NEW ZEALAND: POWERFUL HAKA AGAINST BILL

On 14 November, 22-year-old Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, New Zealand’s youngest member of Parliament, led a protest on the floor using the indigenous Maori people’s Haka, a ceremonial dance and chant, against a proposed bill that seeks to redefine New Zealand’s foundational agreement between the indigenous tribes and the British Crown. Other MPs joined Maipi-Clarke when she started chanting the ‘Ka Mate' Haka and tore up what appeared to be her copy of the controversial bill. The protest caused Parliament to suspend the vote.

The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi between the British Crown and 540 Maori chiefs was signed to guarantee the protection of Maori rights, sovereignty and recognition in exchange for handing over governance to the British.

The bill calls for equality for all people in New Zealand, representing a threat to the Maoris, who went from controlling all land before British colonisation to becoming a dispossessed people, now making up about 20 per cent of the population.

The Haka performed in this clip represents defiance and resistance to colonisation. Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha (1768-1849) composed it to ‘stiffen the sinews, to summon up the blood,’ according to Timoti Karetu, considered a ‘godfather’ of the Maori Language Movement.

Video credit: Stuff on YouTube (@NZStuff on X)

SOURCES:

https://www.creativeteamevents.com/the-history-words-haka-ka-mate

https://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/kmko/01/ka_mate01_sullivan.pdf

https://archive.org/details/hakadanceofnoble0000kare

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/the-treaty-in-brief

https://teara.govt.nz/en/ethnic-inequalities/page-2

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/15/thousands-march-on-new-zealand-capital-against-indigenous-treaty-overhaul

https://www.dw.com/en/new-zealand-maori-mps-disrupt-parliament-with-haka/a-70781928