Issue 60 - editorial

Watershed

Tena ano tatou katoa

The lasting images of the Athens Olympics for many of us back in New Zealand were from the triathlon, cycling, rowing and kayak races where we could savour not just the successes of fellow kiwis but also their delight and unassuming behaviour.

We had more such moments from our basketball and hockey players too.

It’s a pleasure to be reassured that our young men and women, many of them anyway, can foot it in international company and not be at all big-headed about it.

But there was another heart-warming and perhaps more important story being played out all through the Games.

We caught snatches of that with the sight and sound of a haka or, for example, with Sarah Ulmer reaching for her pounamu pendant in the midst of her god medal ceremony.

This was the story of a team of 250 predominantly Pakeha New Zealanders tentatively accepting and then eagerly asserting a Kiwi identity that embraced things Maori – ripping into a haka they’d taken the trouble to learn and understand, touching the mauri stone in the team lounge each morning, wearing their pounamu with pride, and comfortably owning a whakapapa that binds us all to this country.

That wasn’t an easy step for the team to take when so many of them, like the bulk of New Zealanders, have grown up unfamiliar with and, at times, quite uneasy about te ao Maori.

But Dave Currie, Amster Reedy, Murray Halberg, Trevor Shailer and others helped guide them down this new path – and New Zealand teams of the future will benefit from their insight and courage.

We’ll all be able to look back on 2004 as a watershed year. And we should be grateful to those who made it so.

In our cover story, you’ll see why and how this project was born – and why it was such a success. It may also set you thinking about why that sort of shared experience isn’t a natural part of New Zealanders lives.

Kia ora

Gary Wilson
Kaiwhakahaere