Shifting Sands

A leisurely drive up the East Coast Bays get us clear of the city early enough to avoid getting caught up in the sludge of holiday weekend traffic. Excellent food on arrival is served up canteen style. A table full of writers make very talkative companions even though we are all total strangers.

The cartoonist in my head sketches three obedient females listening politely to the token bloke who is really keen to tell us all about what he is writing. Put this flash of insight down to the 13th sense and quickly scribble it off the page. Twenty-four of us are efficiently installed in three star dorm style rooms, then its time to kick off.

There are relatively few formalities for the opening of an event in NZ – taha Maori kicks in - with passion - later! The first speaker is the much admired and eminent storyteller, Dame Professor Anne Salmond, author of many books, (Hui; Amiria; Eruera; Trial of the Cannibal Dogs; Between Two Worlds etc) as well as numerous academic articles. The first half hour mirrors the biographical chapter that I’ve just read in Deborah Shepard’s book 'Her life's work: Conversations with Five New Zealand Women.' It’s a different experience listening to the personal story than reading words on a page. As a young woman, Anne was privileged to be party to deep aspects of Maori tradition and history. Some of it for publication and some not, so she doesn’t share all she knows with this captivated audience. I don't think anyone was left feeling bereft on account of that, and she is a very engaging presenter.

She is the first of two speakers to mention – with a sense of being ashamed – that our universities don’t produce competent NZ historians. If they don’t know Te Reo (Maori language) important sources are inaccessible. How can they give an honest account based on half the available facts? The ‘terra nullius’ perspective starts the clock when Europeans arrived – what kind of nonsense is that? No less than absolute! Refuting the philosophy behind the book Guns Germs and Steel, Anne identifies cultural superiority as the most lethal weapon in the arsenal.

My question is how does she ‘translate’ specialist knowledge for an audience that lacks the experience and conceptual framework to grasp its true meaning. Anne’s answer is tentative – broad and reflective. I get the point – there is no easy answer.

Monty Soutar filled the next two hours with stories that brought to life the history of C Division of the Maori Battalion in WW11, about which he has published an epic volume. Shocking numbers tell us that 70% of the enlisted men were lost in action and the remainder came home injured and / or with what has since been identified as traumatic stress disorder. This might explain a lot of problems visible today. Another explanation not visible to the casual observer is why so many men signed up to the only branch of the NZ armed forces that remained voluntary throughout the war. It is called ‘the price of citizenship’ and means that Maori knew that the only way to claim equality and a better deal for future generations was to fight on an equal footing with pakeha (NZers of European descent.)

Its fair to say that an awesome first day was had by all!