October 14, 2015
Land march a wake up call for Aotearoa
Maori Land March veteran Titewhai Harawira says the hikoi woke up Maori to the fact they could fight for their culture and rights.
It was exactly 40 years yesterday that the marchers entered Parliament Grounds, but the Ngapuhi kuia says the seeds of the march came earlier, in Nga Tamatoa's battle for te reo Maori to be taught in schools.
When it came to the kaupapa of not one more acre of land to be lost, the young activists sought a more establishment figure to front the cause, and won the support of Maori Women's Welfare league founding president Whina Cooper.
She says a lot of Maori thought the issues should stay on the marae, and many opposed the march, but it changed the way Maori approached their battles.
"The first action that came out of the march was Bastion Point. Closely after that was Raglan, and other Maori land organisations and groups throughout the country began to sit on their land say to government and local bodies, 'you are not going to just walk onto our land and take it away without a fight,'" she says.
Titewhai Harawira says the marchers thought their actions would strengthen the hand of then-Maori affairs minister Matiu Rata to get changes past his cabinet colleagues.
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