No place in a sustainable future: Domination and the “C” word

I’m a Pākehā (NZ-European) and a child of the seventies. Born in Whakatū-Nelson in Te Waipounamu-the South Island, I seldom encountered Māori, never heard te reo Māori spoken, never learnt te ao Māori (culture) in school. Throughout my childhood an entire people in my country were largely invisible to me, though Māori arrived here 700 years before I was born.

An indigenous definition of “the C word”, of colonisation, is this: one group imposing their ideas about the world on another group, taking away the things that make life possible and good[1]: land, language, ways of living, loved ones, longevity—all the things. It’s a process of domination and cultural devastation. It explains my beige, post-colonial childhood.[2]

Whether the dominated and devastated are Māori, Aboriginal, Palestinian or American First Peoples; colonisation is comprehensively unjust. It must be unwound. It’s not compatible with a sustainable future, where we’ll nurture relationships of mutuality and justice.

My last post explored indigenous knowledge. The cost of colonisation, of ignoring indigenous wisdom about our natural world, is written all over Aotearoa in the red ink of environmental bankruptcy. What’s a descendant of settlers, like me, to think and do? I’ve benefited from colonisation through land ownership and systems that support colonial ways.

I like to slide sideways into other spaces to gather insights—feminism also addresses domination of one group by another. Black feminist Audre Lorde[3] wrote this to her peers about racism:

“I have no creative use for guilt, yours or my own. Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action, of buying time out of the pressing need to make clear choices, out of the approaching storm that can feed the earth as well as bend the trees.”

So, there’s that.

Also, Lorde and other early feminists knew they couldn’t change patriarchy unless they first changed themselves, a process of learning called “consciousness raising”[4].

In Aotearoa, Ocean Ripeka Mercier writes similarly about unwinding colonisation, about learning to recognise colonisation in all its forms[5]: The Rangitata river is tapped for farm irrigation, reducing its ability to provide habitat for biodiversity[6]; Māori don’t live as long as Pakeha[7]; we vote against taxing our properties because land isn’t wealth…or is it? Perhaps we should ask those who had theirs taken from them.

After consciousness raising we must act, rooting out the weeds of colonisation and creating space for indigenous ways[8]. Bonus: unwinding colonisation is good for everyone. The environmental, social, and economic truths to achieve a sustainable future are revealed through thoughtful inquiry that includes diverse perspectives[9]. So, I’ll finish with Lorde’s voice again:

“Our differences are polarities between which can spark possibilities for a future we cannot even now imagine… a future where we may all flourish, as well as a living earth upon which to support our choices.”

Credit: Louise T, 08 May 2024, 8:52am - A misty morning view across the Ōpāwaho-Heathcote to King George V reserve, where native planting is re-indigenising the river bank.

[1] From Imagining Decolonisation edited by Dr Rebecca Kiddle (Ngāti Porou, Ngāpuhi). I highly recommend this (small) extraordinary book written by multiple authors. It also includes a chapter on how colonisation hurts non-Māori.

[2] By the 1970s in Aotearoa a rich Māori society “existed only as hollowed-out remnants in rural pockets, often in impoverished communities; traditional cultural practices were observed in enclaves of Māori homes and marae on the margins of society”. From Imagining Decolonisation.

[3] The Selected Works of Audre Lorde edited by Roxane Gay.

[4] Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks.

[5] Ocean Ripeka Mercier (Ngāti Porou) in Imagining Decolonisation.

[6] Rangitata River Habitat Quality Index (HQI) Assessment Arundel to Ealing Prepared by Thomas Kay, Forest & Bird, May 2020

[7] This animated, non-fiction graphic by Toby Morris explains some of the reasons why: The Side Eye’s Two New Zealand’s: The 2,700 Day Gap.

[8] In Imagining Decolonisation, Mercier talks about “rethinking” then acting.

[9] Sustainability by Leslie Thiele.