Māori Excellence in Technology: A Pasifika Perspective.
Insights from Ngā Tohu Matihiko Awards and the State of Pasifika Tech in Aotearoa.
Talofa reader,
Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to get invited to attend ‘Ngā Tohu Matihiko | Celebrating Māori Excellence in Digital and Technology’ Awards at the Due Drop Centre, in Manukau.
The event was really well run1. The layout, design, and production quality in the lighting, sound, and visuals were on par with some of the best events I’ve been to, including the NZ Music Awards, Rhythm & Vines main stages, NZ Homegrown, and shows at Vector Arena2.
All, I imagine, on a budget much lower than those events.
This, in my opinion, is the true sign of excellence—making the most of what you have. This has been a feature of the Māori people as I’ve known them my whole life. Don’t let the news channels and newspapers' anti-Māori propaganda fool you into believing the usual rubbish about any brown community. Once you actually look into and experience people for yourself, you’ll quickly see the truth.
Māori are rich in history, culture, empathy, and humanity for everyone in NZ and around the world. Yes, they’re “people”, and people are complex. You’ll have those who aren’t happy about one issue or disagree on outcomes and decisions about other things.
This is called the human condition and is not unique to Māori or their community. All human communities will have their positives and their negatives—or “room for improvements”.
I’m often surprised, as an adult, that this has to be stated so often, so loudly, and so widely. I knew this as a kid; everything had “pros and cons”, “ups and downs”, “swings and roundabouts”. It was so obvious as a kid that life and everything in it was “yin and yang”. So why, as adults, has it become so complicated?
Why is it suddenly not a “spectrum” and it’s all black and white?
Sure, Israel and the genocidal Zionists have murdered 16,000 Palestinian children. Something like that is clearly black and white to me, as in capital ‘W’, wrong.
But I digress. Why am I recounting my experience at the Māori Tech Awards?
I guess, mainly to document and share my thoughts as a Pasifika person living in NZ, watching a Māori event.
Māori (Tech) Leadership
I sat at the table with AWS (they are a sponsor of the awards, so I was there on the corporate ticket), alongside a fellow Pasifika Amazonian. That night I saw many established Māori organisations, with senior people at the helm. Sure, there are plenty of young ones doing awesome work, but the depth of leadership in the Māori community, all standing up and being counted, working together visibly, and supporting each other was something that stood out for me.
It stood out because of the contrast, in my opinion, to the Pasifika tech scene.
Where is this unity?3 Where is this consolidating or co-ordination of effort towards the same goals? I’ve seen a bunch of initiatives come and go. I know a few good ones set up out south doing good work4.
I don’t expect everyone to get along just because we’re Pasifika. Lord knows there are people in the community I won’t work with, and I’m sure the same can be said for those who wouldn’t work with me.
But at some level, I was expecting some kind of leadership on this front.
Maybe it’s early days, and it’s only a matter of time.
After all, I believe Te Hapori Matihiko was, among other things, a response to the NZTech Alliance—NZTech basically being the amalgamation of the entire NZ tech ecosystem. So, if it took that long to get there for Tangata Whenua (people of the land), I should probably manage my expectations about Pasifika getting organised, working together, and showing their excellence.
And I don’t mean individual Pasifika organisations showing Pasifika excellence by the number of their individual accomplishments they put on display. I mean organisations like Te Hapori Matihiko and events like their awards that show the “unity” and “working together” at the centre of the display.
There was a certain “we can do it” emphasis there that night that I saw, which is very different from “look at me/us”, because it centred Māori and Te ao Māori (the Māori world), which I thought was quite special.
So, is this something Pasifika should aspire to, and should we be building things right alongside Māori here in NZ?
An answer both myself and my Pasifika colleague actually agreed on that night, as we discussed this at our table, was—“we can’t”.
Why not?
Because we’re visitors.
I’ll explain.
Pasifika are ‘Tangata Tiriti’
When it comes to Aotearoa (New Zealand), there’s ‘Tangata Whenua’ (people of the land, indigenous) and ‘Tangata Tiriti’ (people of the treaty). Pasifika, for all the shared genealogy and whakapapa and all that, across the Oceans, are Tangata Tiriti.
They have to be.
This is Māori land5. I’m not confused about that, that’s set in stone for me.
We (Pasifika) are here on our cuzzies’ and whānau’s land, under the blessing of Te Tiriti, doing our thing, thriving and surviving.
Bet.
But this is also why, in my mind, we can’t build the same things in the same way. As much as we share similar cultural norms, traditions, and values as cuzzies, the structure of my culture, similar to Māori, is mapped across villages, titles, and families in Samoa.
Our norms and traditions flow seamlessly and unobstructed back in the islands but are clunky, foreign, and “frictional” here in Aotearoa, plonked on top of, or around a colonised society.
A colonised society that sits “on top of” an indigenous culture that refuses to be silenced or sidelined. That hikoi’s, protests, and gathers to move against the forces that try to subjugate it.
Do we, Pasifika, try to build our own villages here, alongside Māori? Or do we build our “limited liability” companies alongside Pākehā instead?
Obviously, ‘work with Māori’ is an option, but that’s a very different thing to having “your own village”, which would be comparable to what we have back on the islands. Which is why that’s one of the options—that’s not really an option, so building something within the colonised paradigm it essentially is.
I’ve only ever known the Pākehā world here in Aotearoa as a Pasifika person, playing their game and coming up in the world of technology. The only thing I was ever going to build here, in my mind, was my own career or a tech company. In both, I was essentially missing a direct “cultural” link or relationship6.
So, I’m usually left with this—build something, not unlike home in the islands, and not quite like Pākehā ‘New Zealand’, and with respect to Tangata Whenua.
What is that, and what does it look like?
What does it even feel like?
I don’t know.
I don’t have the answer. In fact, I don’t have many answers other than what I’m doing for me and mine right now.
And an answer I do have, which in my opinion, while bringing together a “cultural link” and building within the paradigm of our “side” of Tangata Tiriti, is sort of a “meh” answer to this discussion7…
is…
A registered NZ Charity, to help Pasifika learn about and get into the Tech industry.
A NZ Charity for Pasifika
The “Pasifika Tech Education Charity” was registered in 2019. After a few years of running code clubs myself in local primary schools, a few volunteers and I banded together to make a charity and continue our work under its banner and official mission.
The charity has the structure, legal recognition, and benefits given to any organisation complying with the laws of New Zealand. Its stated mission is to help Pasifika; by Pasifika for Pasifika etc. You know the drill.
That’s it.
That’s the best answer I have for what and how we build, as Pasifika, here in someone else’s country. That is, something that abides by the law of the country, addresses the needs of Pasifika, and makes no claim to land, culture, or identity other than that stipulated by the people of the land.
And no, I don’t consider myself a foreigner. I was born and mostly raised in Aotearoa, and I’m proud of this country. I see all Kiwis as my countrymen.8
The whole topic of this essay, is just something I grapple with when thinking of my, and Pasifika’s, place here, sort of between indigenous and Crown.
In Conclusion…
You’ll forgive me if you’ve read this far and are possibly more confused now than you were at the beginning.
But I promise you, if you are, we are now in the same boat and on the same page as each other, so welcome.
Ngā Tohu Matihiko Awards night was amazing. It was beautiful to see Māori excellence that night, as I knew it to be, truly excellent!
And it was a chance to reflect, think these thoughts, and write them out to share with you, dear reader. Maybe we’ll talk about it online, over coffee, in an argument, or in flame wars on social media. The possibilities are truly endless!
I joke, I joke. Let it be over coffee.
But I will sign off on an awesome whakataukī or “Māori proverb” from the awards night that resonated with me:
“Mā mua ka kite a muri, mā muri ka ora a mua.” - Those who lead give sight to those who follow, those who follow give life to those who lead.
Thanks for reading, see you in the next one.
ia manuia,
Ron.
This isn’t “surprise” in my tone/voice, strictly observation.
Yes, humble brag, but also, relevant high quality shows.
I know a particular group that may call me out on “not working together” after they emailed me for a sit down, but I don’t count reaching out after being caught out in, less than ethical behaviour, as a good faith attempt at working together.
Maybe this is a bit of ignorance on my part, and I’m just not “in the know”, but having run a Charity that specifically targets Pasifika, and the digital divide, running code clubs and tech workshops in the community, seeking out others in the same space, and broadcasting this work across social media and corporate channels- I would say, if I can’t see it, at the depth that I am into it, that lack of visibility is a problem in itself, or it doesn’t exist.
I’m not going to get into any political, colonial discussions on this, you come to Samoa that’s Samoan land, the country of Samoans, same with Tonga, Fiji and any other Pacific Island. You come to Aotearoa, this is Māori land. The end.
sure “Pasifika success is ALL our success” and “you could hire your own people into your company, that’s your aiga”, but imho, these angles are a “reach”, right?
my feeling of it as an answer is “meh”, not the thing itself ;)
or country “people”, you know what I mean.