Panthers anniversary sees new wave of NZ Pasifika activists

Transcript

The 45th anniversary of the Polynesian Panthers Party has seen the birth of a new generation of Pasifika activists in New Zealand.

The Polynesian Panthers are seen as putting Pasifika people on the map politically and bringing activism and advocacy.

Past members of the movement were among those who attended a fono in Palmerston North over the weekend to discuss issues and officially launch the 'Pacific Panthers'.

Teanau Tuiono told Koro Vaka'uta the group comes after their involvement in recent climate change meetings and was inspired by the Polynesian Panthers.

TEANAU TUIONO: The Polynesian Panthers, they are the inspiration. They are the first generation of Pacific Islanders that they came here who stood up for our people's rights and organised within our communities and within our different networks. So we take our inspiration from them. Just to have them come to our fono's and for them to pass down that legacy for us, was very humbling. But also, we're very aware that it's incumbent upon us to sort of get our stuff together so we can start to build and concentrate our people around all these different issues. It's not just about climate change but about social justice issues and looking at the reason why we often in our work are up against, for want of better terms, cultural hegemony here in Aotearoa. We're going to get together and start to organise. In the fono's we reached out to other communities, so we had people from other migrant communities. So there was a group there that had been active on supporting issues of Tino rangatiratanga. They were Asians for Tino rangatiratanga. There were some people from the group 'No pride, No prisons' so working with whanau in prisons. We have different collectives coming up from Wellington who have been organising from the perspective of artists on a number of political issues. And I'm actually in here with some of the people who were at the Climate change meeting, just debriefing with them about how we could start to ignite these networks.

KORO VAKAUTA: What's going to be your priority? Is it getting things more organised at promoting the causes or bringing people together from various groups? What's going to be the main priority for you now?

TT: Well for me it's kind of getting to know who is out there. So a number of us have been active in different groups. So like, I've got some Samoan friends who have been active in the issues on the impact of the environment from the extractive industries in Samoans. We know there's a few active in Wellington, so it's a matter of us trying to find each other. You know that takes a bit of time and sort of, trying to get to know each other to see what sort of issues the people are passionate about.

KV: Why do you think it is so important for the people of the pacific to have voices of activism?

TT: I think it's very important. And one of the things that struck me about that Climate Change conference that we were in earlier this year about how folks were organised in the islands, and how we were not as organised here. So it's a matter of trying to sort of, look around to see where the interest is? And trying to sort of make those connections to see where people are at.

KV: You've mentioned Climate Change and various cultural struggles, what are the kind of issues that the group's looking at?

TT: We want to look at the impact of militarization in the Pacific and the impact on indigenous peoples in the Pacific. We only need to look at our backyard in West Papua. Why is very little tension being placed in that direction. And West Papua was an issue and some of the folks that came down from Auckland are very concerned about homelessness issues, climate change issues. There is a lot of issues, it's just a matter of, we need to see where the passion is but also see where the commitment is so that we can start to galvanize and organise.