Rent-a-powhiri hijacks NZ colonial culture

[Opo 182]

RENT-A-POWHIRI HIJACKS NZ COLONIAL CULTURE

 

Are we all Maori Now?

 

Prince Harry went beyond the call of duty on his recent visit when he got hot and sweaty with the army in a spirited performance of the Haka. The wild dilated stare and eyeball rolling of Powhiri “welcomes” must make visitors conclude we are all Maori.

 

Personal experience of how people in other countries view us was on a visit to London a few years ago when an elderly Austrian-born woman stuck out her tongue and waved her hands in the air when she heard I was from New Zealand.

One visiting Danish politician objected to being welcomed on to the Navy’s Marae two years ago by a “half-naked” man “shouting and screaming in Maori”. She also objected to being forced to touch noses.

 

Rent-a-Powhiri culture has taken hold and every school prize-giving, government function, welcomes for visiting sports teams and dignitaries, openings of the world rugby and cricket cups, new buildings, even passing lanes on state highways, feature an overweight Maori waving a carved stick chanting an incantation in “Te Reo”.

Unintelligible gabbling in Maori features at the beginning of court sessions and council meetings. But is this our culture and where is our colonial culture?
The national anthem, "God Defend New Zealand", has turned “bicultural” with a mumbled first verse in Maori that does not translate the English and louder singing and discernible words in the following English verse.

 

Wind the clock back 70 years and the culture was officially British. Up to 1948 we travelled on British passports. Many fondly referred to the United Kingdom as “home”, and Edmund Hillary’s conquest of Everest in 1953 was called “a triumph for the British race”.

 

Official functions included flying the red-white-and-blue New Zealand flag, a reading from the Bible, a prayer from a Church of England minister, a hymn like William Blake’s Jerusalem, and the national anthem sung in English. Cinemas played the British anthem “God Save The Queen” before screening movies. Audiences were required to stand as a mark of respect.

 

Culture refers to the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts.
You may be surprised that the 2013 census recorded that 189 languages were spoken in New Zealand – revealing more ethnicities here than there are countries in the world.

 

English is the biggie, with 3.8-million speakers. A total 148,000 say they speak Maori, although only 125,352 of those (21.3 percent) could hold a conversation about everyday things, a 4.8 percent decrease from the 2006.

More speak Chinese – a combined total of 148,000. There were 86,000 Samoan, 66,000 Hindi, 31,000 Tongan, 29,000 Tagalog (Philippines), 27,000 Spanish, 26,000 Korean, 24,000 Dutch, 20,000 Japanese, 19,000 Punjabi, 10,000 Arabic, 9000 Russian, and 7000 Thai.

 

With such a bewildering array of different peoples living here the religious landscape has changed from at least two 19th century churches in every town to include Buddhist centres, Polynesian churches, Hindu temples, Ashrams, and Mosques to name a few.

 

Similarly, cuisine has vastly expanded from roasts, stews, soups, pies, bread, and scones that British settlers brought to include Chinese chow mein and stir-fried rice, Samoan chop sui, Indian lamb Madras and chicken korma, Korean beef bulgogi, Dutch pickled herring roll mops, Japanese sushi, green Thai curry, Turkish kebabs, the occasional hangi shop, Maori fried bread with a chunk of jam, and with pork boil-up a meal in numerous households.

 

Traditional music and dances appear at festivals like Chinese New Year, the Hindu Diwali festival of lights, and Maori Matariki, but new music produced largely in the United States overlays all groups with Black gangsta rap arguably more popular among young Maori than kapa haka.

 

New music from the various ethnic groups, often dramatically more exciting than the music produced by the mega music corporations, appears at weddings and work functions and pumps in city streets as migrant youth enjoy the cars, clothes, and relative wealth afforded by life in New Zealand.

 

Migrants must find sustained political efforts to push biculturalism and the Treaty of Waitangi through the school curriculum as somewhat odd mainly because the descendants of Maori, and of British settlers, have lived side-by-side for 175 years or more.

Nevertheless, migrants cautiously respect apparent enmity between these two groups. Workshops teach migrants to be culturally safe and not blurt out anything unacceptable about the Treaty of Waitangi for fear of losing a job.

 

Biculturalism has been legislated into existence by way of the Treaty of Waitangi Act in 1975, and a divide between the two imagined groups has been widened through treaty settlements, co-governance deals, demands for tribal appointees on local authorities, and other such race-based affirmative action.
Such enmity has swamped one of our two national days of remembrance, Waitangi Day. Forty years of theatrical protests and posturing by radicals have turned February 6 into “Maori day”, which only exists as a paid summer day off work and a few minutes coverage on the six o’clock news. ANZAC day has taken over as a national day for all.

The culture that descended from British settlers includes a high level of egalitarianism and the idea that most people can do most things if they put their minds to it. Maori society is hierarchical with chiefly families still looking down their noses at the “nobodies” who live on welfare.

 

Maraes dotted around the country, where families and tribes gather for funerals, have become venues for separate meetings where government Ministers go to negotiate away the foreshore and seabed, water, and other resources that the New Zealand Maori Council has put its hand out for.

These carved meetinghouses at Marae largely came into existence from 1927, when politician Apirana Ngata promoted their construction paid for by the government. Ngata promoted tribal competitions in Haka and Poi, and established a Maori school of arts at Rotorua in 1927.

 

The Kiwi culture that was viewed as based "rugby, racing and beer" has moved on to rugby, Lotto, and lattes.

Sometimes somewhere some say that the descendants of British settlers have no culture. But my 20-something niece is quite clear that we do.

She points to our family gatherings at birthdays and Christmas for a meal that could include cold chicken, ham, salad, potatoes, trifle (Christmas), and a few wines and beers. We exchange gifts and chat about what is going on.

 

Everyone is there, from the oldest to the youngest. Music plays in the background. After a couple of hours we go our separate ways, connected again. That is our culture.

We live at peace. We no longer need to challenge newcomers to see if they constitute a threat. No need for the wild dilated stare and eyeball rolling.

By Mike Butler

http://www.elocal.co.nz/view_Article~id~1834%20%20%20%20%20%20.html

[Uriah Heap 481]

This article sounds like the ramblings of some 90 year old flat capped Pom with a broad Yorkshire accent.

Prospective migrants to NZ need to do their homework. If they don't like our culture, they should choose another country.