Name Titewhai Harawira | ||
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Harawira holds her ground through early Waitangi tensions
Titewhai Harawira (1932 – 25 January 2023) was a Māori activist and the mother of New Zealand politician Hone Harawira. She was affiliated with the Ngāti Hau and Ngāti Hine hapū of Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Wai.
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Harawira was an outspoken political commentator and a civil rights campaigner. She was part of a small group which formed the Waitangi Action Committee in 1979 to shut down Waitangi Day celebrations until the Treaty of Waitangi was honoured. Dame Whina Cooper, Eva Rickard and Titewhai Harawira led a hikoi at Waitangi in 1985. In 1990 she went to the Netherlands to ask the government there to take back the name "New Zealand" so that the original Māori name "Aotearoa" could be used instead. She was on the New Zealand Maori Council, and she was a talkback host at Radio Waatea. For many years Harawira was escorted New Zealand Prime Ministers at Te Tii marae, Waitangi, during Waitangi celebrations.
Titewhai Harawira married John Puriri Harawira and they had eight children. Her husband died when the youngest child was eight years old.
In 1989 she was jailed for nine months for assaulting a patient at a mental health unit she ran.
Death
Harawira died on 25 January 2023, at age 90.