our shared sense of being, one group who cares for the coming generations, who hopes for the future our babies will live and move in and who will not be dishonoured or deterred by antagonistic politicking. As people driven by a collective world view Te iwi Māori proves their assent by showing up and on that day, we showed up. 10,000 gathered to honour the cause of oneness and unity.

Hope rises.

The Hui aa Motu opened with karakia, as it would in a rohe with deep whakapapa whakapono, and the Archbishop of Aotearoa presented ideas about how Te iwi Māori might respond to this misinformed vilification and demonization of Te iwi Māori. 

Archbishop Don posited that the answer could be, love. He stated in during his kauhau that,

“Aroha is much more than simple sentiment.

Aroha is the power that enables us to imagine a reality within which Te iwi Māori flourishes.

Aroha is the power that enables us to find the courage to stand up for righteousness and justice and to strive for peace. 

Aroha is a thing that can overcome all boundaries and can give us the strength and endurance to walk this hikoi, to take this struggle, to capture again our mana motuhake and to make sure that it never ever ever is diminished again.  

And why why would we turn to aroha ... because e te iwi this kaupapa is not for us, it’s for our children and for our children’s children.

Let’s cease the intergenerational curse of hatred and let’s sew again the seeds of aroha so that we may see oranga ake  in our generation and in the many generations that follow us".

At the dawn service on Waitangi day Dr. Alistair Reese presented a beautifully thoughtful reimagining of the treaty, this drew on the words shared by the Arch Bishop and asked again what’s love got to do with it. He answered, everything, stating that, 

“Love is the foundational ethic of creation. (and)

Love is not just an injunction on Sunday it’s the divine imperative for all of our actions all of the time.”

Dr. Reese went on to ask, what’s love got to do with Te Tiriti and stated again that it is critical, saying that,

“Love is the hermeneutical portal for understanding the treaty, it is the interpretative key, interpretation without love leads to a distorted vision, it leads to an arid legalism.”

Dr. Reese a historian and scholar who has given much to treaty education shared a vision with the nation, quoting also from Lord Bledisloe who returned the land of The Treaty Grounds to mana whenua calling it a Tatau Pounamu, an old Māori tikanga of peace and reconciliation. I believe the treaty can do the same if honoured. 

Both Archbishop Donald and Dr. Reese drew on the widely known speech by Bishop Te Whakahuihui Vercoe who, in 1990, said in his speech in the audience of the late Queen Elizabeth the II, 

‘Our tūpuna said on this ground that the Treaty was a compact between two people. Since the signing of that treaty 150 years ago, I want to remind our partner that you have marginalised us.

You have not honoured the Treaty. We have not honoured each other in the promises that we made on this sacred ground. Since 1840, the partner that has been marginalised is me.

What I have come here for is to renew the ties that made us a nation in 1840. I don’t want to debate the Treaty. I don’t want to renegotiate the Treaty. I want the Treaty to stand firmly . . . as the means by which we are made one nation.”

Hashtag Toitū te Tiriti, am I right.

These three excellent speeches from three wonderful men affirm the mana motuhake of Māori and the mana of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

And in the shadow of their words I find hope. As I sat and listened to the prayers of the dawn service. As I watched Māori stand proud as they shared in their mother tongue and non-Māori make concerted excellent and genuine efforts to use te reo Māori that they were capable of, listening to our  governor general, our chief justice, the commissioners of all our major agencies and others I had a realisation that lightened my heart and lifted my spirit. Hope rises.

That realisation was this, the horse has already bolted, there are too many already on the waka, it will not be stopped. Māori are too sure, too determined in who they are to be deterred by the minorittay who will be left behind as our nation continues towards reconciliation. Te iwi Māori is too strong, our allies too many. The haters sit as a sorry minority. Watching so many influential figureheads honour te reo Māori and honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi, I sat in the breaking dawn and felt hope. Sitting next to my friend of Chinese descent, who is raising a trilingual son who will know the language of his whenua whakapapa as well as this whenua. Hope rises.

I didn’t expect to be struck by such overwhelming hope. I thought I’d leave brooding and silently seething at the state of the nation, dark as I reflected on broken promises and empty platitudes. I’m so happy to be wrong.

Being Māori has always been unequivocally my favourite thing about myself, and it absolutely still is.

I left the upper treaty grounds, from my seat before a wharenui built with wood gifted from my maternal grandmother's lands - full of hope. Transfixed by the notion that as a nation, and as Te iwi Māori as we move into the future - that if hope seeps into our beliefs and informs our behaviours, the intergenerational transmission of aroha is possible, the treaty can be established as a tatau pounamu for all peoples and that a marginalised people have come too far to ever be subjugated again.

Hope rises.

Love wins.

Toitū Te Tiriti. 

Written by Waiora Te Moni

*Macrons haven't been used when speaking of Tainui, who choose not to use them.