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When Transit NZ declined the application to fly the Tino Rangatiratanga/Maori Independence Flag on the Auckland Harbour Bridge during Waitangi Day Commemorations this year, some people just wanted to throw themselves off it.
"Creative Resistance is one way to raise awareness to our struggles" Tia says. "The Maori Flag is banned yet we are constantly seeing other flags flown on this bridge, it is out right racist".
Indigenous peoples rights, independence and self determination are just some of the reasons Tia Taurere and Mera Penehira are draping themselves in their beloved Tino Rangatiratanga flag to bungy off the bridge.
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In returning they will leave whanau and a new network of friends gravely concerned for their lives. The fears are well founded as the man is a union leader, a person who has worked and lived amongst the poor of his country and province, for over 30 years.
They will take the 11 hour trip home with the knowledge that just two days ago another of his colleagues was shot and now added to a list of over 800 people they call 'salvaged' - a person from the community kidnapped, tortured and murdered for organising against poverty, for challenging the US backed puppet regime of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
When asked 'Why go home when you can become a refugee here?'
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Teanau Tuiono [ngai takoto , ngapuhi ] was one of the spokespeople for te ata tino toa / te tino toa a group that put an application into transit to fly the Tino Rangatiratanga / Maori Indpendence Flag on the Harbour Bridge.
When we put our application into Transit to fly the flag on the Harbour Bridge on Waitangi day, we thought, now that would look nice, (hey it looked good photoshopped) it is 2007 after all, surely the people living here in anti-nuclear godzone would let something as non-threatening as a flag fly on a bridge.
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I remember being 16 when I first stumbled upon the Tino Rangatiratanga movement and being inspired by the articulation of colonization and its injustices. Seven years on and at the ripening age of 23 I now realize that the conversations that once were so fresh have become stagnated and our movement is in desperate need of new energy.]]>
Ko te kai a te rangatira he korero no reira nau mai ki to tatou pataka korero. Welcome to The Fridge our pataka of political korero where no issue is to hot or to chill for our collective of rioters, writers, poets, activists, streetkids, and dreamers. We need an outlet for radical indigenous voices here in Aotearoa. The Fridge will focus on the pacific region recognising the historical and cultural connections with what is happening in the pacific with the struggle for indigenous self-determination here in Aotearoa.
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