We have to live as we are already free.

“So, why does the labour of education always fall on me, wherever I am in the world? The truth is, it doesn't. And I'd like young Muslims to realise sooner what I didn't–you do not have to tolerate micro-aggressions disguised as curiosity. We are not obligated to educate if we don't have the desire or capacity to do so. Education and knowledge is not owed, it is sought and earned.”

“Because holy is a love that stands up for the oppressed, in authentic solidarity.”

My acute awareness of how colonial harm is still being perpetuated and unseen by so many of us Maaori and non-Maaori allowed me to come away from my first Waitangi Day celebrations feeling discombobulated and fractured yet at the same time, bedazzled and almost taken captive by the huge presence of technology, colour, sound, graphics, story-boards, music, atmosphere, images. My responses were alarming to me. I realised just how easy it could still be to allow my identity to be replaced if it were not for my vigilance to maintain a firm resistance against normalising a gaslit embroidered tapestry of history. 

Abolishing Australia Day.