From the death of a war veteran to the uprising of a new generation of fighters, Te Karere digital reporter/producer Ethan Oneroa takes a look back at what has been an emotional, passion-filled week for Māori.
Earlier this week we farewelled the last Māori Battalion soldier, B Company veteran Tā Robert “Bom” Gillies.
His death severed Māoridom’s connection to World War II, and our grandparents; where Māori soldiers heeded the call to leave behind their families in order to shed their blood for God, for King and for country.
And to say they fought hard was an understatement. Of the estimated 3600 Māori who were enlisted to fight in WWII under the 28th Māori Battalion, 649 lost their lives. Of that sacrifice, Lieutenant-General Bernard Freyberg had said that ”no infantry battalion had a more distinguished record, or saw more fighting, or, alas, had such heavy casualties as the Māori Battalion”.
Koro Bom was one of the lucky ones — a mōrehu who eventually, by pure fortune and good health, became the last survivor of the most celebrated group of soldiers in our country. Not that he relished the role; his mokopuna said it was lonely for his koro to be “the last man standing”, but someone had to do it and “that someone was him”.
But it was the transition back into normal societal life that made Koro Bom, alongside many other of his brothers-in-arms, question what little status Māori had at that time following the war.
“We came home and we never received our medals when we were discharged, and not only that, we weren’t allowed into the RSAs — they told us to leave and all that sort of thing.”
And, on Tuesday, as he was laid to rest with his tūpuna in Kauae Cemetery, Rotorua, the Toitū Te Tiriti nationwide hīkoi reached Auckland.
At that moment, the baton was passed to a new generation of Māori who were set to make their voices heard far and wide.
The last time Māori and tangata tiriti had walked over the bridge was in 2004, when fierce debates raged on who owned the foreshore and seabed — iwi, or kiwi?
A nation watched as Tariana Turia walked the House of Representatives’ floor against her own Labour Party, leading to the formation of Te Pāti Māori.
Even before then, the land march of 1975, led by Te Whaea o Te Motu, Mother of the Land Dame Whina Cooper, left the country wondering whether our race-relations really was the “best in the world” at that time.
Despite the wind and light drizzle on Wednesday, people turned out in droves. Hīkoi leader Eru Kapa-Kingi, 27, estimates it was 25,000 strong. Tangata tiriti and tangata whenua dressed in their best red, black and whites with signs saying “WHAKA-ROUND AND FIND OUT” and “KILL THE BILL”, unified in their distaste towards the Treaty Principles Bill.
For many, the hīkoi was as much a display of pride as it was a haunting reminder of the struggles they and their ancestors had gone through to get to this very point. During an interview, one participant on the hīkoi pointed out:
“I walked across this bridge in 1975 … and that’s the last time I walked across this bridge because it was a fight for this land.
“And all these years later, our people, our nationhood have been asked to defend our Treaty rights.”
The hīkoi quite literally shook the bridge, the same way the ACT Party seems to want to shake up the founding document of this country through re-defining the Treaty’s principles.
This brings us to Thursday; as the hīkoi progressed south into Waikato, the Treaty Principles Bill was about to be introduced into Parliament for its first reading, despite it being referred to by some as a “dead bill walking”.
While the Prime Minister was adamant the Bill wouldn’t survive beyond the first reading, he cited his party’s commitment to the Coalition Government’s agreement as justification for voting to pass it. The opposition on the other hand was ready to give those in power a good dressing down.
ACT Party leader David Seymour introduced the Bill into the House.
“Nowhere in the Treaty of Waitangi Act [1975], and at no time since has this Parliament said what those principles actually are. The democratically elected body of this Parliament has been silent,” he said.
The House filled with interjections throughout; rebuttals were strong from all sides and one Willie Jackson was thrown out of the house for throwing a slur at Seymour. But the drama didn’t end there.
As the party votes were called, the country’s youngest MP stood to give her party’s votes.
“E ono ngā pōti e whakahē (Six votes against),” Hauraki-Waikato MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke said.
In seconds the 21-year-old commanded the whole chamber.
Her opening lines a battle cry for her people.
“Kāwana! Ka whakamanuwhiritia [au e koe] (Governor, you make me a visitor in my own land*).”
Maipi-Clarke then tore up a copy of the Bill, a metaphor on the state of division our country is facing once again.
There is no doubt te iwi Māori has had a big week. And it’s about to ramp up even more as the hīkoi nears Wellington. If there really were 25,000 attendees in Tāmaki, that points to a big turn out in Wellington next week.
And as I listened to each and every MP say their part, one person in particular was compelling.
Labour’s Ikaroa-Rāwhiti MP, Cushla Tangaere-Manuel, acknowledged the passing of Tā Bom Gillies before challenging the Government on whether they have and will ever see Māori as equals to Pākeha.
“Yesterday, we stood in unison to honour Tā Bom Gillies who said … ‘we returned from war to the continued subjugation of Māori … since the Treaty, to this day’.
“Honestly, e hika mā, what is the price of citizenship?”
On Friday, the hikoi passed through Koro Bom’s Te Arawa stomping grounds, destined for Ngāti Kahungunu, where his father is from, by the weekend.
So as the Last Post rings out for him and his Battalion brothers, and as our heads bow to recite the words to the Ode of Remembrance — ka maumahara tonu tātou ki a rātou, we will remember them — a new generation is left to pick up the fight.
Note: * intent and translation confirmed by Te Pāti Māori