Editorial

There will be many people around this university who will be feeling left out after looking at the front cover of this issue. The intention is to help you feel just that.

If you are not interested in Maori culture you will read little, if anything, in this Salient — and so perpetuate your ignorance.

Maori Language Day was chosen by the New Zealand Federation of Maori Students as a day on which to make a concentrated drive to bring Te Reo Maori to the notice of the public and the politician. The irony of such a situation cannot be avoided. The white New Zealander needs to be educated about Maori Language but he is not alone, many Maoris need that education also. Tied to this is the tragedy that a National Maori Language Day should be necessary at all.

Maori Language has been ignored by the large majority of New Zealand [unclear: ers] for too long. This is shown only too clearly in their reaction to a haka — they clap (Don't you?); and in their reaction to any Maori ceremony — they smile, a tear comes to their eye, and they don't understand a single word.

White New Zealanders neither understand nor seem to want to under stand the Maori. The real point, however, is not whether we should interest ourselves but why we must.