Ihumātao.
EDIT: Originally written back in August/Sept 2019.
The very mention of this beautiful, near untouched, peaceful whenua has me thinking of lush māra, a maunga standing tall, the people of the whenua giving as much to the whenua as the whenua gives to her. Of birth, life, living, love, lore, death and the continuation of the cycle, because that’s what cycles do, perpetuate forward movement and growth.
Instead, Ihumātao battles and is embattled with the prospect of homes being built on her that will forever sever and impact the connection the people of that land have, with that land, by a company who has the power to stop the build. Because they bought the land … off a family who was ‘gifted’ the land, by someone who stole that land, because he wanted it.
What is on that whenua? Wāhi tapu/sacred ground. Burial grounds. Middens. Narratives pertaining to an entire people pre colonisation. Much more than these few items. But nothing of monetary value, because everything that once had value was stripped from the land. Including its people.
What for?
For the betterment of progress.
What do you mean, progress?
The act of making a place better for the community.
What community?
Auckland.
And what will Auckland give back to the land and the people who live on, through and for her?
Nothing.
So why are the people of that land being evicted from their whenua?
Because those who bought it want it. It’s theirs now. Get your shit. Get out.
Wow.
As Māori, everything we are, connects to whenua. The whenua touches the sea, which churns the winds, which play on the rays of the sun showing us Ranginui who cries for his beloved, our kuia, Papatūānuku, who is clothed by Tāne who allows us to harvest his children for some of our many material things – do you see where I’m headed with this? Everything we are, as Māori, connects to the whenua. The land is us and we are the land.
So what does this mean for Ihumātao? The whenua will be there as long as someone is bold enough to fight for it and you bet Pania Newton and everyone who stands beside and behind her, are it. They are protectors, not protestors. Whenua is forever, especially when it is taken care of. Pania is doing great things for the people of Auckland and for Aotearoa by wanting to see Ihumātao protected, but she is doing even greater things for her own people in safeguarding their whenua from the steely grip of development. Stand tall koutou ma. #Ihumātao #protectorsnotprotestors
Māori Muser 