THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1987. Stopping race relations rot

Press, 4 February 1987, Page 20

THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1987. Stopping race relations rot

The Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr Tapsell, was sharp and to the point when he spoke to his Ngati Porou people at the week-end: 1986, he said, had been a bad year for Maoridom. He was not prepared, he said, to use weasel words to disguise the seriousness of the problems confronting the Maori people and he warned his audience that they were in danger of losing the good will that the vast majority of pakeha people felt towards them. Mr Tapsell itemised the matters that have angered public opinion in the last year: the activities of the so-called Rastafarians on the East Coast; the gang rape at an ostensibly civilised and businesslike gang convention at Mangere; the arrogant and anti-social behaviour of some Maori gangs; the “extraordinary” funding of some gangs; and the Maori loans affair.

If he had confined his speech merely to that synopsis of the woes afflicting the Maori people and the warning that accompanied, Mr Tapsell would have been notable as the first leading political figure, Maori or pakeha, to address the subject in such clear-sighted terms.

He went much further in his diagnosis and suggested cure; and it is for this that his thoughts deserve wide circulation and merit hearty applause. They will almost certainly anger the “rent-a-spokespersons,” those glib individuals who have easy access to the media; but that only adds to the lustre of his thoughts.

For Mr Tapsell identified the source of some of the Maori’s problems as coming from “liberal” Europeans, who had proved false friends with their advocacy of easy abortion, tolerance of homosexuality, and general denigration of family life. “They pronounce the word ‘Maoori.’ They cherish the thought of effortless ‘taha Maori.’ But they are more concerned to use us as the battleground for their own causes,” Mr Tapsell said. He also identified the type of Maoris who do no service to their people. “Over the last few years, more and more of our hui are being hijacked by a small group of sometimes irresponsible people. Worst of all, their view is sometimes taken as the voice of Maoridom

... Many of our tipuna (ancestral houses) must shudder at some of the malcontents who turn up on Friday evenings armed only with a sleeping bag and a few personal grudges.”

What has been common to the events of last year has been the inability of community leaders to face reality and then to resolve to deal with it. Far too frequently the blame for misdeeds has been shifted, often on to some remote abstraction, and excuses made for those who have committed them. More recently, the Minister of Police, Mrs Hercus, of all people, made excuses for gangs that took advantages of weaknesses in the workcontract scheme. The action may be understandable; it is not so easily excused. It is perhaps in the loans affair that the reluctance to face facts has shown up most sharply. There are some, even now, unwilling

to believe that the scheme was doomed. They believe still that $6OO million would have been their salvation and was cruelly snatched away from them, and that the men who almost made the deal have been unfairly pilloried. In fact, as Mr Tapsell said, it showed the Maori people how pitifully short they were of people with practical experience in the business world. If the loan affair induces even a few Maori young people to undertake a career in business, maybe it will have had some small beneficial effect.

At times in his speech, Mr Tapsell sounded as though he might be at odds with his colleague, the Minister of Education, Mr Marshall. The liberal-minded Mr Marshall has been an ardent advocate of something called the “Maori dimension” (“taha Maori”) in schools. Some have argued that while all New Zealanders should be aware of our cultural and historical background, we have more urgent needs, such as education in mathematics, computers, and the like. Mr Tapsell appears to take the stricter line: “At the moment, we have more than enough Maori specialists, anthropologists, and sociologists, but we have very few people trained in the hard options such as business management ... Maori culture, music, and sport are good, but they should be taught after work in the evening and at the weekends.” This may be going too far. A substantial influence on the life of all people in this country, and the cultural roots of a substantial portion of the population, cannot sensibly be relegated to being a hobby for a few enthusiasts. It is heartening that Mr Tapsell should remind people that there is great good will between the Maori and pakeha. Since the loans affair and the gang funding became public there has been no shortage of selfappointed spokespeople asserting that pakeha criticism is inspired by racism. It has become fashionable, in fact, to ascribe to racism all such criticism of gangs, of glue-sniffers, of erring public servants. There are bigots, of course, public-bar loudmouths who will use such incidents to make racist abuse. The criticism may equally be founded on genuine concern for the welfare of Maori people, far too many of whom are at the bottom of the economic and social system and fail to see the way up. The events to which Mr Tapsell has drawn attention must not be allowed to reinforce prejudices on either side. That they can do so is all too plain, and recriminations in either direction will very soon become labelled as racist with more reason than complainants can now legitimately claim. In both senses of the word, Mr Tapsell is saying: “Let us stop the rot, and stop it quickly.” This calls for good will on both , sides, and Mr Tapsell can be thanked for reminding us that good will is an essential foundation of the relationship between people of Maori origins and all others.