Compulsory te reo classes a simple solution to greater understanding

Clive Bibby is a farmer, consultant and commentator who lives in Tolaga Bay. 

While watching news broadcasts and reading transcripts of what happened at the King’s tangi last week, l found it difficult to contain my frustration. 

I have spent my whole adult life living, working and sharing with Māori mostly here on the beautiful East Coast, among communities dominated by people with Māori ancestry. I have always regarded it a privilege being able to share our common concerns and aspirations – which, unsurprisingly, are almost always the same. 

Yet the one thing that would bridge any remaining gap in our cultures has, for me, always been absent and l struggle to understand why. 

Of course, that potentially binding solution is for all Kiwis to become reasonably fluent in te reo. 

It would be a relatively seamless and indiscriminate way for those who don’t already understand the language, to be taught as part of the junior curriculum in all primary schools. 

But in order for it to become a productive exercise for all concerned, it needs to be a compulsory subject in all classes until at least secondary school - just like English, maths and science. 

The old adage is that understanding the language will bring us halfway to understanding the culture and a time when, due to its inclusion, our teenagers and future adults all understand what is being said on the marae, in public places and during conversations within communities. 

As a consequence, there would be no further excuse for the current acts of division due to ignorance. 

Let’s look at where we are today without that much-needed change to our education syllabus. Many of us are suffering from self-inflicted wounds - it’s called ignorance. 

l wonder how many Pākehā are offended by the undemocratic imposition of te reo names on everything from our public places and public service stationery to our paper money - in many cases without an accompanying interpretation of what these terms actually mean. 

It becomes an embarrassment for many people, who could so easily be appreciative of how the Māori culture is part of what it is to be a New Zealander. 

I contend that much of the differences that exist today between the two cultures would not be there if we better understood each other. 

Unfortunately, the serious breakdown in communications that occur as a result has been too often used by radicals to promote and maintain the platforms from which they spew their bile and false accusations. 

But the wind would be taken from their sails if the division they promote had become history and was no longer part of peaceful modus operandi. 

Our future prosperity depends as much as anything on this change being made. 

It could be fixed and done so easily, simply by a stroke of the pen in Parliament. 

When the All Blacks perform the haka on their travels throughout the world and our national anthem is sung using two languages, we would all understand the words being used . . . just as the Welsh do when they sing their magnificent anthem - The Old Land of my Fathers or Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau. 

Let’s do it.