The words and work of Moana Jackson could not be co-opted or compromised, because he himself could not be compromised, writes Māori Affairs Editor Aaron Smale from Jackson's tangi in Hawkes Bay
Te Moana Nui a Kiwa Jackson was a disrupter right to the end. Like his ancestors who navigated the ocean he was named after, he was always challenging conventions, rules, laws, ways of looking at things. He’d consistently and persistently challenge the Crown for its abuse of power but he was just as capable of challenging his own. Among his last requests was one that women speak on the marae at his tangi, something that was supposedly against protocol. It’s likely he would have got a mischievous sense of enjoyment knowing that this request was going to rattle those who were quite happy with the status quo because he was always about challenging the status quo.
And such was his influence that it was inevitable that his request would be acceded to over the top of any objections.
Which made absolute sense when you heard the korero of women he had influenced. And how could they not be heard when many of his closest friends and collaborators were women. It was women who spoke most eloquently about who Moana was and the significance of his work, perhaps because they had seen so clearly the serious implications of his words and what they offered. It was often those who had been most damaged by the abuse of power that implicitly understood it when Moana spoke truth to that power in all of its ugly manifestations.
His long-time colleague and friend Annette Sykes referred to him as her Ariki, the rangatira above rangatira, the highest expression of humanity. She referenced Bob Marley’s line “emancipate yourself from mental slavery” to describe the power of Moana’s work. She said there were those who always wanted to tame the radical challenge that Moana’s thought represented. But his words and work could not be co-opted or compromised because he could not be compromised.
Sykes spoke of how, despite his gentle and softly-spoken nature, he was the most courageous man she knew. But that courage took him into some lonely places other so-called leaders were not willing to go.
And it cost him in every way. But he was willing to pay that price, just as his namesake Te Moana Nui a Kiwa Ngārimu paid the ultimate price.
He was aware of the emotional toll the work was taking on him but carried on anyway, partly because he knew there was work still to be done, partly because he had trouble saying no. He was working on a revised version of his Māori and criminal justice report published in 1987 when I interviewed him in 2018. He mentioned that he and the two women who had worked with him, Anne Waapu and Ngawai McGregor, had interviewed over 4000 people from all walks of life. That’s more than the Royal Commission has spoken to.
Like the work on the first criminal justice report, that workload caught up with him. He admitted himself that he wasn’t very good at filtering out the hurt of others and so it became his hurt as well. But like everything, he would distil the korero of those who shared not only their mamae with him but also their hopes and dreams and put it on the record as only he could.
“I don’t do objective distance very well,” he told me. “I’ve found this four years really hard. The 1980s was really hard. I got sick doing the first report so my whānau have been really protective of me. About two months ago we were going through all the transcripts and the last tape we listened to was a hui of old people in Auckland. Some of them had come to the hui in the 1980s and some of them are now nannies and koros. And they cried, eh. So I cried. I went home as I always do when things get difficult and I went to our marae and I sat in the urupa and talked with my Mum and my Koro for a while, which is what I often do.”
The following year he was diagnosed with cancer. Despite this he kept working, kept learning, was always interested in everyone else and what they were doing. The outpouring of love for him at his tangi was a reflection of this tireless love for his people.
This love was expressed in myriad ways. Ani Mikaere said one of the ways Moana expressed his aroha was to give Māori the tools and understanding to discover and achieve their own aspirations, to determine their own future and identity.
“As people have said today, he was a giant. Moana was an intellectual colossus.”
“But the amazing thing about him, Moana’s genius lay not in the fact that he was just a genius. But it lay in the fact that he managed to take what was in that extraordinary mind and he managed to translate it into words, into stories, into concepts, into images, so that the rest of us could understand. So that the rest of us could keep up with him. I don’t think it ever occurred to Moana to use his talents for his own benefit. He wanted to share them with us, he wanted to take us along with him. I think he was truly committed to using the astounding array of talents that he had to contribute to the betterment of all. And that was what made him really special.”
But Mikaere said Moana’s work and influence would carry on for generations.
“The challenges that Moana laid down in front of us, te iwi Māori, nga iwi Māori, if we really mean everything or even anything we’ve said over the last few days, we should be looking at the challenges he posed us. What is every one of us going to do to ensure that we fulfil his legacy. What will we do. It’s actually in our hands.”
There were so many facets to Moana. However, one that kept arising during the tangi was how absolutely besotted he was with his mokopuna. There were thousands of words spoken, songs sung, memories shared at his tangi and that will go on. Many talked of losing a rangatira, an intellectual, a mentor, a friend, a leader and so on.
But nothing spoke so powerfully about the loss of his passing than the heart-rending wail one of his mokopuna let out as Moana was lowered into his grave next to his brother Syd. She clutched a photo of him as one of the whānau upheld her, the little and older ones beside her also bereft with grief.
While the nation and Maoridom has lost a great man, Moana’s whānau have lost a deeply loved Koro. If there was anything that animated and motivated Moana Jackson, it was those mokopuna.
Moana knew that if you loved your mokopuna then it was incumbent that you left them a better world. And leaving a better world for Māori mokopuna meant it was your job to confront the racism they would face, not let it slide or tolerate it. If he was courageous and uncompromising in life, then he was even more so when facing his own mortality. The updated report he was working on is virtually finished but not yet published, and it will lay down a hard challenge to the institutional racism that he fought throughout his life. It will be his last word on the matter, but it will essentially be him elevating the voices of his people as always.
In lieu of that report, the last word should go to Moana:
“If you admit to racism then you have to admit to what racism does. In this report we will use the word racism because that’s the word our people use, that’s what indigenous peoples overseas use, and if we don’t use it we’ll be shutting down their conversation.
“It’s a short step if you use the word racism. If you acknowledge racism you’re going to have to acknowledge colonisation, if you acknowledge colonisation you’re going to have to start talking about power. And that’s what it comes down to in the end.”
