Polynesian Panthers Tigilau Ness, Dr Melani Anae and the Rev Alec Toleafoa captivated their mostly young audience with a message of eliminating racism and celebrating mana Pasifika while on the Southland leg of their Educate to Liberate schools programme.
Pupils from five high schools filled the Centre Stage theatre and responded to the kōrero/talanoa (talk/discussion) from the "daughters and sons of the Dawn Raids" movement.
The Dawn Raids were crackdowns in New Zealand from 1973 to 1979 and then sporadically afterward on alleged illegal overstayers from the Pacific Islands.
The Polynesian Panther Party was founded in 1971 by six Pacific Island youth including Mr Ness, Dr Anae and Mr Toleafoa, who banded together with the help from other organisations to stop the Dawn Raids.
"We started as rangatahi [youth] just like you as 16 and 17-year-olds — when you see racism, call it out," Mr Ness said.
Dr Anae recently retired from her position as a University of Auckland teaching professor said New Zealand was the first country to have a foundational tiriti between coloniser and the indigenous people, and the first country in the Western world to have a leader offer an apology for racism, so "why not be the first country to make racism illegal".
Then-prime minister Jacinda Ardern made an apology on behalf of the government to the Pasifika people for the Dawn Raids, at the Auckland Town Hall, in 2021.
Southlander and writer of children’s book Dawn Raid Pauline Smith helped initiate and elicit that apology from the Labour government.
She thanked the pupils and their schools for coming to the meeting and urged them to use their history studies to educate their communities.
To show their appreciation for the talk, Southland Boys’ High School pupils performed a mihi (formal welcome) in Samoan and Tongan and a rousing waiata.
