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Tuhoe Freedom <TuhoeFreedomFighters>

""~TUHOE!!! Kaua e koropiko ki nga ture a te pakeha, PATUA te WHEWHEIA!!!~""

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	October 15th 2007 – Lest we forget	52 giorni fa
	Published: October 16, 2009 by Catherine Delahunty Yesterday was the second anniversary of the so called “terrorism” raids. Police carried out dawn raids on dozens of houses in Te Urewera and around Aotearoa which was definitely terrifying for the victims of this debacle who turn out not to be terrorists. I will not forget the conversations I had with people from Ruatoki about short term and long term trauma for their tamariki, and with the people who became afraid to leave their homes and afraid to stay at home. It was also very disturbing to hear stories from young families of armed police bursting through their doors and rummaging through their baby’s clothing drawers. Tuhoe bore the worst and let us not forget that Tuhoe remain an unconquered people who paid the price of their independence. This week the Green Party supports the cultural events commemorating the human rights outrages and the spirit of solidarity and activism. So let all activists and community people working for change remember October 15th and lets support the cool art exhibition, workshops and art auction this Saturday. The name of the exhibition is “Explosive Expression.” If you have never heard the words “Come out with your hands up” bellowed through your broken doorway at dawn, please don’t imagine it cannot happen.
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	Remeber the Terror Raids 2007	54 giorni fa
	Tomorrow 15th October 2009 will be the 2nd anniversary of the 'Terror Raids' of the Tuhoe Nation - two years on and there is still a lot of mamae - no one will ever forget the day of 15th October 2007 here in the Nation of Tuhoe. My moko in my profile pic is one of many tamariki affected by the 'Raids'. . . . Kaua e koropiko ki na ture a te pakeha . . . Patua te Wheiwheia . . . Tuhoe moumou Tangata ki te Po.....!!!. HIGH COURT THROWS OUT SEARCH WARRANTS IN "TERRORIST" RAIDS 17 September 2009 In a monumental Court decision, Judge Helen Winkelmann of the Auckland High Court last week threw out 6 of the 9 land search warrants authorised by the Court in the "Tuhoe Terrorist" raids in 2007. The Judge ruled there was "No reasonable grounds for issue of (the) warrants". Winkelmann J also ruled the Police did not have implied licence to be on the various roads and track for the purpose of covert surveillance. Counter-intuitively the Judge ruled the searches and seizures did not constitute unreasonable search and seizure under s 21 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. The legal admissibility of the evidence collected in the illegal raids is to be the subject of another hearing. In an 81-page judgment, Justice Winkelmann plodded methodically through the law and evidence to reach a conclusion which guts the Police and New Zealand Solicitor General's original claim that a gang of dangerous terrorists threatened New Zealand's clean-green image, and life itself. Her ruling gingerly points the finger instead at the illegality of the Police raids and seizures which occurred with the complicity of some New Zealand Judges. In a sour note to Justice Winkelmann's historic ruling, Her Honour ordered her findings suppressed from the media, seemingly to save embarrassment to the Police, as well as fellow High Court Justice Judith Potter - who was the judge who approved many of the unlawful search warrants. In stark contrast to this current shroud of secrecy, the Police raids and massive arrests consumed "mainstream media" coverage for weeks in New Zealand when they occurred two years ago, as well as prompted breaking news bulletins around the world. What started out as a prosecution under the Terrorist Suppression Act 2002 by Solicitor General David Collins in 2007 has now been diluted into an Arms Act 1983 prosecution. In November 2007 S-G Collins backed down from the Terrorist charges after a month of mass protests brought attention to the lack of credible evidence being publicly released and resulted in increased suspicion concerning the NZ Court's blanket order suppressing the Police affidavits. The 18 accused are represented by 14 barristers and countless solicitors, as well as Amicus Curiae Paul Dacre - an Auckland barrister who is the former Pitcairn Island Public Defender. An 'Amicus Curiae' is a neutral 'friend of the court' appointed by the Judge to give an independent analysis of the facts and relevant legal position. After several weeks of deposition hearings last year, 5 of the 18 defendants were additionally charged with participating in a gang under the Crimes Act. The cost of all this to the Crown has already surpassed $8 million and could exceed $20 million. Most of the defendants are on legal aid. Preeminent defence barrister Rodney Harrison QC has been recognised by consent as lead counsel for the accused, with Maori rights lawyer Annette Sykes afforded distinct status by the Court in relation to the tikanga of Tuhoe and implied licence. The written factual background laid out by the Judge in the substantive prosecution could clog a copier but quite simply can be summed up as "Police were panicked by 9-20 men dressed up in camouflage using rifles in the Urewera National Park and surrounding area, resulting in an intensive 13 month covert operation, 9 court-ordered land warrants, countless other search warrants and road blocks." Gone is the seditious language used when the story first gripped the nation that men in "paramilitary uniforms" were being trained in guerilla warfare by foreign terrorists and planned to use "napalm bombs" in coordinated attacks against State institutions. In retrospect, it now seems odd that any Judge would approve a land warrant on a Police affidavit that could not determine whether the number was closer to 9 or 20 men. Perhaps they were too-well camouflaged for Police. But then this is why it is the responsibility of the Judge to ask such pertinent questions before signing the warrant. In Para. [55] of her judgment, Winkelmann J attacked the Police conduct with a velvet glove when she stated, "It perhaps may be better stated that critical information has been omitted from the January, February and April 2007 search warrants and a false impression has thereby been created...". In oral submissions, Crown prosecutor Ross Burns argued that it was in the public interest for the Judge to allow the case to proceed unimpeded by legal technicalities. He is being assisted in the prosecution by Meredith Connell employee Emma Finlayson-Davis. In contrast, Mr Harrison QC for the defence provided the Court a dissertation on the relevant law, providing intricate details which gave rise to those laws in Parliament. Harrison concluded his submissions by stating his own limitations relative to the specificities of each individual defendant, advising the Court may need to hear arguments from each defendant's counsel. "The (evidence) exclusion issues can then be addressed by all counsel in a focused and hopefully helpful manner."
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	‘Explosive Expression	62 giorni fa
	Ko ‘Explosive Expression’ - he whakaaturanga o ngā mahi toi, me ngā mahi whakatūtū hei tuku whakautu ki ngā ‘State Terror Raids’ nō te tau 2007. Ka whakatūwheratia tēnei whakaaturanga e Tame Iti ā te 6pm, 13 o Whiringa-ā-nuku, hei te Thistle Hall, Cuba St, Te Whanganui-ā-Tara. Ka whakahaeretia tēnei huinga mō te wiki katoa, ka whakatūria hoki ētahi awheawhe, ētahi whakaaturanga kiriata, me ngā kōrero o ngā ringatoi, ā, hei te Rāhoroi ka tū tētahi mākete hokohoko waituhi (mā Nandor Tanczos rāua ko John Minto e whakahaere) hei whakakapi i ngā mahi o te wiki. Ka taea ngā pikitia te hoko ā te Rāhoroi, te 17. Kei roto i tēnei whakaaturanga ngā mahi toi o ētahi ringatoi rongonui o Aotearoa, ko Tame Iti hoki tētahi, nāna i homai te waituhi e kīa nei ko: ‘Self Portrait’. E mōhiotia whānuitia ana he kaiwhakatūtū a Tame Iti, ā, kua kaha āna mahi hei tautoko i te Mana Motuhake o Tūhoe me te kaupapa Tino Rangatiratanga. He kaiwhakaohooho ia kei roto o Tūhoe. Kua mahi ia ki te tautoko i ngā taiohi me ngā tāngata kua pāngia e te kino o te waipiro me te tarukino. E ai ki a Tame Iti, he tino whakahirahira tēnei momo mahi mō te tino rangatiratanga: “Kāore te kaupapa Mana Motuhake mō te hanga kāwanatanga hou, iwi hou rānei, engari ka haere ngātahi taua kaupapa me ō mātou koiora ia rā, ia rā.” Ko te ‘Self Portrait’ he mea peita e Iti hei whakaata i te āhua o tētahi whakaahua i kapohia i tana kāmera-waea-pūkoro (ka tangohia taua waea e ngā pirihimana i ngā ‘State Terror Raids’). Ka waituhia te kanohi o Iti engari e whakamau ana ia i te pōtae-uhi. Ka uhia e pēnei ana, e kore e taea te kite ko wai ia, ā, ka whai tēnei āhuatanga i te whakaaro nei: i ngā ‘Terror Raids’ kāore te marea i mōhio ko wai ia, i pōhēhē rātou he kaiwhakamataku (arā he ‘terrorist’) ia. Ka herea tēnei ki te wairua mataku huri noa i te ao mō te mahi whakamataku, ā, ka tae mai ana ēnei whakaaro ki Aotearoa ka huri anō te marea ki te tūāhua kaiwhakakoroni. Ka whakakorehia e Iti te hononga i waenganui i te mahi whakamataku me te Mana Motuhake: “E herea te Mana Motuhake ki te mana: tō mana Tūhoe, tō mana Ngā Puhi, Waikato rānei. Ki a au nei koirā te aronga o Mana Motuhake - tō mana hoki hei Pākehā, tō mana ahakoa te aha” Ka tū Explosive Expression mai i te 13 Whiringa-ā-nuku ki te 18 Whiringa-ā-nuku ki te Thistle Hall, Te Whanga-nui-ā-tara. Ka taea ngā waituhi te titiro mā runga rorohiko, ka taea te pīri hoki. Haere mai ki te whārangi ipurangi: http://october15thsolidarity.info/, waea mai rānei ki a Graham Jury (0273070448 nietzsche.vs.nurture@gmail.com), ki a Robyn E. Kenealy (04-9779611, r_kenealy@yahoo.com), tuhi mai ki tēnei īmera rānei: info@October15thSolidarity.info mēnā kei te pirangi koe ki ētahi atu whakamōhiotanga. Mā ngā Kaiwhakapaoho: Kei a mātou ētahi kōpae hoki. Kei runga i ēnei kōpae he ‘High Res’ pikitia o ngā waituhi me ngā HD, SD kiriata o Explosive Expression. Ka taea te mātakitaki te kiriata nei ki: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBUVa... Ko ngā moni katoa i whiwhia ai i te mākete hokohoko waituhi ka hoatu ai hei utu mō ngā utu-kōti mō ērā tāngata i hopukina e te ture i ngā ‘State Terror Raids’ - ko te tokomaha e whakawātia tonu ana.
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	The War on Terror in Ruatok	89 giorni fa
	The War on Terror in Ruatoki – Murray Rae I want to speak with you this evening about an event of New Zealand’s recent past, that raises questions for us, I think, of a religious and theological nature. What I offer is an explicitly Christian response to that event, a response that considers the need sometimes for public apologies for public wrongs, and what such apologies might entail in terms of wronged partis forgiving the wrong-doers. On the morning of 15 October 2007, you will be aware, the usual calm of Ruatoki in the Urewera was shattered by the invasion of scores of armed police intent on flushing out members of an alleged terrorist network who, it was claimed, had been staging military style training camps in remote areas of the region. According to police, the raids in Ruatoki and at several other sites around New Zealand were the culmination of a year long surveillance campaign that discovered and monitored the training camps. Seventeen people were arrested in the raids, the most well-known of whom was veteran Maori activist Tame Iti who grew up in Ruatoki and has lived most of his life there. Police allege that Iti was preparing for an IRA style ‘war’ on New Zealand with the goal of establishing an independent state within the bounds of traditional tribal land. Ruatoki itself lies in the heart of the Urewera, the heavily forested hills and mountains that are home to the Tuhoe. Tuhoe is one of several Maori iwi that did not sign the Treaty of Waitangi, and so, whatever the treaty might or might not say about rangatiratanga and the like, as far as Tuhoe are concerned, they have never ceded to the Crown any right of sovereignty over their lands and people. Any concessions to government demands, particularly in a series of land deals around the turn of the nineteenth century, were granted with great reluctance in face of considerable and unreasonable pressure. Tuhoe acquiescence, furthermore, was ‘rewarded’ by the Crown’s unjust confiscation of further lands not included in the original deals. On 15 October, during the police raid, the region between Ruatoki and Taneatua, a neighbouring settlement, was closed off by police roadblocks precisely at the confiscation line that marks the Crown’s illegal seizure of Tuhoe land. All traffic approaching the roadblocks was stopped, vehicles were searched and the occupants were questioned, often at gunpoint. Among the vehicles stopped was a bus carrying school children. While police spokespersons have denied it, the driver of the bus reports that the bus was boarded and searched by police carrying rifles. Whatever the veracity of that testimony, no one disputes that the police raids caught up many innocent people, including children, who were subjected to a siege upon their community by heavily armed police dressed in riot gear. The raids, conducted under the aegis of the ‘Terrorism Suppression Act’, involved three hundred police in an operation spanning several other locations around New Zealand, but only in Ruatoki was the area closed off, and only there were ordinary people going about their lawful business subjected to the ‘stop and search’ operation of the police. Four people were arrested in Ruatoki and thirteen at locations elsewhere in New Zealand. Search warrants were executed under the Firearms Act and the Terrorism Suppression Act. News quickly spread to other parts of the world that New Zealand police had apprehended members of a terrorist network predominantly comprised of militant Maori ‘rights activists’. The New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark, who had been briefed in advance of the police operation, defended police action and attempted to indicate the seriousness of the situation by alleging that those arrested had been training with firearms and napalm. No credible evidence of the use or possession of napalm has emerged since. Subsequent media reports indicate that four firearms were seized in the raids, one of which was an air rifle seized from the home of a pensioner, whose house was ransacked by police during his absence. The four firearms were seized from a community reliant on hunting as a food supply, although one of the four firearms was a semi-automatic military style weapon. Other evidence of terrorist activity so far made public is sketchy and unconvincing. Meanwhile, on 8 November 2007, the Solicitor General of New Zealand declined to support prosecutions under the Terrorism Suppression Act because of inadequacies in the legislation. Various prosecutions under the Firearms Act currently remain before the courts. To understand the impact of this event on Maori and particularly Tuhoe sensibilities we need to set the raids in a much wider context. For Tuhoe people the raid on Ruatoki refreshed bitter memories of similar police actions in the past. In the late nineteenth century Tuhoe were subjected to police tactics designed to starve out the ‘fugitive’ religious leader Te Kooti, who, though not himself Tuhoe, had taken refuge in Tuhoe territory. That story is told, of course, in Judith Binney’s Redemption Songs. Shortly after the police purstui of Te Kooti the confiscation of Tuhoe land began. Then, in 1916, police raided a peaceful religious settlement at Maungapohatu, arrested the leader of the community, Rua Kenana, and killed Rua’s son and one other of his followers. Rua was charged with sedition and eventually sentenced to nine months in prison. Rua’s career as a religious leader had begun in 1904 with a series of visions following which he issued a series of prophetic utterances about the restoration of Maori sovereignty under his leadership. Rua gained a ready hearing amongst Tuhoe still suffering the hardships inflicted upon them by the police pursuit of Te Kooti and by their reluctance to acquiesce to colonial claims over their land. Rua drew heavily on the Christian Scriptures in forming an account of his own identity as the ‘Maori Messiah’, the ‘brother of Jesus Christ’, the ‘Holy Sprit’ and a new ‘divine incarnation’. Gathering about him a community of followers, Rua led his people into the remote interior of the Urewera and established the ‘New Jerusalem’ under the shelter of Tuhoe’s sacred mountain, Maungapohatu. While not intended to do so, Rua’s actions, combined with his religious rhetoric, succeeded in further irritating a New Zealand government that had long found Tuhoe to be somewhat troublesome. Clearly, Rua would have to be suppressed. A strategy was devised to strip Rua of the ‘mana’ or esteem in which he was held by his people. A first campaign against Rua charged him with selling alcohol without a licence, an offence for which Rua served three months in jail.2 Far from stripping him of his ‘mana’ however, the arrest and imprisonment were interpreted by his followers, with Rua’s encouragement, as the inevitable persecution and suffering inflicted on the Messiah. Government and police disquiet at the flourishing of Rua’s settlement continued and in 1916 new charges of sedition were laid against him. The charges referred to Rua’s consistent proclamation of a future for Maori freed from the strictures of colonial governance, but the more immediate basis was Rua’s opposition to the enlisting of Tuhoe men to serve as soldiers in the First World War. In both cases Rua’s actions and pronouncements were perceived as a threat to New Zealand security and the rule of law. That perception, along with the remoteness of Rua’s settlement which was accessible only by foot or on horseback, fuelled considerable speculation about the magnitude and nature of the threat. ‘By early 1916, rumours were spreading all over the country that Rua was arming his followers. He was said to possess a machine gun and to favour a German victory’ in the war in Europe.3 In response to the rumours, Rua invited a Minister of the Crown to visit the community at Maungapohatu ‘so that he could see for himself its peaceful nature’.4 Rua said, ‘I want to draw your attention to the fact that the policemen have lied throughout. They said that I had machine guns and cannons when I did not’.5 The invitation to the Minister was not taken up. Instead, seventy armed police raided Maungapohatu, arrested Rua and, as reported above, killed two members of the community. That episode is now widely acknowledged in New Zealand to have been a shameful abuse of state power. It offends not just against Tuhoe sensibilities but is rated, alongside Pakeha precipitation of the prejudicially named ‘Maori Wars’ of the 1860s and the invasion of Parihaka in 1881, as a paramount example of Pakeha aggression against Maori.6 It is not difficult to see why Tuhoe, along with many other New Zealanders, see stark parallels in the 2007 raid on Ruatoki. The terror inflicted, for which the Crown has not apologised, is a far more troubling feature of the police operations that day than the terror allegedly suppressed. The day after the Ruatoki raids, Wayne Te Kaawa, a Presbyterian minister and descendent of Rua Kenana, wrote an open letter to the Presbyterian Church, appealing for support for the traumatized community at Ruatoki and urging assistance in protesting the actions of the police to the government.7 Those of us who took up that challenge called on the government to apologize for the police actions. Without prejudice to the legal processes still to be conducted, it was argued that the manner of the raids was grossly out of proportion to any real threat posed by the training camps in the Urewera, and that the impact of the raids upon innocent bystanders was wholly unjustifiable. It was also pointed out that, in light of the history briefly outlined above, the actions of police were highly inflammatory. The letters of protest from members and parishes of the Presbyterian Church were supported by public statements from the Anglican Church. A runanganui or ‘parliament’ of the Maori strand of the Anglican Church passed a resolution expressing shock at the Ruatoki raids and concern for the ‘trauma, fear, terror and humiliation experienced by the Tuhoe people’.8 It called upon the government and police to apologize to Tuhoe and to the people of Ruatoki in particular. In a speech reported in the public media, Archbishop Brown Turei, Anglican primate and head of the church’s Maori stream, states, ‘This is Pharoah and the Hebrews in Egypt all over again. Acts of suppression are the instruments of the powerful to bring the people into line with an acceptable system’.9 And further, ‘Moses said: “Let my people go.” Maybe we can say: “Leave our people alone”’.10 Although many Presbyterians were involved in protesting the actions of the police at Ruatoki, it was decided, following advice from local Maori, that the National Church Office, the Moderator of the General Assembly and the Moderator of the Maori Synod would refrain from making public statements on the matter. As the church most closely associated with the Tuhoe people, the Presbyterian Church as such refrained from public condemnation of police action in favour of playing a leading role in efforts to work toward reconciliation between Tuhoe, the police and the government. Work toward that goal continued behind the scenes. The church was also heavily involved in the pastoral care of those caught up in the raid on Ruatoki, including some members of the police force who were personally unhappy with what went on. All of this work by the churches, both the letters and statements of protest and the efforts to achieve healing and reconciliation, constitutes ‘a collaborative exercise in theological reflection on public issues . In what follows I propose to extend that theological reflection in two particular directions; first by considering public theology as a challenge to unlimited state authority, and secondly, by considering what might be involved in the issuing of public apologies for past wrongs.11 Public Theology and the Limits of State Sovereignty However questionable, from an orthodox Christian perspective, might be some of the theological claims made by the religious leader, Rua Kenana, they constitute, nevertheless, an interesting form of public theology.12 Rua drew heavily on Rabbinical themes in the construction of his theological vision. He saw his people as a new Israel, subjected to oppression and bondage as were the original Israelites in Egypt, and he styled himself as their Messiah.13 His visions on the mountain of Maungapohatu were likened to Moses’ visions on Mount Sinai. He constructed a box containing a large Bible which became the new Ark of the covenant and for which a covenant house, often referred to as ‘Rua’s temple’, was built at Maungapohatu. He explained to an audience at Pakowhai that, ‘[t]he people were now living in bondage and he had come to deliver them… Rua went on to say that Adam had two children — Cain and Abel — Cain being the pakeha [white man] and Abel the Maori. And so it is today that the pakeha continues to attack the Maori’.14 Rua’s construction of his new movement followed very closely upon biblical precedent. A key text for him was Isaiah 62:4 from which he took the name Hephzibah for himself, rendered in Maori as Hepetipa. Isaiah 62:4 reads: ‘You shall no more be termed Forsaken,/And your land shall no more be termed Desolate;/But you shall be called My Delight is in Her [Hephzibah],/And your land Married [Beulah];/For the Lord delights in you and your land shall be married’.15 This is a small sample of evidence, to which much more may be added, suggesting that Rua saw himself and his followers as repeating Israel’s story; a central feature of which was allegiance to a Lordship other than that of those who would oppress them. It is this alternate allegiance, with the accompanying denial of any claims to absolute sovereignty by the ruling political authority, that is the especially salutary feature of Rua’s theology. The proclamation of an alternate authority, whether implicitly or explicitly, should be, I suggest, a central characteristic of all good theology. The authority of the state is not absolute and theology, of all disciplines, is best placed to say so and to present in the public sphere a conception of how human life might best be ordered under an authority not of our own devising. Rua gathered from the authority of the biblical texts a conviction that the good ordering of human life meant liberation from oppression and the realization of a new form of community referred to in the Bible as the New Jerusalem and coming kingdom of God. Rua set about making that vision a reality for his people. It is not surprising that the New Zealand government of the day decided that such efforts were seditious. All public theology is seditious in the sense that it sets forth an ordering of things that is based not on the authority of the state but on the authority of God. Rua’s error, Christianly conceived, was that he identified divine authority too closely with his own person, but his challenge to the authority of the state bears strong resemblance to the prophetic character of the biblical texts upon which Rua’s vision was based. There are occasions in the biblical narration of Israel’s story in which confrontation with political authority becomes quite explicit. The book of Daniel, for instance, narrates the story of the intentionally typological and exemplary figure of Daniel, who holds fast to the faith of Israel despite insistence from the political authorities that he submit to their dictates. Daniel’s story is the public manifestation of an alternate allegiance, told to the Israelites precisely in order to encourage their faithfulness to Yahweh in the face of demands upon them that challenged that allegiance. Daniel, the exemplary hero, challenged successive political authorities, who demanded conformity to statutes that constrained his freedom to live faithfully before Yahweh. That theme has a long heritage in Israel dating back to Moses’ confrontation of Pharoah with the demand for liberation of God’s people. It reappears in the New Testament as well, not least in the story of Jesus’ birth as it is told in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew crafts the story of the nativity in order to make clear that with Jesus’ birth a conflict of authority is looming. On one side is a child born in Bethlehem and proclaimed to be ‘king of the Jews’ (Mt. 2:2). On the other side is Herod, a man of brutal reputation, and a big spender intent on impressing Caesar from his remote outpost of the Roman Empire. Herod’s pretensions to absolute authority were threatened by the spreading word that in Bethlehem had been born a new and rightful king of the Jews. Matthew heightens the political tension by citing the prophetic text: ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the country of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel’ (Mt. 2:6). The crux of the story comes with Herod’s instruction to the wise men to return after they have found the child, and bring news to him of where Jesus may be found. To whom will the wise men pay homage? That is the dilemma whose poignancy, also for the reader of the gospel, has been finely crafted by Matthew. That this is a matter of public importance is stressed by Matthew’s further remark that when Herod heard the news of Jesus’ birth he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him (Mt. 2:3). Public theology, then, and in our own time, involves the proclamation of another Lord, and a denial of the absolute authority of the ruling political power. The conflict of authorities will not always be as stark as it appears in Matthew’s birth narrative, of course, and, while the deliverances of public theology may sometimes be directed towards cooperation with the state, if they are genuinely to be instances of public theology, then their basis will be found, as Rua Kenana understood, in the authority of the biblical witness to a God whose purposes for human life have a superior claim upon us than any that might be demanded by the public institutions of our day. Uneasiness in the face of a perceived challenge to the authority of public institutions might account, I suggest, for the heavy-handed response to the activities of disaffected Maori in Ruatoki and in the wider ‘nation of Tuhoe’. An especially worrying feature of those raids is that the catching up of ‘innocents’ in state efforts to quell the threat seems to have troubled the present government in New Zealand no more than it troubled Herod in his determination to assert his kingship in Palestine. Dealing with the Past A second issue arising from the recent raids upon Ruatoki and its rekindling of concern at past injustices is the manner in which a society attempts to deal with the past. As noted above, many who wrote letters to the government protesting the actions of police called for an apology to be issued to the people of Ruatoki. The apology could well extend to the Tuhoe people as a whole who are together in the conviction that they have been violated once again. I’d like to explore now what an apology might entail and to do that from an explicirtly Christian, theological point of view. The issuing of an apology entails, in the first place, that a wrong has been done. It involves, indeed, an acknowledgement of that wrong, an acknowledgement, that is, of the truth. Apologies are issued by those who have faced up to the truth about the past and who have given up trying to rewrite history in their own defence. An apology, secondly, presents to those injured by past wrongs a set of options about how they may move forward. It presents them with the option to accept the apology and thus to forgive the wrong that has been done, or to reject it, and so to remain committed to the settling of scores. In these matters the Christian gospel has important things to say, for the gospel has at its heart the story of a truth being revealed, of a past being acknowledged and forgiven and of a future opened up that the wrongs of human history had hitherto precluded. In the drama of divine forgiveness played out at Calvary we see, first of all, a laying bare of the truth of things. Human pretension and evil are exposed — the political pretensions and evil of Herod, the religious pretensions and evil of the Sanhedrin and those other devout ones who brought Jesus to trial, the popular pretensions and evil of those who bayed for blood, and the military pretensions and evil of those who mocked and spat and finally drove the nails. The pretensions and evil of all human history come to their end there at the ‘place of the skull’; and they end with death. That is the truth laid bare at Calvary and it is on account of this truth-telling that the crucifixion of Jesus is spoken of in Christian tradition as an exercise of judgement. To judge is to declare what is true. At Calvary the truth of human history is told. But it is not yet all the truth. For, besides the truth of human pretension and evil, there is another truth at work in the crucifixion of Jesus. It is the truth of God’s loving persistence with a people who have done wrong. The repentant centurion’s confession of faith, recorded in Mark’s gospel, that the man crucified at Calvary was afterall the Son of God (Mk 15:39) is that gospel writer’s affirmation that Calvary can only be understood aright when it is recognized that it is God Godself who bears the full weight of human pretence and sin. God’s forgiveness of humanity, the persistence of God’s love, comes at the cost of God’s bearing humanity’s fault. God remains faithful to his promise to dwell with his people even where they do their worst. The gospel writers in their various ways accent the opportunities Jesus had during his ministry to withdraw from that commitment. Matthew and Luke tell of the temptations in the wilderness (Mt. 4:1-11; Lk. 4:1-13); Mark does so more briefly (Mk 1:12-13). Matthew and Mark report the possibility presented to Jesus by Peter that he should avoid the way of the cross (Mt. 16:21-3; Mk 8:27-30). John has Jesus contemplate another road that would save him from the hour of the cross (Jn 12:27) and each of the synoptic gospels reports the challenge to Jesus to come down from the cross (Mt. 27:40; Mk 15:30; Lk. 23:35) thus to abandon the thoroughgoing acceptance by Jesus of a place at the side of sinners. The irony of the mocking cry that Jesus should save himself were he truly the Messiah of God (Lk. 23:35) is that the true Messiah is not in the business of saving himself, but rather of saving his people. The cost of the forgiveness thereby accomplished is Jesus’ bearing in his own person the death that was due to them. Here is a first central feature of what forgiveness entails. Forgiveness does not mean an agreement to forget. It means, rather, a commitment by the party offended against to go forward without all scores having been settled, and thus to bear the cost of the wrong that has been done. The alternative, of course, is persistence in the effort to settle scores. Hannah Arendt argues that the desire for revenge is grounded in what she calls ‘the predicament of irreversibility’.16 We cannot undo the past. What is done is done, and the inability to rerun the events of the past engenders in those offended against a desire to give an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Yet forgiveness brings an end to that escalating spiral of wrong. It is the courageous declaration on the part of the injured that ‘the evil stops with me; I will bear its cost.’ ‘Forgiveness breaks the power of the remembered past and transcends the claims of affirmed justice and so makes the spiral of vengeance grind to a halt’.17 In the case of past wrongs committed against Maori in New Zealand, forgiveness thus means, if Maori are willing to offer it, the laying aside of a desire to get even and the bearing of a cost. This reality bears on the often discussed question of whether apologies may be offered and forgiveness granted for wrongs committed by and against generations long gone.18 It is commonly claimed in public debate that the present generation has no cause to apologize for wrongs committed by their forbears, nor is anything owed to the present generation descended from those offended against. However that claim fails to recognize the spiral of bitterness and mistrust in which successive generations are caught up or the cost that is borne by succeeding generations of the wronged. Quite straightforwardly, for example, the illegal confiscation of land from Maori in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has benefited succeeding generations of Pakeha and disadvantaged succeeding generations of Maori. We Pakeha New Zealanders cannot extract ourselves from that reality by claiming that it was not us who confiscated the land. Again, we may reflect, the excessive reaction to the training camps at Ruatoki may be, in part, an effort by Pakeha to suppress the uncomfortable reminder that injustices remain current, and an effort too, to quell any suggestion that there might be scores to settle yet. The setting up of the police roadblock in the Ruatoki valley precisely along the line where land confiscation began was a bitter reminder, whether intentional or not, of wounds inflicted that have not yet been healed. A second feature of the reality of forgiveness, again in evidence at Calvary, is the opening of a future that had been precluded hitherto by events of the past. Precluded especially by past offence is the peaceful coexistence of perpetrator and victim. Peace is precluded, that is, if the relationship between the two parties is now determined by the desire to settle scores. Forgiveness is the giving up of that ‘just’ claim, precisely for the sake of peace. The claim is ‘just’ on a model of justice represented in the image of balanced scales; the model of justice with which human society generally operates. Yet such a model is called into question by the biblical understanding of the justice of God. The ‘balanced scales’ model of justice presumes that justice is done when the scores have been settled, but the biblical model is directed towards the establishment of right relationship. Love and mercy are key instruments of justice in biblical thought, alongside the truth-telling that sometimes includes the expression of outrage and wrath at atrocities committed in the past. It is these instruments of truth-telling, love and mercy that hold promise for the restoration of right relationships and for the construction of a future in which the past is truthfully remembered but is no longer determinative of the possibilities that now lie open. Forgiveness, we have noted, ‘breaks the power of the remembered past’19 and opens the way to a future in which the past is not held against us. Forgiveness involves, thirdly, the recognition that the past is irreversible; things cannot be made as they were. The slain followers of Rua cannot be brought back to life and the trauma inflicted on children at Ruatoki cannot be undone, at least not within the constraints of our historical existence. The one who forgives, therefore, accepts, as we have noted above, the burden of bearing those scars for the sake of reconciliation and peace. Christianly understood, however, such acts of forgiveness constitute an anticipation of that day when, as the Christian Scriptures put it, every tear will be wiped from our eyes and suffering and death will be no more (Rev. 21:4). Those who forgive according to the command of Jesus Christ to love your enemies and forgive those who transgress against you have consented to the present being determined, no longer by the wounds of the past, but by a new future gifted to us by God and inaugurated by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. An end to suffering, the restoration to life of those who have been slain, and the healing of all wounds is part of the Christian hope. Plainly enough, that hope has not been realized yet, so forgiveness involves, in the meantime, the consent to live with wounds neither avenged nor yet healed. The Plea of the Offender It may seem arrogant for me as a Pakeha New Zealander and beneficiary of injustices committed by Pakeha in the past, to set out what is required of Maori should they choose to forgive; but I have approached the matter this way so as to make clear what we Pakeha are asking for should an apology be issued for the raid on Ruatoki and for the wounds of history that the raid brought freshly to mind. Apologies have been issued for some of the injustices of New Zealand’s history and significant gestures of reparation have and are continuing to be made. The past is irreversible, however, and so, whatever gestures of reparation may be made, peace and reconciliation will continue to depend on Maori being willing to bear the wounds of New Zealand’s history without seeking revenge. Apology entails truth-telling; in this respect it entails an acknowledgement that the price of reconciliation is a price paid, for the most part, by those offended against. The process of public truth-telling about New Zealand’s colonial history began in the 1950s, but it did not begin seriously to disturb Pakeha consciousness until the establishment of the ‘Waitangi Tribunal’ in 1975. While much remains to be done, over the thirty years of its existence the Tribunal has contributed significantly to a ‘radical reinterpretation’20 of New Zealand history. To offer just one example of such revision, the ‘Maori Wars’, noted earlier as prejudicially named, were increasingly recognized to be a ‘justifiable reaction [by Maori] to Pakeha fraud and aggression’.21 In 1982 the Chairwoman of the Church and Society Commission of the National Council of Churches explained that: These wars are now more properly referred to as the ‘land wars’ as the term ‘Maori Wars’ suggests that the struggles over possession of the land were somehow the fault of the Maori people. The truth is that the Pakeha settlers, determined to force Maori to give up their land, provoked them into taking up arms in defence of what was rightfully theirs and then proclaimed them to be in rebellion against the Crown.22 As might have been anticipated, the truth-telling facilitated by the Waitangi Tribunal and by others has not met with universal approval. Not all Pakeha New Zealanders are willing to face the truth of colonial aggression and injustice. One troubling lesson to be learned from the 2007 raids on Ruatoki is that while the Crown and the New Zealand police may claim to have heard and to have assented to the ‘radical reinterpretation’ of that history, that hearing and assent has not, in this case at least, saved them from a perpetuation of past offences. It must be frankly admitted, however, that despite good intentions, and serious efforts made by some to face truth and offer apology, all Pakeha participate to some degree in the perpetuation of offence. In face of this perpetuation, the overwhelmingly pervasive response of Maori has been gracious tolerance, forgiveness and acceptance. The hospitality or manaakitanga commonly offered to Pakeha is a further instance of Maori willingness to bear the cost of past (and present) offence for the sake of reconciliation and peace. The gestures of hospitality call forth Pakeha acknowledgement of what these gestures cost; as discussed above, they are an expression of the Maori commitment to strive for the establishment of right relationship without all scores having been settled. The biblical injunction is apposite here: ‘From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be expected’ {Lk. 12:48}. Maori hospitality with its implicit gift of forgiveness, will, over time, we may hope, issue, first, in a strengthened resolve among Pakeha to engage in truth-telling and ‘truth-hearing’ both about the past and about the present bearing of costs, and second, in a renewed commitment to strive with Maori towards right relationship in the future. A deeply moving story of how one colonial landowner has engaged in this process of reconciliation in a setting similar in some respects to the New Zealand situation is told by Camilla Cowley, a farmer in the Australian outback. Cowley tells of her encounters with the indigenous Australians, who were once the owners of the property she now owns: Learning the truth of the past brought with it a feeling of guilt that I had gone so far in my life completely unaware of what had happened in my area and oblivious to the repercussions still being felt today. I was unaware of the hurt still being visited upon the descendents of people whose history was changed forever with the advent of the white explorers… There were so many stories. In listening, my guilt overwhelmed me as I regretted, so late in the day, not knowing, not caring and not trying to do something sooner. One of the greatest gifts I have been given by the traditional owners has been their forgiveness of my ignorance and their assurance that all that matters is that I am now trying to walk with them.23 Cowley’s story reveals the central features of what is involved in offering apology for wounds inflicted in the past; those features are the telling of truth and the hearing of truth, the acknowledgement that successive generations of those offended against continue to bear the cost, a humble and humbling acceptance of what forgiveness entails and a willingness to walk a new road in the company of those who have borne the burden of past injustice. These are the gestures and the commitments now required, I suggest, in the wake of the ‘War on Terror’ at Ruatoki. the original article is published in the International Journal of Public Theology 2.3 {2008} 277-91.
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	Insight and Intuition: The Maori Way	105 giorni fa
	Dr. Rangimarie Turuki Rose Pere is a formidable woman, Moari leader and ambassador for the Maori tradition and a CBE (given by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II) and she upholds her tradition of using her intuition and insight to navigate through life. She was named Young Maori Woman of the Year back in 1971 when she said the following statement..... "Born in Ruatahuna in the middle of of July and brought up as a child at Waikaremoana, in the Urewera, I was strongly influenced by Maoritanga, my grandparents, and the rest of the elders who lived in our district. Our Maori elders fascinated us with their ‘mokopunas’, with stories, speeches, songs, chants, and hakas. These kaumatuas could entertain and control us for hours on end, and were always very popular. There always seemed to be plenty to eat when one visited an old ‘kuia’ or ‘koroua’, but reflecting back, I realise it was probably all that some of these old people had, sometimes. Many of our families had very few material possessions, and were denied so many of the luxuries we enjoy today, and yet what I remember most vividly was the ring of laughter, song and music, the obvious happiness we shared as a people, because of the abundance of aroha—goodwill. There was a deep appreciation and respect for the human element above all things, the laws of conservation, including the natural environment and resources. Mind you, seeing other people's problems has made me realise all these things. I was one of the young people who took the elders and what they stood for, for granted. The best traditions and values of the Maori culture including the language (old New Zealand heritage), together with the worthwhile values, traditions, modern technology and skills brought in by other cultural and racial groups (new New Zealand heritage) may help to eradicate some of the human conflict and insecurity facing many of us today. We as New Zealanders in this multi-racial society need an identity that will give us a sense of unity, a sense of national pride, security, achievement and progress, in human, rather than material terms". Rose has been strongly influenced by teachings that go back over 12,000 years. Her book Te Wheke - A Celebration Of Infinite Wisdom, is an introduction to these teachings. Rose has been on lecture tours on Te Wheke throughout Europe, including Germany, Austria and Italy. She has represented Aotearoa New Zealand internationally as an educationalist; written a monograph called AKO: Concepts and Learning in The M?ori Tradition; held a Visiting Teacher Fellowship at the University of Waikato, Hamilton New Zealand in 1982; taught from preschool to tertiary; and researched ancient teachings in the Americas, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Great Britain, East Asia and the South Pacific. Rose is a holder of the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal and was honoured as a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire 1996. She attained a Doctorate of Literature at Victoria University Wellington, New Zealand 1996. Rose has her own consultancy called Ao Ako which focuses on global learning. She is also a Director of the Four Winds Foundation - an international body that works with indigenous and non-indigenous people. Video Link: http://www.consciousmedianetwork.com...
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	Tautohe Tupapaku	112 giorni fa
	Kua whakaae te Kooti Teitei, kei a Denise Clarke, te pouwaru a James Takamore, te mana ki tona tupapaku. Engari i tetahi ahuatanga rereke, kaore te kaiwhakawaa i korero, i whakatakoto whakatau ranei mo te hahutanga ake o taua tupapaku ra. Tata ki te rua tau kua hipa mai i te wa i nehua a James Takamore. He tangata i mate ohorere i Otautahi, engari i tapukehia e tona whanau ki te urupa o Kutarere. He tawhiti rawa mai i tana hoa rangatira a Denise Clarke. Na te ohorere me te pukuriri, i kawea atu ai tenei take ki mua i te aroaro o te Kooti Teitei i tera marama, Ko te tono kia whakahokia mai te tupapaku. Hei ta te kaiwhakawa, kaore i tika nga mahi a te whanau, a, no te kaitiaki i te wiira, a Denise Clarke, te mana o te tupapaku. Hei ta Denise Clarke, "I am ecstatic. Absolutely overjoyed." Engari kaore te kaiwhakawa i kii, me hahu te tupapaku. Hei tana, me hui pea nga whanau e rua ki te whakatau i tenei take. E ai ki tetahi o nga kaikorero i tu ki mua i te Kooti Teitei& Hei ta Pou Temara, tohunga tikanga Maori, "E tika ana kia anipa tatou te iwi Maori, kia awangawanga tatou ki te whakatau a te kaiwhakawaa. Na te mea koinei te tuatahi o nga whakatau penei e riro ai ma te ture Pakeha e takahi i te tikanga Maori." Engari kaore a Denise Clarke i te whakaae. Hei ta Denise Clarke ano, "I'm not scared of them anymore. I just want to keep on fighting." He take tenei e tirohia ana e tetahi atu whanau. I kahakina te tupapaku o to ratou kooka. Hei ta Catherine Mekkelsen, o Ngati Pakeha, "I think it also shows that we need to stand together on this and that we need to make a stand that this is not OK." Hei te rahoroi, ka hui te whanau o James Takamore, kei Te Ika a Maui e noho ana, ki te wananga i te whakatau a te kooti.
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	Tuhoe takes $150 million offer back to people	116 giorni fa
	WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2009 Tuhoe are confident that agreement will be reached with the government on the settlement of grievances following an offer put to them by the Crown yesterday. Te Kotahi a Tuhoe chairman Tamati Kruger says the offer which addresses cultural issues, ownership and management of the Te Urewera National Park, compensation monies and Tuhoe self-governance issues is being considered at hui around the tribal area last night and this morning. “The good news is the distance between the Crown’s offer and where Tuhoe is generally is not extremely far apart. There is some distance there but we are confident that with continued negotiations with the Crown can lead towards an agreement in principle,” Mr Kruger says The iwi expects to be going back to the government with its response later today. It is understood the Crown has offered around $150 million as compensation, agreed to work towards greater autonomy for Tuhoe, co-management of the national park and has accepted special cultural issues needing redress as reult of the government's actions against Tuhoe in the 1800's.
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	Self-governance for Ngāi Tūhoe “on the table”	116 giorni fa
	12 August 2009 - 11:37am Indigenous Struggles Local Tino Rangatiratanga Activist Tame Iti says that not very long ago, the Crown thought Tūhoe was absurd to think of sovereignty and self-governance, but the matter is now on the table alongside financial compensation. A meeting was held in Wellington yesterday (11 August) between 40 iwi members and the Crown to hear its first offer of settlement. It is still unknown what the offer is. Te Kotahi ā Tūhoe chairman Tamati Kruger said the offer will be taken back to the people at a series of hui on Tuesday night and on Wednesday. Tame Iti says the offer is just the first step and he believes the Crown will improve the offer. It is estimated that the offer will be similar to the Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu financial redress of $170 million. "Unless the same level of quantum is reached ($170 million), Ngāi Tūhoe will not be able to reach [an] agreement with the Crown." Tamati Kruger explained the journey to reaching settlement was long and tumultuous however necessary and that the descendants of Tūhoe could now realistically look forward to a brighter more independent future as a result of pushing forward with the settlement of Tūhoe claims. Mana motuhake: recognition of Ngāi Tūhoe as a nation From the Negotiator Reports - Issue 7: "The Ngāi Tūhoe interests that have been discussed with the Crown include: Mana motuhake: recognition of Ngāi Tūhoe as a nation Acknowledgement and ownership of Ngāi Tūhoe homeland i.e. Te Urewera is a homeland not a National Park Ngāi Tūhoe viewed by the Crown as a 'nation' not just an iwi. Seek a political relationship with the Crown 'nation to nation'." Self Government "The Mana Motuhake o Tūhoe as an original claim, became the mantel upon which all other claims were posited. It has been just over 110 years since the last expression of self government in practical terms was witnessed in Te Urewera. The Tūhoe General Committee of 1898 was at that time chaired by Numia Kereru and heralded the resurgence of Tūhoe self government prior to its demise only a few years later. Having come under untenable political pressure of government officials of that day, not withstanding the internal wranglings which tested the integrity of the General Committee and threatened to decimate the unification of Ngāi Tūhoe. Incidentally this coincided with the emergence of the prophetic leader Rua Kenana - a prophetic and evangelical leader who rose to power at the height of Tūhoe's social disruption following the colonial wars. It can be argued that the features of this colonial and historical past mirror those events and experiences that are bound in Te Urewera and impact on Ngāi Tūhoe as an iwi in the present day." (from Te Kotahi ā Tūhoe) Internal conflict - the creation of Te Umutaoroa Several hapu have split from Te Kotahi ā Tūhoe in recent months and have formed a new body - Te Umutaoroa. Ngāti Haka Patuheuheu and Tamakaimoana are opposed to the forming of the Tūhoe Establishment Trust. A roadblock was set up in Waiohau over the weekend by members of Ngāti Haka Patuheuheu. "All we want is for us to put our voice out there, especially to the Government, because they're not listening to us ... [Kaingaroa] are our forests as well and we are being swallowed up by Tuhoe" said Anitewhatanga Hare. Te Ringahuia Hata said police arrived armed and threatened to arrest people - turning a peaceful protest into an aggressive one (see photo). Ms Hata claimed the protest took place on land owned by the hapu. She said the hapu was protesting because members were concerned about talks between the Crown and Tūhoe authority Te Kotahi ā Tūhoe. The hapu was a major claimant and should be included. Court hearings were held in Wellington in June over the dispute. The Judge reiterated that disputes of tikanga should properly be resolved by the internal processes of the iwi and that differences among members of Tūhoe as to the requirements of its tikanga must be discussed and if possible resolved within the iwi.
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	Compensation offer awaited by Tuhoe	118 giorni fa
	Tuhoe iwi representatives will be in Wellington on Tuesday to receive an offer of compensation from the Government. Waatea News reports the offer is compensation for land confiscated in the 19th century. Earlier this year, the Waitangi Tribunal found that Tuhoe suffered confiscations and humiliation which needed to be compensated. Waatea News reports the Government's first offer is expected to be at the lower end of a band between $150 - $170 million. Activist Tame Iti says the offer is just the first step and he believes the Crown will improve the offer. He told Waatea News that not very long ago, the Crown thought Tuhoe was absurd to think of sovereignty and self-governance, but the matter is now on the table alongside financial compensation. Te Kotahi a Tuhoe chairman Tamati Kruger said the offer will be taken back to the people at a series of hui on Tuesday night and on Wednesday.
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	Tuhoe hapu blocks road in forestry land protest	118 giorni fa
	Land protesters who blocked a road between Murupara and Whakatane say they will continue to occupy the site until their grievances are met. The group of 20 Ngati Haka Patuheuheu hapu members blocked traffic on the road at Snake Hill, east of Waiohau, for 14 hours yesterday until police forced them to reopen it. Traffic was diverted on to a forestry road before the Snake Hill road was reopened and the group moved to the verge, where they have set up camp. Hapu spokeswoman Ani Hare said the group was opposed to discussions between the Crown and Te Kotahi a Tuhoe, the main Tuhoe negotiating body for land claims in the Kaingaroa Forest. Mrs Hare, 73, who is Waiohau School principal, said the hapu was angry at being excluded. An agreement in principle is to be discussed today at hui throughout the Tuhoe region. Mrs Hare said it was unacceptable that 15 of the32 Tuhoe hapu would not be represented. "It has been almost a year since hapu and individuals withdrew support for land claims being negotiated by Tuhoe with the Crown," she said.
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