Te Kaharoa (E-Journal)
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He whakaaro moo te reo Maaori: Some thoughts about the Maori language
Get PDFThis paper considers the language from several points of view including leadership, identity and literacy. Attention is given to possibilities for language development, recent literature and future emphases.
Contents
1 Background
2 Homes and Locales
3 Language leadership and direction
4 Identity and Property
5 Literacy
6 Language Leaps
7 Concluding comments
Bibliograph
Disaster politics: Cyclone politicking and electioneering in the Kingdom of Tonga
Get PDFEntering the new year of 2014 the Kingdom of Tonga had enough to worry about; a local economy choking to near death and a finance minister sacked and replaced in a political spectacle leaving the public baffled over what went wrong between him and the Prime Minister (Fayle, 2014; Lopeti, 2014c; Fonua, 2014b). People uttered they looked forward to the end of year election tentatively set for Thursday November 27th. The 2010 register of around forty thousand voters had increased at the 2014 intake by four thousand, mostly voters who had turned the age of suffrage at twenty one years old. The chorus call from the masses was simple, vote them out. Then Cyclone Ian struck on Saturday 11 January 2014 aggravating Tonga’s money shortage.
Journalist Pesi Fonua wrote “the impact on the Tongan economy of the cyclone and the salary rise for civil servants at this point of time is a matter of great concern” (Fonua, 2014a). He was right. The state and taxpayers could not afford economic recovery from Tonga’s cruellest cyclone, a symptom of climate change, let alone paying for a 5% rise in the cost of living allowance for public servants. As the national debt distress sore became inflamed the Public Service Association decided it was the right time to fight cabinet for a 22% living allowance rise because 5% was not enough (Lopeti, 2014a). This essay asks a pointed question. Leading up to the general election of November 2014, how was cyclone politicking being manoeuvred to sway the way people would vote
Geopolitical storymaking about Tonga and Fiji: How media fooled people to believe Ma'afu wanted Lau
Get PDFJust when Tongan Democratic Party leader ‘Akilisi Pohiva stumped the public by saying he admired Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama because “he has been able to make things happen and take development to the people,” the Government of Tonga’s Minister for Lands, Lord Ma’afu, came right out of the blue and trumped him (Tonga Daily News, 2014a, 2014b). Ma’afu topped Pohiva at causing public bamboozlement.
By this, Pohiva was the progenitor of Tonga’s thirty year old pro-democracy movement. Why would he over romanticise about the former military commodore Frank Bainimarama, the hard-line originator of Fiji’s third coup to take place in a period of twenty eight years? Pohiva’s swinging politics from democracy in Tonga to an overthrow of democracy in Fiji baffled readers (Naidu, 2014; Graue, 2014). But Ma’afu took centre stage as the show stopper.
Momentarily, people were gobsmacked and did not know what to make of him. Was Tonga’s Minister for Lands and Survey who was a senior noble in the Tu’ivakano cabinet courting mischief or dead serious? Fiji’s permanent secretary for foreign affairs Amena Yauvoli was certain, we “would just have to wait for the Tongan government’s proposal” (Tonga Daily News, 2014a). But as Tongan journalist Kalafi Moala put it, “they will be waiting for a very long time” on that geopolitical front (Moala, 2014).
This essay explores the geopolitical storymaking about Tonga and Fiji instigated by Tonga Daily News publishing online that Lord Ma’afu had said, “In good faith I will propose to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Fiji that they can have Minerva Reef and we get Lau in return” (Tonga Daily News, 2014a). The very thought of drawing up a new map instantly ignited outrage from Fijian readers. How then, might Tonga and Fiji’s argument over ownership of the Minerva Reefs play out this time around? Could the region’s geopolitical atlas ever be imagined differently when its cartography was permanently cemented to the era of Western European colonial empire? When the media fooled people to believe Lord Ma’afu wanted the Lau Islands for the Minerva Reefs, what did this signal about how news sites can manoeuver shock advertising and manipulate what politicians say to up their ratings
Free Roast Pig at Open Day: All you can eat will not attract South Auckland Pacific Islanders to University
Get PDFI kid you not. This is a time in Pacific regional history where as a middle-aged Tongan woman with European, Maori, and Samoan ancestries who was born and raised in New Zealand, I teach students taking my undergraduate papers how not to go about making stereotypical assumptions. The students in my classes are mostly Maori and Pakeha (white, European) New Zealanders. They learn to interrogate typecasts produced by state policy, media, and academia classifying the suburbs of South Auckland as overcrowded with brown people, meaning Pacific Islanders; overburdened by non-communicable diseases, like obesity and diabetes; and overdone in dismal youth statistics for crime and high school drop-outs. And then some well-meaning but incredibly uninformed staff members at the university where I am a senior lecturer have a bright idea to give away portions of roast pig on a spit to Pacific Islanders at the South Auckland campus open day.
Who asked the university to give us free roast pig? Who asked us if this is what we want from a university that was planted out South in 2010 to sell degrees to a South Auckland market predicted to grow to half a million people, largely young people, in the next two decades? (AUT University, 2014). Who makes decisions about what gets dished up to Pacific Islanders in South Auckland, compared to what their hopes might be for university education prospects? To rephrase Julie Landsman’s essay, how about “confronting the racism of low expectations” that frames and bounds Pacific Islanders in South Auckland when a New Zealand university of predominantly Palangi (white, European) lecturers and researchers on academic staff contemplate “closing achievement gaps?” (Landsman, 2004).
Tackling “the soft bigotry of low expectations” set upon Pacific Islanders getting into and through the university system has prompted discussion around introducing two sets of ideas at Auckland University of Technology (The Patriot Post, 2014). First, a summer school foundation course for literacy and numeracy on the South campus, recruiting Pacific Islander school leavers wanting to go on to study Bachelor’s degrees. Previously, the University of Auckland had provided bridging paths designed for young Pacific peoples to step up to degree programmes (Anae et al, 2002).
Second, the possibility of performing arts undergraduate papers recognising a diverse and youthful ethnoscape party to an Auckland context of theatre, drama, dance, music, Maori and Pacific cultural performance, storytelling, and slam poetry (Appadurai, 1996). Although this discussion is in its infancy and has not been feasibility scoped or formally initiated in the university system, it is a suggestion worth considering here.
My inquiry is frank: Why conflate performance and South Auckland Pacific Islanders? Does this not lend to a clichéd mould that supposes young Pacific Islanders growing up in the ill-famed suburbs of the poor South are naturally gifted at singing, dancing, and performing theatrics? This is a characterisation fitted to inner-city Black American youth that has gone global and is wielded to tag, label, and brand urban Pacific Islanders of South Auckland. Therefore, how are the aspirational interests of this niche market reflected in the content and context of initiatives with South Auckland Pacific Islander communities in mind
Māori Health: Issues relating to health care services
Get PDFSince the colonisation of Aotearoa by the British, Māori have experienced health disparities in comparison to non-Māori. While there have been numerous policies and initiatives to improve the diaspora, this is forecasted to continue for the Māori population. The source of this health disparity is complex, being embedded in historic and contemporary inequities. However, one prominent issue which continues to be reported, is the less than adequate health treatment received by Māori in comparison to those of non-Māori or non-Pacific origin. According to the Ministry of Health, this is adversely contributing to Māori health inequalities. This paper discusses the difficulties confronted by Māori when accessing health care services. 
When Perception Becomes Reality: The Creation and Reproduction of Images of Traditional Taonga Whakairo (Māori Carvings): An Introduction
Get PDFThis paper explores ways of seeing as they relate specifically to traditional taonga whakairo (Māori carvings). The focus here is not on the carvings themselves, but on the effects on the perception of these objects caused by reproducing images of taonga whakairo in books and in electronic form. Among the themes considered are the absence of neutrality in photographs, the reduction of traditional taonga whakairo to the status of art or antiquities, and the re-mystification of a selection of these items through the same medium, using the case of the Te Māori exhibition as an example. The conclusion reached is that in all instances, photographs tend to subvert the objects that they portray in some way. 
Who Owns Tonga: Dialogues with Sefita Hao’uli, Kalafi Moala, and Melino Maka
Get PDF“Who owns Tonga?” asked Sefita Hao’uli. “We do. The people,” I quickly pitched back. But do we really? Quietly I second guessed myself after blurting out an idealistic reply. It might have sufficed the correct response in a liberal democracy where by one general election registered voters elected all their members of parliament. But in the Kingdom of Tonga’s 2014 election year the dread squatting on my conscience murmured the monarchy and nobility owned Tonga, while ordinary people leased meagre pieces from the upper class for a price.
What social and economic cost did the country pay for not having a liberal democracy? By having nine nobles’ seats in parliament where thirty-three title and estate holders, all male, elected their class representatives to Tonga’s legislative assembly, did this impede the political system from democratic reform? This last essay in a series of four dialogues with Sefita Hao’uli, Kalafi Moala, and Melino Maka prods a recurring sore in the side of democratic politics and liberal notions that all citizens are created equal by modern constitutional arrangements. How can these principles be practiced under a parliamentary structure that starkly exhibits partiality towards noblemen over and above commoners
Off the Deep End: Tonga's Continental Shelf Politics
Get PDFTonga had gone off the deep end. It proposed to grow its ocean territory in length by 60 nautical miles southeast and southwest. Hardly anyone knew the particulars, apart from a select group of senior bureaucrats in the Government of Tonga persevering to make it happen. The Tongan public paid closer attention to who might come into government at the November 2014 election and whether any women would get voted into parliament.
Local media had spoon fed this slant to the masses which uncritically they consumed as the top news feed. Alternatively, raising awareness about continental shelf politics failed to appear on the public information menu. Why should it matter to ordinary Joe Blog Tongan scratching out a living in a distressed economy?
The story unfolds that Lord Ma’afu, the Minister for Lands, Environment, Climate Change, and Natural Resources entered office after the first partial submission on the outer limits of Tonga’s continental shelf had been prepared. His predecessor Lord Tuita tabled the document for consideration at the United Nations in April of 2010.
Ma’afu was tasked with overseeing a second partial submission to acquire 60 nautical miles in the Lau-Colville Ridge, which he delivered to the United Nations headquarters in New York on April 23rd 2014. It would be weighed up the following year in 2015 (United Nations, 2014).
This essay prods two pressure points. Firstly, how did securing Tonga’s continental shelf further than the 200 mile exclusive economic zone relate to deep sea mining? And secondly, what prompted Fiji’s 2005 objection to the International Seabed Authority about Tonga’s sovereign declaration over the Minerva Reefs? In the current geopolitical climate, how would the Tongan state navigate the ocean currents
Clash of civilisations: Tonga and the West
Get PDFThe House thanks God that the king is still in good health, and the Monarch is still in control of the affairs of the country. We thank god for the assistance to Tonga from donor countries (Lord Lasike cited in Matangi Tonga, 2011).
At the first 2011 session of Tonga’s legislative assembly on June 9th the House was busy thanking god for king and aid donors, a variation to king and country, the usual saying. Tongan journalist Pesi Fonua poked fun at the country’s lawmakers by translating the parliamentary minutes into English for publication on his media website. The original Hansard transcript in the Tongan language might not have been altogether amusing, but rather, standard convention for formally addressing the monarch. However, one question that Fonua brought to light was at this time in Tonga’s history when a more democratic government was said to have taken the helm, had the hierarchal structure really changed? Furthermore, why had “donor countries” crept into the state’s salutations to the king, and which countries were Tongan politicians thinking of – Western ones or China? (Matangi Tonga, 2011).
Personifying a Western-centred view of Tonga’s political system, New Zealand researcher of constitutional law Guy Powles made a brash commentary to Radio Australia. As a Palangi (white, European) observer, Powles presumptuously displayed his over-confidence in giving advice to Tonga. Claiming the Tongan “constitution does need to be studied in detail,” he felt certain “there are areas there of what one might call unfinished business.” Specifically, “the original principle hasn’t been carried through, that is the devolution of executive authority” (Powles cited in Garrett, 2014).
Powles was pointing at executive powers the monarch held onto compared to the ones which were handed over to the prime minister and the national executive by constitutional amendment in 2010. Did reasonable expectation surface among the Tongan public that in the near future, all of the King’s executive authority would be delegated to the state? Or could this be read as an explicit case of the Western ego fantasising that all Pacific Island states naturally desired to remake their civilizations and sovereignty in their likeness?
This essay pokes the polemics and pragmatics of Tongan civilization enacted in modern times through a distinct set of cultural values. How has the tenacity of Tongan civilization in today’s globalized world run into trouble with Western development partners – New Zealand, Australia, and America – especially when it comes to Tonga’s foreign relations? (International Business Publications, 2011)
Recent Literature on Dance and Identity
Get PDFCleave's article dicusses recent literature on dance and identit