Belonging Is a Negotiation

On standing, speaking, and staying awake in a land where not all welcomes are the same.

For the longest time, I hesitated to speak about this—not because I didn’t know where I stand, but because I know exactly where I do.
As an Ethiopian immigrant, here in Aotearoa by the grace of a visa granted by a colonial government—not one backed by tino rangatiratanga. No one told me, at the time of that receipt, that I’d be viewed by some—if not all—Māori as “here by invite only,” never able to claim this land in my whakapapa. Not that it was ever the plan.

This land is far from the wider world, with five million people and a long memory. We came here for peace and quiet. But whakapapa isn’t just a poetic idea—it’s a cultural reality that hits differently when you’re standing on someone else’s ground.
It shows up in the awkwardness—at pōwhiri, in workshops, during public forums. It’s not hostility. It’s historical accuracy. Memory wrapped in protocol. A quiet reminder: not everyone is from here, and not everyone belongs the same way.

“A nation is the sum of its memories, and when those memories are allowed to die, it is less of a nation.”
— Peter Hitchens

The importance of collective memory for national identity is obvious here—yet oddly lacking in many of the loudest voices claiming to speak for this land.

So I’ve learned that in Aotearoa, belonging is a negotiation, not a given. And that negotiation doesn’t begin with Immigration. It begins with the land.

Now, about that Pepeha.

In Ethiopia, when someone stands and names their lineage aloud, we call it Fookera. It’s not a polite introduction. It’s the prelude to war. It means: I’m not just here—I’ve brought my ancestors, and they’re ready to fight.
So imagine my cultural vertigo the first time I was encouraged to deliver a Pepeha in a public workshop. My instinct wasn’t reverence or mutual respect—it was to glance over my shoulder and brace for flying chairs.

I don’t say this to mock the ritual—I say it to highlight the absurdity of assuming that sacred acts land the same for everyone.
And frankly, reciting my river and mountain in front of strangers felt less like an act of connection and more like I’d stumbled into a tribe initiation I didn’t sign up for.

Still, here I am. Present. Learning. Listening. Speaking—carefully.
I understand the Māori struggle, even if it isn’t mine. It is well known that my people fought off their colonisers with every inch of spirit and bone. And they won. But like most victories, it was pyrrhic. Today, their minds remain colonised, their systems imported, their metrics of value still pinned to foreign currencies and foreign gods.

So when I see what’s happening here—the regulatory whitewashing, the ideologically spiked bills disguised as neutrality—I don’t need to be tangata whenua to know a land and resource grab when I see one.

I submitted my opposition to the Regulatory Standards Bill not because I’m confused about whose fight this is—but because I recognise a system trying to rewrite its own absolution.

This Bill isn’t smart governance.

It’s an ideological intervention masquerading as regulatory reform—dressed up in footnotes and faux objectivity.

I may not speak from the whenua, but I speak from responsibility:
To the land I walk on.
To the children I’m raising here.
To the version of Aotearoa that doesn’t weaponise “efficiency” to excuse erasure.

Choosing to live here means accepting discomfort. But it also means refusing to numb it with platitudes.
I don’t need to “find my place” in the story. I need to hold the story—even when it burns a little.

And if I’ve learned anything, it’s this:

You don’t have to be from here to know when something stinks of empire. You just have to be alert.
And a little irreverence helps too.