Toitū te Reo - vibrant and flourishing

Joining the national call to solidarity for te reo Māori

For the past two days, te reo Māori reverberated around the streets of Heretaunga as it once echoed throughout these lands. Friendly faces greeted strangers with ‘kia ora’ and ‘tēnā koe’, hands and noses joined warmly, knowing that every person there had a mutual love of te reo and would respond with a smile. It was hard to move more than two metres without another uplifting kōrero with an old friend or a new connection, each one sharing appreciation, insight, humour and hope. Children laughed and played, nourished in an environment where their language was once again normalised in the public domain.

The world’s first national Māori language festival, Toitū te Reo, openly and explicitly reached out to non-Māori to participate in all ways in the festival, making visible the unity that exists and is growing rapidly in Aotearoa. When interviewed on my podcast, Weaving our Worlds, Festival Director Jeremy Tātere MacLeod of Ngāti Kahungunu explained,

“Toitū Te Reo is about an activation of Te Reo Māori. The future of the language depends on all of us as New Zealanders of this great nation. We've never needed allies more than now. I support any non Māori that are willing to champion the language.”

While te reo Māori has gone through a significant period of revitalisation in recent years, most of that revitalisation has occurred because of the herculean efforts of Māori people and the sanctuaries which have been created for it to exist in. Our streets, cafes, bars and other public arenas are typically not safe for te reo, which continues to have an endangered status, just as mainland Aotearoa is not safe for many of our threatened birds.

Within the safety of fenced sanctuaries and islands our manu māori, our endemic birds, can live freely without the constant threat of predators. The safe spaces for our reo Māori, our indigenous language, are also similarly controlled to enable te reo to flow freely away from the threats it faces outside the fence. Environments such as kōhanga reo, kura kaupapa and whare wānanga, and events such as Kura Reo, Te Puna o te Kī and Ako Ararau have enabled te reo Māori to grow and thrive as a vital, living language within communities, outside the confines of te reo speaking homes.

However, when te reo flies over the fence and into the streets and institutions outside, it is vulnerable. Sideways looks, stares, and subtle and not so subtle messaging about its lack of value abound. The dominance and societal privileging of the English language conspire to suppress and oppress te reo Māori in its own land, the only place in the world that it exists.

What would it take for te reo Māori to be re-normalised again throughout its homeland, to be heard in the streets and shops, and in the landscapes which are its natural habitat? How do we as non-Māori support this aspiration, while ensuring that the mana and mauri of te reo remains with Māori? To support in ways that don’t inadvertently perpetuate the impacts of colonisation through our actions?

All these topics, and many more, were explored, debated and delighted in at Toitū te Reo. The festival brought Māori, Pākehā and Tauiwi together in celebration of te reo Māori as a living, breathing, vibrant language. It was an invitation to all of us to connect with each other under the kaupapa of te reo and play our part in helping te reo to not just survive, but to visibly and undeniably thrive.

At the same moment in history as the government removed te reo Māori from the official Matariki invitation, and Te Rōpū Whakamana i te Tiriti o Waitangi / the Waitangi Tribunal published their first ever report written entirely in te reo Māori, around 7000 people gathered at Toitū te Reo. All were united by a love and appreciation for te reo and an absolute commitment to its continued life through our lips, pens and actions, and its renormalisation throughout this whenua. Toitū te Reo sought to inspire, entertain, unite, challenge, excite and activate.

It achieved this more than I could have possibly imagined. It was an honour to be involved, to have the opportunity to offer some whakaaro to the audience, and to partake in the perspectives, incisive wisdom and humour which were shared so generously.

It is imperative that we recognise we are collectively shaping our future, either through our actions or our inaction, and to actively speak up and participate in creating the world we want to live in. If we don’t, it will be created for us, and could render us polarised, divided and disempowered. As Annette Sykes said in her address, we need to show compassion and aroha in our actions more than ever at this time.

To conclude with the poignant words of Jeremy MacLeod,

“We haven't seen the full brunt of some of the current messaging about our language. Who knows what could come out over the next few years, and who knows what responses will be required by us. At the moment, the Māori Language Act is very secure. But we don't know if that is going to be the case moving forward. This is a positive display of unity and solidarity. It's a national call.

“There's so many non Māori out there that love our language and culture and they accept that that is our national identity. Those are the ones we want to embrace and we do need to come together. We just need to embrace that support and welcome that support, champion that support and voice that support so that those who are on the other side of the fence start to get drowned out by the voices of celebration and support.”