Maori party could unite gangs — candidate

Press, 18 November 1981, Page 11

Maori party could unite gangs — candidate

The Mana Motuhake party has the potential to unite Maori gangs to “bury the hatchet,” the party’s candidate for Southern Maori, Mr Amster Reedy, told a public meeting in Christchurch. This could be achieved because the movement “believes” in the gangs. He said that Mana Motuhake needed

the strengths of independence and will-power possessed by gang leaders, and in return the movement could offer leadership and direction. Mr Reedy said that Maoris had never been so weak and divided. Mana Motuhake was about fundamental' rights for Maoris in such things as land, language and culture. Much of New Zealand’s history was untapped because it was contained in Maori language which historians could not understand. “We are the tangata whenua (people of the land), yet our language is not even an official language.” Maoris had been dependent too long, and Mana Motuhake was “about self-help.” “The responsibility for the future of our language is in our hands" Mr Reedy said that what was good for Maoris was good for the country, but the Government, had io realise that New Zealand was “two people — one nation ’ The Treaty of Waitangi had not been honoured, and the annual celebration was a political showpiece and "the

most hypocritical exercise." He said that the three Maori youths who were jailed for refusing to accept the jurisdiction of the court when they faced charges arising from the Waitangi Day protests were “political prisoners in their own coun“Eight out of every 10 people in our prisons are Maoris. That is how downtrodden we are as a people.” Mr Reedy said that Maoris should not tel) their children and grandchildren that they had failed the system, but that the system had failed them. , f For too long Maoris had been told riot to get involved in politics. Mana Motuhake was saying that “that is where the action is.” Mr Reedy said he saw for the first time a-look of hope in the eyes of the Maori people. Mana Motuhake offered Maori children and grandchildren "a future in which they will never nave to question whether they are Maori, in wmcn they will respect their Maoritanga, and one in which tney will never have to look behind.”