Moana Jackson dies

Jackson was a quietly spoken intellectual and Māori leader who challenged the Crown with his incisive writing and analysis. But he was also a kind and ...

What he couldn’t abide was the domination of one at the expense of others. His work was certainly based in a Maori view of the world, but he was also deeply interested in the richness of other cultures. He gave his people the intellectual framework to not only understand what had happened to them but to challenge the present and articulate what might be possible in the future. While Jackson’s work is often quoted, it is also bastardised by those who tried to accommodate a semblance of what he was saying. He viewed the exploitation of resources and people as the driver behind colonisation. It was a marvel to witness his clarity of thought as he would succinctly articulate how colonisation worked and why it produced the same results wherever it was applied – New Zealand, Australia, Canada or the United States – because it was built on the same foundations. He interviewed thousands of people involved in that system, both working within it and incarcerated by it, and produced a report that is still rightly considered a landmark. He said he felt overwhelmed trying to understand what he was up against – so discouraged and despairing that he consoled himself with junk food. From there he worked briefly for a corporate law firm but wasn’t enamoured of the environment, returning home to work in the freezing works. But what I often found strange was that he always wanted to know what I thought. Moana Jackson was a quietly spoken intellectual and Māori leader who challenged the Crown with his incisive writing and analysis. But he was also a kind and generous man who cared deeply for his people.