You probably know the entire menu at Burger N Beast off by heart, but couldn’t explain where your degree comes from without citing another white guy. Brutal? Maybe. True? Definitely. And before you clutch your pearls, name one Māori scholar without opening Google. Thought so. Let’s go.
I’m not going to stroke your ego, but drag the part of your brain that worships 2x speed lectures and goes mute the moment mātauranga Māori enters a conversation. The same part that thinks quoting Jordan Peterson or Nietzsche makes you an intellectual, yet still crying on the inside (like a winner, bub) at the thought of compulsory Māori language papers. Tapping into that creeping insecurity that maybe you’re not as clever, cultured, or grounded as you’ve been told. You’ve been schooled to believe your worth is tied to individual hustle, not collective wellbeing – that real success is paying $30,000+ for an old white guy to say “congratulations” as you shuffle across a stage in a rented cap and gown. You’ve been sold a lie, e hoa. Ka aroha.
Western academia crowned itself the champion and rewrote history as if nothing mattered before its footnotes. Meanwhile, the knowledge you dismiss has already shaped civilisations, sustained nations, and could outlast every climate summit you’ve ever live-tweeted. What your degree didn’t tell you is that chaos – my favourite C word – is baked into every so-called “order” they pretend to enforce, while you’re sitting on a knowledge system that predates every “champion’s” footnote. A system built not for profit or prestige, but one that could guide you through climate change, heal intergenerational trauma, and strengthen our relationship with the environment. I’m not going to walk you through old traditions, because that’s not what we’re talking about at all. This is about tomorrow. Your tomorrow. Your turn.
You Studied For Years… For This?
Indigenous knowledge systems have been dropping innovations long before ChatGPT came along (which, let’s be honest, you’re glued to). The Yanomami in the Amazon built forest gardens – multi-layered agroforestry systems that literally mimicked rainforest ecology – as living architecture of cultivation. Fucking genius. First Nations in Australia mastered climate control through controlled burning ceremonies; fighting fire with fire (now you can open Google). Closer to home, the kapu system of Hawai’i sustainably regulated natural resources centuries before “conservation” became a buzzword. In New Caledonia, the Kanak developed intricate sago and taro cultivation networks that transformed wetlands into long-term, resilient food systems while maintaining biodiversity. Practices like these aren’t guesswork, but the culmination of thousands of years of observation, testing, and refinement in the only lab that matters: the natural world.
Our ancestors didn’t need sterile labs or peer-reviewed journals; they had oceans, rivers, and forests as their test sites (check out page 24), they crossed entire oceans with the stars as their compass – while Europe was still arguing if the world was flat – built pā so complex British soldiers copied their blueprints, and kept food systems thriving for centuries without collapsing ecosystems. Compare that to Western cities choking on their own sewage and calling it “progress.” And here’s the gag: if Western science brags about “data” like it’s all that, Indigenous mātauranga is intergenerational data – lived, tested, proven. The shit that doesn’t just give you goosebumps, but forces you to question your own moral compass.
Your Policy Could Never – C.R.E.A.M
Western institutions love putting knowledge into tidy little boxes: science here, psychology there, medicine, economics, arts, and politics. Cute, but life doesn’t work in silo. The environment doesn’t separate health from economics. Whānau wellbeing isn’t neatly split between psychology and medicine. Real issues overlap, collide, and bleed into each other – and mātauranga Māori already knows that. Our ancestral solutions aren’t piecemeal or patch jobs; they’re built for longevity.
Now, line that up with Aotearoa’s democratic circus, where policies crumble and programmes vanish. You crowned yourself champion, then collapsed under the crown. That’s not opposition taking you down – that’s your king suffocating under its own pawns, and the only thing consistent? Putting profit over people. Dollar-dollar-bill-ya’ll governance. One week, they champion green futures, the next they scrap it for short-term gain. One week, they celebrate te reo Māori, the next they ban te reo Māori from childrens’ books altogether. The system doesn’t care about ethics, whānau, or governance, e te iwi. Weak AF.
Indigenous knowledge, on the other hand, is anchored in intergenerational survival, not election cycles. If you need a cheat sheet: think principal vs principle. Policy (wanky west) = principal, with an “A” for Authority. Tikanga = principle, with an “E” for Ethics. Piece it together, kids: policy = authoritative. Tikanga = ethical. Western frameworks = wharked. Indigenous knowledge = purr.
You’re a Move Behind – Catch You Up
Western systems are often tangled in funding, politics, and lecture halls that sucked more life out of you than your first hickey. And tell me why it costs thousands for a piece of paper just to prove you’re hireable? Ghetto. But remember the collective freakout when Māori and Pasifika started rising in the leagues? Scholarships, headlines, bums in seats – suddenly everyone’s panicking. The media circles in like seagulls, sniffing for cracks. And when Māori immersion schools – which were scrutinised for “setting kids back” – began dominating NCEA outcomes, only then did the powers-that-be decide it “doesn’t work” and started scrapping it altogether.
But here’s the quiet part nobody prints: Māori education models don’t just work here, they’ve lit fires everywhere. Te Kōhanga Reo became the prototype for Hawai‘i’s Pūnana Leo, and Kura Kaupapa Māori have inspired revitalisation movements in North America and even as far as Scandinavia. We are world leaders in language revitalisation, yet treated like a threat the moment we succeed within the very systems designed to shut us out. It’s a pattern. Think about the 2020 Med School crashout – when the extra spaces for Māori and Pasifika sparked a national meltdown. The moment our people started filling those seats, headlines screamed “unfair,” petitions popped off, and everyone suddenly had a hot take about “merit.” Same story when trade training stripped back after proving too effective. Wānanga sidelined as “alternative” despite graduating thousands across te reo Māori, the arts, and health. Each time the move works for us, the system rewrites the rules.
I asked my sister Shaye, a current Otago Uni student, what she thought of the University’s attempts at embracing mātauranga Māori. In true Vegas Brat fashion, she didn’t sugarcoat it: the efforts are nowhere near enough. A karakia to start class? Nice enough, but surface-level. Shaye questioned the entire system, pointing out how Western academia is still upheld as the golden standard while mātauranga Māori is pushed to the margins. “If the institution truly upheld it, our knowledge systems would be visible everywhere,” she says. To Shaye, Māori papers shouldn’t be mere electives or add-ons – they should be the very foundation. Right now? Tokenism cosplaying as progress. Shot sis.
Your Game is Slipping – C’s Up
Don’t get it twisted – I’m not saying your degree should be thrown in the bin. In fields like mental health, social services, disability, addiction, and education, being skilled in the facts and frameworks is crucial when working with our most vulnerable. But here’s the missing part: unity. Imagine universities and mātauranga Māori walking hand-in-hand. Doctors who heal with science and spirit. Social workers who see whānau as whakapapa, not case numbers. Teachers who weave pepeha into pedagogy instead of awkwardly squeezing it in at the start of class. That’s where real innovation lives.
In 2025, Gen Z is frontlining the country, challenging these systems, and I applaud all the allies who actually see the disparities. But recognising the problem isn’t enough. We’re living in a nation built on the C word. No, not cunt. Colonisation, and it is chaos. Should you feel guilty for contributing? Nah. But don’t think graduating suddenly gives you the audacity to look down on people who haven’t bought into an education system rooted in patriarchy, misogyny, and racism. That’s paru – and it does make you a C word. Not a coloniser. A cunt.
My Second Favourite C Word
So where does that leave you? With a choice. Keep sprinting toward a degree that teaches you how to fit neatly into a broken system – or you can pause long enough to realise that the most valuable curriculum has been sitting under your feet the entire time. Mātauranga Māori isn’t mere nostalgia, annual kapa haka festivals, or sprinkling kupu Māori on your CV. It’s about building futures that don’t collapse every election cycle. Mātauranga Māori > Your degree.
Here’s the kicker: Western academia doesn’t need an enemy. It is its own. The institution will keep tripping over its contradictions – preaching “excellence” while reproducing inequity, guarding “objectivity” while drowning in bias, chasing “innovation” while ignoring the knowledge that’s kept entire nations alive. That’s not opposition; that’s self-destruction. But Western academia and mātauranga Māori don’t have to exist in opposition. When they work together, everyone benefits. Now picture this properly: a hospital where tikanga sits at the core of this system, not tacked on at the edges. Māori clinicians are leading departments, surgical teams respect tapu around body parts and ensure whānau have a say in treatment plans. Maternity wards centre women and whānau, not just efficiency targets, and paediatric care recognises whakapapa connections over patient files. And yes – kaumātua can provide karakia, but they’re also at the table shaping policy, not just blessing it. That’s the thing – if mātauranga Māori isn’t embedded everywhere in our systems, it might as well be nowhere. Together, they deliver stronger outcomes than either system could alone. One gives you a cap, gown, and if you’re onto it, a job title; the other gives you a compass – pointing to community, whenua, and intergenerational futures your degree can’t buy. Let’s be real: that’s the kind of degree no politician can erase. Kings fall fast when they’re surrounded – and you surrounded yourself.
Which brings me to my second favourite C word – Checkmate.