Decolonization in the film ‘Once were Warriors’

Since as the lecture mentioned about Renan’s statement that 1) the nation is always created with the violence and 2) the successful creation of nation is achieved by forgetting those violence, decolonization seems to require the recall of forgotten violence among people in some way. Therefore the Hip hop and rap music those which have an elements of anger will suite for the way of decolonization in marginalized minority groups such as African-American in slum or Maori people in New Zealand.

Then, what about the violence representation in New Zealand film which depict Maori? For example, the film ’Once were warriors’ is the film about Maori family. In the film, the eldest son of the family, named Nig, was a member of the street gang, ‘Teo Aoteaora’. Since the film is based on the novel, there are some arguments about the differences between the film and the novel. The difference of representation of the violence is the one. While the film celebrates gang culture, the original novel repeats the condemnation of gangs. And also while Nig who died early in the novel is arrived and support his mother in the film.

What these differences means if we see the film as one of the way of decolonization like what Kirsten Zemke talked about pop music in terms of decolonization in her lecture?? It can be said that by depicting young gangs as people who seek their Maori identity, and by giving Nig a positive image to help his mother who suffered a domestic violence from her husband rather than people who employ their violence to discriminately anyone, the film accept the violence as a means to protect their own right and identity. These representation of violence are distinguished from the violence by family’s father, Jake, toward his family and children which is all used to express his own dissatisfaction toward the world surrounding him. Also the difference of these violence emphasized the role of violence which was used to protest in many histories.

By depicting different kinds of violence, the film ‘Once were warriors’ reminds the audience of forgotten violence and struggle which was used to create the assimilated nation in a history. Therefore, the film’ Once were warriors’ can be said that it have a aspect of decolonization media for the marginalized people similar to Hip Hop or Rap music as the essay of Dean Hapeta argued.

Use of Maori elements to express to be ‘New Zealander’

When I searched the term ‘Maori pop music’ online, a page of ’music of New Zealand’ by Wikipedia comes on the top. According to wiki, ‘as the nation grew and established its own culture, local artists combined these styles with local influences to create music that is distinctively New Zealand.’ Then, what is ‘own culture’? This seemes to remain the controversy against the question ‘who are ‘we’ in New Zealand. There is an irony that pakeha people tends to regard their identity as a nationality, though it is Maori culture that is used to represent New Zealand when it comes to show their cuture with song or dance. Is the Wikipedia statement means that majority people thinks New Zealand has already achieved its establishment of unified New Zealand culture? Or people distinguish Maori pop music as a ‘Maori music’ and not ‘New Zealand music’??

Below are the top comments for the ‘Boy 2010 Movie Maori Thriller Ending Credits’ on the youtube:

‘thumbs up if your proud to be a new zealander’　

‘195,435 views....mean, everyone in NZ's seen it then?:D

Love being a Kiwi !’

‘im proud to be a kiwi! :D’

These comments demonstrate us that many of the audience tends to think or believe that they are unified ‘New Zealander/ Kiwi’. Also, according to the 2006 census, people those who assert their ethnic self-recognition as a ‘New Zealander’ is increasing.

As Kristine said in her lecture, new music contains Maori music elements are one way of decolonization. It can be said that they are on the way for the success for the purpose if they are gradually regarded as just ‘New Zealander music’ : normalized culture in New Zealand, not destroying their tradition.

However, when I was watching Rugby world Cup match with my friends, one of the European New Zealand guy said ‘Hey, stop, you’re not a Maori’ to the European All Blacks player when he showed facial contortion with his tongue. This might connote his feeling for Haka as Maori’s culture, not entirely New Zealand one. Also it might expressed his hesitate toward saying those Haka as a New Zealand normalized culture.

Is it just Pakeha people are ignoring their identity as a Pakeha, which is related to colonial history between Maori? Or it means that people those who accept Maori culture as not a marginalized culture but an important element to construct the nation are increasing among all over the nation??

It can be said that the statement on Wikipedia about establishment of New Zealand ‘own culture’ is partly true. But it is also true that some people do not admit culture such as Haka, which is used to reflect New Zealand as the ‘New Zealand’ culture, but it as the ‘Maori’ one. However, I assume music is more easy way for people to accept those as a own ‘New Zealand culture’ to be proud of since it is ‘new genre’ even if contains Maori traditional elements compared to more traditional exihibiton such as Haka in Rugby game. Therefore what the Kristine talked about the power of decolonization of music was very understandable for me.

Representation of Maori in the film 'Crush'

What we learned in the lecture of the Maori in the film, Lynda Dyson noted that ‘the representation of Māori as sexually available, and as engaging in sexual banter that is “raw” and ‘crude”, in contrast to the eroticism of the relationship between Baines and Ada’, I think this statement are also applicable in the film ‘Clush’. There is a quote from IMDB about ‘Crush’:

‘On the way to interview a novelist, Lane and Christina are involved in a car crash which leaves literary critic Christina brain-damaged. Lane undertakes the assignment and becomes attracted to the novelist's 15 year old daughter, leading to stormy emotions.’

The film is constructed with mainly 4 people. Lane, Christine, novelist who named Collin and his daughter Angela. Angela is depicted as an adolescent girl who was struggling between jealousy toward Lane who was in sexual relationship with her father, and a Maori singer guy appeared as a person who made Angela more into confusion. Relationship between Lane and Collin, who are European New Zealander and an American, are depicted as more erotic and as having interactive relationship. Meanwhile, Maori singer, who are called Horse, is depicted as not only a symbol of big happy family for Angela as (what Bell Hook said)‘happy-go-lucky’ person, but also related to ‘raw’ and ‘crude’ sexual things. For example, he was represented as a　promiscuous guy who used Angela as a means of his masturbation in his hospital room in spite of her desire to get contact sense of happy family circle compared to her own family.

Crush was directed in 1992, the year before ‘The piano’ was directed. Therefore, I can assume that these two films are both based on similar notion toward Maori people at that time as ‘happy-go-lucky’ people. Also, between these films, Maori people are both just exist as ‘backdrop’ of the white main characters.

It is interesting that we can find such a similarity in films, which have a very different form. On the one hand, ‘The Piano’ was accepted as a ‘romantic story’, and the other hand ‘crush’ was accepted as a story of ‘revenge’ between two females. However, these difference of the films more emphasized the common representation of Maori people and may be the Leonie Pihama’s statement which is ‘Films are dangerous’ because there are danger to prevail a negative images of Maori through the films.

Unity of New Zealand or Partitioning of the World??

The 2nd lecture and some of the course readings, such as Maori Television, Anzac Day, and Constructing “Nationhood” by Abel, pointed out how Maori TV are/has been constructing New Zealand national identity as “New Zealander”. The context which those discussions pointed out as the construction is the nation-building policy by the past labour party government. The perspective was new for me, and it obviously very different from the discussion by Stuart on “Nation-building”, and also from the discussion by Yasunobu Ito, a Japanese anthropologist who has researched on the Maori education systems (especially about Kohanga Reo and Kura Kaupapa Maori) and Maori TV.

In his doctor thesis and the book（伊藤 2007）, Yasunobu Ito discussed the emergence of Maori total emersion schools as the partitioning process of Te Ao Maori/ Maori world and Te Ao Pakeha/ non-Maori or ‘main stream’ New Zealand in the education social sub-system. His discussion is, though not necessarily mentioned clearly in his writing, related to the sociological system theory by Luhmann. As the extension of this discussion on the Maori educational system, he also described the establishment of Maori TV as the partitioning of Maori world and Pakeha world in the media subsystem(伊藤 2010) . In addition, he focuses on the launch of Te Reo channel as the reflection of the dispute between fluent Te Reo Maori speaking Maori and non-Te Reo Maori speaking Maori, as well as points out the variety of the demand among Maori people. In this discussion, some of the fluent Te Reo Maori speakers are described as the people who desire a ‘pure’ Maori language condition and non-Te Reo Maori speakers as the majority in urban area. It is obvious that he regards the launch of Te Reo channel as the 2nd partition which is occurred inside Maori. In short, his discussion is about the potential partition process of this New Zealand society, between the main stream Pakeha world, the ‘purist’ Maori and other non- Te Reo Maori speakers.

In short, Ito points out that the establishment of Maori TV and Te Reo Channel is the partition of the world. This discussion reminds me of the discussion by Stuart in the course reading.　He equates　"nation"　as　"Maori",　and　discusses　about the development of Maori media as “Maori” nation　building in New Zealand. In his article, the “Maori” nation is considered as what is distinct from “Pakeha” nation within the state of New Zealand and also distinct from the former “iwi” based nation. Those two discussions are relevant at the point that both of them points out the partitioning process within New Zealand. There is also a difference about Te Reo channel that Ito regards the establishment of Te Reo channel as the second partition within Maori.

On the other hand, the point made by Abel is very different from those two former discussions. She points out that Maori TV is used to create including force to construct the national identity as New Zealander while it encourages the tikanga maori and te reo maori. The context is at economical/ political sphere, or the nation building policy of the former labour government.

When we think about the establishment of Maori TV, the establishment can be seen as the portioning process within New Zealand, and Ito and Stuart’s discussions seem logically reasonable. However, for me, Abel’s discussion is very fascinating because her perspective is broader and considering broader social/ economical/ political context beyond the binary of Pakeha/ Maori world. Maori TV has developed in the seeking of Maori sovereignty, but it is also real that Maori TV is embedded in the social/ political context of New Zealand.
However, what about the launch of Te Reo channel? Is this another partition within Maori? Or the attainment of Maori nation? It is hard to answer the question here, but Ito arises the interesting arguing point.

Why “developmental media”?– Question on Stuart

The discussions by Stuart in the course reading are interesting, and especially the one in 2003 provides stimulus view point through conceptualizing Maori as a nation within the state of New Zealand. It is convincing discussion to see the colonization as the power of disruption against iwi based Maori nation, and the social/ cultural revitalization movement as the re-establishment of Maori nation. In this discussion, the nation which Maori media has been/ is building is something more than the iwi based nation in the past, that is, pan tribal.

However, in his discussion, his critique and attempt to revise Robie(2005) is not fully explained and often seems to confuse Robie’s point. I could not find the answer even for a simple question, “why does he regard Maori media as third world media, not as forth world media?”
In my understanding, the most important feature of the 4th world media is that the media is embedded in the society in which another social group/ culture has power. In the social circumstances, forth world media is seeking different ways from “main stream media” to represent themselves in their perspective, often with their own language.
For me, it sounds more reasonable to see most of the Maori media as 4th world media because primarily Maori media is motivated to broad cast Maori culture/ voice/ language in different way from main stream or “Pakeha” media. Many aspects Robie pointed out as the feature of third world media suit to Maori media, too. However, the third world media and the fourth world media share many aspects in Robie’s discussion. Only one difference is if they are sharing the nation ( country) with other media in the present, and if they have been/ are in underprivileged social situation under the bigger power of others.

In short, Stuart’s attempt to regarding Maori as nation is very interesting (and also reasonable if we see many researches dealing with “nation” and nationalism beyond state or country). However, the notions of “nation” in those two discussions are different, and we should confine “nation” in Robie’s discussion to “country”.

Maori and the RWC

A couple of weeks ago Sue gave an interesting lecture around Maori and film, which brought to my attention the notion of appropriation. It got me thinking and I asked myself, has the ruby world cup used cultural appropriation against Maori?

Firstly one needs to identify what exactly appropriation means. According to the Oxford Dictionary online it is; “the act of taking something that belongs to somebody else, especially without permission.” Therefore, cultural appropriation must be the borrowing, or theft of an element of a culture of one group by another.

I would argue that Maori culture to a degree has in fact been used in the current rugby world cup, because there has been a major influence of Maori culture. One of course is the haka, although this is nothing new, it is still Maori culture being used, other examples are the use of art, waka and other various forms. When it comes to the rugby world cup there has been huge influence from Maori culture on display.

I personally think this is wonderful, with the culture being promoted through a well-loved sport. It is very positive in the fact that people from all over the world can be educated and immersed into the culture. Potentially having great opportunities arise, with Maori becoming recognised more and more (is not this what development is all about – to be recognised and heard). It is very clear that the use of Maori culture in the rugby world cup has positives but arguably, there are some negatives to it as well.

It is not the fact that the culture has been used without permission; it is more or less the fact that it takes the whole world to be on New Zealand’s doorstep for Maori culture to be celebrated. Before the rugby world cup, I personally have never seen so much positive Maori culture on the Mainstream media. From having kappa haka groups performing to traditional waka being used, it has been amazing but why now. I can only think the only reason it has been brought to the forefront is that everybody is looking at New Zealand, they want to be wowed and what is more exciting than an indigenous group of people? Something that they may have never seen or heard of before, something that is unique.

One has to realise that culture belongs usually to a group of people, how it is used relies upon context as well as knowledge. This I believe can be classed as intellectual property and in a western world; someone owns this type of property. Maori are trying to achieve this acknowledgement through the WAI262 treaty claim that seeks to find who has a degree of power over Maori intellectual property as well as flora and fauna. So if the haka can be seen as intellectual property who actually owns it? Well according to the messages given by mainstream media New Zealanders do, it is a ‘kiwi’ thing and not much if any acknowledgement is given to Maori. I would not be surprised if less than 40% of New Zealand even knew the real origin of the haka and what it actually means. To me this does not seem right, education is key and everybody I feel needs to learn more about the true meanings.

It does seem that Maori are used when New Zealand wants to stand apart from the rest because otherwise Maori culture will be celebrated every day. According to Barry Barclay’s model, New Zealand is talking out to the whole entire world trying to entice them into coming and exploring the unique wonders that the country has to offer. Tracy Johnson made a statement relating to the film, Whale rider and I think it can be used here. She stated that a negative effect could occur as certain usage can be seen as promoting tourism to New Zealand, resulting in Maori culture becoming a commodity. This is not an ideal result because in the end it degrades Maori culture into becoming a marketing venture.

So yes, there are positives to this occurring but the negatives are huge because the consequences can be very unforgiving, especially if a culture is downgraded to a marketing venture. Although this may not turn out to be true and Maori culture may stay at the forefront even when the world decides to leave. I just hope that New Zealand steps up and does prove me wrong.

Who / What is "indigenous"?

In many discussions on Maori media, the word “indigenous” is often used to indicate the similarities of the cultures and the social situations of Maori and other indigenous people. In those discussions, we can often see Indigenous/ Colonizer (or Western) binary, which is relevant to Maori/ Pakeha binary in New Zealand context.

However, in those discussions, who is assumed to be the indigenous? What is indigenous?
“Indigenous” people are often attached some distinct attributions from “western” culture, such as spiritual, close to nature, community orientated, and so on. But, is it real? Can we see “indigenous” perspective as one, which is very different from “Western” perspective? Can we really essentialize indigenous cultures in this way?

Of course, there are many similarities in the social/ cultural suffering and struggling of indigenous people in the history of colonization and the present post-colonial movement to re-claim the sovereignty. As a result, it is often very reasonable to discuss the struggling of the peoples in the common context. There may be some similarities of their culture and world view. However, I believe that it is also important to consider those questions rather than following the conventional/ widespread binary, because following the framework without deep consideration may just insist the binary and damage the accuracy of discussions.

In my case, my own experience and ethnicity is one of the reasons why I got the question. While I am staying in New Zealand, I have asked a question many times to myself --Is Japanese Indigenous?

As Japanese, I feel sometimes I am seen as “Indigenous”. For example, one of my friends, who is a researcher of indigenous psychology, have told me that she was reading some articles on Japan to examine the indigenous world view in all over the world. At that time, I became confused and said “I am not sure if Japanese is indigenous or not”. In addition, many people have showed me their acknowledgement to Japanese culture, and often they mentioned about the similarity of their (Maori) culture and Japanese culture. “Our culture and your culture are very similar. Respectful, humble...” I agreed with most of them, because I think Japanese culture is very respectful and humble, and I sometimes feel my culture is similar with Maori culture. However, I still feel uncomfortable when I feel Japanese is placed in the “indigenous” half of the Western/ Indigenous binary. Yes, Japanese might be indigenous for some area, but I know Japanese (Japanese mainland people) is also a colonizer. Japanese colonized Ainu people in north part of Japan, and south part of Japan. Japan has also tried to colonize Korea and China in the past. (It might be similar that Maori is indigenous in Aotearoa and Wai pounamu, but not indigenous in Chatham/ Rekohu.)

I believe Japanese culture loves nature and have big aroha as (conceptualized) “Indigenous” culture. However I sometimes feel very difficult to follow the Indigenous/ Western binary. Moreover, I believe it is very important to consider the word “indigenous” rather than just following the binary, in order to consider what happening in the real world.