If a non-Maori leader told a Maori leader that they had no right to criticise the traditions of European or Western culture, they would be rightly condemned for racism. Yet, for just the converse, Green co-leader Marama Davidson has been given a free pass. Davidson has told National Party leader Judith Collins that she has no right to criticise Maori traditions that exclude women (Maori and non-Maori) from speaking on the marae.
Note that the marae found a way around their tradition of excluding female speakers to allow Pakeha PM Jacinda Ardern to speak on the marae. She was given the “protection” of the meeting house which meant that as long as she spoke in that one particular spot she was exempt from the traditional exclusion. This workaround could have been offered to National leader Judith Collins and Green co-leader Marama Davidson but it was not.
Below is my partial transcript of the video of Marama Davidson having a little rant about the bare-faced cheek of National Party leader Judith Collins daring to speak up about not being allowed, as a woman, to speak on the marae.
“She [ Judith Collins] does not have the cultural expertise to be able to acknowledge that wahine Maori need to lead the discussion about what our roles are and where we put our voices. She does not have the cultural expertise to understand the significance that the first voice and the only voice that can allow for powhiri to happen is the Karanga and she undermines the meaning of the Karanga by coming from an…um…Pakeha woman’s perspective of where the status of Maori women is. In saying that it is Maori women who have long been leading and asking for us to review our Tikanga in a way that upholds the genesis of the mana of Wahine”
Green co-leader Marama Davidson
There is a lot to unpack from Marama Davidson’s indignant little rant, but at its core it boils down to shut up whitey, this is none of your business.
The claim of “cultural expertise” – a weasel phrase used to try to hide the speaker’s prejudice – does not stand up to any reasonable scrutiny. At its core it boils down to, you ain’t brown so shut up. Judith Collins is a highly intelligent woman and a long-time politician and will therefore be very familiar with Maori culture and marae protocol and history. This was not her first rodeo, you might say. She knew exactly what she was doing.
What is telling from Marama Davidson’s indignant response is that at the end she acknowledges that Maori women have been trying to get this Maori tradition changed to reflect the equality of the sexes for a long time (unsuccessfully, I might add).
She is upset not because she disagrees with Judith Collins’s stance, she is upset because Judith Collins is not Maori.
Being a woman is not enough; her skin is the wrong colour and Marama Davidson wants to put her in her place. Thus she demonstrates that the phrase “cultural expertise” is the language of Maori supremacy.
Judith Collins is not brown enough to be taken seriously. She is not brown enough for her view to be valid. She is not brown enough to stand up for women’s rights (particularly Maori women’s rights). She is not brown enough to join Maori women in their so far losing battle to bring equality of the sexes to the marae. Her race and skin colour make her less than Maori women. Her opinion is worth less, her desire to stand up for women’s rights is not worth as much as a Maori woman’s desire to stand up for women’s rights. In a nutshell, her race, Pakeha, is worth less.
Marama Davidson uses the language of supremacy because at her core she is a Maori supremacist. Her words tell us that Pakeha have less value than Maori and that, when it comes to Maori culture and traditions, we should shut up and not dare to question a superior race.
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