Hard News: Friday Gold: An email exchange with Michael Laws
327 Responses
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Almost the entire English language consists of missspelt foreign words.
Okay, let's not get carried away here. We're talking about place names in a colonised country with a history of land confiscations and usurpation of sovereign rights. it's not quite the same thing as beef deriving from the French boeuf, wouldn't you say?
This is not a trifling issue blown out of all proportions - the political and psychological implications of the decision whether to restore or not the full integrity of an indigenous placename are significant.
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(rather ripping array of anagramsoil out of 'misspelt foreign words'
http://wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=misspelt+foreign+words&t=1000&a=n) -
I presume that's your regular username generator?
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You're catching on. How about that weather, ey?
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actually not. conseismality is a concept y'all might wanna check out sometime. anagrams are just time out to refertilize a little.. what i wish to really talk about is cultural/scenic encounters, period! Why does Gio apparently wish us to believe that Maori ever had something called 'sovereign rights'? What they really had was an insufficiently credible threat of violence, is it not so?
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And when do we get to rename the two islands?
Marae today had a man who has officially asked the Geographic Board for renaming of te islands, and a woman from the Maori Language Commission explaining how they get involved - oh, and Ken Mair. Go to chapter2 in the TVNZ player.
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Hello Kerry - except that Laws did not release either the Otaki letter or the e-mails we're talking about. That's where the conspiracy theory falls down because it was those who received the replies who made them public and not Laws.
Hmmm, I'd suggest it was a good bet the Otaki replies would be made public by the teacher/school concerned! I'm not proposing a conspiracy theory as such, more that Mr Laws is extremely experienced at politics and media and well able to manipulate both.
PS: are you related to Jeff Zorn (old mate)?
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That's a very sensible suggestion, let's put it to a referendum. Wangers doesn't sound half bad.
Agreed - call their bluff and campaign for that option. Undie500 crowd might even vote for it. Plus the potential for misuse is appealing.
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Why does Gio apparently wish us to believe that Maori ever had something called 'sovereign rights'?
Not to be overly legalistic about it, but the 1835 Declaration of Independence is a good place to start, no?
Perhaps you've got another take on it? Maybe the professional historians and jurists too. But I'm of the view that progressive polynesian/Maori populations arrived, settled and worked this land sufficient to justify any reasonable application of the term "soveriegn". Moreover, to argue otherwise is not helpful in this discussion.
Now having played Giovanni's corner, I'm going to aggravate him by saying I thought the email that started this thread very mild. My dealings with Laws, years old, confirm he's the worst kind of reactionary thug and baiting him is fair and reasonable.
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Okay, let's not get carried away here. We're talking about place names in a colonised country with a history of land confiscations and usurpation of sovereign rights.
Well what exactly is being offered as compensation in this case? an H? I'd take the freedom to show my patch over an 'h' any day of the month. We're called 'The billygoats' if anyone's interested in joining and we're bad as live spelled backward.
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If democracy isn't allowed to run its course then it could most correctly be left up to the local Iwi to decide as I imagine it was their ancestors who originally named it.
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the whole point is the deferring power of the sign "sovereign", is it not? and where/from what direction does that one come from? Sooner or later you do have to seriously consider what it is that manages to displace a sacred center then just as surely/swiftly comes to believe that its own one must be the source of all violence!
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not helpful in this discussion
Funny, that.
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I don't think it's a Maori decision per se
Hence the geographic board. And democracy does not mean mob rule.
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damn i Just edited that line, i thought per se could be stretched to mean 'in their entirety, rather than singularly, i'd quite like to find a neat word for 'in their entirety...
Out of interest Sacha how much are the local Iwi involved in all this?
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Insachacurity
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damn i Just edited that line
There's editing and then there's..
a moving target.(It seemed like an OK line to me, btw).
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Sooner or later you do have to seriously consider what it is that manages to displace a sacred center then just as surely/swiftly comes to believe that its own one must be the source of all violence!
the whims of progress.
Insachacurity
lame.
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how much are the local Iwi involved in all this?
Very - both in principle and practice. A local iwi raised it with the goegraphic board. I don't know how many others there are and how Ken Mair and Tariana Turia relate to that particular iwi, but they're both local Maori leaders with a public profile.
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I see. Frankly I find it bizarre they'd really want to associate themselves and their mana with the naming of such a one velodrome town.
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I guess that's the thing about manawhenua - it owned them all along.
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what else do i have to say to this sacha who seems surely lamed by insecurity?
what do you mean by this 'whims of progress' comment? -
Funny, that.
Sacha, what I meant was that a discussion about the claim for or against the "h" doesn't have to become a discussion about colonial history. I thought, possibly wrongly, that conseismal was going to argue the argument for the "h" was somehow discredited because Maori weren't really first peoples... I'd hoped to head that off...
I did review this thread but might have missed it, could someone tell me why the non Maori position is defined solely by a survey of Whanganui residents?
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(Edit - hadn't read Paul's previous comment about who defines the non-Maori position before posting this, but - snap.)
This might be a good time to remind ourselves of Pat Snedden's generous contributions to the broader conversation from an informed Pakeha perspective - after Brash's Orewa dump and shadowed by the foreshore and seabed. From hereabouts in May 2004.
But nor do I wish to tug my forelock in this matter. As Pakeha we claim our belonging through being descended from the settlers who agreed the Treaty. The same Treaty that by joint agreement of tangata whenua and tauiwi, gives all subsequent migrants and their communities the right to call this place their own. The importance of this cannot be understated. It was the Maori Land Court Chief Judge Durie in 1990 who first described Pakeha as tangata Tiriti, those who belong to the land by right of the Treaty. It is our unimpeachable security, our right to belong passed from generation to generation.
Even mentions his own family's ancestral connections with the place where his brother will host the Rugby World Cup.
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Funny, that.
Paul, conseismawhatsit is a troll otherwise known as lil p who periodically infests this place.
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