A legacy of distrust

Joseph Selwyn Te Rito (2007) credits Sir Apirana Ngata for encouraging Māori to embrace “te rākau ā te Pākehā” (the stick or tool of the pākeha) as a useful tool for recording whakapapa to hold on to their culture for their emotional wellbeing. He described the pen as a:

“new technology for their physical well-being; and to acknowledge the spiritual creator for their spiritual well-being… In the 1800s, Māori people grasped the writing ‘stick’ (pen), and proceeded to write whakapapa down. Today, the new ‘stick’ is the computer” (p. 4).

Or as Ali (2016) argues, is there no modernity without colonialism? Te Rito’s perspective contrasts with those who say the pen was the end of a centuries-old oral tradition and the loss of mana for those who shared the stories.

Taiuru (2020) describes his first forays into professional computing in the late 1990s: “…but at the time IT was frowned upon by many kaumatua and the very few Māori who were in the industry at the time” (p.7). This, he argues, is because of the link between computing and authority, and it continues today:

Māori are already suspicious of the government due to colonialism, oppression and intergenerational trauma, which makes Māori susceptible to belief in conspiracy theories (Rangiwai, 2020 p.47).