William David, responding to your point about using our legal education to fight social injustice, (and this is a point that I'm sure you're already aware of) I think that in order to be effective lawyers, we have to understand that the law is very limited in changing social perceptions:

I was an anthropology major in undergrad and spent a term in New Zealand studying Maori culture and activism. I became particularly interested in the Maori tribe Ngati Whatua's unprecedented victory in fighting colonial land confiscation. For decades, the government manipulated land ownership and evicted Ngati Whatua from their ancestral lands. In 1977, Maori activist Joe Hawke led a landmark protest against subdivision of land at Bastion Point. This demonstration and others publicized the injustices against Maori people and encouraged tribes to pursue legal action against the government. Since the 1980s, public hearings and lawsuits have compelled the Crown to return land to Ngati Whatua and various other tribes. Many of my professors in New Zealand were members of Maori tribes and many were heavily involved in ongoing litigation for indigenous rights (one of my professors was the chief negotiator for her tribe for treaty settlements). I took kapa haka (Maori war dance) classes, volunteered at the Ngati Whatua's meeting house, toured Bastion Point with Joe Hawke’s brother, and protested Waitangi Day (a contentious national holiday commemorating the transfer of Maori sovereignty to the British).

By the time I moved in with my homestay family a month after I first arrived in New Zealand, I was all for "taking to the streets" (or courts, I guess). It turned out that my host father, Graeme, was Ngati Whatua, and I was super excited to talk to him about indigenous rights. I decided to wait for him to bring up Maori issues first. But he didn't. It turned out that Graeme knew fewer Maori words than I did, had only been to the Ngati Whatua marae (meeting house) for funerals, and didn’t care who owned the beaches. When asked about Maori activism, Graeme said conclusively that Maori shouldn’t draw so much attention to themselves.

I didn’t get it. Under British rule, Graeme's tribe lost 95% of their land. The government passed underhanded legislation that turned tribal land into alienable private property and denied Maori people standing in court. Because Maori activists like Joe Hawke fought against these inequities and defended their legal rights, the Crown has conceded to restore $80 million of land to Ngati Whatua. The law was finally on their side, but Graeme didn’t care.

It took a few months of getting to know Graeme to begin to understand where he was coming from. I realized that Graeme’s cavalier attitude toward Maori affairs didn’t accurately reflect his beliefs. When Graeme was little, his teachers beat students for speaking Maori. His mother didn't allow any of her children to speak Maori because she was afraid that they would be looked down upon. She basically taught them that they should behave as "pakeha" (white) as possible because they would have a better life that way. Today, the Crown must take active steps to guarantee the survival of Maori language and culture. Graeme is content with what his people have overcome and fears that too much protest will somehow make things go back to the way they were. He believes that whatever land and cultural revival won through the courts may exacerbate the underlying and more difficult problems of discrimination and ethnocentrism. He doesn’t see those problems going away, and that is why he prefers to identify himself as a New Zealander above a person of Maori descent.

I left New Zealand with the same passion for social justice that compelled me to visit but less certain of the best way to achieve it. Graeme taught me that there are distinctions to be drawn within any social struggle. One component is a very specific struggle to combat a set of rules and practices that treat a group unfairly. Another is a larger struggle to readjust subjective norms. The Maori people of New Zealand have largely, albeit not entirely, accomplished the former through legal and political means. But like Graeme, I don’t know how they will achieve the latter.

-- MichelleLuo - 14 Mar 2012