Linda Ross-Smith

12:48 p.m. Monday, 28 July 2008

Kia ora Eye To Eye I wish to comment on the final moments of this Sunday's programme of Eye to Eye which I managed to see.I normally watch and thoroughly enjoy this transmission but a wet Sunday morning here in Chch meant I was making pancakes instead of turning on the box. Well it was probably a good job I hadn't, as the arrogance and bigotry displayed by your two pakeha guests in the few minutes I viewed raised my ire and blood pressure sky high! How such attitudes still survive in Aotearoa- and I hear them voiced around me by supposedly 'educated' and 'Christian' fellow New Zealanders never fails to embarrass and shock me. I'm a middle aged fourth generation pakeha New Zealander and I am grateful for the opportunity to be enlightened on the many issues surrounding our country's history and the growing and rightful place of Maori culture and Te Reo in New Zealand today and in the future. I can only feel pity for those small- minded individuals in our society whom your Maori guests so well described as 'turning their backs' on understanding the importance of the survival and promotion of Maori culture and values. I congratulate them on maintaining their composure and dignity. I wish you all the best and keep up the great work. Kia kaha.

Amy Ockelford

12:49 p.m. Monday, 28 July 2008

Hi my name is amy Ockelford and I am a trainee teacher in Auckland. I was watching this mornings programme with Willie Jackson about Maori Language . I was surprised there was little acknowledgement of Maori parents talking and educating Maori children, then there was little information talked about Maori language in Schools. There is little use of Maori in the schools, but as a paheka teacher I had to learn the pronouncations of the Maori Language and the history of it, we do only one course in training to be teachers but it is also part of the graduating standards and there is a lot of understanding and learning in our bachelor degree and as beginning teachers. There is more than one culture in New Zealand there is three languages, if this is a country of equality then why not make Chinese, French and many other languages part of the language. The ministry of education has put funding into Kohuanga Reo from 1989 but it is not a widely use language in the Modern lifestyle. There are many other cultures that would have to learn Maori as well as English. It Should be up to the parents if they want there child to learn Maori and not be forced onto the parents. The parents know that there children will learn Maori in the classroom but there are some Maori families that don’t use Maori because there are different dialects of the Maori language. It was interesting to watch and listen to four grown men who were all stubborn and passionate about their views. Gosh they were like typical New Zealand Males. Just jokes as all of them had interesting points of view but they didn’t LISTEN to each other isn’t that what the tuakana/tenia relationship is all about. When learning the Maori Language. Thanks Amy Ockelford.

Alan Eastergaard

12:50 p.m. Monday, 28 July 2008

I have a comment re the Eye to Eye programme which is very well conducted by Willie Jackson. The programme that was on today the 27th Aug featured a discussion re the Maori language. I support the Maori Language week but was annoyed at the response of the 2 pro Maori language proponents when the others made some statements. They resorted to personal insults which indicates that they can not refute what was said to them and therefore conceded that the others were right. However apart from their rudeness they suggested that as Maori was the original language in NZ it still should be. This is a nonsense as, were we to revert to Maori as it was we would have no written language. This brings to the point where these two proponents of the Maori language should have thank our early settlers for giving them a written laguage. The other NZers have had to apologise for things they never did, so they in turn should be thanked for supplying a written languge for Maori

Glenn Jameson

2:34 a.m. Tuesday, 29 July 2008

With one in five New Zealand kids leaving school illiterate isn't it about time they concentrated on a language that will afford them better employment opportunities? Objectively speaking, Maori is, outside of their own communities, schools and Maori TV, completely and utterly useless. And these brown clowns want to make it compulsory?! As Lindsay said, mind your own bloody business! Go ahead and waste your money and your kid's precious school time if you choose, but give me the choice to let my kids learn a language that will help them communicate with the world outside New Zealand. The moral inversion these debate create is sickening, with brown-nosing dimwits like Linda Ross-Smith bleating on about the "bigotry displayed by your two pakeha guests." The only racists in that room, Hone, were the "Mordi" on the geographical and political left of that panel, who insist on shoving ethnic-based policies -- which are by their very nature racist -- down our throats. Good on you, Lindsay: the voice of reason indeed! He should be a regular!! And well done, Cliff, who didn't get a hearing on his reasonable point about the Mordi racism.

Glenn Jameson

2:59 a.m. Tuesday, 29 July 2008

One more thing... Māori... with a macron over the 'a'?! And whose phonetic invention was that? Honestly, could this culture be any more pretentious? Regards, Pākehā Glenn

maketu

11:51 a.m. Friday, 15 August 2008

Dear Glenn - there's none so blind........ The suggestion that Maori is useless, ought to be discarded and your cure for illiteracy is difficult to follow. Once I took the personal invective out of your post, there wasn't much left.

Paul van Dinther

8:53 a.m. Monday, 25 August 2008

Maori language week Discussion With admiration I have watched the discussion of the Maori Language week. Admiration for Lindsay and Cliff who remained composed throughout the entire episode and endured persistent personal insults of the 3 Maori people present. Typical Maori to not listen to the message but instead attack the messenger. Every single time Lindsay or Cliff made a point they were attacked on their person and not on their message. To me it shows that Maori are backward thinking and aggressive. The discussion showed an incredible arrogance from the Maori yet again placing themselves above others based on the simple fact they are Maori. The childish attitude of "we were first" while enjoying all the benefits western culture has offered them. And let's just ignore the real indigenous people the Maori killed when they did arrive here. I too believe that cultural background and racial origin has no place in differentiating between people. This means that Maori language development should not be tax payer funded and kids should not be forced to waste time in school learning a "dead" langauge that has no value beyond the classroom. If anything teach the kids Chinese or Japanese since there are more asian people in New Zealand than Maori. Maori language should be looked after but only as a museum piece. Not as a language of the Nation because it never was and never will be. So there should not be Maori seats in parliament nor a tax payer funded Maori TV channel. If you want one. Pay for it yourself. The assumed self importance of the Maori representatives in this video made me sick with their persistent personal attacks on Lindsay and Cliff. It showed how shallow and unsure they were about their own cause since they had no real arguments to fend with. -- Regards Paul van Dinther

Alan Scott

3:21 a.m. Wednesday, 27 August 2008

First Perigo burst, "Mordi, m-o-r-d-i; i try to teach you this, Willie." No wonder this debate turned into an insult game.