Mana | Movement of the People

Ae Marika! 5 November 2013

Everywhere I go people ask my opinion about things that are important to them and ask for my help with problems they’re having, and every day I try to guess what they might want to talk about … and every now and then I get it spectacularly wrong!

Like last week for example when I was approached on 3 separate occasions by Pacific Islanders, working men, all wearing those high-viz jackets.

First guy’s a traffic warden out at the airport. He comes over and asks me what MANA is going to do to stop that “spying that’s looking in our homes”. I tell him that we would throw it out and I ask him what his MP is doing about it. He tells me votes Labour but that his MP is a “useless man”, and that he only trusts me (nice chap).

The next guy’s on a road gang in the city, sees me coming out of a shop and comes over to tell me in heavily accented English that he’s Samoan but he wants to wish me well with the MANA / Maori Party discussions. He has a few not-so-polite words to say about the Maori Party’s relationship with National and tells me to be careful.

And then on Sunday I’m strolling along at the Avondale fleamarket when this security guy in a high-viz, also with a very strong accent, blows me away with his query … “Hone, can you help me … how important is sustainability?” (Sustainability is the view that because our well-being depends so much on our natural environment, we should ensure that man and nature exist in harmony).

Well I burst out laughing because the question seemed so out of place with the man asking it, but we got talking, he tells me he’s doing a paper at university and wanted to test a few of his ideas, and we had a good korero.

How true is the saying that “you can’t judge a book by its cover” … a maxim that also applied to a woman whose tangi my wife and I attended last week.

I first met Vapi Kupenga back in the 70’s and although she was never the warrior woman, she was always there when people needed help, when issues needed support, when tino rangatiratanga was on the line, and when a job needed to be done.

Vapi was a strong supporter of the many Pakeha in Network Waitangi, constantly encouraging them to keep up their good work.

She was also a long-standing talk-back host on Radio Waatea, just like Denis Hansen who we buried just a few weeks ago. Talk about chalk and cheese! Denis was a big man in every way, Ngapuhi to the bone, and you could hear him coming a mile away – Vapi was the exact opposite, tiny, quiet, polite, and very, very Ngati Porou!

Her and my mum were also very close, and I used to think of them as “good cop, bad cop” whenever they went to hui together – mum firing the hard shots and Vapi taking the same line but in a softer tone. I often chuckled at how much they were able to achieve with their double act. Mum will miss her.

She was a strong presence within my own whanau, well respected by all those who knew her, and she will be missed by many. Haere atu ra e Vapi, haere, haere, haere.

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.org.nz