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Call it payback for those damned “Welcome to Country” ceremonies that blight every public occasion, now matter how trivial, in Australia. There’s a trans-Tasman ‘indigenous culture’ vulture squabble brewing in Sydney. An expat Māori group wants to build a ‘marae’ in Sydney – and the local ‘Aborigines’ aren’t happy.
Mind you, the rest of us Aussies aren’t happy with the “Welcome to Country” bullshit, either – and we can blame that one on Māori culture vultures, too.
You see, back in ’76, the Yartz community were having one of their interminable ‘cultural festivals’, the Perth International Arts Festival. Presumably taking Sir Les Patterson’s advice, the festival decided to “sober up a few Aborigines, put ’em on stage and have a corroboree”. Just to up the cultural cred, they paid a bunch of Māori to hop on the sky-waka and come over to put on a bit of an ‘indigenous’ floor show somewhere between the cheese’n’pickled onions and the Blue Nun wine tasting.
The only problem was that the Māori refused at the last minute to take the stage without a ‘ritual greeting’. So, Ernie Dingo “asked the good spirits of my ancestors and the good spirits of the ancestors of the land” what the hell to do. In plain language, he and Richard Whalley put their heads together and came up with a bit of oogabooga mysticism to mollify the obstreperous Māori.
Sadly, it worked, and here we are today, where we can’t even open a paper bag without a Welcome to bloody Country.
So you’ll excuse me if I have a good belly laugh at this inter-indigene cultural shit fight.
“When we said it was a marae, we got a lot of kickback from home [Aotearoa] saying you can’t do that,” [Sydney Marae Alliance (SMA) chairperson Louise Cooper] said.
And when the SMA recently announced that it was a cultural centre, the first nation people of the Dharug Ngurra said, “that’s our word”.
“Our word”? It’s English. That’s cultural appropriation, mate.
At least throw in a bunch of Abonics as freely as these clowns sprinkle the te reo like confetti.
“It’s not going to be our home, because we all whakapapa back to home. But if you don’t know where you come from, then we can help you connect.
“I know many of our hāpori (community) go home a lot. However, that doesn’t make up for the fact that we don’t have a place here as well, for pāpaku, for our rangatahi.”
It’s even funnier when the bungas start accusing each other of being ‘colonisers’.
The Dharug Ngurra have publicly claimed they were being “re-colonised” with the cultural centre being placed “on country” – traditional land associated with the Aboriginal tribe.
It’s a park. Surrounded by industrial developments and big-box shops. Maybe the Māori should just set up a tent next to the sausage sizzle at the Bunnings next door.
Meanwhile, some faceless planner at the local council must be burying their head in their hands, as they watch what they must have thought was a sure-fire virtue-signalling winner explode in their face.
Cumberland City Council played a pivotal role in the decision to have the marae despite the Ngurra requesting community consultations around the matter.
“They have not addressed the historical and ongoing inequality for us,” [senior Dharug Ngurra woman Corina Wayali Norman] said.
The council told RNZ it did not wish to provide any comment for this story.
This is all just too funny. Pass the popcorn… just make sure to get permission from the local expat mestizos, otherwise the ungabunga maize gods might get angry.
