Perhaps the greatest danger facing newspaper columnists, or anyone with a public platform, is believing their own bullshit, and surely I may use that word now a Princeton philosopher has made it a valid philosophical term. Like too many liberals (of whom I am one), Rachel Stewart has decided her own opinion is sacrosanct and those who disagree with her should be silenced.
Thus Dave Witherow who is made irritable by "boring bigots" who, he thinks, inflict te reo upon him should be disallowed from writing publicly because he is deemed guilty of her definition of "hate speech", and the Otago Daily Times which gave him a platform should apologise. Don Brash agreed with Witherow and wrote on Facebook that he is "utterly sick of people talking Te Reo on RNZ".
I wrote a book in the 1970s which noted the fact that almost no Maori words had been taken up by New Zealanders. Well, over the past three or four decades te reo has flourished and a number of words – among them waka, whanau and whakapapa — have filled gaps in our English. I have a journalist friend who is taking classes in conversational te reo, and loving it.
I believe Maori have helped make us distinctively New Zealanders and made most of us conscious of the values they bring to our lives. Australians, on the other hand, have always kept Aborigines at a distance and gained nothing from them except their enduring contempt.
Recently, I listened to the maiden speeches of two new Maori MPs, both lawyers, both women, one from National and one from Labour, and was delighted at the way they both spoke so eloquently and moved effortlessly from one language to the other.
