Ae Marika! 18 June 2013

Posted on June 18, 2013 by admin in Ae Marika

Just got back from a week up in Alta, Norway where me, Cat Davis and Carwyn Jones from Kahungunu attended a World Indigenous Peoples Conference.

It took us nearly two days to get there, and I know this may sound a bit big-headed and all, but I got recognised at Sydney Airport (no big deal), Dubai Airport (by a Fijian guy in the British Army), Heathrow Airport in London (by a nice little Asian lady), and bugger me if a Maori guy doesn’t pop me with a “kia ora Hone” when we landed in Copenhagen of all places!! He was up there trying to score some forestry contracts (watch out Bubbles!) and spotted me as soon as I walked out the door.

Why Alta? Well why not? Alta is part of the homeland of the Indigenous Sami people who traditionally lived as herders of the reindeer and moved right across the region from Norway to Sweden, Finland and right into Russia.

The Sami Parliament of Norway hosted our conference as a lead in to the United Nations World Conference of Indigenous Peoples which will be held in New York in 2014. I won’t be going to WCIP14; that’s a UN meeting for Maoris that John Key likes. Alta on the other hand was an open meeting for indigenous people of any political persuasion, and they came to Alta from everywhere.

There are Indigenous people from all over the world, 370 million of us (thankfully they didn’t all come!) and we live right throughout Africa, the Pacific, Asia, North, Central and South America, Europe, Russia and right across the Arctic Circle. And without translators we’d have been in deep …. because everyone spoke their own language and either French, English, Spanish or Russian. Made for interesting conversations on the bus to and from the conference each day!

Throughout the conference there were also a host of different waiata from all over the world, but the ones I’ll remember most are the ones from the women of the far north (that’s the Arctic I’m talkin’ about here folks, not Te Hapua). Their songs were very old, the sounds of the lands the seas and the animals. Very primal, very haunting and very powerful – you could hear the sea, you could feel the creaking of the ice and you could hear the call of the sea lions and the birds – actually close your eyes and you could picture yourself in the Arctic and I swear you could feel the cold as well! Awesome stuff, not what we’re used to over here, but spine-tingling in its reality.

I’m doing a fuller report which I’ll get out to everyone later, but it was an awesome hui, I’m glad I went, I hope other people get to go to the next one, and I’m glad to be home.

Which makes a nice little segue into my last little note for the week; big ups to Te Rangi Aniwaniwa for hosting (and winning) the Northland Area Sports last week, and to Pukemiro for hosting a great Super 12 kapahaka, and an awesome Matariki evening at Te Ahu, featuring J Geeks and Matai Smith, which was enjoyed by everyone from all over Muriwhenua.

AE MARIKA is an article written every week by Hone Harawira, leader of the MANA Movement and Member of Parliament for Te Tai Tokerau. You are welcome to use any of the comments and to ascribe them to Mr Harawira. The full range of Hone’s articles can be found on the MANA website at www.mana.net.nz.