Meet the Māori activist revitalizing his community’s legacy of nonviolence

Known for the famous Haka warrior dance, Māori activists are reclaiming their legacy of nonviolence in their drive for sovereignty. Tonga Karena, a Māori scholar, tribal leader, and artist 

based in Parihaka, New Zealand, has dedicated his life to his passion of cultural revitalization through what he calls “frameworks of peace and resistance.” Author of several books, Tonga is currently a PhD Candidate at the University of Otago National Center for Peace and Conflict Studies in Dunedin, New Zealand. 

In addition to his scholarship, Tonga is an active Parihaka community leader and an avid musician as part of the Māori band “Te Ahi Kātroro,” which refers to the scorched earth policy the crown used on the Māori people during the New Zealand wars. He is also a leader in a kapa waiata group (traditional Māori choir) in which traditional Māori histories are retained orally. In all these capacities, Tonga works with the Parihaka community to revitalize traditional knowledge of the past to provide context for the present. 

His community-centered research follows a Māori Indigenous method by which knowledge is learned and created in relation with leadership, family and one’s wider network of relationships. Furthermore, he has chosen to write his entire dissertation in the Māori language.  

In this in-depth interview, he shares everything about Maori culture, including decolonization, the perception of being a warrior tribe, the benefits of social media, and the need for more men to sit with elders and dance and cry. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Could you explain why you have chosen to write your doctoral dissertation in Māori instead of English?

I have fought against the politics of alterity by asserting our own language and our own voice in that language. I am a traditionalist; I know my dissertation will thus be for a smaller audience. Debates written in English about our culture are irrelevant. Everyone has been saying who we are because they found a benefit from writing about it in the dominant language. There is going to be a time that I want to introduce all this peace scholarship to the community, and I want to do it within the Parihaka community because that gives me a sense of authority; I am supported by my people to give voice to our peace narrative.

There have been many students of peace studies who have come to Parihaka, and I have helped them develop their sense of knowledge by being connected to our community. They come without any external funding, which has a spiritual resilience attached to it. Scholarships are one thing, and writing and publications are another, but being part of a living community and seeing it grow is something else. Some of the scholars that I include in my literature review demonstrate their commitment, which is why they are able to produce their scholarship. On the other hand, I have heavily critiqued those that have written about us and have not shown that commitment with our community. When you do not objectify a community, you become part of the family, and when you are part of the family, you don’t disconnect after you finish your project. My PhD now is an exercise of leadership to build my own critical thinking as a member of the community. 

What is the relationship between colonialism and revitalization in Māoridom [areas where Māori people live]?

Māori people have been subjugated since the colonization of New Zealand, and have been affected by the loss of language, culture, identity and land — and the way that colonial norms have crept into our people’s psyche.  

The pivot towards revitalization began about four decades ago throughout Māoridom. Revitalization has been centered on culture, on the return of land, and on building the intellectual capability within the modern complexities that we’re faced with being part of the national growth and the economy. 

What is the relationship between Christianity and Māori nonviolent resistance?

Christianity and the messages of peace resonated for a lot of people, but they also saw that  many of those preaching the word of God were fallible. We developed our own religious voice with Christianity which we integrate with other tribal forms of ceremony. We became literate through the Bible. The message of peace appealed, and it was the right tool to use when we were being stripped away from our lands. 

With the advent of secularism and the loss of Christian identity for Māori people, those old songs that include scriptures have become traditional because they are from the last century. They are sacred now. We do not insult or become offended by the deceased older generations for taking up Christianity. 

Many of our ceremonies are now being resurrected. Since two years, we have been celebrating the Māori New Year. When the Pleiades Star System or the Rigel Star system starts to rise, we have traditional prayers and ceremonies at dawn that are all conducted  by traditional priests. These are now broadcast on national television and there was not a single politician. Our sense of identity has been attached to restoring those zones as old spiritual ones. 

What is the current relationship between the British Empire and Māori? And in your estimation, what should reconciliation look like? 

The rise of our community back to its legitimate status of tradition holders of peace will create a  discourse of reconciliation. It is connected to the political outcome of our own reconciliation with the Crown, which is going to restore us to be that emblematic kind of community.

Reconciliation will be a continuing conversation that will require a level of genuine partnership on the part of the Crown with the Parihaka community. It would be tough to imagine decolonisation with the Crown continuing to exist as the lawmaker and the final arbiter of executive force that uses violence towards maintaining law and order. 

We are now looking for funds while also walking hand-in-hand with the government, in envisioning the development of our community, which would reflect the Indigenous peace traditions of Aotearoa, New Zealand. We have to maintain our space. 

We are not separate like the reservations in the United States. We have a high political presence.  We have our own political party, and we are present in other political parties as well. Even within the private sector, Māori are doing well. Small businesses and cultural competitions are on the rise with more resources from the government. But there is also homelessness. Housing has been a massive problem in New Zealand since the pandemic, which we are still recovering from because of New Zealand’s tourism industry. 

What is the relationship between Māori culture and New Zealand’s political parties?

We have our own history with all parties on the ideological spectrum. We have a Māori party now, and it has been doing well, but they do not get into many cabinet positions or into the decision-making powers with the government. 

The left has definitely served our needs while in power. The left has a high number of Māori Members of Parliament, the most we have ever had, and this has benefited the community in terms of resources. The test, however, is how ready are the communities to receive and administer these resources. I see the younger generation coming through a lot stronger in their culture, a lot more progressive in the way they think, and a lot more aware of their health and well-being. It is a balance between cultural integration while maintaining tribal spaces that are critical spaces for reflection. 

How do you define political literacy?

People are quick to revolt based on the little knowledge they have of our history and our people, but they haven’t developed enough cultural depth to be able to filter what academics are telling them about our own history. Political literacy is thus connected to cultural literacy and community engagement. 

Political literacy is also about the electoral process. If you want something, if you want change, then vote. The younger generation of Māori are more politically literate about the electoral system, but the voters are small in number. Facilitation is critical while we build our information base, as well as participation in traditions that empower our knowledge of nonviolent resistance. 

How does your work fit between the ideas of Māori integration and having clear Māori cultural spaces?

Our community is far away from the major urban centers, which makes it difficult because goods and services are slow to come by. At the same time, being located outside urban centers gives us a place to really reflect deeply and maintain our traditions. In general, the Māori have a strong urban and rural presence due to the many community centers around the country. But we love being amongst the forests, the rivers, the sea for our customary traditions, which gives us a sense of our past and our food sovereignty. It seems quite complex but New Zealand is such a small country at the bottom of the South Pacific, and yet doing its thing with a high level of integration of Māori people. 

How has the passing of Queen Elizabeth impacted local Māori culture and the country at large? 

When someone of that status passes away, the immediate response of the Māori people is to allow the spirit to move to the afterlife. That is a traditional response. 

Could you explain the extent to which colonization manifests itself and impacts Māori culture? And what methods have you and the communities with whom you’ve been working with actively resist and critique those examples of colonization?

Integrated resistance to racism, sexism and competition for resources is alive. This takes the form of developing our intelligentsia within corporate spaces, within political community boards, and debating with councilors, as ministers do in the Parliament. We proudly put ourselves in front of the mainstream camera and talk about our issues. We have enough presence across New Zealand that you cannot deafen the noise of the Māori people. We are a minority, but we have our own Māori TV channel and that plays a big part in developing the narrative of New Zealand’s politics. 

Because of this, over the past 30 years, Māori leaders have been widely respected. Strong relationships have been formed with white New Zealanders who have the tolerance and know how to make themselves invisible, secondary, give space and speak with humility. They are a big part of the wider, Indigenous social, political movement that is taking place in New Zealand. Unfortunately, racism is still hanging around. It would be a major achievement in terms of a level of tolerance if it could be gotten rid of. 

What is the Māori matriarchal role in leadership and decolonization?

It has been the unheralded matriarchy within our Māori society that has been challenging colonized behaviors of our men who actually haven’t done too well for themselves and in many of the leadership spaces throughout history. It is mostly women on government boards, and they keep up with the little things, the big things, and they never take their foot off the pulse. I understand that men are working, but they are not engaging in other roles such as volunteering or understanding the many forms of power. If they never challenge violent forms of power, they will never understand how important Matriarchal resistance is. 

We continue to owe our Wahine (women) for the efforts that they have done. On a personal level, I gripe about the lack of men who are not sensitive enough or humble enough to sit with the elders, to listen, to sing, to cry and take on that priestly role of helping people go through all the different stages of life, whether it’s death or birth. Emotional responses are part of healing and are part of all of our ceremonies. In these spiritual roles, women are enmeshed in political roles of caring for the family and the children. This is why it is so important to ensure that they have a role politically in the design of ceremonies. A major characteristic of New Zealand politics is the influence of women. 

Can you explain what is meant by Māori warrior culture? 

We are only warriors when someone turns up on our doorstep, and then we need to protect our community. We go into that role psychologically through the Haka. There is the stereotype of Māori that embraces the features of someone being angry, which is part of our dance by which people perceive us as being warriors. This stereotype serves the interests of the colonizers because it perceives our culture as violent. Because we are so good at acting out violence in our ceremonies and dances, that the portrayal of our culture being that of a warrior culture served their needs. Subsequently, our peace times are made invisible. The colonizers weaponize this, and say they need to be subjugated because they are violent.

We know peace. Our peace time is prayers in the morning when the sun rises; when we are all gathered crying over the loss of a loved one and conducting ceremonies with the voice of our women and our priests; when we are out fishing, harvesting food and acknowledging the gods that provide that food. 

We do not use the written word in our ceremonies. There is a lot of memorizing that goes on, so the theater performance — which is an act of remembering — has a fair amount of ceremonial ethics attached to it. If you forget a word, then the gods won’t look in your favor if you make a mistake. There is a level of perfectionism in our ceremonies that are attached to our relationship with the supernatural.  

How do you see Māori culture balancing the needs of its own cultural engagement, with the needs to participate in a more global aim of combatting colonial power?

There is a weakness to the fact that we are geopolitically centered to the land, but our “whakapapa” — our genealogy — is such that it goes right across the Pacific. As Indigeneity has grown, that connection to other Indigenous peoples around the world has increased as well. There is also the impact of the Pākehā (white New Zealanders), who have already seen themselves as global citizens and are thus making us aware of these things. From our global presence, we share solidarity with many groups, such as Palestine or Hawaii in the Pacific. 

Beyond that, I have many Native American friends who are leaders of their language revitalization movement. During the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, for example, people traveled to the U.S. to lend their help. Even now, social media has created a pulse that I had not seen just five years ago.  We had our own occupation in 2019 with Ihumātao, which was in Auckland. There was a huge number of people from the community who were referring to our history and principles to lead them in their own resistance campaign. We have a role to lead and to show what can happen after a century, even of a failed resistance movement and how to rebuild a broken community that wasn’t just tribal but was pan-tribal.

We are a small population of only 750,000, but we definitely lead Indigenous cultural growth around the world with language revitalization, treaty settlements. Those commonalities, those networks, those connections, with Indigenous groups across the world, have all been reinforced by the constant visitations back and forth. I don’t see that discontinuing. It’s great because we realize the expanse of globalization, colonialism, colonization, and the narrative and the peculiarities, the nuances and the complex layers. 

It’s more the attitude of relationship building, for knowing kinship values, carrying us across into these other family-based communities. We apply those kinship values to ourselves, and we apply them when we go overseas. By doing so, you see different ways of forming kinship. 

This is why I preface everything through relationship-building and exercising your kinship values into your scholarly journey. It’s something more than just a fire-side story because you change due to this experience, and it’s the same when people come and visit with us. This is why social media has become so important. It is a beautiful tool, and not just the amplification of negative vibes. It allows you to ask: How are they doing? You get to see them doing well. There is connection, and it is amazing to see a wider kinship growing throughout the world.

We don’t really have that much to offer, but we do offer when we can. We are quite happy. The corruption level is quite low in New Zealand, and people don’t recognize that as a measure of well-being in the politics of the country, unless you’re in peace studies. Peace studies look at all those different indicators and you realize that you’re doing alright. That’s what I love about peace studies for New Zealand, how it gives an exposure to what is happening in the wider global family that’s out there and reminds us just how lucky we are.