I have been reflecting a lot about our political divides, the attitudes we hold, how we got here and how we get out.

I think about leaders in my country who have Indigenous Māori whakapapa (bloodlines) and seem to hold disdain for Māori culture. 

I find myself wondering what experiences shaped that stance.

Our deputy Prime Minister David Seymour grew up in a Māori community in the Far North of New Zealand. I sometimes wonder if his experience mirrors my own. I grew up on the east coast in a heavily Māori population, attending schools with almost exclusively Māori rolls that were delivering almost exclusively Western content. I was bullied. It hurt. It chipped away at my self esteem.

But I also understand something of the context. Many of those kids were carrying confusion and trauma. They knew, in a broad historical sense, who was responsible for the conditions they were living in. I became a convenient projection for that anger.

In high school, when I took a class in Te Reo Māori, I was picked on mercilessly by rangatahi (youth). They resented my presence in the one classroom where they felt natural, normal, at home. So I opted out and chose drama instead. At the time it felt like quitting. Looking back, I do not regret it. I sensed they needed that space more than I did, and stepping aside felt like the best way I could be an ally in that moment.

I was fortunate. I had enough positive exposure and active anti racist parenting to help me make sense of those experiences. I was encouraged to understand the wider dynamics at play.

But it was not until I began actively engaging with Māori spaces, people and whakaaro (thought patterns) that my fear of the unknown was replaced with wonder. Admiration. A yearning to expand my consciousness beyond the worldview I inherited. I feel enriched by that expansion. In part, I think it reconnected me to a sense of indigeneity that feels lost in my own lineage. By that I mean a meaning-filled relationship with the natural world.

This does not have to mean grand, abstract systems change. It is personal and relational work. It is demystifying the other. It is learning the alternative histories of the people dispossessed on the land we now live on. It is meeting real people and having real conversations. It is offering our skills and resources to support the living work of restoration and healing that is still needed in the wake of colonisation, imperialism and capitalist extraction.

The more we step into repair, the less we fear losing control.

You could say that actively working in repair is hope’s home.

So I find myself asking: what experiences would help bring our leaders across that threshold? What would make them more open, more connected, more hopeful. Less closed off. Less fearful of the “other.”

A friend once said to me, “Cringe is a doorway.” That moment of discomfort when we step outside what is known and comfortable to receive something new is a critical skill in this world. Yet I am not sure we even have a name for that aptitude, let alone a place for it in our curriculum.

We all recognise the sensation. The awkward inhale before we do something that pushes us beyond our comfort zone. Parents know these as teachable moments. We encourage our children through them. Sometimes we even borrow courage from them. There is nothing like trying to model bravery for your kid to make you find some for yourself.

But this capacity deserves a bigger presence in our public life. We need to teach it. Create opportunities to practise it. Recruit for it. Vote for people who demonstrate it.

As always I value your reflections. May your week ahead offer you moments for repair, and may you move through any discomfort with grace.  

Lots of love, Megan