Shaneel Lal: Te reo Māori makes us richer in so many ways

Ngāi Te Rangi marched in protest in Tauranga against Government policies affecting te reo Māori and health. Photo / Alex Cairns

OPINION

The Government is making several moves that, in my view, will suppress the use of te reo Māori. It will require all public service departments to have their primary name in English and to communicate primarily in English unless it’s specifically related to Māori. A leaked memo from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade showed it removed te reo Māori from some official documents in anticipation of the new National-led Government.

While the public sector has been instructed to reduce the use of te reo Māori, Finance Minister Nicola Willis is seeking advice to stop bonuses for public servants who are proficient in te reo Māori.

We are seeing a pattern of behaviour by the National Party. Leading up to the general election, National MPs created a kerfuffle about bilingual road signs, claiming they should not be in te reo Māori because some of the National MPs were confused by them.

I feel a mixture of lethargy and confusion about why the Government thinks this is the biggest issue affecting New Zealanders. I know no one whose life will be dramatically better after the Government suppresses the use of te reo Māori, but I know many people who will be deeply and negatively affected by it.

Welcoming or confusing? A road sign saying "Welcome to Rotorua". Photo / Stephen Parker

There will be no benefit to an everyday New Zealand in Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency now being called NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi.

Not only are the above policies extremely unnecessary for the Government to pursue, but they will communicate to many Māori that the Government is going out of its way to ensure that English, the language introduced through the process of colonisation, takes supremacy over the indigenous language of this land. The Government is once again asserting the dominance of imported colonial culture over the indigenous culture of Aotearoa.

It has long been accepted that te reo Māori is taonga and the Government has an active duty to protect taonga. There appears to be a glaring disregard from the Government for its duties to Māori as Treaty partners. Māori have made an urgent claim to the Waitangi Tribunal, claiming the Government’s actions breach Treaty principles.

The suppression of te reo Māori is jarring when put beside the Government’s wish to legislate English as an official language of Aotearoa.

English is the most common language in Aotearoa, already accepted as the de facto official language and in no way endangered. It is jarring that the Government is throwing money to protect a language that will never be exterminated in our lifetimes while suppressing a language that was nearly exterminated by the actions of governments in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Aotearoa has its problems. Our diversity is not one of them. We are not a melting pot, and I would not want to live in a melting pot. We do not need to melt our differences away. Instead, I feel proud that we are more of a salad. We are diverse, but our differences do not have to divide us. They can instead make us richer.

Te reo Māori makes us richer in so many ways. Protecting te reo Māori ensures that we uphold our founding document, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, our obligations to Māori and our unique national identity.

Shaneel Lal is an LGBT rights activist, columnist and political commentator.