Michael O’Leary
Turncoat by Tīhema Baker (Lawrence & Gibson Publishing Collective, 2023), 290pp, $30
Turncoat explores the dilemma of Māori public servants and the deeply conflicted role they are expected to fill within the machinery of government. From casual racism to co-governance, Treaty settlements to tino rangatiratanga, Turncoat is a timely critique of the present Aotearoa New Zealand worldview, especially with this present government trying to roll back the clock on Māori language use and other tangata whenua manifestations of culture in the broader society—except that is for the haka at sports events, the singing of our national anthem with half in te reo Māori, and, of course, nobody complains when marae are opened, with kai and aroha, for the victims of the likes of Cyclone Gabrielle and other disasters.
Turncoat is set in the future and tells the story of Daniel, a young, idealistic Human (read Māori) determined to make a difference for his people. He lives in a time when Earth has been colonised by Aliens (read Pākehā). His mission: infiltrate the Alien government called the Hierarch (read Bureaucracy) and push for it to honour the infamous Covenant of Wellington (read Te Tiriti o Waitangi), the founding agreement between the Hierarch and Humans.
The book begins with the essential kaupapa that infuses the whole novel, when Daniel returns home to see his parents after attending a training centre for higher learning. The training centre is the Academy (university), where he is determined to get a job that involves both using his talents to further his own prospects as an individual within the Hierarch system, as well as eventually enabling him to use his position to better his Human whānau and also his wider Human community. His mother being Human and his father being Alien adds a very complicated aspect to Daniel’s life story.
Before visiting his parents, Daniel meets an old Human friend, Hayden, who is being hassled by the futuristic version of the Department of Social Welfare for not reporting on time. Daniel is shocked by the deterioration of his old friend’s condition. Weakened by poverty and addiction, Hayden is continually harassed by the Keepers. This situation echoes the poem ‘Ode to Auckland’ by poet James K. Baxter, who wrote in the early 1970s:
The cops will pick him up for the four crimes
Not having a job,
Wearing old clothes,
Having long hair,
Above all, for being Māori …
A recent e-tangata article on Aotearoa gangs by sociologist and lifelong Black Power member Denis O’Reilly reiterated Baxter’s statement more than fifty years after the poet’s observations.
After Daniel tells Hayden of his success at the Academy and how he intends to use his future position in the Hierarch to better the Human condition, Hayden bursts out: ‘The Hierarch doesn’t care about Humans. It’s just a bunch of Aliens in their swanky robes running around pretending they know what’s best for everyone else.’ Daniel defensively replies: ‘There are some Humans who serve it.’ To which Hayden sneers: ‘Yeah. TURNCOATS’—and thereon hangs a tale.
Later in the novel there is a tense to-and-fro confrontation between Daniel and Hayden when Daniel finds out that Hayden has joined a gang called The Mutts (read Dogs, thus: Mongrel Mob). Daniel asks his former friend why he has joined this outlaw ‘pack’, and Hayden retorts: ‘Wouldn’t expect you to understand. What with your fancy robes and edicts—.’
Daniel hurls back: ‘As opposed to this? Running with the Pack that runs the illicit cleaving [drugs] industry? That relies on the addiction of predominately Humans, and the indoctrination of other young, vulnerable Humans like you to operate it? Look at yourself, Hayden, I barely recognise you.’ To which Hayden answers: ‘That’s rich. I had trouble recognising you ever since you came back from Academy.’ Daniel responds with: ‘Because I went and made something of myself.’
A red-rag-waved-at-a-bull reply if there ever was one. Hayden laughs derisively and admonishes in return: ‘You talk about me running with the Pack—you’re running with the most ruthless gang there is.’ Rendered into silence by Hayden’s barbed criticism, Daniel tells us: ‘Whatever half-baked retort I had ready to sling at him withered away.’ Thus, the relationship between Daniel and Hayden acts as a metaphor for the struggle with imposed authority many Māori had in the past, have today—and, according to Turncoat, will have well into the future. One is reminded of the whakatauki of Apirana Ngata, which states:
E tipu e rea mo ngā rā o tō ao.
Ko tō ringa ki ngā rākau ā te Pakeha Hei ara mō tō tinana,
Ko tō ngākau ki ngā tāonga a ō tīpuna Māori,
Hei tikitiki mō tō māhuna,
Ko tō wairua ki tō Atua, Nānā nei ngā mea katoa.
Grow up and thrive for the days destined to you.
Your hands to the tools of the Pākehā to provide physical sustenance,
Your heart to the treasures of your Māori ancestors as a diadem for your brow,
Your soul to your God, to whom all things belong.
Daniel has chosen to work within the System with the aim of making things better not only for himself but also for his people. However, to achieve this aim he alienates himself from his Human whakapapa: he has given up the fight and assimilated in order to join the ‘Hierarch’. This is a term that ironically begins with an ecclesiastic hierarchy and is defined in the dictionary as 1: a division of angels; 2 a: a ruling body of clergy organised into orders or ranks each subordinate to the one above it; 2 b: church government by a hierarchy; 3: a body of persons in authority; 4: the classification of a group of people according to ability or to economic, social, or professional standing; 5: graded or ranked series, a hierarchy of values.
An interesting occurrence takes place in the middle of the book when Daniel has to represent the Hierarch in England to uphold the Hierarch’s determination against an independent Ireland. The Irish are seen as Human rather than Aliens and therefore unable to govern themselves outside the Hierarch. At the end of the meeting, Daniel and his colleagues are booed, and he thinks to himself how typical it was of the Hierarch, including himself, to sow dissension and leave the Humans to pick up the pieces after them. They get called all sorts of insults, and he explains to another member of his team why so many insults are based on Human genitalia. What he didn’t tell him was the one meant especially for him and what it meant to be called a TURNCOAT.
As with many first-published novels, Turncoat has a large slice of autobiography within its kaupapa. Tīhema Baker (Raukawa te Au ki te Tonga, Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai, and Ngāti Toa Rangatira) works as a policy advisor on Tiriti o Waitangi matters, and while it does have something of a ‘biting the hand that feeds you’ aspect about it, Turncoat is representative of the paternalism dilemma faced by any Māori who want to both be part of Aotearoa New Zealand, to better their own money and mana prospects, but at the same time explore and expose some of the iniquities and inequities of the system that they serve. Aroha Gilling (Te Whānau a Apanui), an adviser to government departments on Te Tiriti o Waitangi and mātauranga Māori, wrote recently in an e-tangata article on the subject of Māori working for the Crown:
I work for a government department in an iwi-facing role, even though I’m not from the eight iwi I work with. I’m paid a steady and welcome government salary, but I rarely feel like I fit in a Crown agency. At times, I’m downright ashamed to be a Crown employee. I recall the time my colleagues insisted on referring to tracts of land as “wasteland”. They were taken aback when the iwi they were talking to took offence at such a description of Papatūānuku, not realising, or not caring, that those words stripped her of her mana. Something else that I regularly struggle with is when senior government officials insist that iwi ceded sovereignty in exchange for tino rangatiratanga. They conflate both Treaty of Waitangi texts, redefining our ideas of power and authority in favour of the Crown, and they assume tino rangatiratanga is something the Crown has the power to confirm or deny. Auē!
Turncoat is an enjoyable and absorbing read, an important pukapuka for our times. Let’s hope things have changed by the time this envisaged future comes into being. Baker’s writing is clear and precise, and it moves along at a good pace. Kia kaha, e tū mai nei, kia koe tenei tuhituhi Baker.
MICHAEL O’LEARY is a poet, novelist, publisher and bookshop proprietor. He holds a PhD from the Victoria University of Wellington. His Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop imprint, which he founded in 1984, has published many New Zealand writers. He lives in Paekākāriki on the Kapiti Coast.
Leave a Reply