A traumatic story

Haimona Gray writes:

Too Maori for some, not Maori enough for others. I knew that old blind before I could read.

I was raised with eyes forced wide open. Like the protagonist, Alex, in A Clockwork Orange. Eyes unable to look away from the horrors of the world.

My parents met while working at an international aid organisation that no longer exists because, according to academic research which analysed changing public sentiment towards it, it became dominated by a self serving Maori elite whanau who sought to move it away from providing aid to war torn countries and towards a type of culture war we’re seeing re-emerge. 

I was also told, at a very young age, an anecdote about a former colleague of my parents, the daughter of Titewhai Harawira who was also a colleague and who shared this sentiment as well, just not so graphically. 

She explained to my mother that my being of mixed race was a stain on my mother’s Maoridom, and that I should be aborted – violently, down a flight of stairs, if required. 

During that same year, 1988, two of Titewhai Harawira’s children were convicted of assault. This wasn’t an entirely idle threat.

When, years later and as an MP, Hone Harawira said he wouldn’t want his children to have pakeha partners, I believed him. That is how he was raised, and how he was raising.

I shouldn’t be glad anyone is dead, it is not a decent way to think about another human being and goes against my values. 

But I’m glad Titewhai Harawira is dead. I don’t feel good about this, I hope to get over this one day, but I am. 

To her ilk I am a mistake, a blemish on our entire race. Not because of any crap about not being raised in Te Ao Maori, it’s never been about that, but because I am pakeha at all. 

I was born with an original sin, one I will never be absolved of. …

My hate for these people fuels me. The knowledge that there are people out there who hate you for just ‘being’ brings out powerful feelings of spite. 

This is why I see the appeal of hate, but it is not conducive to being a happy person or creating a healthy society. Hate is toxic. 

Sadly, when it comes to this important debate around how Maori children being abused should be handled, hate and personal animosity are overpowering adults from acting in these children’s best interests.  

We’re seeing and hearing nasty divisive things when we should be trying to find practical solutions. 

It is bitterly ironic that the disappointing people leading the former Maori Party are the ones most championing racial division. 

This is a party Dame Tariana Turia founded to fight against the divisive anti-Maori rhetoric she was seeing at the time. It is a denigration of her legacy that the current co-leaders are now using this party to cut people out of Maoridom. 

To divide us, not unite us. 

When people say children deserve to understand their whakapapa and the beauty of their Maoridom, I see it. Up to a point. 

When people say children deserve safety above all else, that good intentioned and harmless upbringing, I see that too. None of this should be an either/or proposition, and yet it is being framed as such. 

The way Karen Chhour has been treated disgusts me, but it doesn’t surprise me. I can relate to what she’s going through, and what she’s likely gone through her whole life. 

It’s a pity that this story is only on Substack, not covered by legacy media.