ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the politics and process of colonization. Rather than studying a specific land dispute or analyzing such consequences of colonization as the suppression of language and culture, it endeavors to chart the myth-making that surrounds the seizure and maintenance of political/economic power that is the basis of all colonial endeavor. In New Zealand (Aotearoa) the present relationship between the Maori people and the State (or ‘Crown’) is shaped by that myth-making. The myths have established a changing process of definition in which the State has altered its position on Maori rights and status to meet whatever it perceives to be its current political interests. For a major part of this century, the Maori sought solace and protection from the pain of colonization in political quietude. In Aotearoa, many Maori are striving to establish new ways of believing that focus not on the determinable grievances of the past but instead on the systemic injustices of colonization itself.
