|
|
|
|
              |
|
Early in 1997 the Internet Society of New Zealand (ISOCNZ) mailing list came alive when a quietly-spoken man introduced cultural politics to the bunch of white guys who do most of the discussion about New Zealand's Internet future. Ross Himona <rhimona@xtra.co.nz> has a vision for an increased maori cultural presence on the web...
It came about when I got brassed off with ISOCNZ. I tried to apply for a second-level domain name for Kohanga Reo. I had wanted to use ".ac.nz". They said, You can't have that, because you're a preschool. So I said, Alright, give me something that's appropriate: let's have "maori.nz". Then they said, You can't have that. So that's where the idea for a Maori Internet Society came from, after discussion with a couple of other people who are fairly active on-line. It hasn't really gone far this year, though I had a meeting about it in Auckland this year, and hopefully in the new year we'll take it a bit further. But the interesting thing is that I now have "tkr.ac.nz". So ISOCNZ relented in the end? Well I finally proved to them that we're also an institution running tertiary level courses (laughs). I think they gave in. Since the discussions early this year, has there been any further movement on the idea that Maori should be able to manage domain name space for their own activities? We are certainly looking at that, but not as part of ISOCNZ processes, we're going outside those processes. Could you tell me about Project Amiorangi? Basically the overall aim is to create a virtual wananga, which is a virtual university, and to link all of our Kohanga Reo sites around the country (about 750-800), and to extend that to anyone else who wants to join in to the network. That might include the Maori boarding schools, the Kaupapa Maori (the Maori primary schools), our wananga, and even Maori departments in secondary schools and universities. So what we're looking at doing is creating a nationwide learning network. It's been going for about 14 months. At the moment we're installing the LAN in our own headquarters, and sometime next year that computer network will be rolled out across the country. That may take some months to complete. We're also looking at a whole range of other aspects of communication, including satellite - we've been negotiating with a lot of people in the industry, and we're very close to signing off on a lot of those partnerships as well. But we can't really talk about that yet...
I see an enormous potential for not just the internet, but all sorts of communications technologies - including broadcasting - to help these processes along. I think that over the next ten years, the impact of these technologies on the preservation of Te Reo will be enormous. But at the moment we're just taking the first steps. Another thing I found on your site was Te Putatara (The Kumera Vine) - and that was originally a printed newsletter, until you brought it back on-line and out of retirement early this year. What was the impetus behind that and how has it changed? It started back in 1987 or 1988, and it was mostly political comment, satire, humour... it wasn't an underground newssheet, but it was regarded by many as an underground publication. It was very cheap, and a lot of fun, and very popular! But it was a one-man band, and it became very expensive and time consuming. It elapsed after about four years, and the internet has given me the opportunity to start publishing again. It's only on e-mail now, so it's got a different audience. Maori are taking up the internet fairly slowly, but there are more and more getting on all the time. I think the future of publishing on the internet for Maori is quite good. Particularly after we get our nationwide network out, and we can bring the Internet to most of those rural villages. Do you think that access to these technologies, which is obviously a problem at the moment, can ultimately be delivered? I think so. Access is a problem all over the world, not just for indigenous people, but for lower socio-economic groups, for women... but I think that by taking the technology out to Kohanga Reo, we will act to an extent as a catalyst to get that happening. Because those Kohanga Reo are close to the centers of any Maori population - rural or urban. Most live close to a Kohanga Reo or are touched by a Kohanga Reo in one way or another. Have you had a lot of response to your site from outside New Zealand/Aotearoa? An enormous amount. But that's a different response because I've purposely aimed that overseas site at the genealogists on the web, of which there are hundreds of thousands. My whakapapa Maori site is sort of unique, and it's linked to from most of the Genealogy sites around the world. But I also get a lot of responses from overseas Maori, who have had nothing to do with Maoridom and were born overseas, and looking for their roots. And I get a lot of responses from... curious people (laughs). People who are just curious about this other culture. The hits on my site are about 50/50 Overseas and New Zealand. You note on your site the strange phenomenon of Pakeha owning domains like "maori.co.nz". What's going on there? The guy that's got "maori.co.nz" has done nothing with it. It's obviously a commercial venture. He's shown no inclination to hand it over to us (laughs). It's disappointing... There are others Akiko have got "maori.com". They had the major New Zealand site for a while, and they've been bought out by ICONZ (Internet Company of New Zealand). I asked them whether they had any Maori involved in their company, and the answer was "no". What's happening in the future for your work in developing Maori culture on the internet? It's an evolutonary thing. I've noticed that over the last six months a lot more Maori have been coming on-line with their own e-mail addresses, rather than just those of a university or the public service. The reason I put my site up was because at that time there were no sites written by Maori about Maori. There were a few written by others about us, and I got sick of looking at them and decided to put one up myself. This was followed by Kamera Raharaha's site <http://www.maori.org.nz>, and over the last six months there have been a lot of good sites coming on-line from young people, which is heartening...
Some links from Ross's pages: Lincoln University Library's well edited Maori links page: on self-determination in the Information Age: on vegetarian cooking: learn to pronouce Maori: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
