Tēnā koutou
E Te Atua – Tēnā koe
Ki a Ranginui raua ko Paptuanuku – Tēnā Kourua
Te whare e tu nei – Tu tonu, tu tonu, tu tonu!
E nga mate – Haere, haere, haere atu ra
Ki a tatou te hunga ora
He mihi rangatira tenei kia tatou
E nga manuhiri ma kaimahi, nau mai, haere mai, ke tenei hui tino mahana
Ko lupematasila, Misatauveve Melani Anae ahau
No Hamoa ahau
No te vasa o Tangaroa ahau
No reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou
Tēnā tatou katoa!
Kia orana tatou katoatoa, Mālō e lelei, Talofa lava, Taloha ni, Kia orana, Fakaalofa lahi atu kia mutolu osi, Namaste, Ni sa bula, fakatalofa atu and warm Pacific greetings.
Malo le soifua ma le lagi e māmā.
Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum is proud to present Mana: Protest in Print, a new exhibition celebrating Mana, one of the first multilingual newspapers in Aotearoa that was for and by Māori and Pacific people. The exhibition examines the paper’s enduring legacy in amplifying Māori and Pacific voices during a period of intense social and political change in Aotearoa from 1977-78.
Firstly, I must thank Leone Samu Tui for igniting the spark and Wanda Ieremia-Allen and her fellow curators Andrea Low, and Paula Legel, for their sterling work in making this exhibition a reality.
For those of us able to remember the 1960s and 1970s….let us proudly recall those times.
Before MANA our Pacific internet highway was K’ Road – Karangahape road on Thursday nights. As a child I remember the huge gatherings of Pacific people, families and communities …I remember that awesome fish shop which actually sold fish heads…and the other throw away fish bits that we really loved to eat… Wades shoe store, George Courts, the buzz around meeting and chatting on Kroad as if it were a village malae…
Before MANA our Pacific internet highway was our talanoa and gossip, in Pacific churches such as the Pacific Islanders Congregational Church which was documented in the 1960s as: the 3 historical events of this generation in Auckland are the motorways, the Harbour Bridge, and the Pacific Islanders Congregational Church.
Before MANA our Pacific internet highway was a women’s organisation called PACIFICA, a Womens group which called for “a more positive involvement of Pacific Island people in NZ society”.
Before MANA, the only unified Pacific group of resistance and representation against the state-sanctioned racism of successive NZ Governments was the Polynesian Panther Party a group of 16 and 17-year-old NZ-born Samoan, Niuean, Māori, Tongan and Cook Island teenagers.
And then…in 1977 MANA happened! Our Polynesian Panther claim to fame in the MANA legacy was that Mana’s first editor John Minty aka by us Panthers as Sione Lole...was one of our Polynesian Panther PIG patrol organisers for 3 years! Not only that…he often provided his car for some of the more covert activities of the Panthers.
It is fitting and entirely appropriate that Māori and Pacific youth and future generations will flock to Tāmaki Paenga Hira to see, to learn and to feel MANA and what it was like living in Aotearoa during that 1977-1978 ‘glimpse’ in time. Let them gain a deeper understanding of Mana newspaper’s significance by the words, images and stories of the struggle, the love, and the hate experienced by Pacific people during the turmoil of the 70s that will surround and embrace them.
Let them see all their languages Māori, English, Samoan, Niuean, Tongan, Cook Islands Māori, Rotuman and Fijian and stories of their ancestors, and their family members… in print… and let them feel the power of the discovery of new knowledge that will speak to them of their shared history, of racism, of culture, of identity. Knowledge that will empower them to find their own agency and allow them to stand up proud in their own mana as they become social justice warriors too.
I thank with most grateful heart, the Mana Interim Committee, Joris de Bres, Aiao Kaulima, Vapi Kupenga, Maulolo Asiata Matautia, Wairaki Toevai, Nihi Vini, John Antonio and Nalesoni Tupou, and of course Sione Lole, and Polynesian Panther Tigilau Ness, who shaped the paper’s unique content. Faafetai, faafetai, faafetai lava. Somehow, I can actually feel the pain, the joy and the sorrow that you all must have felt in your daily work back then and even now.
I thank also the families of this esteemed group of people who worked and slaved for many hours, days, weeks and months to bring Mana’s light to the people. I can’t imagine what it was like for the children and grandchildren of this esteemed group who often missed the company of their loved ones when they left to do their MANA work..
Finally, as a current Board member of Tāmaki Paenga Hira, I am so delighted and honoured that this exhibition is being held in our Museum, in the City that has the largest population of Pacific people in the world.
Power to the people… Malo le soifua. Ia manuia le aso!