Garth George: Let all our kids learn te reo, and hooray for Maori TV

COMMENT

I had held myself together throughout the funeral service, full as it was of laughter and tears, music and song, clapping and crying.

It was, as these things invariably are, an occasion of deep sadness, for Janet was but 42 when, while out running, she was felled by a physical flaw which had gone undetected in her full and active life.

She was a lovely lass, full of fun, firm in belief, faithful in prayer, loyal in friendship, unafraid to speak her mind - a devoted daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, valued employee, comforter of the sad and sick and lover of sport.

So it was unsurprising that her send-off was attended by a remarkable variety of people of all ages.

Since she was of Scottish extraction, her casket was ushered into the service to the haunting strains of Amazing Grace played by a piper in full regalia.

But it was as the coffin was carried from the chapel led by the piper skirling Flower of Scotland that I lost it. As the pallbearers moved out the door a group of young Maori men burst with reverent enthusiasm into a haka and the seamless melding of two warrior cultures left me in tears.

And I cursed myself once again that when I had a chance back in the early 1970s in Rotorua to learn te reo, I gave it a miss, for to have known the meaning of the words of the magnificent haka would have accorded it the respect it deserved.

Strangely enough, I had just that morning renewed a vow I have made to learn Maori when I retire, to do in my 60s what I should have done in my 30s.

It was triggered by an article in this newspaper in the run-up to the launch of the Maori TV channel about the young Pakeha woman who speaks Maori fluently and has an honours degree in Maori studies.

What surprised me about the story was that she seems to be pretty much a one-off, whereas I had taken it for granted that Pakeha who speak Maori, while nowhere near the numbers of Maori who speak English, would not be that uncommon.

Zoe Linsell had a few profound things to say, which probably had a lot of Pakeha sneering and tut-tutting when they should have been nodding in agreement.

Her adopted tongue had "given me a whole new world view", she said.

Some people felt she should not speak Maori "but the more of us who learn, the better chance the language has of living and the better chance Maori and Pakeha have of understanding each other".

I was hugely cheered by that, for it is the very reason I want to learn Maori and the reason that te reo should be available and encouraged in our education system right from early childhood onwards.

It is the reason, too, that the Maori TV channel should have been on air long before this.

The events of the past few decades have made it perfectly plain to any but the most blind and bigoted that when it comes to race relations most of us - Maori and Pakeha alike - have stuffed up bigtime.

Too many Pakeha have always seen Maori as just discoloured versions of themselves; too many Maori have insisted that Pakeha accept their historical and cultural differences without question.

The result is the race-based political and social chaos we find ourselves in today - and with no end in sight.

Why? Because we don't really understand each other.

Why? Because we can't properly communicate with each other.

Why? Largely because while most Maori speak and understand English, few Pakeha speak and understand Maori.

And there are ideas and concepts, nuances of meaning, depths of feeling which do not readily translate from one language to the other, particularly from Maori to English.

I am a wordsmith. I have lived with and by words all my working life. I know how powerful they can be, and only too well how easily they can be misconstrued, even by people fully conversant with the language in which I write.

Just imagine, then, how much more scope there is for misconstruction between languages.

If we are ever to extract ourselves from the racial problems which increasingly afflict us we must start with the children.

They, with their guileless, wide-open minds and voracious appetite for knowledge, are our only hope. We must teach them that while Maori and Pakeha, Islander and Asian, European and African can comfortably make up one nation, they can never be one people - and that's how it should be.

That if we who call ourselves New Zealanders are going to achieve a lasting and harmonious homogeneity, we must learn as much about each other as we possibly can, particularly our languages.

Which is why, for a start, every youngster should be given the opportunity to learn the Maori language; and every single one of us, of whatever heritage, should do whatever we can to ensure that Maori television - the most potent communication medium and teaching tool known - succeeds and, indeed, flourishes.

We need each other's words.

* Email Garth George