Te Wiki o te Reo Mฤori celebrates 50 years
Sunday marked the start of Te Wiki o te Reo Mฤori and, this year, the kaupapa celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Aotearoa celebrated its first Mฤori Language Day in 1972, following a petition signed by more than 30,000 people calling for te reo Mฤori to be taught in schools.
By 1975, the day had grown into a week-long event, and since then Te Wiki o te reo Mฤori has become one of the most recognised public celebrations and nationwide movements in the country.
When I was 18 I had a car accident that left me with a serious head injury that damaged the part of my brain where I formulate speech and language.
Sometimes, without realising it, I mangle my pronunciation horribly.
Iโve always been a tad self-conscious about it and thatโs why I donโt try to pronounce Te Reo because I fear some pronunciation policing woke fascist will jump on my mispronunciation and scream Iโm being racist for mispronouncing the language and lead some new crusade to get my cancelled โ and I just donโt have the energy for any of that!
I get cancelled monthly as it is by the Wellington Woke, I donโt need another bloody target on my back!
My repertoire of Te Reo is pure pidgin Mฤori โ ย Kia ora, Kai pai and Kia Kaha, but I do use those many times a day as my basic go to for greeting anyone.
My tongue is simply too leaden for the beauty of a cultural treasure like Te Reo, and while I canโt speak it, I certainly believed it was my daughters birth right to enjoy this gift, so she has been in a bilingual class all her life (currently she is the only pakeha in her class which is a tragedy in of itself) and I have to tell you that when she speaks Te Reo it melts my black cynical heart and makes me feel more connected as a New Zealander than any other single thing.
To me, Te Reo is a cultural treasure that is a gift, and I think the recent friction over Te Reo is because it isnโt being given as gift, and instead has become a virtue signalling cudgel used by the Professional Managerial Class akin to their aggressive pronoun peacocking that is being used as an elitism rather than a cultural gift.
You see this brown washing happen at State Agency level, itโs outrageous that Oranga Tamariki have that name when they damage so many Mฤori children!
Comedian Kajun Brooking touched on this Te Reo elitism with this jokeโฆ
โฆhe was surprised by the popularity of itโฆ
Comedian Kajun Brooking shocked by reaction to his Te Reo meme
A comedian has been shocked by the mixed response to a Te Reo meme he posted on social media.
Comedian Kajun Brooking posted the meme on Twitter at the beginning of July, which said: โHow Te Reo speaking Maori look at the rest of us Horiโsโ.
Brooking said the idea for the meme came after an interaction with a woman who asked him for help in Mฤori. When he told the woman he couldnโt speak the language, โshe actually looked quite disappointed in meโ.
โฆwe shouldnโt allow woke identity politics elitism to shame us or bully us, thatโs misusing the gift that is Te Reo.
If you donโt speak Mฤori and you donโt want to, thatโs ok, you arenโt a bad person!
But equally, just because you donโt understand what is being said, your slight inconvenience doesnโt justify the cross burning racism that gets voimited up the nanosecond you donโt understand what is being communicated!
Sometimes inconveniencing the majority is good for that majority.
As you wait for the caption to explain what is being said, you might also think this is how hard of hearing and the deal feel all the time, which is why captioning should be funded for all media!
That moment where you donโt understand can be a learning and teaching moment of empathy.
Thatโs a good thing.
Honestly, if you are such a cracker honky that hearing te reo spins you out, you need a large cannabis cigarette to chill out.
Equally we shouldnโt allow the Professional Managerial Classโs use of Te Reo as a virtue signal to masquerade their failures when 20 000 are on emergency housing wait lists, when 200 000 kids are in poverty and when there are more children living in cars than when Labour began in 2017!
Speaking Mฤori fluently doesnโt solve any of those problems!
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, soย if you value having an independent voice โ please donate here.
Thank-you, that was enlightening. The pride you show in your daughter’s fluency and your gratitude that she had the opportunity to gain that fluency and knowledge, is inspirational.
Most parents are more interested in their children meeting ‘the right people’ rather than gaining useful knowledge. And certainly not being troubled by having to rub shoulders with the great unwashed, wherever they are e.g. public schools.
You encouraged your daughter to take up that gift which was offered. At the same time, you could see she was also ‘meeting the right people’ because the tiny, enclosed, rather sick world of the various leafy suburbs, is an illusion. It’s not real and not worth pursuing.
Wider education IS worth pursuing.
Enjoy.
https://youtu.be/u6LvPP4zqOA
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