Deep Roots and Expansive Skies: Identity and Solidarity as Tauiwi of Colour
Words by Nabilah Husna Binte Abdul Rahman (she/her; Malay-Tamil/Singaporean) and Etienne Wain (he/him; Malaysian-Chinese/Pākehā)
Content warning: Discussions of colonisation and racism
Navigating identity as a person of multiple ethnicities is no simple task.
Etienne
On my father’s side, I am Pākehā, descending from England and Scotland. On my mother’s side, I am Malaysian-Chinese, descending from ethnically Chinese people who have made their home in Malaysia. The struggle to live in connection with multiple cultures, often questioning whether I am Asian/white/other descriptor enough. These thoughts have kept me up late at night ever since the day I was first targeted by a racist slur and woke up to the racialised reality we live in.
Add to this the complexities of living in Aotearoa under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, on colonised land that has never been ceded by tangata whenua, and you have a recipe for infinite hours spent staring at the sky, wondering about identity, belonging, and solidarity as tauiwi (a settler) of colour on this whenua.
Nabilah
I am tauiwi of colour in Aotearoa. I am also Indigenous to my home country of Singapore. Indigenous peoples’ experiences with colonisation are unique to our local landscape, but contain many painful similarities.
Colonisation everywhere erases, repurposes, co-opts, contorts, and chisels our histories, often crafting in its stead an identity that can be governed or made palatable enough for widespread acceptance. To be clothed in this character, we are made to detach ourselves from our past. We learn to hate the rituals we partake in; we’re trained to despise our mother tongue. For generations, we have worn this animosity towards our own people as though it were a second skin. This sticky membrane canonises a single answer to “who are we?” until all we know how to say is “not them.” And by “them” we mean “us.”
Back home in Singapore, the Indigenous Malay identity was suited in dozens of these colonial cloaks: as the lazy native, as the oriental, as pirates, as the native threat, as the underdeveloped, as breeders, as ticking timebombs, as “better with their hands,” as unhealthy, as “slowly improving.”
Internal colonisation hides in plain sight.
Where once there were kinship ties connecting us, there are now rungs in the endless ladder of development separating us. We become dispossessed of the language of health, of family, of history, of region, of place, of futurity.
I left home because I thought that it had little left for me. But my short time in Aotearoa would cement the knowledge that the Malay world was a repository of all I am here. Being launched from one colonial state into another (physically and psychologically) helped me more deeply understand what is at stake.
Etienne
The history of Te Tiriti I learned about at law school was one where greed trumped the promises settlers made to hapū at Waitangi. Settlers stole land from tangata whenua by force and aggressively attempted to erase Māori culture and identity. Yes, apologies have been given and settlements made (in some cases) but, in the words of Moana Jackson, “Treaties aren’t meant to be settled. They’re meant to be honoured.”
In my search for how tauiwi can begin to honour Te Tiriti, I encountered the words of Tā Edward Taihakurei Durie, former chairperson of the Waitangi Tribunal:
“It is the Treaty that gives Pākehā the right to be here […] We must remember that if we [Māori] are the tangata whenua, the original people, then the Pākehā are the Tangata Tiriti, those who belong to the land by right of that Treaty […]”.
To me, being “tangata Tiriti” looked like an alternative way of existing as tauiwi that did right by te Tiriti and tangata whenua. Upon further research, I found there is significant support for the idea that all tauiwi in Aotearoa, whether Pākehā or tauiwi of colour, can be encompassed by this term. I was intrigued, and decided to follow this rabbit hole to wherever it led, researching the meanings, identities, and responsibilities associated with tangata Tiriti.
Nabilah
Learning about my new identity as tangata Tiriti in Aotearoa is a frequent exercise in relationship-making: How have I been taught to know myself and my people? Even though I came to Aotearoa alone, it quickly became apparent that I needed to understand my identity here more relationally. I needed to see myself as part of “a people” again.
It led me (like many others) to explore this in my current PhD journey. In my research, I aim to explore how Asian tangata Tiriti come to know our place here—away from the dehumanising bureaucracy of the migration process, and according to tikanga and te ao Māori. What does it mean to learn the vibrant and painful histories of these lands? Some of the answers lie in how we respect the lives and ways of being that continue to be lost and stolen, revived and solidified. As manuhiri (guests) here, it is critical to name ourselves not according to colonisers’ vocabulary—as “skilled migrants,” as “model minorities,” as foreign threats, “swarms,” and “floods”—but as a people resisting colonialism in Aotearoa. How do we disrupt the standard story of an “ordered,” “developed,” “post-colonial” world, and form our relationships according to a different set of rules? My study considers how racialised tauiwi, in our everyday practices, support tino rangatiratanga.
Etienne
My PhD research quickly ran into the ‘-isms,’ biculturalism and multiculturalism especially. The term “multiculturalism” is used by governments to label Indigenous peoples as just another minority among many, attempting to water down their status as tangata whenua. Biculturalism, which the “Treaty partnership” is often characterised as, isn’t much better, with Pākehā assuming the role of senior partner with Māori as beneficiaries. Co-governance arrangements may improve things but will not change the Pākehā-imposed reality that situates ultimate power with the Crown.
As tauiwi of colour, I have my own qualms with biculturalism, as it seems to erase the presence of everyone who is neither Māori nor Pākehā from national debate—and therefore from existence in Aotearoa altogether.
I’m also not advocating for multiculturalism and I stand by its critiques. Looking to the idea of tangata Tiriti, on the other hand—an identity grounded in te Tiriti that can only be understood through an interweaving of tauiwi ideas, as well as tikanga and mātauranga Māori—perhaps there is a way forward.
Nabilah
A Tiriti-based future recognises that none of our lives are contained in the nation-state—especially not migrants’. By evoking my own customs, faith systems, beliefs, and language, I have come to understand that my role here is indissolubly linked to tangata whenua. I cast my mind to our shared worldviews and ancestral journeys. The Malay peribahasa (proverb),dimana bumi dipijak, di situ langit dijunjung (where the earth is trodden under foot, there the heavens are upheld), calls us to follow the customs of the land we are on. As we respect tikanga Māori, the expansive skies watch over us. My upbringing taught me about the sacredness of the physical and spiritual worlds we inhabit, cross, and sometimes even intrude upon. Semangat (spirit or vital force) lives in everything, including (especially) lands and waters I am only a guest on. I think of the reflective nature of the word “Waitangi” itself—wai means water in te reo, and in bahasa, a synonym for river; then there is tangi (Māori) and tangis (Malay) which means to grieve and weep. It reminds me that every small connection we see now has deep, far-reaching roots.
Etienne
I mihi to Moana Jackson, who passed away at the end of March. I encounter him at every crossroads of my research: his wisdom, his uncompromising ideals, and his visionary dreams for Aotearoa. I constantly return to his work The Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa, which envisions a new constitution for Aotearoa: one based on tikanga and kawa (marae protocol), He Whakaputanga (the Declaration of Independence), and Te Tiriti.
To inform the report, the experts and respected Māori leaders of Matike Mai Aotearoa travelled around Aotearoa to ask tangata whenua their views on constitutional transformation. The relationship between tangata whenua and migrants was a recurring theme. According to the report:
“[…] the essential view that Te Tiriti applied to all people and therefore had immigration connotations remained the same. Where the immigrants came from or when they arrived was less important than the relationship with all new arrivals that the tīpuna [ancestors] hoped for in Te Tiriti.”
Nabilah
Occupation in one corner of the world leads to displacement and movement of people, power, and labour, emboldening the settler colonial project somewhere else. Yes, colonialism has a butterfly effect, but so does solidarity. Connecting to one part of our history can guide more genuine, non-colonising relationships with our hosts, and with others experiencing the impacts of colonisation. These possibilities must be made visible. It’s a confusing, often uncomfortable process for many of us who face daily discrimination within this Pākehā-dominated society. But the answer isn’t to be welcomed into a system of belonging that privileges Pākehā. We can start resisting these colonising identities by embracing how our lives, our cosmologies, and our voices are indispensable. They have power to be in-roads to healing and to solidarity with tangata whenua.
Etienne
haere mai, tangata tiriti
you have journeyed far to be here
know that while your standing here is up to neither me nor you
from one guest to another
let me warmly welcome you
haere mai, tangata tiriti
learn the tikanga of this marae
and to your host
be a whanaunga, partner, friend
that we would all of us honour
as we live together
the promise made
under the Waitangi sky
haere mai, tangata tiriti
haere mai
Poem first published by Metanoia at https://www.metanoianz.com/
Ideas for tauiwi who want to start on journeys of identity and solidarity
Personal actions
Learn about Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the histories of Aotearoa
Learn about the history of your community in Aotearoa
Groups to get involved with (find them on Facebook)
Asians Supporting Tino Rangatiratanga
Asian Legal Network
Tauiwi mō Matike Mai
Treaty Action Collective
Resources to read
The Matike Mai Report (online)
Imagining Decolonisation (book)
What’s Required From Tangata Tiriti by Tina Ngata (blog post)