Maori Politics

Can the mainstream political activities of the Maori Party represent and deliver on the needs of militant Maori groups?

The mainstream political activities of the Maori Party can not represent and deliver on the needs of militant Maori groups. This will be demonstrated with the help of Antonio Gramsci and his ideas of 'passive revolution' and 'hegemony'. In order to determine what the needs of militant Maori are we must evaluate the history of Maori protest and what ideals they fight for. Using this historical approach will determine the inability of Pakeha institutions to deliver on the needs of Maori, let alone the extreme views of militant Maori. The introduction of the Maori Party will subsequently not change the fortunes of militant Maori because they operate within the Pakeha state hegemony.

This essay explores the idea that the Maori Party can not represent and deliver on the needs of militant Maori groups because the principles of the party will be contained within the hegemonic system via an easily marginalized, politically ambiguous, and seemingly culturally centred Maori Party potentially dominated by elite interests. Although the Maori Party may be the only alternative avenue for struggle for Maori, they shy away from representing most of the primary beliefs foundations of more militant Maori. Rule over Maori for much of the past 150 years has been exercised via both legal and economic coercion. During the late 1970's and early 1980's the state was confronted with a crisis of legitimacy brought on by the failures of the capitalist system, as well as the increasingly militant reassertion of Maori economic and political rights guaranteed under the Treaty of Waitangi. This forced the New Zealand government to engage in a passive revolution, redirecting the ethic of tino rangatiratanga into the legal, bureaucratic and political channels of state hegemony.

In order to examine why the Maori Party can not represent and deliver on the needs of militant Maori activists it will be useful to first examine what the needs of more militant sects are. In order to achieve this it will be necessary to examine the history of Maori protest. The 1960's and 1970's saw an unprecedented resurgence of political engagement internationally, most of which were closely paralleled in New Zealand. Maori protest groups formed part of the progressive social movements of the time and sought to broaden the fight against racism and Maori oppression. The dramatic increase in strike activity and class struggle provided an organisational base for Maori protest groups demonstrated in the emergence of Te Hokioi and the Maori Organisation on Human Rights (MOORH). Both organisations had solid trade union links, and both advocated an alliance between Maori and progressive sections of the Pakeha working class. Both Te Hokioi and MOORH embraced the Treaty as a means to Maori autonomy in a harmonious bicultural society, providing past injustices were redeemed. Both Te Hokioi and MOORH embraced the Treaty as a means to Maori autonomy in a harmonious bicultural society, providing past injustices were redeemed. Both groups advocated a pan-racial struggle along class lines as the most effective strategy for resolving racism and Maori inequality#. The momentum of these groups subsided gradually during the early 1970s as the drive of the movement shifted towards the brown power of Auckland protest groups. Organisations such as Nga Tamatoa and the Polynesian Panthers were heavily influenced by the black power philosophies of American revolutionaries, and forcefully emphasised the goal of Maori self-determination. The Polynesian Panthers saw the roots of Maori and Pacific Islander inequality in the oppressive social relations embodied in the capitalist system, and promoted a strategy of liberation based on complete overthrow of the capitalist system. As these movements developed however a rift formed between those who saw the whole system as fundamentally flawed, and those who sought real change for Maori through existing political structures. Although the reformist tendency was present throughout early Maori protest, the failures of the third Labour government to halt land alienation and secure Maori rights crystallised the movement's challenge to state hegemony. The 1980s land rights movement fuelled intense political activism and mass civil disobedience demonstrated in the land-occupations at Bastion Point and Raglan, mass protests such as the hikoi of 1984, and the systematic militant boycotts of Waitangi day celebrations. The high level of political intensity which characterised the period provided the environment for the emergence of a more radical leadership and a level of group solidarity that the Maori protest movement has yet to regain. By the early 1980s Maori had become a cohesive and powerful protest group that directly challenged the legitimacy of state, and could no longer be efficiently contained within the hegemonic system thorough purely coercive means. The emergence of more militant protest groups initiated a stronger push towards Maori autonomy. This push towards Maori autonomy is present today in militant Maori movements.

When obedience can no longer be maintained solely by the whip, containment of thought becomes the foundation of state. This has been most usefully theorised by Antonio Gramsci through his concepts of hegemony and passive revolution. Gramsci's idea of hegemony suggests that there is never a single, coherent unified 'dominant ideology' that radiates out from above and incorporates everything. Rather, Gramsci describes hegemony as a 'moving equilibrium' in which ideology is an uneven and differentiated terrain of varied, competing and clashing discursive ideas. Hegemony requires consent therefore it only has meaning as a power relation as hegemony requires active participation. There must be a flow of real resources and real compromise in order for consent to be maintained through allowing the greatest level of articulation between the will-to-power of subordinate groups and the will-to-power of the dominant social alliances. The hegemonic mechanisms have both a material and an ideological dimension. The ideological dimension and the notion of 'common-sense', is of particular interest. Ideology depends on a solid, coherent philosophical elaboration, but in order to enter into and influence the directions of social interaction, it must ground itself in everyday, practical and lived consciousness of the population. This is the notion of common sense, which is usually disjointed and episodic, fragmentary and contradictory. Common sense is important because it is the arena in which the lived consciousness of the masses is formed. For Gramsci, while common sense cultures