We are amidst our annual Maori language week and of course, that subjects us to the annual barrage of media pomposity, posturing, and melodrama as they attempt to woke themselves into a frenzy of compliance. I would imagine that there is nothing more patronising than watching and listening to an assemblage of presenters paying homage to one’s native tongue. It is as fake as it is pointless.
I can understand the desire by Maori to rejuvenate their language. It is part of their heritage and of course for them, an emotional connection to their ancestry. In fact, I would embrace government financial support to enable this to occur.
New Zealand could officially become Aotearoa, Wellington could be Te Whanganui-a-Tara, and Christchurch could be Otautahi, if the Maori Party takes power at the 2020 election.
The party, campaigning to return to Parliament after being ousted in 2017, has announced a Maori language policy which would rewrite the place names on New Zealand maps, audit the public service on its cultural competence, and require state broadcasters to have basic te reo Maori fluency.
Maori Party candidate Rawiri Waititi said renaming New Zealand and its place names would be bold move that “elevates te reo Maori to its rightful place”.
stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/te-reo-maori/122756937/election-2020-mori-party-wants-new-zealand-to-be-officially-renamed-aotearoa-within-six-years
“This is plain headline hunting without any regard to the cost to this country,” Peters wrote […]
Peters went on to say the Maori Party was “again rushing down the path of separatism” instead of focusing on jobs, housing, health and education.
nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12364764
But as is the will of the extremist, their demands immediately kill the desire to be supportive of this initiative. Their determination to extinguish all English place names, rename our country, their mandate that Maori be a compulsory subject within our education curriculum and their demand that we perfect the pronunciation of all Maori place names does little to motivate me. It reeks of revenge rather than an honest attempt to embrace a multicultural society. So from this point forward they have lost me and I suspect much of the populous they are trying to engage with.
The blueprint they are promoting has been lifted from the very template they accuse the colonisers of implementing. Which is unequivocal evidence that these extremists are just as accomplished at racism as their perceived oppressors.
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